In the office, the Slytherin students exchanged quick, uncertain glances among themselves, blinking at one another as though hoping someone else might offer some explanation for what they'd just heard.
Even Hermione, still on her sofa, cast a curious look toward the professor, her own interest was piqued despite her efforts to remain as a quiet, unobtrusive observer.
If it had been Azkaban they were discussing, she would never in a thousand years have dreamed of voluntarily setting foot in that place of despair as the very idea would have struck her as punishment than an educational opportunity.
But Professor Watson's brief, straightforward description of Avalon with the farming, the livestock, the absence of Dementors, and possibility of rehabilitation had piqued her curiosity about this particular prison.
"When would that be?" Theodore asked, eagerly, leaning forward slightly in his seat.
"Around…" Bryan paused in thought. "Sometime before Halloween, I expect, depending on how things work out."
"Could my mother come along as well?"
"I'm afraid not, Theodore. This is specifically an educational activity organised for Hogwarts students in their final years of study—it won't be open to members of the public."
Bryan spoke with calm, settled finality.
Theodore's disappointment at the answer was plain to see on his face, but he raised no further objection to it.
He simply nodded and bent his head back down over the copy of Avalon Prison Regulations he'd just been handed, leafing through its pages with urgent, focused attention, evidently searching for whatever additional details might help his father's case.
The kettle resting on the mantelpiece rose smoothly into the air of its own accord, tilting itself with precision.
One by one, a row of white clay cups arranged nearby filled themselves in turn, and wisps of fragrant steam curled gently up as the rich scent of tea began drifting through the office, settling into every corner of the room.
Everyone present received a cup of Professor Watson's evidently beloved Greek tea. No one touched theirs except the professor himself who lifted his own cup slowly and drank.
The Greengrass sisters had gone slightly pale throughout this entire exchange, both of them were visibly aware that their own turn in this questioning was approaching. And sure enough—
"And you two?"
Bryan set his cup down with a small click, savouring the lingering sweetness of the tea on his palate for a moment before raising his eyes to Daphne and then to Astoria in turn.
"Has your father said anything to either of you recently?"
Hermione's brow furrowed from her seat on the sofa. 'That was,' she thought, 'a peculiarly specific question to be asking.'
"Our father…"
It was the younger of the two who answered first.
Astoria now beginning her third year drifted for just a moment, her usually clear, untroubled eyes were flickering with something unsteady and uncertain. She was clearly hesitating over exactly what she was about to say next,.
"He…"
Draco's face flushed a sudden, deep red. He glanced sideways at the Greengrass sisters and then glowered at Astoria.
"Mr. Greengrass went into hiding the moment the Ministry issued a warrant for his arrest—you were running the Ministry yourself throughout the holidays, Professor, so I'd simply assumed the Aurors would have already—"
He stumbled slightly over his own words, talking faster than he'd intended. "I mean, he left in such a tremendous hurry that he probably didn't have time to properly tell Daphne and Astoria anything before he went. Professor—"
The Greengrass sisters pressed their lips together at this interruption and said nothing further, neither confirming nor denying anything Draco had just offered on their behalf.
"I was asking them, Draco. Not you."
The words Professor Watson delivered, in that same easy-going tone he'd maintained throughout the entire meeting, struck the room like a silent thunderclap despite their mildness.
Even Hermione, watching from the sofa, felt her own heart lurch sharply—she could barely imagine what Draco himself, absorbing the full weight of that soft rebuke, must have been feeling in that moment.
She glanced over at Draco, who had broken out in a sudden cold sweat along his hairline. Bryan returned his attention smoothly to the two sisters as though nothing had happened.
"He—your father—he slipped back home afterward, didn't he?"
There was, plainly, no point in attempting denial. Before those deep violet eyes as vast and unreadable as a night sky stretching infinitely, every lie seemed to wither and turn instantly farcical the moment it was even considered.
Astoria fought down the tightness rising in her own chest, swallowing once before she managed to answer.
"…Yes, Professor."
Bryan took another slow sip of his tea, giving the room a moment to settle around the admission.
"And what did he tell you, when he came?"
Astoria's expression shifted rapidly through several distinct shades of feeling.
"He… he told us to study hard at Hogwarts. That was—that was really most of it."
"A sensible piece of advice, all things considered."
A faint, genuine smile appeared on Bryan's face at that.
He looked slowly around at the gathered Slytherin students in front of him, each one carefully guarding their own private thoughts.
"We all know, what is currently happening in the wizarding world. I won't pretend, for the sake of anyone's comfort in this room, that none of you have been caught up in it in some fashion—that would be a transparent and rather insulting fiction.
But within the particular sanctuary that Hogwarts is meant to provide, I do hope each of you will direct your energy primarily toward your studies, whatever else is happening beyond these walls."
He paused, and his voice, when he continued, remained totally gentle.
"Of course, if anyone outside these walls happens to harbour a grudge against myself, or against Headmaster Dumbledore, and decides, foolishly, to act on that grudge…"
"I don't think anyone would dare, Professor Watson!"
Hermione didn't quite know, even as she did it, but she shot to her feet from the sofa, blazing eyes fixed on the Slytherin students as though daring any one of them to disagree with her.
"If anyone ever tried something like that, they would be—"
Her voice rose sharply, carrying a real, indignant heat, her chest was heaving with the force of her own conviction.
"Absolutely despicable!"
On sheer force of presence alone, the Slytherin students were utterly routed by the outburst. Not one of them could manage to meet Hermione's blazing gaze.
"Oh—thank you for speaking up on my behalf, Hermione."
Professor Watson gave a soft, genuinely amused laugh at her sudden intervention.
"But I believe that no one currently sitting in this room is plotting to take my life."
Draco bit down hard on the inside of his own cheek and kept his eyes carefully averted from the man on the other side of the desk.
"In any case, Daphne—and Astoria—"
Bryan's tone brightened slightly, moving the conversation forward.
"Should either of you have the chance to see your father again—before the Aurors inevitably catch up with him, that is to say—or if you're still able to send him letters, I hope you'll persuade him to turn himself in voluntarily. Because if he does—"
He tapped, lightly, the booklet still held in Theodore's hands.
"Voluntary surrender also qualifies a prisoner for meaningful sentence reduction under the same criteria. After he's served whatever time that reduced sentence requires, he'll still have plenty of years ahead of him to live a full and reasonably comfortable life.
But if he happens to cross my path in the wrong place, at the wrong moment, and makes an unwise choice in that encounter—I won't be able to guarantee his continued safety. Do you both understand what I'm telling you?"
Astoria, whose complexion had already gone pale as fresh-fallen snow throughout this entire exchange, went fully white at that.
"Why do you always have to go after the old wizarding families, Professor Watson?"
That single question stopped everyone in the room cold.
Professor Watson had, by this point, already brought the meeting to its close.
The gathered Slytherin students had begun rising from their seats to leave, shadows were pooling thick and unreadable in more than one set of eyes.
And then Draco, his cheeks drained of colour asked the question that froze every one of his classmates in place, mid-motion, halfway between sitting and standing.
Even Hermione, who had spent the better part of the meeting quietly puzzling over why she'd been summoned in the first place, turned to stare at Draco in genuine, stunned disbelief.
"You're out of your mind, Draco!"
Theodore whipped around and scolded him with a sharp, furious look, clearly horrified by the sheer audacity of the question but Draco didn't flinch under it.
He kept his eyes fixed steadily on Professor Watson, whose own expression had begun to shift into something considerably more grave than it had carried a moment before.
A heavy silence pressed down over the entire office, the kind of silence that gathers in the moments immediately before a storm finally breaks.
Everyone present waited with held breath, for whatever thunderous retribution would surely, inevitably follow.
The only person in the room who seemed entirely untouched by the mounting tension was Draco himself.
"The old wizarding families are part of the wizarding world too, aren't they, Professor…"
His voice had dropped to something nearly a murmur, directed more toward himself, perhaps, than toward anyone else listening.
"They've sustained it. For generations. Without our businesses, without our investment, ordinary people couldn't have survived nearly as well as they have—the march on Diagon Alley proved as much, didn't it. But… why does everything you do seem like…"
"Like you're trying to destroy us?"
Bryan said it for him, finishing the sentence with a smile.
Draco didn't speak again. He simply gave a mute, halting nod.
Nott and the Greengrass sisters had both gone entirely still, none of them dared to move, all three were silently pleading Professor Watson toward whatever answer was coming.
"Can anyone here tell me—" Bryan asked it pleasantly. "—who founded Hogwarts?"
Hermione's hand shot up before she'd even fully processed the question being asked.
"Then you answer it, Hermione."
Bryan smiled at her, nodding in her direction.
"Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin—the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, as named in every reliable historical account of the school's establishment!"
Hermione recited the answer with unconcealed, genuine reverence.
"Quite right—well done, Hermione. But since that particular question was rather too easy, I won't award any points for it. Unless, that is, you can also answer the next one."
Hermione's eyes lit up at the challenge, leaning forward with visible, eager anticipation.
"Then why did the four founders establish Hogwarts in the first place?"
"To break the old families' existing monopoly on magical knowledge, and to give gifted Muggle-born children proper access to magical education as well!"
Hermione answered without a moment's hesitation, her gaze was sliding sideways toward the silent, frozen Draco, her eyes were bright with the full force of her own conviction on the subject.
"Excellent, Hermione—ten points to Gryffindor, well deserved."
Bryan gave her a small, approving nod, and then turned his attention back to the Slytherin students, his voice remaining, throughout, as mild as it had been at the very start of the meeting.
"Do you understand now, Draco? The answer to your question has never actually changed. Not in a thousand years."
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