[DEPARTMENT OF MAGICAL LAW ENFORCEMENT, MINISTRY OF MAGIC]
It's been two weeks.
Two full weeks since Arthur disappeared.
James Potter, Head Auror, sat behind a mountain of untouched parchment in his office high within the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, though he hardly noticed any of it. The usual buzz of the Ministry felt far away, like he was underwater. Everything was muted. Slowed. Too quiet in a way that made his chest ache.
Arthur had been staying with them for just under a month—an arrangement that started as temporary but quickly became natural. He wasn't family, not by blood, but somehow he'd folded into their lives like he'd always belonged. Remus—Arthur's godfather—had arranged it. Said it would be good for Arthur to be around other kids his age. Said it would help him grow.
And he had. Arthur fit into the Potter household like an extra limb. Calm, quiet, a little too observant for a boy his age. He had a way of making himself small when he needed to, invisible in a house full of chaos and chatter. But when he smiled—and it wasn't often—it was like watching the sun peek through grey clouds. He'd gotten close to all the kids in his own quiet way, but especially Harry. The two had been inseparable. Like mirror images. Where Harry was reckless, Arthur was cautious. Where Arthur hesitated, Harry leapt. Together, they balanced.
Which made the silence he left behind feel like an open wound.
No letter. No message. No trace.
Just a room left undisturbed, his owl—Elira—still perched at the corner of his bedframe, refusing food and barely hooting anymore.
James had tried to reason through it. Checked the floo logs, asked around Diagon Alley, even quietly checked St. Mungo's and the Knockturn corners—just in case. Nothing. No sign of Arthur. Not a hint. The boy had vanished, clean and quiet.
Sirius hadn't helped. He'd tried, in his own way—spending more time with the kids, cracking jokes even louder than usual. But even Sirius's endless cheer had its cracks. He stopped making remarks about Arthur's brooding personality. He stopped calling him "Mini-Moony." And James noticed the way Sirius glanced at the owl sometimes, like it was a ghost that wouldn't leave.
Lily had gone quiet, too. She'd started including an extra bowl at dinner without thinking. Kept looking out the window late at night.
And the kids...
Harry didn't say anything. He just went into Arthur's room sometimes and sat there. James found him once curled up with a book Arthur had been reading. He didn't even look up when James knocked.
Elena made a bracelet for him from yarn and refused to take it off.
Theo and Leo, the twins, were too young to understand it all, but they felt the absence like a missing limb. They stopped calling Arthur "Arfie" and started asking, every morning: "Is he back yet?"
James would smile.
And lie.
"Any day now."
He hated it. Hated not knowing what happened. Hated not knowing if Arthur had left by choice, or if something—or someone—had taken him. And deep down, James hated how much it all reminded him of the war. The waiting. The dread. The unanswered questions that pressed on his lungs and made it hard to breathe.
And then—
The alarm blared.
Magic pulsed like thunder through the walls of the Ministry. Wards flared red. Lanterns guttered out, replaced by sharp runes of danger floating in the air.
Breach. Unauthorized access. Department of Mysteries.
James didn't think. His wand was in his hand before he left his chair. His legs carried him down winding staircases and shifting corridors that only opened to top clearance Aurors.
Each level grew colder. Dimmer. Deeper.
The Department of Mysteries wasn't meant to be entered lightly. Even James, with full authority, didn't come down here unless it was critical.
But someone had.
The Hall of Prophecies was a maze of flickering spheres and whispering shadows. James moved between them like a ghost, every step echoing like a warning.
And then—
A flash of movement.
He caught a figure darting through the mist of swirling glass.
James took chase.
They were fast. Silent. But not silent enough. He tracked them past the broken lock-runes, down a narrow channel between prophecy shelves, until they stopped—trapped at a dead end.
James raised his wand, heart pounding.
"Don't move," he commanded, voice like steel. "Turn around. Slowly."
The figure did.
Slowly.
Too slowly.
The hood shadowed their face. But something in the posture. The way they held themselves. The height.
James narrowed his eyes.
It wasn't fear that hit him first.
It was dread.
And then came recognition.
But he didn't understand why.
Because standing before him wasn't someone he should know.
And yet...
His gut twisted.
His grip tightened.
He didn't lower his wand.
Not yet.
The hood slipped down.
James froze.
It was Arthur.
But not the Arthur he remembered.
Gone was the boy who used to flinch slightly when Sirius clapped him on the back or sat quiet during dinner like he didn't want to take up space. This version stood tall, eyes sharper than they had any right to be, gaze carved from glass and winter. His face was still, too still—lips pressed in a firm line, no trace of confusion, or fear, or even recognition.
Only cold.
Not the guarded kind Arthur used to wear, like armor.
No—this was deeper. Harder. Like the boy James had known had been buried and only the shell remained. And even that shell didn't want to be here.
James didn't lower his wand.
Couldn't.
Arthur looked like he could level the room with a thought.
And for a moment, James felt it.
Magic.
Thick. Heavy. The kind that hummed in the air and made the prophecy spheres nearby flicker and tremble. It was pressing down on him, not violently—but it was there, undeniable. Commanding. The weight of it was suffocating. This wasn't adolescent magic bubbling out of control. This was shaped. Disciplined. Dangerous.
Even his stare said, Don't talk. I don't want to hear it.
Too much for a child.
Arthur was eleven. Should have been eleven.
But James's gut twisted as he remembered the date—Saturday, August 10th, 1992.
Arthur's birthday.
He was twelve today.
Twelve—and already emanating enough raw magical pressure to rival a seasoned Hogwarts professor.
"Arthur?" he said, trying to keep his voice even. "What the hell is going on?"
No response.
Just that stare. Empty. Unyielding.
Like he'd already decided nothing James could say would matter.
"People are worried," James pressed. "You disappeared. No word. Your owl—you didn't even—"
"I didn't ask you to look for me," Arthur said, voice quiet but sharpened like a blade.
James blinked.
The voice was his, but it carried weight now. Each word struck like a spell, measured and final.
"I didn't want to be found."
James exhaled slowly, trying to keep calm. "You can't just—walk into the Department of Mysteries, Arthur. You broke through secure runes. Do you have any idea—"
"I know exactly what I did."
A pause.
James studied him again.
The chill wasn't just in the words. It was in the way Arthur refused to flinch. Not even as Auror boots thundered distantly behind them, alarms still pulsing red somewhere above.
James wanted to reach out. Say something kind. Grounding.
But Arthur's eyes said don't.
They were warning him.
Not pleading.
Not fearful.
Warning.
"Arthur, whatever this is—whatever happened—let us help."
Arthur's jaw tensed. "Help," he echoed, like it was a foreign word.
"I'm serious."
"You never are," Arthur muttered.
A sharp look, not of anger, but disappointment followed. Like James had already failed a test he didn't know he was taking.
"I'm not here for long," Arthur continued, tone flat. "I just came for one thing. Then I'll leave. With you, If you'd like that."
"You're not walking out of here without an explanation," James said firmly.
For the first time, Arthur's magic flared again. Not explosive—but alive. A warning pulse. Like a predator uncoiling itself just enough to remind you it could kill you.
James gritted his teeth, heart pounding.
This wasn't a standoff.
This was a message.
....
For the first time, Arthur's expression flickered.
Regret. A whisper of it. Almost too quick to catch.
But then it vanished—buried under that cold, focused resolve.
"I'm sorry," Arthur said, barely audible.
Then he moved.
A wave of wandless magic burst from his palm—silent, clean, brutal.
James was flung backwards like a rag doll, slamming into the stone wall with a sickening crunch. His wand flew from his grasp, clattering to the floor. He slumped down, unconscious.
Arthur stood very still for a moment, staring at the man who'd treated him like a son.
"I'm sorry," he said again, more to himself than anyone else.
His fingers twitched.
James's limp form rose from the floor, suspended in mid-air by invisible cords. Arthur guided him gently to a safer corner,
Then he turned, eyes set like flint, and walked deeper into the Hall of Prophecies. The whispering spheres trembled as he passed.
He had to know.
Whatever the cost.
A Week Ago | Reeves Manor, Training Grounds.
Arthur wiped sweat from his brow, blinking past the sting in his eyes.
Across the scorched training floor, Dorian's wand still sparked faintly, steam rising off the broken stone where Arthur had nearly eaten a blast.
"Could've warned me," Arthur muttered, half-joking.
"You dodged," Dorian replied, shrugging. "That's warning enough."
Daniel knelt nearby, murmuring softly to a twitching bird hatchling that had wandered in mid-session. The creature calmed instantly.
Vivienne passed by Arthur without looking, murmuring to no one, "Blood on the floor, and truth in shadow."
"…Cool," Arthur muttered. "Totally normal."
Micah stood quietly, frost forming beneath his bare feet. And Liam—the youngest—watched Arthur with an unsettling calm, as if reading him.
Arthur didn't understand them—not really. They were blood, but strange. Powerful in ways that didn't make sense.
"Done for today," Daniel said gently. "You need rest."
The Reeves began to file out, Vivienne last, whispering to Arthur as she passed: "Tonight… a door opens."
And then it was just Arthur. Alone on the floor. Aching.
Until Cassian walked in.
No sound. No warning. Just presence—cold, heavy, final.
Arthur groaned. "Brilliant. You again."
"Not bad," he said finally, voice low and unreadable. "You lasted longer this time."
"Oh, great," Arthur muttered, collapsing back against the stone wall. "Gold star for the half-dead eleven-year-old."
Cassian approached, the usual chill in his presence muted tonight. Softer somehow.
"How's your head?" he asked, crouching.
Arthur narrowed his eyes. "What are you playing at? You're never this nice unless something's about to explode. Or someone."
Cassian's expression didn't change. "You don't know what really happened to your parents?"
Arthur sat up straighter. "Not this again. They were targets because they didn't join the dark. Even Voldemort said so. It's over."
Cassian stepped closer. "It's not. There was a prophecy. Not about them. About you."
Arthur's heart skipped.
"You and Voldemort are bound by it. That's why they died. They tried to hide you. And someone helped him find them."
Cassian held out a strange card—silver and humming with unstable magic.
"If you want to know the truth, It's in the Department of Mysteries. The British Ministry of Magic. You're the only one who can access it."
Arthur took the card slowly.
"You step in," Cassian said, "you're alone. No backup. No Reeves. No me."
Arthur looked up. "…Why now?"
Cassian's voice was a whisper. "Because your fate was decided before you were born. And it's time you chose whether to follow it… or break it."
NOW – Hall of Prophecies, Department of Mysteries
Arthur pressed forward.
James floated silently behind him, limp and unconscious, his glasses askew, a faint trail of dried blood at his temple.
The Hall stretched endlessly in every direction—towering shelves of fragile glass orbs, each one humming with old secrets. It smelled of dust, magic, and memory.
He passed a shelf labeled C-9, boots echoing on the cold floor.
"You'll know which one is yours,"
Cassian had said one night, after a brutal training session that left Arthur sore and half-broken.
"When you feel it… you'll know."
And he did.
It wasn't logical.
It wasn't even visible.
But something in his bones shifted.
The air grew heavier—like magic itself leaning in.
The rows around him blurred as his eyes landed on a small, delicate orb nestled between others far larger and more elaborate.
Faint, swirling silver mist danced behind the glass.
Two names shimmered beneath, etched in barely-there script:
ARTHUR REEVES / TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE
His breath hitched. Tom? Who is—?
The truth.
His truth.
And Voldemort's.
A deep pull in his chest—like gravity, but older, more intimate—urged him forward.
He blinked and remembered James.
Slowly, gently, Arthur lowered him to the ground, letting his unconscious body rest flat beside the shelf, away from harm.
He crouched briefly, brushing a bit of glass from the floor, eyes never leaving the orb.
This was why he'd come.
The shadows around the shelves seemed to lean closer.
Arthur stepped forward.
He reached out—
And in that suspended breath of silence, everything waited.