The Great Hall was alive with the familiar hum of returning students. Candles floated lazily overhead, dripping waxless light onto the long tables below, where chatter and laughter spilled like music. Oliver paused for a moment at the entrance, Nyx perched lightly on his shoulder, her dark feathers glinting faintly blue under the enchanted ceiling. For all the strangeness of break, for all the revelations that had swirled around him outside these walls, Hogwarts felt oddly comforting. It smelled of roasted meats, baked bread, and the faint trace of ink and parchment.
"Oliver!"
He turned just in time to see Harry waving him over to the Gryffindor table. Hermione sat beside him, smiling brightly, while Ron hunched over his plate, pretending not to look. The twins, further down, were already grinning and whispering to each other as if waiting for the right moment to shout something across the hall.
Nyx gave a soft trill, brushing her beak against his ear. Oliver smiled faintly and walked toward them.
"'Bout time," Harry said when Oliver sat down. "We were starting to think France had swallowed you whole."
Hermione leaned forward, eyes alight. "Never mind that—Oliver, that notebook you gave me is extraordinary! I've already written three essays' worth of thoughts into it, and it feels like the pages… well, it feels like they understand me." She clutched the book close, almost protective. "It's one of the best gifts I've ever received."
Oliver ducked his head, cheeks warming. "I'm glad you like it. I just… thought you might."
"You thought right," she said firmly, almost daring anyone to disagree.
Harry reached under the table and, with a grin, drew the sword from its wrappings just far enough for Oliver to see the hilt gleaming in the candlelight. "This—this is brilliant. Ron nearly fainted when I unwrapped it."
At that, Ron finally looked up, his ears red. "Course he'd like it. Who wouldn't want a sword? It's not fair you didn't get me anything, Oliver."
Oliver's lips pressed together. He hadn't expected gratitude from Ron, not after everything, but the bluntness still stung. "I… didn't think you'd want one," he said quietly. "Not from me."
Harry shot Ron a sharp look. "Don't be a git. You can borrow it if you want to, but don't start in on Oliver."
Ron muttered something into his potatoes but didn't argue further.
A sudden shout carried from further down the table. "Oi, Night!" Fred's voice.
"Yeah, Night!" George added. "Brilliant choices, by the way. That potion prank book—genius!"
"And the alchemy one!" Fred waved his copy like a trophy. "We're already plotting!"
The twins laughed, high-fived over the table, and leaned back smugly. A few Gryffindors looked their way in confusion, but most ignored them; after all, the Weasley twins were always shouting about something.
Oliver couldn't help smiling. At least some of his gifts had landed exactly as he'd hoped.
Hermione's smile softened. She set the notebook carefully on the table and leaned toward him again. "But Oliver… your book. Why didn't you tell us?"
Harry nodded, eyes wide. "Seriously. You wrote an entire story? You just… kept that to yourself?"
Oliver hesitated, fingers brushing over the rim of his plate. "It wasn't finished when I came here. I didn't know if it was any good. I just… wanted to see what would happen."
Hermione's voice grew hushed, reverent. "It's not just good, Oliver—it's… it's brilliant. I read it over break, and I couldn't put it down. The way you described the gods, the battles… it felt alive."
Harry grinned. "I'm halfway through, and it's mad how real it feels. Like, you could almost believe it."
Ron snorted. "I wouldn't know. Didn't get one, did I?"
Hermione rolled her eyes. "You can borrow mine if you stop sulking."
Oliver's lips quirked slightly, though he didn't look at Ron. Instead, he let the warmth of Harry and Hermione's words sink in. For once, he wasn't hiding his work in the shadows—it was out there, and people cared.
He cleared his throat. "Actually… about that. The version you have—it's not the final one."
Hermione blinked. "It's not?"
"No." A small smile tugged at his mouth. "Over break, the Flamels helped me refine it. We went through the whole manuscript, made adjustments… and it's been published. In the Wizarding World."
The effect was immediate. Hermione gasped so loudly that a few students down the table turned to stare. Harry's jaw dropped. Even Ron looked startled out of his sulk for a moment.
"Published?" Hermione nearly squealed. "You mean—it's in shops? People can buy it?"
Oliver nodded, feeling his ears heat again. "The first copies should already be out. And when the updated ones come in…" He glanced at her shyly. "I can sign yours, if you want."
Hermione's hands clutched the notebook tight. "Want? Oliver, you have to!"
Harry grinned. "Look at you, then. Author, musician, broom flyer. You're making the rest of us look boring."
Oliver laughed softly, shaking his head. "I don't think so."
But inside, something warm unfurled. Surrounded by friends, praised not for what he carried in his blood but for what he had made with his own hands, Oliver felt—for the first time—that he truly belonged.
Nyx shifted on his shoulder, feathers glinting faintly as though in agreement.
The chatter of the Great Hall swelled and rolled like waves, but at the Gryffindor table, everything narrowed to the circle of faces around Oliver. He hadn't expected this—hadn't expected the way Harry's grin, Hermione's unfiltered excitement, and even the twins' distant calls of "brilliant!" would knit themselves together into something that felt almost like home.
"You have to sign mine too!" Fred suddenly bellowed from further down. He'd clearly overheard Oliver's offer to Hermione.
"And mine," George chimed in. "Front page, big letters—'To the best pranksters Hogwarts has ever seen.'"
Hermione sniffed. "You two will probably turn the book into a prank somehow."
"That," Fred said with mock solemnity, "is an excellent idea."
Harry laughed, shaking his head. "You lot never stop."
Ron scowled, stabbing at a sausage. "Don't see what the fuss is about. S'just a story."
"Stories matter," Hermione shot back, sharper than usual. "They inspire. They teach. They change how people see the world. You'd know that if you'd actually read one cover to cover."
Ron turned red but muttered nothing, retreating into his plate. Harry leaned closer to Oliver, lowering his voice. "Ignore him. He's just jealous."
Oliver blinked, startled. "Jealous?"
"Yeah," Harry said with a shrug. "You've got Nyx. You've got music. You've got… all this." He gestured vaguely to Oliver's quiet poise, to the smile tugging at Hermione's mouth, to the twins shouting his name again. "You've made something of your own. Ron doesn't know how to handle that."
Oliver didn't reply immediately. The truth was, Harry's words sat uncomfortably close to the ache he sometimes tried to ignore—the ache of being different, of carrying things that set him apart. But here, at this table, for the first time since the Sorting, that difference didn't feel like a curse.
Hermione leaned across the table again, her eyes shining. "Oliver, what's it like? To walk into a shop and know your book is there?"
He thought for a moment, fingers brushing the handle of his fork. "Strange. Good, but strange. Like part of me is out there now. Like people can finally… hear me, even when I'm not playing."
Her expression softened. "That's beautiful."
Fred and George had apparently lost patience with shouting. They slid down the bench until they were nearly across from him, identical grins plastered on their faces.
"Night," Fred said. "We're serious about the autograph thing."
"Dead serious," George echoed.
"And about the book," Fred added. "You've got talent. Real talent. Might even make us look respectable by association."
George clapped Oliver on the shoulder, Nyx shifting slightly but not protesting. "You keep writing, we'll keep reading. Deal?"
Oliver couldn't help smiling. "Deal."
Nyx gave a soft, approving trill, her sky-blue eyes flicking between the twins and Oliver. It was almost as if she understood the moment too.
The meal carried on around them, plates refilling, candles drifting. Hermione began rattling off ideas for Oliver's next book—"not that you have to, of course, but if you did…"—while Harry teased her for planning out someone else's career. Ron stayed quiet, still sulking, though every so often he glanced at Oliver with an expression torn between resentment and curiosity.
Oliver let it all wash over him. The noise, the laughter, the bickering—it was chaos, but it was warm chaos. Not the cold silence of a Slytherin dorm where he was unwelcome, not the echo of an orphanage where no one had cared if he spoke or not. Here, he was part of something.
As dessert appeared and conversation shifted to Quidditch schedules and upcoming lessons, Oliver leaned back, Nyx curling close against his neck. For once, the weight of secrets—his lineage, his phoenix, his book—didn't crush him. Instead, it lifted him, carried by the knowledge that he wasn't walking this path alone.
For the first time since stepping through the castle's gates, Oliver D. Night felt like Hogwarts wasn't just a school. It was a place he could belong.