Time was a strange thing at Hogwarts.
It flowed unpredictably, sometimes rushing through days like a broken dam, other times dragging through hours as though caught in a slow swirl. For Ethan, the start of his second year felt somewhere in between. Classes, conversations, and corridors filled his days again, but he moved through them with an undercurrent of tension humming beneath his calm surface.
He tried to enjoy it. He wanted to enjoy it.
And in some ways, he did.
The castle was just as vast and magical as he remembered, shifting staircases and whispering portraits, ceiling charmed to match the sky, secret doors hidden behind tapestries. The library still gave him the same comfort, the rustle of pages, the soft smell of old parchment, the quiet company of students who preferred books to voices.
But he wasn't the same as he had been a year ago.
Neither was his life.
Classes were easier than they had been in his first year, not because the content had become simpler, if anything, the assignments had grown more intense, but because he had already studied them ahead of time. He had spent much of his first year reading beyond his level.
Except, of course, for the things he couldn't.
Like his mother becoming the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
That was still something he hadn't quite processed. Each time he saw her at the staff table during meals or leading their class, it didn't feel quite real. She fit the position well enough. She had always been composed, deliberate, and sharp. But this job, the one was cursed, wasn't something she should have been anywhere near. And yet, there she was, smiling at the Gryffindor first-years struggling to pronounce their incantations.
She looked normal. Acted normal.
But Ethan watched her closely all the same, yet,
"Is it true your mum was the one who prosecuted Lockhart?"
"Weren't you there? At the trial?"
"Did she really say that he obliviated people?"
"I heard she used Veritaserum."
Ethan always had someone asking him something. He answered the ones he felt were asked with genuine curiosity. Short responses. Measured tones.
But not everyone came with honest intentions.
There were always a few, bold Ravenclaws with a taste for gossip, or smug Slytherins who admired Lockhart's charm even now, who confronted him with an air of superiority. A strange kind of defense, as if they had been the ones wronged by Lockhart's imprisonment.
"I still think it was overkill," a third-year muttered near the library entrance one day. "So what if he altered some memories? Nobody died."
Ethan kept walking.
"Everyone loved his books," another student said in the Great Hall. "He inspired people. That kind of influence is rare."
Ethan spooned mashed potatoes onto his plate without reacting.
"I bet it was all jealousy," a girl from Hufflepuff sneered as he passed. "Your mother was probably just upset he was more famous."
That ine almost got a hex. But even Ethan knew that the professors tended to frown upon cursing fellow students, even when they richly deserved it. And besides, it wasn't worth it. Their words stung, but only in the way a buzzing fly stung. Persistent, annoying, but ultimately hollow.
They didn't know what Lockhart had done. Not really. They hadn't seen the memories, hadn't watched the testimonies, hadn't heard the shaky voices of the victims. They were just parroting rumors or defending the shiny surface of a man who had stolen the light from others.
So Ethan ignored them.
Still, it lingered. All of it. The resentment. The attention. The whispers. He didn't like the attention, it wasn't the good kind.
So he buried himself in what comforted him most, magic.
That week, he returned to the Room of Requirement. It had been too long. The door had appeared for him with no resistance, the room shifting itself into what he needed, a wide, quiet space along with a few practice dummies, stacks of cushions, and plenty of light.
He practiced spells again, also beginning to practice an advanced spell, protego. He took his time, lost himself in it. And there, in the silence of the room that asked for nothing but effort, he found a kind of peace.
It was halfway through a particularly momentthat a thought occurred to him. One that made him pause.
He should bring his mother here.
Not now. Not right away. But soon.
She would love it.
Not just because it was a marvel of hidden magic, though it certainly was, but because she was the kind of person who studied and unraveled secrets. Who questioned enchantments and broke apart layered spells just to see how they worked. Her whole job before teaching had been unraveling magical structures, investigative dissection. To figure out puzzles.
She might even learn something about it that he hadn't. Things he just couldnt begin to understand about this place.
He smiled a little at the thought. The idea of sharing this place with her, letting her find its secrets, bringing her into this part of his life that had so far been just his own. It felt… good. Right.
And maybe, in a way, it would help. Maybe if she understood how this room worked, she'd have another refuge, a space where she could be away from the pressures of her classroom, the students, the gossip, the burden of a cursed post.
He didnt know if these things were bothering her, but this place was likely to become his refuge during this year. But he would wait for the right moment. When things were quiet.
When it was safer
Once he knew she was safe from that cursed teaching position, possibly near school was over for this year. Especially because there were some dangerous items lurking in here.
But he would do it.
Eventually.
For now, he extinguished the lights with a flick of his wand and stepped back into the corridor, the stone door sealing behind him, as if the room had never been there.
Back in the castle's main corridors, life continued its unbothered rhythm. Peeves crashed a stack of vases somewhere off in the distance. A third-year was running from a group of laughing first-years whose jelly-legs jinx had backfired. The walls murmured with the voices of students trying to memorize charms or guess what Snape would spring on them next.
It was Hogwarts. Beautiful. Chaotic. Magical.
And despite everything, despite the worry, despite that small bit of guilt, Ethan couldn't help but still love it.
Even if he had to watch his mother more than he should.