[POV Lily Evans]
I was walking along the fourth floor with a Charms book pressed against my chest, thinking about the last exercise Professor Flitwick had given us. A tedious but interesting one. I still had to review my Potions notes as well.
It was nearly six o'clock, and my friends were surely already heading down to the Great Hall. I needed to drop off my things in my dorm and then go to dinner.
But then I stopped.
The voices reached me first, carried by the acoustics of the corridors. A clipped echo. A laugh I didn't like at all.
I peeked out just enough. Enough to see them.
Mulciber and Evan Rosier. Fifth years. Slytherins. Supremacists. The sort of students many feared: Muggle-borns, half-bloods, younger kids. Even some of their own classmates if they were shy, fragile, or simply unwilling to fight.
And in front of them, a little girl. First or second year at most. Hufflepuff robes. Messy hair, freckles, crooked glasses, and a fear in her eyes that was unbearable to watch.
She clutched an enchanted quill to her chest. One of Ryan Ollivander's, surely.
Mulciber stepped forward. Said something I couldn't hear. Then shoved her with his shoulder, hard, as if she were nothing but a sack in his way.
The girl stumbled but managed to keep her balance. Evan let out a short laugh.
"What's this?" Mulciber spat, snatching the quill with offensive ease. "Where'd you get the money to buy this, mudblood? Did you steal it?"
"I… I bought it… please, it's mine…" the girl said, her voice low and trembling.
I wanted to step out. To shout. To pull my wand and tell them to stop.
But I didn't. I froze. Because I'm Muggle-born too. And though I hate myself for it, I felt afraid.
Mulciber twirled the quill in his fingers and muttered, "What a waste."
He dropped it, and before the girl could pick it up, he crushed it under his boot as if it were trash, worthless.
Evan laughed. The two of them kept walking, satisfied with their little act of cruelty. As if nothing had happened.
I already had my wand in my hand. I didn't know if to use it or just to hold on to something. The girl lowered her head. She knelt to gather the pieces, as if she could fix it.
And that's when it happened. A sudden leap, and Ryan Ollivander appeared. He landed like a cat, right beside her. The girl flinched. So did I. I hadn't seen him.
She stared at him with wide eyes. "Ryan… Ollivander?"
He didn't answer right away. He only bent down. Picked up the broken quill with a strange slowness. Almost solemn. As if it deserved respect.
Then he straightened and handed it back to her. And then he turned. Looked at the two Slytherins already walking away.
"Hey, Mulciber. Do you feel more of a man after stomping on an eleven-year-old girl's belongings?" he said in that voice of his, clear and calm.
The two of them stopped.
Rosier turned first. With that smirk of someone expecting an easy fight. Mulciber was slower. Raised eyebrow. Annoyed. Curious.
The girl was behind Ryan. And I was paralyzed., hidden and atching.
Ryan moved forward. Step by step slow. He removed his sunglasses. Folded them with a click. And then I truly saw him.
Those grey eyes. Cold. As if they feared nothing.
"I'm doing you a favor, Ollivander," Mulciber said. "That invention of yours in a mudblood's hands would only drag down your prestige. You're welcome."
Ryan didn't flinch. He chuckled lightly, and Mulciber, frowning, asked why he was laughing.
"I thought Slytherins were supposed to be smarter," Ryan replied with a half-smile. "You know, ambition, cunning, pure-blood pride, all those textbook clichés… but you two…"
He waved his hand, careless.
"You're so basic you make me wonder. Are Lucius and the others just as brainless? Or are you a separate branch with a bit more inbreeding in the mix?"
I covered my mouth.
Evan stopped smiling. Mulciber's gaze hardened.
And then Ryan placed a hand on his chest, theatrical. "Oh… right. Sorry. I'm using words that are too difficult."
He went on to explain what inbreeding was as if he were teaching a class. As if they were idiots.
And when he began to describe Mulciber's body, his square head, troll-like shoulders, carpenter's back, I couldn't help it.
I felt the urge to laugh, but I quickly covered my mouth.
And in that moment, Mulciber moved, unable to endure the insults any longer. But Ryan was faster and cast a non-verbal Expelliarmus.
Mulciber's wand flew, hit the floor, and Ryan calmly stepped on it.
I saw their faces. Rosier and Mulciber.
I had never seen them like that. And Ryan, with that calm that for a second reminded me of the duels in books, said, "Did you really think I could lose to you? Lose to a being handicapped by inbreeding?"
Rosier stepped forward. A blue spell. Ryan blocked it. Protego. His shield was clean and fast.
And he countered with another Expelliarmus. Rosier tried to defend, but it was useless. He was pushed back, nearly falling.
His wand landed beside Mulciber's.
I was still hidden. But no longer out of fear. I was mesmerized.
Ryan lowered his wand.
"What a disappointment," he said. "I truly thought a Rosier would at least give me a minute of entertainment."
And then: Immobulus Duo.
Both of them froze. Rigid.
Ryan walked up. Studied them.
I couldn't hear what he whispered, but I saw fear in Mulciber's eyes. He punched each of them in the stomach, then sent them flying with two Depulso.
When they regained mobility, they rose in anger. But they didn't advance.
They yielded, Evan admitted defeat and demanded their wands back. But Ryan refused.
Evan threatened him, saying they would report him to the staff, but Ryan didn't even flinch. He told him to go ahead, but if they didn't vanish from his sight within ten seconds, the next time he cast Immobulus, his fists would land on their faces, and he feared they might not stop at just one blow.
I counted to five, and they left, cowed by his threat. Ryan watched them disappear, bowed his head, and picked up the wands. He slipped them into his robes.
I still had my book in my hands, but I couldn't recall a single word of what I had been thinking earlier.
Ryan Ollivander wasn't just an egotistical inventor who put on a show and wielded sharp sarcasm.
He was dangerous and brilliant.
And not brilliant only because of his charms, his confident smile, or his massive ego. He was brilliant in a way I hadn't seen coming.
This year, somehow, he had redeemed himself in everyone's eyes. He'd gone from being the handsome, rebellious boy with extravagant phrases to becoming the most talked-about inventor in the school. A charismatic genius who had managed to get more than a hundred of his enchanted quills circulating through the castle. Days kept passing, and students kept buying them.
An eccentric, egotistical Gryffindor, yes… but intelligent, with vision. Someone who knew how to negotiate, how to turn his invention into a trend.
But today…
Today I had seen him do something more.
He had defeated, with ease, two fifth-year Slytherins everyone knew weren't just talk and a last name. Mulciber and Rosier had a reputation for being tough duelists. They weren't invincible, but they were feared. And yet Ryan treated them as if they were insects.
Not insects because of their bloodline, nor because they were Slytherins. But because of their way of thinking. Because of the hatred they spewed every time they opened their mouths in front of someone like me.
I saw it. That disdain in Ryan's eyes wasn't arrogance.
It was anger.
Furious and controlled anger because a pair of idiots had called an eleven- or twelve-year-old girl a mudblood and had stomped on her only quill as if it were worth nothing.
I stayed where I was, no longer hiding. Fascinated. As if I were seeing someone completely different.
Ryan approached the girl. She was still there, standing, clutching the broken remains of the quill. She trembled a little, but she no longer seemed afraid.
She looked amazed. As if she were seeing a prince out of a fairy tale.
"A shame about your quill, I reacted too late…" Ryan said, annoyed at not having been able to step in before the tragedy. "I'm sure I didn't sell it to you directly, did I?" he asked, as if he remembered every one of his customers.
The girl shook her head, timidly but without fear. Her voice was soft yet clear. "No… I… bought it from a boy in my house. He wanted to switch to a different color quill, and he sold me his cheaper. I couldn't afford the original…"
Ryan listened without interrupting. And on his face there was no annoyance. Not at the second-hand resale. Not at the fact that someone else was trading with his inventions.
Nothing. Only a warm expression. Kindness. Almost tenderness. And that unsettled me more than everything before.
"A customer is a customer," he murmured.
Then he reached inside his robes and pulled something out. At first, I didn't understand what it was. But when he held it under the dim light of the corridor, I was taken aback. A case, clearly a quill case.
He opened it and drew out a peacock feather quill. Large and elegant. If I remember correctly, since now everyone treats quill prices like the latest fashion, Mary said a peacock feather quill cost 3 galleons without enchantment. With the enchantment Ryan alone knew how to apply, it must be worth 13 or more.
"What's your name?" Ryan asked.
"Eliza…" the girl replied, staring at the quill with shining eyes.
"This is a peacock feather quill, yellow like your house, Eliza," Ryan said, as he wrote her name in yellow letters, glowing perfectly in the air.
Then he erased the name, stored the quill back in its case, and handed it to her.
"For you. Consider it a gift from me."
The girl took it with both hands, as though holding a sacred relic. Her wide eyes sparkled as if she couldn't believe someone was truly giving this to her.
"Really… you're giving it to me?" Eliza asked, looking up.
"Yes. I can't allow one of my customers to go without writing in the air," he said. "Least of all someone who just had to deal with those two domesticated orangutans."
I covered my mouth to keep from laughing.
He couldn't help it. Even in his kindest moment, he was still throwing verbal daggers.
The girl smiled and nodded vigorously, hugging the quill to her chest. Then she tucked it carefully into the case and placed it inside her robes.
She looked at him with curious eyes. "I didn't think you'd be so kind…" she said softly, without sarcasm, without fear. Only with pure honesty.
Ryan opened his mouth and closed it again.
For the first time all afternoon, he seemed unscripted.
"Why do you say that, little one?" he asked at last, tilting his head slightly. His voice was low, gentle, almost warm.
I noticed something curious about him in that instant.
He was good at talking to younger students. He wasn't condescending, nor neutral, nor forced. It was natural. As if he had already been in that position many times before.
Perhaps he has younger siblings who haven't yet started Hogwarts?
"It's just that… every time I saw you," said Eliza, without looking down or stammering, "or from what I heard from my classmates… you seem intimidating. Not like those boys before, not like them. They were scary. You just seem hard to approach."
Ryan didn't answer right away. He only nodded, slowly, as if he were jotting that information down in some invisible notebook.
"Makes sense," he said at last, with a half-smile that was almost guilty. "Maybe my own confidence is working against me, huh? I can't let that scare customers."
Eliza laughed, a soft, genuine giggle. Then she lowered her voice a little. "Will you walk me to the common room? I'm still a little scared to walk alone…"
I saw Ryan hesitate. Just barely, a flicker.
A shadow of doubt crossed his face.
"I don't know if that's a good idea," he said, folding his arms. "Like you said yourself… my reputation isn't the best. If someone sees us walking together toward Hufflepuff, they might say I tried to scam you. Or sell you something rigged."
Eliza laughed, but then her eyes dimmed a little. She looked down, as if she didn't know how to reply.
And that's when I decided to step in.
"I'll walk with you," I said, stepping forward.
Both of them turned, surprised by the sudden interruption. Ryan looked at me oddly.
And that strangeness wasn't subtle, or at least it didn't seem so to me.
His eyes lingered on me for a second longer than necessary. As if he had seen a ghost. Or something that didn't belong in that moment. As if, he recognized me.
And I have no recollection of ever speaking with him; I only knew him from all the rumors of past years when he was always losing points, and now, when his popularity had reached a new peak.
"Hi, I'm Lily Evans. Fourth year, Gryffindor," I said, straightening my back a little, as if that would make the introduction more credible.
And then I wanted to die.
Really, Lily?
I'm from Gryffindor?
Is it necessary to clarify when you're literally wearing a robe with the crest embroidered on the chest, in glaring red and gold?
Brilliant.
Ryan didn't laugh. But his lips curved slightly, as if he had done so on the inside.
"Pleasure, Lily Evans," he said, in that tone of his that you can't quite tell if it's cordial or mockery wrapped in polished manners. "I'm Ryan Ollivander. Fifth year. Also Gryffindor."
Eliza let out a small laugh.
I opened my mouth, ready to say something back, but he didn't give me the chance.
"Then now you can walk me," the girl said, as if she had just solved some great logical dilemma. "If both of you come, no one will think he tried to scam me. You look like a serious person."
And she looked at me.
With those huge eyes full of unshakable faith. As if I were the very embodiment of justice.
Ryan nodded solemnly, as if it all sounded perfectly reasonable to him.
"Makes sense. Thank you, Lily Evans, for helping us preserve my professional image."
I wanted to roll my eyes, and smile, too. But I held back. Barely.
We walked through the stone corridors, under the faint light of enchanted torches, heading toward the Hufflepuff common room.
And along the way Eliza spoke.
She asked questions. With the natural ease of someone who had already chosen her hero and wanted to know every detail.
I didn't catch everything she said, because I got distracted watching Ryan as he listened to her without sarcasm, without irony. He answered her calmly, attentively.
We arrived at the entrance to the Hufflepuff common room, hidden behind a large barrel. Eliza turned to us.
"Thank you for walking me," she said, making a small improvised bow that made me smile despite myself. "And for the quill, it's very pretty."
"It's nothing," Ryan said, crouching a little to be at her height. "But if anyone dares to break it again, come find me. All right?"
The girl nodded firmly, her smile wide and genuine, and then vanished behind the barrel.
And then it was just the two of us.
...
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