The last chords of Count on Me still hummed in Oliver's bones when the hall erupted. Thunderous applause rattled the rafters, candles quivering in their floating places. Butterflies still drifted overhead, fading like sparks as the enchantment ebbed, but their glow lingered in the eyes of every student staring at him.
Oliver lowered his guitar slowly, his chest tight and trembling. For the first time since stepping foot in Hogwarts, he didn't feel like the boy on the edge of things. Tonight, he had been at the center.
Dumbledore rose, his robes catching the golden light of the phoenix's fading flame. "Mr. Night," he said, his voice carrying above the cheers, calm yet full of warmth. "That was… most illuminating. Thank you." His eyes twinkled knowingly over his half-moon spectacles. "I daresay you've given us all a feast of spirit as well as food this evening."
The applause redoubled, echoing the headmaster's words.
Oliver swallowed, his throat thick. "Th-thank you, sir," he managed, his voice hoarse from singing.
Hagrid was the first to lumber forward from the staff table, beaming through a beard still damp with tears. "Tha' was somethin' else, Oliver! Truly was. Never heard nothin' like it. Y'keep playin' like tha', an' the whole forest'll be followin' ye round like lost pups." His great hand clapped Oliver's shoulder with enough force to nearly knock the boy forward, but the warmth in it steadied him more than it shook.
Professor Flitwick practically bounced in his seat, his squeaky voice carrying. "Extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary! Such blending of rhythm and charm! If you'd like, Mr. Night, I should very much like to see you attempt such a performance in my classroom—perhaps even with spellwork woven in!" His eyes shone as though already imagining the experiment.
Professor Sprout nodded heartily. "Plants respond to music, you know. And I've seen few finer demonstrations of it than tonight. You've a gift, lad, don't you ever doubt it."
McGonagall's lips twitched—just short of a smile, but closer than she had ever come in Oliver's presence. "You've surprised many of us tonight, Mr. Night. See that you continue to direct such… talent with discipline. It will take you far."
Snape sat like a shadow among them all, his hands folded, expression unchanged. He offered neither insult nor praise—his silence was a wall, colder than words. Oliver felt the weight of it but pushed it aside.
For once, he had more voices for him than against.
The twins were waiting by the Gryffindor table, grinning as though they'd just pulled the grandest prank of their lives. "Night!" Fred called, cupping his hands around his mouth. "Oi, over here! You're sitting with us now."
Before Oliver could protest, George added, "Can't let Slytherin hog you after that."
Laughter rippled from Gryffindor, good-natured and eager. Oliver hesitated—his own table was on the far side, full of faces turned away, whispers sharp as knives—but then Hagrid gave him a gentle nudge forward. "Go on, lad. You've earned it."
Heart pounding, Oliver crossed the hall. The moment his foot touched the Gryffindor bench, cheers broke out anew. Fred and George shoved space between them, pulling him down into the center like they'd been saving a spot all along.
"Welcome to the only table worth sitting at," Fred quipped.
"Seconded," George said, tossing an arm around Oliver's shoulder. "And you play a mean encore, mate."
Oliver ducked his head, flushed, but a small smile tugged at his lips. "Thanks."
It was then Harry stood. His green eyes flicked once toward Ron, who looked uncertain, frowning, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. But Harry turned away. He stepped across the bench, slipping into the seat beside Oliver.
"Hey," Harry said, his voice quiet but firm. "We were friends on the train, weren't we?"
Oliver blinked, startled, then nodded slowly. "Yeah."
"Then I don't care what House you're in." Harry's words were simple, but they cracked something open in Oliver's chest that had been locked tight for weeks.
Ron stared, betrayed, but before he could speak Hermione swept past him, her chin high. She slid into the seat opposite Oliver, her smile bright, steady as a lighthouse beam. "I knew they'd see sense eventually," she said, giving Harry a nod. "I'm glad you're here."
Fred and George whooped like it was a Quidditch victory, pounding the table in rhythm. "To Oliver!" Fred crowed.
"To Oliver!" George echoed. "Best thing to happen to this table all year!"
The cheers caught and spread, not just from Gryffindors but from Hufflepuffs clapping across the aisle and even Ravenclaws applauding in their own corner. Slytherins sat stiff and silent, but their isolation felt smaller now, their sneers drowned by the swell of voices.
For the first time since his Sorting, Oliver felt something like belonging
The bench was a little too high and the table a little too crowded and the noise a little too much—but it was the right kind of too much. Oliver sat between Fred and George, the warmth of their elbows bracketing him like bookends. Every few seconds someone clapped him on the back or shoved a goblet closer or said "well done" with that shy, breathless look people get when they've just seen something they didn't expect to love.
Across the aisle, Hufflepuffs were still beaming openly, a few craning around the platter towers just to wave. A knot of Ravenclaws had already produced parchment and were arguing about whether the harmonies during the bridge were stacked in thirds or fifths. The Slytherin table—his table—sat like stone: faces shuttered, forks scraping, the cold hum of whispered damage control passing from mouth to mouth.
"Make yourself at home," George said, nudging Oliver's plate toward him as if claiming him were the most natural thing in the world.
"We'll put up a little placard," Fred added. "Reserved for musicians and other rare creatures."
"Also for prank architects," George said solemnly. "We are inclusive."
Hermione rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. "Don't overwhelm him."
"Impossible," Fred said. "He just overwhelmed us."
Oliver's throat worked. He managed, "Thanks," and it came out thin, so he tried again, steadier. "Really. Thanks."
He felt the moment a current shifted behind him—small, but undeniable. Harry had stood, leaving a warm dent in the bench beside Ron. Oliver could feel Ron's stare on the back of his neck even before Harry's shadow fell across the table.
Harry slid into the space at Oliver's side, careful, like the act itself might spook someone. He set his palms on the tabletop and stared at them for a breath before turning.
"Hey," Harry said quietly. "I… I was stupid."
The twins fell theatrically silent. Hermione, who had been mid-remonstration about vegetables, closed her mouth on the word "parsnips" and folded her hands. The air between the boys thinned into something honest.
Oliver blinked. He'd rehearsed a thousand versions of what an apology might sound like if it ever came—from stilted justifications to shrugging non-apologies that would make everything worse—but not this. Not the plainness of it.
Harry's voice stayed low. "We were friends on the train. And then Ron didn't like it, and I… let that decide for me. I'm sorry."
Ron made a strangled noise three seats down. Hermione didn't look back. She lifted her chin a fraction, as if to say go on.
Oliver's first instinct was to deflect. To make it small so no one had to look at it too long. But the forest had sanded some of the old edges off him; Hagrid's table and the lone classroom had made him braver in slower ways. He turned to face Harry fully.
"It hurt," he said simply.
Harry swallowed. "I know." His fingers were white around the rim of his goblet. "You didn't deserve it."
Fred made a tiny trumpet sound with his mouth. George elbowed him, whispering, "Don't ruin it," but he was grinning in the way of someone who can't help celebrating a fixed thing.
Hermione finally exhaled. "There. See? That wasn't so hard." She glanced down the bench at Ron, whose ears had gone a furious red. "And if some people don't understand yet, they can learn."
Ron pushed his plate back with a scrape, muttered something that might have been "traitors," and looked away. The hurt on his face flashed and vanished under a scowl. For a flicker of a moment, Oliver recognized it—not the expression, but the shape under it. Fear, dressed as pride. He didn't have room for it tonight. He turned back to the three who had crossed the distance to him.
Harry's shoulder brushed his, a small, accidental thing that meant more than it should. The noise of the hall rushed in and out again, and Oliver realized he was… calm. Not because the world had changed, but because a few people had chosen to stand where he could see them.
"Right," Fred announced, as if the conversation had reached a ceremonial conclusion. "First order of business: do not let your new tablemates starve." He began heaping Oliver's plate with whatever was nearest, utterly heedless of categories. "Roast. Pudding. A potato for balance. Another potato for symmetry."
"Symmetry is very important," George said gravely, mirroring the piles on his own plate. "Especially in diets and crimes."
"Also," Fred added, lowering his voice, "when Malfoy sulks loudly enough to hear himself, we boo on the inside. For now."
George's eyes twinkled. "For now."
They were ridiculous. Oliver's mouth tugged toward a laugh he hadn't expected to find. He let it come. The laugh nudged something loose in his chest and left warmth behind.
"Eat," Hermione said, her voice soft. "Please."
He did. And it tasted like food again.
Across the aisle, a Hufflepuff boy with freckles to spare lifted his goblet in Oliver's direction. Oliver lifted his back. The boy grinned and thumped his friend's shoulder like he'd just won a bet about kindness.
The Ravenclaws had stopped scribbling and started arguing in earnest. "…no, you can't just call it a duplication charm," a girl insisted, gesturing with her quill. "His clone reacted to the phoenix, altered bow pressure—there was agency there."
"Which makes it advanced," her friend said, wide-eyed. "Like—like transfiguration of self, or a mirror double with independent variance. We should ask—"
"We are not asking a first-year to write us a treatise," another put in, then hesitated, eyes sliding toward Oliver. "But… later?"
Oliver pretended not to hear, stunned and secretly pleased.
At Slytherin, the tectonics shifted in more dangerous ways. Some sat very straight, double-down stiff, as if posture could hold back the tide. A few clapped belatedly when they thought no one was looking. Others hunched over their plates in little islands of isolation, unwilling to be caught on the wrong side of anything. Malfoy glared across the hall with a look that was all teeth and no smile, whispers buzzing around him like flies. Crabbe and Goyle watched Oliver like he was a problem someone else would solve.
Daphne Greengrass—Oliver didn't mean to look for her, but he found her anyway—sat quiet, hands folded so tightly her knuckles paled. She wasn't laughing. She wasn't even looking at her own table. She looked at him, then away, then back again, a question in her mouth she wasn't brave enough tonight to ask. He didn't hold her gaze, didn't punish her by making her flinch. He just met it, small and neutral, and let it pass. The regret in her face deepened. Something there would have to break or bend later. Not now.
"Do you think," Harry said, voice low in Oliver's ear, "that what you did with the clone—could you teach me? Not now. Just… someday."
Oliver blinked. "Maybe," he said. "It's like… catching the echo instead of the original. Pretending the echo has hands." He winced. "That sounds ridiculous."
"It doesn't," Hermione said immediately, bright with interest. "It sounds intuitive."
Fred tapped the table. "We could use an echo with hands."
"For purely educational mischief," George clarified.
"Of course," Fred said. "We would never use magic for low purposes."
"Only medium-high ones."
They were insufferable. They were perfect.
A honeyed voice warmed the air beside the table. "Mr. Night." Professor Sprout had come down from the staff table at some point and stood now with a broad, soil-under-the-nails smile. "Fine work. When you've a mind, you come by my greenhouse. I'd like to see what a lullaby does to a Venomous Tentacula that's having a sulk."
"I—" Oliver startled, then laughed helplessly. "Yes, professor."
Professor Flitwick floated into view next, practically glowing. "And in Charms, we must attempt controlled harmonics. Perhaps small-scale first. A charm to coax quills into alignment? Or a resonance to help first-years get the swish-and-flick timing?" He clapped his tiny hands. "Oh, the possibilities!"
"I'd like that," Oliver said, meaning it.
McGonagall materialized like a shadow becoming form. She offered a very small smile—tighter than Sprout's, warmer than her usual. "Mr. Night. I am… impressed. Do not let the applause convince you that discipline can be dispensed with, but do let it convince you that the discipline is worth it."
"Yes, professor," Oliver said. He'd expected to feel chastened. He felt seen.
Snape did not descend. He remained at the staff table, a black cutout against the brightness. For a moment Oliver thought the man might pretend the night hadn't happened. Then Snape lifted his goblet to his lips, eyes hooded, and glanced down the hall—briefly, deliberately—at Oliver sitting among the Gryffindors. The look said nothing. It landed like a warning anyway. Oliver lowered his gaze to his plate, refusing to let that thin needle find a place to sink.
"Mr. Night."
Dumbledore's voice carried without strain, and every conversation thinned automatically to make room for it. The Headmaster had come down the steps and stopped just behind Oliver's shoulder. Up close, the candlelight made the silver in his beard gleam.
"You have a gift," Dumbledore said, not as a pronouncement but as if acknowledging a fact on a ledger. "And you shared it generously tonight. Thank you."
"Thank you, sir," Oliver managed, more steady now. "For… letting me."
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "I did very little. You did a great deal." He tipped his head toward the ceiling, where a single butterfly still drifted like a lost scrap of sunrise. "Hogwarts enjoys being sung to, you know. She remembers." He paused, as if considering whether to say the next part, and then did. "It is good to see you among friends."
Heat pricked behind Oliver's eyes. "It's good to be here."
Dumbledore rested a hand on his shoulder for one heartbeat—warm, anchoring—and then moved on, the crowd folding around him like water.
"Drink," Hagrid boomed, arriving an instant later with a tankard Oliver could have hidden inside. "Butterbeer. A promise is a promise." His eyes danced, daring anyone to challenge a groundskeeper's prerogative on a feast night.
Oliver curled both hands around the mug. The first sip was soft and sweet and warm, spiced in a way that made his chest loosen and his shoulders drop. He laughed without meaning to. "That's… that's very good."
Hagrid thumped the table so hard the cutlery leapt. "Knew yeh'd like it. Right, then. If any beasts come knockin' tonight, I'll tell 'em to bring a tune and be polite."
"Speaking of beasts," George said, gesturing with his fork toward the shadows along the far wall, "I'd swear the house-elves were—"
"George," Hermione warned gently. "Let them be if they want to be unseen."
George lifted both hands. "Fair."
Oliver's gaze slid to the dim corners by reflex. He didn't see anyone, but he felt them—like he always did. Small bright presences humming, pleased, the way a kitchen hums after a job well done. He touched the guitar's neck with his fingertips and murmured, so quiet only the wood heard it, "Thank you."
A new hush fell. Not the total, roof-deep silence of performance, but the alert quiet people make when something important is about to happen and they don't want to miss their own reactions.
Dumbledore had turned back toward the staff table. Next to his chair, the shimmer the students had half-convinced themselves they'd imagined returned—as if the air itself were deciding to become something. The Notice-Me-Not charm thinned like morning fog. When it cleared, Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel were simply there, as though they'd been there all along—which, of course, they had.
Conversation collapsed into whispers edged with awe. Names rustled like pages: Flamel… the Flamels…
The twins sat up straighter. Hermione's inhale was audible. Harry's elbow pressed into Oliver's as if to share balance.
Nicholas moved with that poised unhurriedness of someone who had never needed to rush to be heard. Perenelle matched him in stillness and warmth, her presence as bright and gentle as a lamp set near a bed in winter. They didn't sweep the hall with grand gestures. They came to the Gryffindor table and stopped a polite arm's length from Oliver, as if asking permission to close the last of the distance.
"Mr. Night," Nicholas said. His voice had the soft grain of old wood, smoothed by use. "Thank you for the gift you gave this room."
Oliver's tongue went dry. There were a dozen things he might have said—clever, humble, deflecting. He chose the smallest, truest one. "Thank you for listening."
Perenelle's smile deepened. "It is easy to listen when there is honesty in the sound."
Up close, they didn't look like myths. They looked like people who had been alive long enough to understand that the important parts of a life are small and repeated: bread broken, hands held, songs sung. Oliver's pulse slowed without his permission.
Around them the Gryffindors tried and failed to look nonchalant. Fred had gotten halfway into a bow before George yanked him back upright by the sleeve. Hermione had clasped her hands in front of her like a choirgirl. Harry's gaze flicked between Oliver and the Flamels as if trying to memorize both at once.
"We enjoyed your first song a great deal," Nicholas said. "But it was the second that revealed the shape of your gift." He inclined his head a fraction. "The sharing."
Oliver's lips parted—he hadn't thought of it that way. The forest had. The kitchens had. The way the elves seemed to move like a chord moved. "I—yes," he said slowly. "I don't like playing alone. Not really."
"That will serve you," Perenelle said, and for a heartbeat something like pride warmed her voice before she gentled it back into simple kindness. "May we sit?"
It was Oliver's turn to make room. He and Harry shifted without thinking, the twins scooting outward with the economy of boys used to smuggling six people into a space made for four. Perenelle settled with elegant practicality; Nicholas followed, folding long hands on the table as if it were an alchemical bench and this an experiment he'd been waiting ages to begin.
The hall watched, a hundred instincts pushing at the edges of etiquette. Fred and George regarded the couple with the solemnity they reserved for pranks of historic potential. Hermione's eyes shone with about sixteen questions she was too polite to ask. Harry sat very still, as if sudden motion might break the spell of being included.
"Sir," Oliver said, cheeks heating, "about what I said earlier—about the book—"
Nicholas's eyes warmed. "We meant what we answered. We would be honored to read it."
Perenelle's smile tilted, curious. "Gods and demigods, you said?"
"Stories," Oliver said. "And… what they do to people. How they hold us together. It's not… I mean, it's not important like proper scholarship, it's just—"
"Stories are how we carry each other," Perenelle said at once, decisive and kind. "They are a very old magic. Older than most."
Nicholas nodded, the gesture not grand but heavy with assent. "Send it when you are ready."
Relief and embarrassment crashed together behind Oliver's ribs. "I will."
For a few long breaths the conversation loosened into gentler shapes. Nicholas asked Harry if the phoenix's timing had surprised him (it had, and Harry admitted it with a crooked smile). Perenelle complimented Hermione on the way she had insisted upon attention rather than waiting for it to be given (Hermione went pink and sat straighter). Fred and George performed a modest pantomime of what they claimed was a dignified table celebration and absolutely was not. Hagrid, hovering like a hill, cleared his throat and said if the Flamels ever wanted a tea "as is maybe more bark than bite," he'd be happy to oblige; Perenelle promised him she adored tea of every kind and bark was as good as spice.
Through it all, Oliver felt the oddest sensation—a click, like a gear finding its mate. He didn't have a name for it. Family was too big a word. Mentor was too formal. But the space at the table had changed the way a mouth changes when a missing tooth is filled; the bite landed true.
On the far side of the hall, Malfoy sat fat with thwarted fury, looking like a boy who had reached out for a lever and found it snapped. A few Slytherins were watching the table with speculative expressions, and that meant danger later. Oliver filed the knowledge away without letting it burrow under his skin now. The night had given him something malice couldn't take.
"Mr. Night," Nicholas said at last, and the shift in tone made Oliver straighten instinctively. It wasn't colder, just clearer, like a window opened. "We will not keep you from your friends or your rest longer. But… may we walk a little after the feast? Nothing strenuous. Just a conversation in quieter air."
Oliver's heart tripped. Some part of him—old, orphan-hungry, never named—sat up fast and said please. The part that had learned caution in the dormitory said be careful. The forest part said listen. He nodded. "Yes."
"Splendid," Perenelle said, soft as warm bread.
Nicholas stood. Perenelle rose with him, laying two fingers briefly against the tabletop as if to anchor something unseen there, then letting go. They did not bow or flourish. They simply inclined their heads in thanks to the small circle around the boy who had just sung the castle awake.
When they turned away, the hall's sound resumed like a held breath let out. Fred exhaled hard. "Well," he said, eyes wide. "You know when sometimes we exaggerate? I feel we do not need to tonight."
"Understatement would be a new thrill," George agreed.
Hermione stared at Oliver with frank delight. "They liked you."
Harry, still watching the Flamels' retreating figures, said quietly, "I think they saw you."
Oliver didn't trust his voice for a second. He nodded, swallowing. "I think so too."
Hagrid clapped him gently on the back this time, mindful. "We can walk yeh up after," he said. "No hurry. Let yerself feel it."
He did. He let himself sit in the warmth of bodies crowded on a bench too small, in the racket of laughter that wasn't aimed like a weapon, in the ridiculous bickering of twins who would absolutely steal his socks if he left them out, in the calm steadiness of a girl who chose principle over popularity, in the fierce loyalty of a boy who'd remembered the train and come back.
Somewhere in the corners, dishes were stacking themselves. Somewhere below, in a kitchen full of low laughter, house-elves were humming a tune that sounded suspiciously like the one he'd just played. The butterflies had long since winked out, but he could have sworn the stars on the ceiling were nearer than they had been.
He glanced once more toward Slytherin and found Daphne looking back. This time she didn't look away. She lifted her hand a breath, the smallest apology written across her face. Oliver didn't smile, didn't punish. He gave her a tiny nod: I saw. I see. Her shoulders softened. Something for another night.
"Alright," Fred said, when the plates at last cleared themselves and the candles dipped. "We'll be walking you nowhere, Night. You're walking us. Strict policy."
"Union rules," George said gravely. "Musicians must be escorted by at least two idiots at all times."
"Three," Hermione corrected, pinning them both with a look. "Four, if you include yourself."
Harry bumped Oliver's shoulder. "Come on," he said, grin small and real. "Let's go breathe air that isn't crumbs."
They rose together—Slytherin green among Gryffindor red and gold, and somehow the colors didn't scratch against each other tonight. They made for the doors under a canopy of candles that guttered without ever dripping, through a low rustle of whispers that felt more like wind in a friendly forest than the hiss of knives.
As they crossed the threshold, Oliver felt the castle settle around him the way a good cloak does: weight where you need it, warmth where you didn't know you were cold. He glanced back once and saw Dumbledore watching, eyes merry and old, and beyond him the place where the Flamels had stood, now empty only in the way a stage is empty between scenes.
The next scene was waiting in the corridor's cooler air, where the night pressed its face to the windows and the scent of autumn slid in under the stones. The twins ranged ahead like overexcited dogs. Hermione walked at Oliver's left and Harry at his right, and their footfalls found the same rhythm without trying.
Whatever waited with Nicholas and Perenelle would be its own kind of song.
Tonight, though, the chorus line had been sung: you can count on me. And the answer had found its echo.
Oliver breathed. The echo kept pace.