The hospital finally emptied.
Raven Shafiq lingered in the quiet, letting the faint hum of the fluorescent lights and the distant sounds of London settle into his consciousness. It was almost half past six, and the corridors had emptied of the last few lingering patients.
Occasionally, the soft shuffle of a nurse's shoes or the distant rattle of a trolley broke the silence, but otherwise, the building seemed suspended in its own quiet world.
He leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers behind his head. The sterile walls, the neatly stacked files, the faint scent of disinfectant—it was all so ordinary. So… human.
For a moment, he let himself feel it: a little peace, a little relief that he had made it through another day.
Another day of consultations.
Another day of muggle problems.
Anxiety. Insomnia. Family tensions.
Emotional fatigue.
He closed his eyes briefly and pictured the faces of his patients, the words they had used, the hesitant gestures that betrayed worry. He had learned to listen with patience, with empathy, with the quiet skill of someone who had lived through extraordinary circumstances.
He finally stood and draped his white coat neatly over the back of his chair. Beneath his waistcoat, snug against his chest, rested a slender wand carved from dark wood—a hidden reminder that magic still existed, even here.
No one in the hospital would suspect its presence and Raven preferred it that way.
The streets outside were cool and damp, carrying the distinct scent of autumn rain lingering over the pavement. London's evening air was brisk, pricking at his cheeks and prompting him to pull his coat closer.
Streetlamps flickered on one by one, their golden light reflecting in the puddles on the uneven pavement. The occasional bus rumbled past, and the soft murmur of distant pedestrians created a gentle urban symphony.
Raven walked calmly, deliberately. He was a part of the city's rhythm, a figure among many, yet entirely separate. To a passerby, he would have seemed like any other young professional: tidy, composed, dark-haired, eyes scanning the street politely but absent-mindedly.
But to himself, he knew the truth: he was not merely another man of the city. He had been born into another world entirely. One of privilege, ancient tradition, and impossible expectations. A world that had rejected him.
And yet, somehow, he had survived.
By the time he reached his apartment—a modest flat on the third floor of a narrow brick building—Raven had fallen into the familiar rhythm that he had perfected over the years.
One turn of the key, a gentle push of the door, and the flat responded in kind.
Magic stirred within its walls.
The white cloak slid from his shoulders and folded itself neatly onto the stand. Utensils floated from cupboards into the kitchen.
The kettle filled itself with water, a pan floated onto the stove, and a flame sparked gently beneath it. Eggs cracked themselves into a bowl, stirred by a hovering whisk.
Brooms and cloths busied themselves with sweeping and polishing. Even the small pile of books on the table aligned themselves neatly.
Raven paused in the doorway, letting his eyes take it all in. This flat—his flat—was a sanctuary. Alive, yes, but quiet, familiar, and obedient. Unlike the wizarding world, unlike the Shafiq family estate, this space required nothing of him.
"Evening," he murmured to the empty room. The kettle whistled in reply. A faint smile tugged at his lips.
He settled near the window, the faint chill from outside brushing against his cheeks, and let his eyes wander over the streets below.
Distant voices, occasional cars, the amber glow of streetlights reflecting in puddles—it all seemed mundanely perfect.
Yet, as always, Raven's thoughts strayed elsewhere.
He had not always lived a life like this.
He had once existed in a world where magic was only fiction. A world where Harry Potter's story was something he read in novels and never expected to live. He remembered being a teenager, dreaming of the castle, imagining the moving staircases, the enchanted ceilings, the thrill of casting spells.
And then he woke up.
He had been reborn into the wizarding world, in the body of a child in the Shafiq family, one of the oldest and most rigidly traditional pureblood houses. Wealth. Power. Expectations. All placed neatly on his shoulders before he even spoke his first word.
At first, he believed it was a gift. Knowledge from another life. An advantage unmatched. He knew the future—or at least, he thought he did.
He tried to intervene. Small things, at first. A warning here, a subtle nudge there. He passed information to Dumbledore.
Hinted at dangers to friends he had known from his previous life. Tried, in his own quiet way, to change the story he knew by heart.
But the river of fate was unyielding.
Lily Evans still died. James Potter still fell. Voldemort's rise and fall proceeded exactly as history had dictated.
And Raven learned something vital: some stories could not be rewritten. Some destinies were absolute.
The smell of eggs pulled him back to the present. Raven rose and moved to the kitchen as the enchanted pan floated into place. Plates, cutlery, and cups arranged themselves neatly on the table. He poured a cup of tea, the steam curling lazily in the cool evening air, and sat down to eat slowly.
As he ate, he allowed himself a moment to reflect on what had brought him here—this quiet, controlled life in the muggle world.
After Hogwarts, after graduation, he had spoken a truth that shattered centuries of expectations.
He was gay.
The Shafiq household could not accept it.
They could not bend, not even for the only son of the house. Disownment followed swiftly. The doors of the estate closed behind him. His inheritance revoked. His title stripped. His place in the family erased.
And yet, strangely, he had felt no despair.
Only relief.
Freedom was a strange thing for someone born into a life of obligation.
The muggle world had welcomed him with quiet indifference. He studied psychology and found he had a talent for understanding the human mind. While others worried about magic and destiny, he learned to navigate the ordinary.
He invested his savings from the Gringotts vaults left in his name. Small companies first. Then larger, more promising ones. By the time he graduated, he was not only independent but financially secure, stable even by muggle standards.
Wealth, however, had never been his goal.
Independence was enough.
Still, he had never abandoned magic entirely. It flowed through his apartment, through his careful routines, through the very fabric of his daily life. He had learned to live between two worlds: one of extraordinary possibility and one of deliberate ordinariness.
Raven rose from his seat, brushing crumbs from his hands. The enchanted dishes moved themselves to the sink, and the brooms returned to their corners.
He walked toward the window and gazed out at the quiet streets below, lost in thought.
And then he heard it.
The soft tap… tap… at the window drew his attention. A brown owl perched gracefully on the sill, golden eyes locked on him with quiet patience.
Raven exhaled, a faint tightening in his chest he could not entirely suppress. "Well," he murmured to himself, "it seems the past has a way of finding me."
The owl dropped onto the table, extending a leg with a sealed envelope hanging from it.
The emblem of the Ministry of Magic glimmered in the fading light—formal, cold, official.
Raven offered the bird a small biscuit, watching its sharp eyes blink once, twice, before it returned to its perch. He broke the wax seal, unfolding the parchment carefully.
At first, the words seemed ordinary: dates, formalities, instructions. And then the line that made his chest tighten.
Both your parents are deceased.
For a moment, the room seemed to constrict. The hum of London outside, the faint rustle of his moving kitchen tools—all of it faded into silence.
They were gone.
The same house that had once disowned him, the same parents who had spoken words that cut him deeper than any spell, were gone.
And yet, Raven felt something that had little to do with pride or inheritance.
His throat tightened.
A weight pressed on his chest, heavy and persistent.
They had been his family.
Estranged, cold, disappointed—but family.
The only ones who had ever held the name Shafiq, the only ones whose blood coursed through him, were gone.
He folded the letter slowly, the edges crisp under his fingers.
Memories of his childhood flashed unbidden: his father's quiet expectation, his mother's measured disapproval, the long dinners where he had smiled and nodded, pretending to be someone he was not.
Even the moments of anger and rejection, even the moment they had disowned him—those memories carried a weight of love twisted into duty, a harshness that had shaped him more than he had allowed himself to admit.
A sharp ache settled in his chest.
He had thought he had left all that behind when he walked away from the Shafiq estate, when he built a life in the muggle world. Yet the news hit him with a quiet, relentless force.
He sat down heavily in his chair, staring at the floor as a low, almost imperceptible sigh escaped him. Tears—long dormant, long denied—pressed at the edges of his eyes.
Not of bitterness, not of anger—but of loss. Grief. For what could never be. For the parents who were gone, even though their absence had once felt like liberation.
Raven pressed a hand against his face, letting himself feel the sorrow fully. The paradox was sharp: relief at the freedom they had taken from him, mourning for the family he could never truly reconcile with, sadness for their deaths, and guilt for feeling that sadness at all.
In that quiet flat, amidst floating dishes and gentle whirls of enchanted cleaning tools, he allowed himself a moment of pure, unguarded humanity.
They had been his family. They had shaped him, loved him in their own harsh way, and now they were gone.
And with them gone came responsibility—the vaults, the estates, the shop in Diagon Alley.
Even as his mind began ticking through the legal and practical implications, Raven did not move immediately.
He let the sorrow settle, let it anchor him. This grief, tangled and complicated, was a reminder that no matter how far he had walked, no matter how much he had escaped or built anew, family, even estranged, left a mark that never fully faded.
Finally, he exhaled.
Slowly.
Quietly.
"Time," he murmured, voice low, almost reverent.
"Time to go home."
The owl tilted its head, as if acknowledging the weight of his words, and he rose.
----
TBC