The underground chamber beneath Zeus Hotel was not a place meant for the living.
It had been carved decades ago as a defensive vault—thick stone walls, layered warding circles, and a ceiling etched with runes meant to suppress sound, magic, and intent alike. The air was cool, dry, and heavy with old power. Torchlight flickered against stone that had seen far too many secrets.
Tonight, the Serpent Court gathered there.
Not in the familiar halls of Slytherin Castle where strategy meetings felt almost like family dinners.
This time, the mood was different.
In the center of the chamber rested an enchanted coffin, obsidian-black, its surface crawling with containment runes that pulsed faintly like a slow heartbeat. Inside lay the body of the foreign wizard—preserved, unmoving, untouched by decay.
Enzo Favara.
Italian.
Ministry worker.
Dead.
Harry stood at the head of the chamber, hands folded behind his back, his expression calm but distant. The torches cast sharp shadows across his face, making him look older than his years.
Around him stood the Court.
Jason and Cassia near the ward-circle, already examining residual magic.
Sam and Regina by the stone table, faces grim.
David, Joseph, and Charles closer to the coffin, arms crossed, eyes sharp.
Cassandra stood beside Harry, silent, professional—an Auror even without the badge.
No one spoke at first.
Finally, Harry broke the silence.
"This man," he said evenly, "was murdered inside my hotel."
The words echoed softly, swallowed by the wards.
"He came here for a ritual. He paid in advance. He never left his room alive."
Harry gestured toward the coffin.
"I moved the body here personally. He will remain preserved until we find the truth. No Aurors. No Ministry. No leaks."
Jason frowned slightly. "That narrows our margin for error."
Harry nodded. "Which is why I called all of you to work together and catch the criminal who did this."
Cassandra stepped forward, finally speaking.
"First, facts. No visible wounds. No blood. No ritual backlash. His magic core collapsed internally."
She looked at the coffin. "That means poison, curse, or precision magic. Possibly layered."
Cassia crouched near the runes etched into the floor where the body had been examined earlier. "There was suppression magic in the room. Something designed to prevent… resistance."
Sam's jaw tightened. "Meaning Enzo didn't even get a chance to fight back."
David exhaled slowly. "Professional."
Harry's eyes darkened slightly.
"Which means the killer is a professional," he said. "Someone planned this. They knew the hotel wards—or learned them fast."
Joseph leaned against the wall. "And they're still inside."
Harry turned toward the far end of the chamber, where a stone desk had already been prepared. He picked up a quill and parchment.
"When he paid," Harry continued, "he listed emergency contacts. Foreign ones. I didn't recognize the names."
He paused, then added, "Marcus and Angela might."
At the mention of the names, David straightened.
"Italy," David said slowly. "Old families?"
"Possibly," Harry replied. "Which is why I'm sending them a letter."
He began writing immediately, his hand steady.
Marcus/Angela.
I need everything you can find on Enzo Favara—background, affiliations, debts, enemies, patrons.
He was murdered. He is an Italian Ministry employee
Discretion required and do it fast.
Harry sealed the letter with a simple sigil recognizable to those who knew him.
"It'll reach them by morning," he said. "They'll move fast."
Jason folded his arms. "In the meantime, we work from inside."
Harry nodded. "Every guest. Even the staff member. Every anomaly."
Regina frowned. "Won't people notice?"
"They already have," Harry replied calmly. "Which is why we move quietly."
He turned to Cassandra. "You're leading the investigation."
She inclined her head. "We treat this like an Auror case—without Auror mistakes."
A thin smile crossed Harry's lips.
"One more thing," he said, voice lowering. "Whoever did this thought they could kill here and walk away."
The room grew colder.
"They underestimated one thing," Harry continued. "This hotel is not neutral ground."
He placed a hand on the coffin, fingers brushing the runes.
"This is our territory."
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then Jason nodded once. "We'll find them."
Cassia added quietly, "And when we do?"
Harry looked up, emerald eyes reflecting torchlight.
"Then we decide," he said evenly, "whether justice or mercy applies."
The letter from Marcus changed everything—and not in the way Harry had hoped.
It arrived just after dawn, Harry broke it open while the members of the Serpent Court gathered around in Harry's suite at Zeus Hotel.
Harry read the letter once.
Then again.
His jaw tightened.
"Well?" Joseph asked, leaning forward. "Marcus doesn't write that much unless something's wrong."
Harry placed the parchment on the table and pushed it toward them. "There is no Enzo Favara."
Silence spread through the room like spilled ink.
Cassia picked up the letter, her eyes scanning quickly. Her expression shifted from curiosity to disbelief, then to something sharper.
"Not registered?" she asked.
"Not existent," Harry replied. "According to Marcus, the Italian Ministry of Magic has no record of anyone by that name. No employee. No contractor. No independent operative. Nothing."
One of the Court members swore under their breath.
Cassandra, seated opposite Harry, folded her arms. "Fake name, then. That's not surprising."
"It gets worse," Harry said. "They ran the photographs we sent. Face-recognition charms. Old records. Cross-referenced against expelled students, foreign guilds, even unsanctioned dueling rings."
Cassia looked up slowly. "And?"
"And no one has ever seen him," Harry finished. "At least, no one who's still alive or willing to admit it."
The investigation, which had already been threading through shadows, had just lost its one solid anchor.
"So," Cassia said at last, tapping the parchment thoughtfully, "we don't know who he was. Which means we don't know what he wanted. Which means—"
"We don't know who would want him dead," Charlus completed.
Harry leaned back in his chair, eyes unfocused. "Or who he trusted."
That made Cassia straighten. She pushed back from the table and began pacing slowly, boots whispering against the stone floor.
"The room wasn't forced," she said. "No broken wards. No damaged locks. No signs of a struggle near the door."
Harry nodded. "The hotel's enchantments confirmed it. The door was opened from the inside."
"So," Cassia continued, "whoever killed him didn't break in. They were invited in."
"That narrows it down," one of them said.
"Does it?" Angela countered. "From what the staff told us, the man kept to himself. Ate alone. Drank alone."
Harry's fingers drummed once against the table.
"Which means," he said quietly, "either he was very good at appearing alone… or he met someone no one noticed."
Cassia stopped pacing and turned to face him. "Or someone who didn't look like someone worth noticing."
She met Harry's gaze. "Staff. Guests. Service personnel. Someone who wouldn't stand out. Someone he wouldn't feel threatened by."
Harry considered that. "The staff were questioned thoroughly."
"Staff are trained to be invisible," Cassia replied. "And guests assume they're harmless."
Regina frowned. "But even then, the man had to trust them enough to drop his guard. To open the door."
"Yes," Cassia said. "Which means this wasn't a random encounter. This was planned. Or at least… familiar."
Harry stood.
The room fell quiet instantly.
"Then our problem isn't that we don't know who Enzo Favara was," he said. "Our problem is that someone else did."
He walked toward the far wall, where a faintly glowing map of the hotel shimmered into view—a magical overlay showing rooms, corridors, and common areas.
"He came alone under a fake name," Harry continued. "No registered visitors. No known contacts. No owl correspondence."
Cassia joined him, studying the map. "But someone still got to him."
"Yes," Harry said. "Which means whoever killed him knew what he was doing and where he was staying… and knew how to reach him without raising suspicion."
Regina's eyes widened slightly. "A meeting arranged before he ever checked in."
Harry turned back to the Court. "Or someone who followed him here."
"The hotel," Cassia said slowly, "is neutral ground. Everyone knows that."
"Which makes it the perfect place to kill someone," Harry replied, "Enzo Favara doesn't exist," he said. "But the man in that coffin did. And someone went to great lengths to erase him."
Cassia folded her arms. "So what now?"
Harry's eyes hardened.
"Now," he said, "we start asking who the real man behind Enzo Favara was."
There was only one thread left to pull.
Harry stood in the corridor outside Grandpa Theo's suite, staring at the dark wood of the door as if it might answer him on its own. Of all the people connected to Gothic Alley, to ritual magic, to the strange undercurrents that flowed beneath the surface of the wizarding world, Teozad Umbra was the only one who had to know something.
And that made him dangerous.
Not dangerous in the way dark wizards were dangerous—but in the way truths were.
Harry and Grandpa Theo had an understanding.
In public, they were strangers.
In the open halls of Zeus Hotel or the shadowed lanes of Knockturn Alley, Grandpa Theo never so much as nodded at him. No familiarity. Just another wizard passing through, nothing more.
But behind closed doors, when no eyes watched and no wards listened, GrandpaTheo was… kind.
Careful. Protective, in his own distant way.
Harry understood why.
Theo lived a life that invited enemies—old ones, patient ones. If he ever had to vanish overnight, if blood followed him instead of shadows, Harry would be safest if no one could link them together.
So Harry respected the distance.
But tonight, distance would not solve this.
He knocked.
The door opened almost instantly.
Grandpa Theo stood there, robes dark as burial cloth, silver hair tied back at the nape of his neck. His pale eyes studied Harry with the same calm intensity they always carried—eyes that had seen far too many endings.
"You're late," Theo said mildly. "Which tells me this isn't a social visit."
Harry stepped inside without a word.
The suite smelled faintly of incense and old parchment. Bone charms hung discreetly along the walls, warding symbols etched so subtly that most wizards wouldn't even notice them. A necromancer's home—orderly, restrained, dangerous only if you knew what you were looking at.
Teozad closed the door behind them and cast a silent privacy ward with a flick of his fingers.
Harry didn't waste time.
"Someone was murdered here, no one knows. Not all the staff. Not the guests."
Theo moved toward a small table, poured himself tea that hadn't been there a moment ago, and gestured for Harry to sit.
"You cannot hide a death from a necromancer," Theo said calmly. "When someone dies nearby, especially a magical, it's like a cold wind brushing against the soul. Subtle. But unmistakable."
Harry sat, unease crawling up his spine.
"So you felt it," Harry said."
"Yes," Theo replied. "And from the weight of it, I knew it wasn't an accident."
Harry exhaled slowly.
Then he told him everything.
About Enzo Favara.
About the fake identity.
About the lack of records.
About Marcus' letter from Italy confirming the man didn't exist.
Teozad listened without interruption, his expression never changing, his fingers wrapped loosely around his teacup.
When Harry finished, silence stretched between them.
Finally, Harry asked the question that mattered.
"Why did he come to Gothic Alley?"
"What ritual did he perform?"
"And what was he really trying to do?"
Teozad set the cup down.
The sound it made against the table was very soft—but final.
"I will not tell you what ritual he performed," Teozad said evenly.
Harry stiffened.
"Confidentiality," Theo continued. "That rule applies even after death. Especially after death. If word spreads that I betray my clients, then people will stop coming to me for rituals, protective rites… and only the worst will remain."
Harry nodded slowly. "I figured."
Theo studied him more closely now. "You're not angry."
"I don't want gossip," Harry said. "I want a murderer."
A faint smile tugged at the corner of Grandpa's mouth.
"Good answer."
Theo leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled. "I can tell you this: the ritual he requested was not dark in nature. Dangerous, yes—but not malicious."
Harry's eyes sharpened. "Then why the secrecy?"
"Because it involved identity," Theo replied.
Theo continued, "He was afraid. Not of death—of discovery. He asked questions that only someone running from something would ask."
Harry's jaw tightened. "Did he mention anyone else?"
"No names," Theo said. "But he believed he was being watched.".
Harry leaned forward. "Then why was he killed here?"
Theo's gaze hardened. "Because someone reached him first."
Harry's mind raced.
"Then you're saying—"
"I am saying," Grandpa Theo interrupted quietly, "that the person who killed him either knew what ritual he performed… or knew why he performed it."
Harry looked down at his hands.
"Which means," he said slowly, "the killer is someone with knowledge of ritual magic. Or someone close enough to learn his purpose."
Teozad nodded.
"I won't break my oath," Theo said. "But I won't stand aside either."
Harry looked up sharply.
Teozad met his gaze, necromantic aura stirring faintly around him.
"I will join your investigation," Theo said.
A new quest update pulsed into existence.
[Quest Update: Blood Beneath Silk Sheets]
Necromancer Ally Acquired
Ritual Insight: Partial
Investigation Support: Enhanced
New Passive Effect:
Necromantic Detection (Limited Radius)
Harry let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
Teozad stood, placing a hand briefly on Harry's shoulder—light, almost hesitant.
"Be careful," he murmured. "This isn't just murder. Someone wanted that man to vanish completely."
Harry's eyes burned with quiet resolve.
"Then we'll make sure they don't."
As he left the suite, the hotel above continued its peaceful hum—laughter, footsteps, clinking glasses.
But Harry knew now.
Behind one of those doors…
A killer was hiding.
And this time, the dead were on his side.
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