A sickly green flame sputtered, casting an emerald glow across the walls of Sebastian's office before collapsing back into the hearth. Sebastian Swann, emerging from the Floo network, looked less like a world-class academic and more like a ghost who had lost a fight with a dust bunny.
He pulled his wand and executed a perfunctory Cleansing Charm, brushing the soot from his expensive, slightly rumpled robes, before stretching his arms high above his head in a monumental, cracking yawn.
The profound weariness was the residue of a late night spent not enjoying the perquisites of wealth, but agonizing over the intricate details of his next lesson plan. M
aking a Tiered Muggle Studies Curriculum truly engaging—comparing the supply chain of a Muggle automated factory to the labyrinthine chaos of Diagon Alley—required more mental fortitude than dodging a dozen Bludgers.
Come on, Sebastian. Just power through the prep, he silently urged himself. Next year, you'll be able to recycle these lessons. Everything gets easier next year.
He dragged a hand across his face, his eyes watering reflexively from the sheer, physical effort of the last, cavernous yawn. He was so tired that the world seemed to shimmer slightly at the edges.
So sleepy... A quick, restorative nap on the sofa perhaps?
Boom boom boom!
The aggressive, hurried knocking at the door startled him fully awake. Sebastian instantly perceived the magical aura of multiple, anxious teenagers clustered outside.
He opened the door to reveal the entire Unified Quidditch Team: seven miserable figures who looked even more sleep-deprived than he was. They stood in a tight huddle, their gazes bouncing everywhere but on his face, shuffling their feet nervously on the threshold.
"Professor," Charlie began, his voice thick with a strange mixture of shame and concern. He paused, his expression instantly hardening into a mask of solemn realization.
Charlie noticed the faint, lingering redness around Sebastian's eyelids and the slight, undeniable moisture in his eyes—the immediate aftermath of the enormous yawn.
The Professor has been weeping, the Captain's mind concluded with grim certainty, instantly connecting the physical evidence with the devastating front-page headline. He read the paper and he was so wounded, so humiliated, he actually cried.
The realization shattered Charlie's practiced script. He had intended to deliver a formal, contrite apology for the loss. Now, his priority shifted entirely to emotional first aid.
Sebastian, oblivious to the tragic opera unfolding in Charlie's mind, simply smiled, stepped aside, and waved them in. With a flick of his wand, he Transfigured his modest office couch into a massive, plush, U-shaped sectional, designed for collaborative discussions. The seven students obediently dropped onto the cushions.
"Is there something specific you needed this early?" Sebastian asked gently, resting his elbows on his knees.
Before Charlie could manage to articulate the carefully rehearsed apology, Cedric Diggory, the earnest, perpetually overwhelmed sophomore, blurted out the raw truth.
"Professor, you don't look angry at all."
Sebastian blinked. "Angry? About what?"
Charlie's heart hammered against his ribs. He's trying to hide it! He's putting up a brave face for the children! The sheer nobility of the gesture made Charlie feel a fresh surge of guilt. This situation required delicate, emotional finesse, not blunt truth.
"Are you angry?" Sebastian repeated, genuinely confused by the team's collective, mournful demeanor.
Charlie was in a state of high-alert internal panic. What's the protocol for comforting a crying world-famous sports hero? He ran through several disastrous internal dialogues: "Please don't cry, sir, we promise we'll be better!"—too risky, too accusatory.
"It's okay to be sad, Professor."—too patronizing. The atmosphere was thick with the unsaid, and Charlie felt the weight of seven pairs of eyes boring into him. Captain, lead the way! they seemed to silently scream.
Cursing his fate and the capricious nature of journalistic venom, Charlie pulled out the crumbled copy of The Daily Prophet he had stuffed into his pocket. He held it up, displaying the offensive headline like a gruesome evidence photo.
"Professor, please don't be silent—we understand. We all saw the paper, and we are absolutely furious on your behalf! Please believe us, we don't believe a word of this vicious nonsense!" Charlie declared, his voice ringing with a conviction that masked his near-hysterical internal conflict.
Cedric's eyes widened, locking onto Sebastian's still-moist eyes. Charlie was right! The Professor was crying! This confirmed his initial suspicion. The fact that Sebastian was trying to deny his pain only reinforced Cedric's admiration for his professor's fragile, honorable heart.
The young Hufflepuff felt his own eyes immediately well up. We embarrassed the professor so badly he's weeping in his own office.
Sebastian, meanwhile, was suffering a moment of cognitive dissonance so profound it temporarily erased the memory of his massive yawn.
A question mark face, rendered in the deepest shade of black.
I'm crying? Sebastian thought, utterly baffled. I am sleep-deprived, yes. Mildly frustrated by the logistics of the lesson plan, perhaps. But crying?
He saw his students looking at him with a horrifying combination of pity, shame, and reverence. Debbie, the only girl on the team, was openly dabbing her eyes with the corner of her robe.
The room was swiftly spiraling into a maudlin support group, so Sebastian decided to use the one language that always guaranteed attention: unbridled, targeted rage.
Marcus Flint, naturally, was the first to answer the unspoken call. He stood up, his face livid, his sheer size dominating the Transfigured couch.
"Professor, don't you dare hide your feelings! That damnable Rita Skeeter is nothing but a parasitic insect! How dare she suggest you are a charlatan when you are the only professor here who understands the concept of applied strategy?" Marcus roared, thumping the back of the sectional.
"What is absolutely infuriating is that there are witless little gits in the Great Hall—Slytherins!—who are echoing this rot about Muggle Studies and 'pure-blood betrayal'!"
Flint's fury reached an almost fanatical pitch. "I swear to you, Professor, by the honour of this school team—and I don't care about my prefect badge, my points, or even my place on the team!—if I hear one more student repeat that vile libel, I will personally guarantee they spend the entire next month feeding on pumpkin juice through a straw! We will defend your reputation even if it costs us our education!"
"That's right, Professor!" Langdon chimed in, suddenly energized by the promise of sanctioned violence. "We are your loyal guard! We'll shut them up!"
Even the usually reserved Paul added, "Count me in! We won't let them slander you!"
Sebastian rubbed his temples vigorously. He was not a world-class wizard being consoled; he was the inadvertent founder of a small, aggressively loyal, and highly volatile vigilante group committed to defending his honour through battery.
I am not the Dark Lord, he reminded himself with internal desperation.
I simply need a cup of strong coffee and a twelve-hour nap. I certainly don't need my Quidditch captain starting a faction war.
He raised his hands, cutting through the rising tide of militancy. "Everyone, stop! Sit down immediately."
Sebastian stared down Marcus until the Beater reluctantly slumped back onto the sofa.
"I need to be perfectly clear," Sebastian stated firmly, though the fatigue weakened his tone. "I did not cry. You fundamentally misunderstood what you saw. I was merely tired, which is why my eyes were watering. I am not angry, and I am certainly not heartbroken. Furthermore," he paused, his eyes narrowing slightly at Flint,
"there will be no fighting! Marcus, you have already lost points this morning. If I hear even a whisper of you 'bullying' your classmates, you will be the first person I personally banish from the team. Understood?"
Sebastian knew he couldn't completely dismantle the glorious narrative of the Weeping, Vindicated Professor in one fell swoop. He had to distract them with the one thing that superseded personal feelings: Quidditch strategy.
"Now, since we have established that my feelings are irrelevant, let us utilize this time to actually address the cause of this entire mess: our shameful lack of team cohesion."
He conjured a specialized, flat silver screen—a magical television—and with another command, the slow-motion, annotated playback of the previous day's match began.
"You want to address the newspaper? Fine. The only way to respond to Rita Skeeter is to win. Now, look at this. Charlie, look at the fifteen-minute mark. Your defensive positioning was sound, but Langdon and Paul missed the rotational change by a full four seconds. This is what we are angry about. Not a newspaper."
The students, chastened but also intrinsically drawn to the analysis, immediately leaned forward, their mission shifting from emotional avengers to strategic analysts.
An hour later, having subjected the team to a brutal, frame-by-frame analysis of their systemic failures, Sebastian finally dismissed them, reminding Marcus one last time about the "no fighting" rule.
Sebastian slumped back onto the U-shaped couch, reverting it to its original form. He let out a long, weary sigh.
"Finally. Peace."
He had successfully navigated the emotional minefield and refocused their anger onto productive channels. He had avoided the confrontation, and the ridiculous rumor of his tears was surely confined to the seven members of the team. He decided to reward himself with a proper lunch in the Great Hall.
He walked out of his office, his hunger overwhelming his exhaustion, but his route to the Great Hall became a surreal gauntlet of pity and whispering.
"Hey, did you hear? Professor Swann was so broken by the paper that he was crying in his office all morning!"
"Oh, it's worse than that! My sister heard from a Ravenclaw that the Professor was so embarrassed sending off the Beauxbatons guests that he cried all night and had to Floo straight to his office because he couldn't face his own home!"
"My cousin said Charlie and the Quidditch team found him this morning, absolutely distraught. They had to practically hold his hand! Imagine, a world-class wizard, so sensitive and fragile!"
The rumour had become an airborne contagion, mutating and spreading with every passing yard. Sebastian, walking past the classrooms and down the main staircase, felt like a spectacle in a bizarre zoo.
Students who normally wouldn't meet his gaze were now looking at him with deep, solicitous pity, their eyes wide with concern. Hufflepuffs kept offering him shy, supportive smiles, while several first-years offered him encouraging thumbs-up gestures and whispered, "Be strong, Professor!"
His carefully cultivated reputation for ruthless, hyper-competent calm was dissolving, replaced by the image of a vulnerable, weepy man—a far cry from the steely, driven businessman the Ministry both respected and feared.
Sebastian finally arrived at the entrance of the Great Hall, surveyed the hundreds of whispering, pitying faces, and decided that the risk of sitting down was simply too high. He would not endure a lunch of sympathetic glances and unsolicited emotional support.
I cannot eat this food, he thought, his frustration boiling over.
My reputation for emotional stability is currently lower than the value of a broken quill.
He spun on his heel, heading back toward his office.
"Hateful!" Sebastian muttered, his knuckles white. "My own students don't believe my words over their own bizarre psychological projections! And the ultimate culprit? That miserable beetle, Rita Skeeter."
He had planned to ignore the journalist, allowing her to fade back into the obscurity she deserved. But this... this slander of fragility could not stand.
"I wasn't going to acknowledge you, you journalistic parasite," Sebastian growled, his fatigue momentarily forgotten in a surge of vengeful, unweeping fury. "But a professor has been defamed, and the consequences will now be severe."
He stormed back toward his office, a clear objective forming in his mind. He needed a strategy, not for Quidditch, but for journalistic obliteration.
I will not merely summon an owl. I will send a message that will ruin your entire career, Ms. Skeeter. You have made a powerful enemy today, and he doesn't cry—he calculates.