Zander strolled the castle alone for a while, making his way toward the hospital wing.
As per the usual for every end-of-the-year routine, the groups of students he passed by were mostly chatting about how happy they were to go home for the summer. Final exams were the only thing left before everyone would be away from Hogwarts for a good long time—because, when the next school year began, it would be in the American school, Ilvermorny.
In fact—this would be the last time Zander or Alice were ever in Hogwarts at all.
And, as he pondered on this, he let out a deepened sigh, thinking of the Slytherpuff room and feeling an odd sort of mourning, as if he was suddenly being forced to part from a beloved family member. He didn't know he'd grown to cherish the room so much—but, now that he knew he'd be leaving it for good soon, it felt difficult to ponder on anymore.
A group of five students he'd just walked past—who were speaking about how excited they were to visit America next year—all fell silent and wheeled around, staring after him and trading hushed, frantic whispers with one another.
Then, the leader of their group—a dark-haired Ravenclaw—broke into a fast pace to catch up with him, all of her friends following closely behind her.
"Oy!" the girl called, patting Zander on the back of the shoulder.
Zander blinked and turned, facing them, surprised to see them all returning his stare with beaming looks of fascination.
"Are you the one who beat Valefor?!" the girl breathed, grinning wider. "You're Zander, right? Zander McAllister?!"
"Ah… yeah," Zander uttered. "But I didn…"
He trailed off as the girls traded enthralled squeals with one another.
"I didn't do it alone," Zander told them. "Alice helped."
"Alice O'Heiden, right?" the Ravenclaw smiled. "Ohmigod, that is wicked cool. You two are amazing! You're like a proper power couple!"
Zander stared. "How'd everyone in the school find out already, anyway?"
The girls all traded coy smirks with each other.
Then—another girl joined them, a ghostly white girl whose head had suddenly fazed out of the castle wall beside them.
Myrtle smiled and waved bashfully at Zander.
"Oh," Zander muttered. "I see you're in with the popular crowd now."
"For the moment," Myrtle bragged, floating smoothly over the heads of the other girls. "All it takes is a bit of juicy gossip. Who knew…?"
Zander managed a smile, waving them off and turning away, sighing as he resumed his pace down the hall.
As he did, and as he found himself walking alone for a long while yet again, his mind began to wander even more.
He couldn't think of what to say to Alice; honestly, he couldn't blame her for following him into the chamber, as he likely would've done the very same thing, and the two of them had agreed not to run off alone anymore, an agreement that he himself had broken the night before. He couldn't rightfully reprimand her behavior—and, as his teachers had pointed out, her actions truly had saved his life, just as he ended up doing for her shortly after.
Perhaps nothing drastic needed to be said. Maybe, as Arius told him, this was simply how it was—that the two of them would always even out the odds for one another, regardless of whatever circumstances they faced.
And—as it turned out—this included even the most insane of circumstances, ones that involved dangerous sects of revolutionaries, battles with dark wizards, and wild scenarios that were undoubtedly life-and-death.
A simple little oddball friendship between a Slytherin and a Hufflepuff, in one single schoolyear, had evolved into something far grander and much more powerful—a power duo, a huge group of friends surrounding, and even great strides of victory against the Shadow Hand, the newest sect of dark wizards to arise in the wizarding world.
The longer he dwelled on it all, the more it began to boggle his mind.
Everything in the world seemed to be on a drastic incline all the sudden, and a sense of importance was in the air that all their previous years at Hogwarts lacked, as if they were at the threshold of all the most important things they'd ever know in their lives.
Perhaps it was simply how one felt during these coming-of-age times—but, the more he pondered on it, the more he knew that couldn't be the only reason. All these friends flocking to them all the sudden, all this wonderful widespread support out of nowhere, and even the amazing efforts they'd expended to thwart dark wizards more than once—those were the actions and the endeavors of the great, of unsung heroes, of people who never knew they were heroes until after their grand struggles were over.
And he knew all too well that the wizarding world had proven this in full before.
Generation to generation—from the Marauders, to the Potters, and to the Slytherpuff family now—the routine remained just the same.
Evil would arise—and good must be there to stop it.
Zander mulled over this as he ventured up the staircase, nodding faintly as he did.
He knew he wasn't great, and he knew he wasn't pure of heart entirely—but he was good, decent and good deep down, and he was certainly good enough to protect the people he loved and stop evil in its tracks. He'd proven that much to himself by now.
And that—if nothing else—he could allow himself to be proud of.
Now, however, as he slowly approached the top of the stairway—hearing the voices of several students up above—his pride began to drain, a jolt of anxiety swiftly taking its place.
The wide, expansive hallway in front of the hospital wing seemed to be the scene of a party; students yelled, laughed, and played, sending enchanted paper airplanes, whizzing balls of sparks, and a few Weasley products soaring through the air. A few students were steering their paper planes with their wands, two of them seeming to battle one another in the air—and Zander slowed to a stop before them all, his eyes coasting across the scene in slight disbelief.
"Aaah—eat it, Beckly!" James cackled, smashing his paper plane into the center of the opposing one, making it plummet at once. "Hahahaaah! Who's the top Gryffindor now?!"
"Oh—James—you suck!" Beckly whined, dropping his wand by his side as everyone around cheered and laughed.
James opened his mouth to retort—then instantly fell still, staring over Beckly's shoulder and just spotting Zander at the threshold of the stairs.
Beckly followed his trail of vision, and Tobias, Rose, and Lorcan all emerged from the crowd. In mere seconds—nearly all the laughter in the crowd had vanished, and everyone's eyes were locked fixedly onto Zander.
Zander gulped roughly, narrowing his eyes at them all in bewilderment. "What…?"
"Aaand here comes celebrity number one!" James beamed, leaping forward and draping an arm around Zander, giving him a shake.
"What're you—aaagh," Zander choked.
"Now—tell us how it feels, Zander!" James grinned, holding his wand to Zander's face like a microphone. "How does it feel to be the first ever Slytherin to draw the Swords of Salazar?!"
Numerous members of the crowd began muttering and nodding excitedly.
Zander struggled against James's grasp, eyeing the crowd and feeling spotlighted.
"I didn—it jus—geoffme!" Zander griped, pushing James away and facing the mob of students. "Look—I didn't plan to. I didn't even mean to. But Valefor was casting the cruciatus curse on us, and there the sorting hat was, so—it just happened. It wasn't anything remarkable, it was just—just circumstances. All right?"
Everyone was silent for a moment.
"I think… we all know that," Rose broke the quietness, sauntering forward and wearing a knowing smile. "But, the circumstances were… as we all see it… that a Slytherin was honorable enough to summon them. That's the part people are so impressed about."
"Yeah… yeah… what she said," James nodded.
"And, point of interest… it's not common for anyone to be honorable enough to summon any of the Founders' Fortunes," Lorcan added. "It's remarkable when anyone does it. But when a Slytherin does it…?"
"Then… zat Slytherin must truly be something," Tobias smirked.
Zander stared back at them all, feeling lost for words. Honestly, he did pride himself a bit, but this—all these delighted faces staring back at him, as if he was something spectacular—he didn't feel as if he'd earned it, not in the slightest.
"Honor," he uttered, sighing and shaking his head. "It wasn't honor. No, I just panicked… that's all it…"
"Zander… why did you panic?" Rose said softly.
Zander met her gaze, his chest aching, feeling more uncomfortably aware of how many eyes were on him now.
"Because he was…" he murmured difficultly.
"Because he was hurting her," Rose knew. "And you had to stop it. That's honor."
"That's me protecting someone I'm close to," Zander corrected her.
"Mate—what took you down there in the first place?" James argued, marching up to him from behind and slapping him hard on the shoulder. "It wasn't just to protect your best friend or whatever—it was to protect everyone in the school, including all the people you don't know, and also all the people who were right foul gits to you."
He shot a look over to Beckly, who responded with a snide face and lewd hand gestures.
"Right… all of it was because you were looking after the entire school," Rose affirmed. "There was honor in everything you did, Zander… whether you wanna see it or not."
Zander said nothing, thinking of the moment he'd nearly lost himself last night, feeling as if he couldn't entirely agree with her.
But—regardless of how he felt about his darkest close call—the swords wouldn't have presented themselves to him in the first place if he was considerably rotten to the core.
So—as he determined before—he must've been good, not great, but simply good enough.
"Right," Zander mumbled with a nod. "Okay…"
"Okay—good—so let's party!" James rejoiced, whipping his wand and making his paper airplane spring back to life. "Oy—Zander, take Beckly's plane and fight me! C'mon!"
"Aww—you said I was next!" Albus complained from the back, emerging with his wand.
"Not yet, little brother—you're too short to fly a plane!" James laughed.
Albus made a face. "I'm not too short to kick you in your saggy left—"
"Oy!" another voice shouted across the scene—making everyone fall silent.
Every head in the crowd turned, and all of them spun around, seeing that the great big doors of the hospital wing were now open a crack—and Alice stood in between them, holding them ajar and glaring out at everyone before her, perking her brow and making a face at them all.
"I am tryinna sleep in here, ya' know," Alice griped, cocking her head at the alarming party that seemed to have gathered outside her recovery quarters. "Bloody long night I had, wunnit? Can ya' all just shut—aah!"
She made a startled noise—as a hand jutted out from the crowd and yanked her into a sudden trapping hug.
Zander's arm locked around her, not minding all the eyes on him anymore, and he let out a smooth, contended sigh.
Alice's brows raised, slowly returning the hug and feeling somewhat shocked.
"Aha… I thought… I thought you'd be mad at me," she murmured into his shoulder.
Zander stared past her, releasing another heavy cloud of breath and simply sparing the moment to savor her, truly pleased and relieved to see that she had—as Samuel said—completely bounced back from it all.
"I'll be mad later," he breathed.
Alice choked out a laugh, squeezing him tighter and shaking her head into him. "Ay, ya' better not be… after what you pulled…"
"Yeah… okay… fine," Zander uttered. "We can both be mad later…"
"Awww—give it up for celebrity number two!" James hollered, wheeling around and clapping vigorously. "And both of our Hogwarts celebrities have reunited! Wohooo!"
Suddenly—everyone erupted into cheers and applause, shouting and whistling happily at Zander and Alice, who stood in the center of the crowd, sharing their hug before separating and laughing breathlessly at all the insanity around them.
"All right—all right—shut up!" Zander screamed at them all, waving them down and looking between the many faces staring back at him. "Look here—if you wanna keep this celebration alive, then I reckon we've gotta savor what little time we've got left at Hogwarts. So to hell with the toys, and to hell with the planes—let's get some brooms and have ourselves a real game."
James's eyes lit up like twin flames, grinning broadly and trading surprised looks of joy with many of the people around him. Alice breathed out an astonished little laugh, ogling Zander in amazement—and all the sudden, the great big party of Slytherpuff supporters began flooding down the stairway in waves, yelling and laughing playfully as they did.
The gigantic mob seemed to gather more students in passing as it rushed about the hallways and corridors, collecting broomsticks and preparing to race across the courtyard or to head off for a fun little Quidditch game. By the time they all ended up outside—Zander and Alice were the first to take off, and several students of all houses shot through the air right behind them, blasting through the chilly Scotland winds and soaring across the beautiful horizon.
Arius stood at his window, watching with a calm smile as he observed all the students flying about in the distance, almost able to hear their shouts and laughs from where he stood.
Hermione had left the school grounds, and Samuel and Roman had left to reunite with Zander and Alice—but Crowley remained in the headmaster's office, standing close behind Arius and staring out the window as well.
"Emmett," Crowley uttered, eyeing him pensively from behind. "Aren't they meant to be going to class right now…?"
Arius continued to gaze thoughtfully outside, his smile as permanent as it was peaceful, tapping gently along the top of his cane.
"Let them be," he said solemnly. "They won't get to be this age for long, Trocar… and they have even less time to be so carefree."
Crowley nodded, his eyes shifting back to the scenery outside.
They remained silent for a moment.
"Feels like it did before," Crowley mumbled, glancing again at the headmaster. "Doesn't it?"
Arius stared, eyes lost in the outside, though his smile just began to wane.
"The skies are clear and free," he murmured. "So… for now… let them fly."
Crowley glared at him from behind, his visage slowly beginning to intensify.
Arius gazed out the window almost trancelike, releasing a deep, definitive breath.
"Because… it won't be long now," he muttered in a soft, breathless whisper. "Before a storm rolls in again."