Cassian had been inside carriages before. But never like this.
The Malfoy family carriage was drawn by black horses with eyes like coals, their manes braided with silver thread. Draco lounged across the cushioned seat, pale hair gleaming, smug in a way that seemed to fill the whole space. Narcissa sat with gloved hands folded neatly in her lap, her gaze occasionally drifting between the two boys, though never softening. And Lucius, elegant as a blade, filled the silence with his mere presence.
Cassian sat opposite Draco, back straight despite the way the carriage swayed. Rowle had been forced to squeeze into the corner, the bulk of his frame too crude for velvet seats. His eyes rested on Cassian the way a hawk regards a mouse — not cruel, not kind, but weighing.
No one spoke. Not until the carriage lurched to a halt, the clip of hooves echoing against cobblestone.
The door swung open. Diagon Alley roared to life outside — a flood of sound and color, the air humming with spells, vendors calling their wares, the press of witches and wizards weaving in and out of shops.
"Stay close," Lucius murmured to Draco as he stepped down, his cane tapping smartly against the stone. Narcissa followed, lifting her robes from the dust.
Cassian made to follow. But Rowle's arm came down, barring his chest.
"Not you," Lucius said, his tone sharp and cold as glass. His pale eyes cut toward Rowle. "Keep him in line. Make sure he acquires what is needed. Nothing more."
Draco smirked as though this was expected. Cassian froze on the carriage step, something burning low in his chest.
"Yes, my lord," Rowle rumbled.
And just like that, the Malfoys turned into the crowd, Draco's pale head bobbing between them until he vanished. Cassian was left at the curb with Rowle, who gave him a short, firm shove toward the street.
"Move," Rowle said, flatly.
The first sight Cassian had was Gringotts.
The marble bank towered at the end of the street, steps gleaming like bone. Wizards streamed in and out, their voices buoyant, their purses heavy. Goblins bowed stiffly at patrons they respected and sneered at those they did not.
Cassian's heart gave an unbidden twist. His eyes locked on the doors, on the glow of golden chandeliers spilling light onto stone.
Rowle's hand closed around his shoulder, not cruel, but enough to hold him still. "Don't look too long. That place isn't for you."
"Why not?" Cassian asked before he could stop himself.
Rowle leaned closer, his voice low. "Because you've no vault. No legacy. Step foot inside and they'd treat you like a stray sniffing at a lord's table. Best remember that."
As if to prove him right, one goblin at the door let its eyes linger on Cassian. Its lip curled faintly, then dismissed him entirely.
Cassian tore his gaze away, jaw tight.
Rowle's stare lingered on him for a beat longer than necessary. But he said nothing more, simply gestured toward the shops.
The first stop was Flourish & Blotts.
Inside, parchment smell pressed thick in the air, mingled with ink and dust. Wizards and witches loaded stacks of books onto counters, their children squealing with delight as volumes fluttered in their arms.
Rowle stalked the aisles, pulling books from Cassian's Hogwarts list and dropping them into his arms. The pile grew until his shoulders ached, but he refused to stagger. At the counter, the clerk smiled at him briefly.
"First year, then? Congratulations."
Rowle grunted, laying down coin with a clink sharp enough to slice through Cassian's pride. "Don't flatter him. Just do your work."
Cassian said nothing, only adjusted the books more firmly under his arm.
From there, it was the apothecary, heavy with acrid fumes and jars of grotesque contents. Rowle thrust vials, herbs, and roots at him until Cassian's bag bulged.
"Hold steady," Rowle muttered. "Some of these cost more than your life."
Cassian's grip didn't falter.
By the time they emerged back into the street, his satchel was cutting into his shoulder. His eyes, though, kept darting across the chaos of Diagon Alley. A group of boys crowded a broom display, their noses pressed against glass. A girl squealed as a pet toad hopped from its cage at the menagerie. Everywhere Cassian looked, the world was alive with possibility.
But possibility was not for him. Not yet.
The encounter came suddenly.
They were passing the Quidditch shop when a boy about Cassian's age stepped out, followed by a towering man with a wild mane of hair and beard. The boy's black hair was equally untamed, his glasses slipping down his nose, and there was something strange about him Cassian couldn't name. Something that made the crowd ripple faintly, as if he drew eyes without trying.
Harry Potter.
Cassian didn't know his face, not truly. But the name had whispered through corridors, muttered in Malfoy Manor's darker corners. The boy who lived.
Harry's eyes flicked toward him. Green, startling, almost unnatural. For a moment, they locked.
Cassian's satchel slipped slightly, and a book—Magical Theory—tumbled half-out. Before he could bend to grab it, Harry picked it up and handed it over, expression neutral but eyes sharp with curiosity, as if he sensed something in Cassian that didn't fit.
"Thanks," Cassian muttered, taking the book.
Harry tilted his head. "You're starting this year too?"
Before Cassian could answer, Draco's voice cut through, sharp and deliberate. "Imagine it, Potter—first-years thinking they'll even touch a broom like that." He stepped closer to the shop window, smirking. "Some of us belong in the sky. Others belong in the dirt."
Harry didn't rise to the bait. His jaw set, gaze steady, but the silence was a response in itself. The children around him snickered uncertainly, sensing a challenge.
Lucius paused, cane poised against the stones, his pale eyes flicking to Harry with the faintest lift of a brow. Narcissa's lips curved with subtle approval, but she said nothing.
Cassian felt the tension snap into place. Harry's green eyes flicked to him again, not just Draco, as if measuring him separately. Cassian shifted, refusing to look away.
Rowle's hand pressed against Cassian's back, firm and low. "Keep walking," he muttered, meant for Cassian alone.
Cassian forced his gaze to break, shoving the book back into his satchel. The bearded man tugged Harry forward, muttering, "Come along, Harry." Harry glanced back once as he was pulled into the crowd.
Rowle's grip loosened. "Ignore him. You've enough to carry without picking fights." His tone was flat, not mocking.
Cassian said nothing. But his heart beat differently now, sharper, as though something had just shifted in the air around him.
The bell above Madam Malkin's jingled as Cassian stepped inside. Mannequins in sleek robes turned slowly on their stands, fabric rustling in a hush.
For a moment, he was alone.
Until the curtain rustled, and Draco stepped out from a fitting room. His new robes hung perfectly on his frame, silver trim gleaming.
"Well, well," Draco sneered. "I wondered where you'd been dragged."
Cassian met his gaze. He didn't answer.
Rowle jerked his chin toward the seamstress. "Measure him. Quickly."
As the enchanted tape wound around his arms and legs, Cassian glanced toward the window. Harry Potter had vanished into the throng. But the look had been burned into him.
Not fear. Not awe. Something else entirely.
Something that promised their paths were already entwined.
Their last stop was Ollivanders.
The shop was narrow, dust motes swirling in the beams of pale light. Stacks of boxes towered precariously, each labeled in faded script. The air itself seemed to hum.
"Ah," came a voice. A man with moon-bright eyes stepped forward from the shadows. "New faces. Let us see."
Rowle stayed near the door, arms folded, silent as stone.
Cassian was ushered forward.
Ollivander studied him for a long, unsettling moment. Then he began pulling boxes, muttering measurements under his breath. Cassian tried wand after wand — each one rejecting him with sparks or fizzles of failure.
Until, at last, Ollivander lifted a box from the highest shelf. Dust drifted from its lid as he set it down carefully. He opened it slowly, almost reverently. Inside lay a wand of obsidian-dark wood, polished to a glassy sheen.
His voice was quieter now, edged with something that might have been unease. "This wand… is ancient. Obsidian wood. And its core… a feather of the Shadowphoenix. A rare cousin of the phoenix, if the old stories are to be believed. Their feathers were tried centuries ago as wand cores. Not one ever worked. They were called dead wands."
He hesitated, as if about to put the lid back on. "This one I have kept only out of respect for its age. Never once has it answered to a hand."
Cassian reached. The moment his fingers closed around the smooth black wood, a pulse shuddered through the shop. The lantern flames flickered low. A cold hum spread into his arm, steady, inevitable. The tip of the wand glowed faint silver-violet, not bright, not chaotic—controlled, as though it had been waiting.
Ollivander's pale eyes narrowed sharply. For the first time, his expression broke into something close to astonishment.
"…Impossible."
The wand pulsed again, aligning itself to Cassian's grip with quiet certainty.
"I had long thought this the most useless wand in my keeping," Ollivander murmured. "A relic. A failure. But for you—it wakes." His eyes flicked to Cassian, unreadable. "…Curious. Most curious."
Rowle's brow furrowed at Ollivander's tone, but he said nothing.
Cassian tucked the wand away, silent, though his fingers tingled with the weight of it. Something inside him stirred—something he hadn't felt before.
And for the first time all day, Cassian allowed the faintest curve of a smile.
The door of Ollivanders closed behind them with a hollow, almost final-sounding chime. The smell of wood shavings and wand oil still clung to Cassian's clothes, faint but persistent, as though the shop itself had left a mark on him. He cradled the slim box under one arm. It felt heavier than it should, not in weight but in meaning.
Rowle pushed past him into the street. The man's bulk seemed to part the crowd without effort, his presence enough to make most witches and wizards step aside. He didn't look back at Cassian, but his voice carried low over the din of Diagon Alley.
"You'll want to keep that shut tight. A wand shows more than you think."
Cassian glanced down at the box. The pulse he had felt in the shop still lingered in his hand. The wood—dark, smooth, alive—seemed to hum faintly even through the lid. He swallowed and tucked it close, ignoring the way Rowle's eyes cut toward him, measuring.
The Malfoys emerged from a jeweler's shop further down, their silvery forms standing out against the bustle. Lucius led, cane clicking like a metronome of disdain. Narcissa drifted beside him, serene as marble, while Draco followed a step behind, arms folded, expression smug.
"Finished?" Draco asked, as if Cassian's errands were of little consequence. His eyes darted to the wand box. "Took you long enough. Didn't explode the shelves, did you?"
Cassian didn't answer.
Lucius's gaze didn't linger on Cassian either. It slid past him, assessing Rowle instead. "All in order?"
"Yes, my lord," Rowle rumbled.
Lucius gave a single, cold nod. "Good. Let us finish here. Draco, with me." He turned, cane tapping, and the family swept toward the carriage. Cassian fell into step behind them, Rowle's looming shadow at his side.
By the time the last errand was done, the sun had begun to sink behind the crooked roofs. The Alley glowed in hues of gold and shadow, the bustle still vibrant but softened now by dusk.
The carriage ride back was cloaked in silence.
Draco filled it with talk of Slytherin, of how "some houses simply don't suit certain people." Narcissa nodded indulgently, Lucius corrected him occasionally with quiet precision. Rowle stared out the window, arms crossed, expression granite.
Cassian sat opposite Draco again, wand box resting across his knees. He ran his thumb slowly over the lid, tracing the grain of the wood beneath. The faint warmth still pulsed there, steady, alive.
When the Manor gates loomed at last, iron curling like serpents against the darkening sky, Cassian felt the day press upon him fully. The Alley, with its noise and color and possibility, seemed far away now.
But not gone.
Something had changed. He had seen Gringotts, the vaults denied to him. He had seen Harry Potter, the boy who lived. And in his hand, he held a wand that had chosen him, its pulse echoing against his very bones.
Rowle's voice came as they descended from the carriage. He spoke low, not for Lucius or Narcissa or even Draco, but for Cassian alone.
"Keep it close," he said. "The world doesn't wait for boys without names. But a wand like that—" He paused, studying Cassian's face as though weighing a truth best left unsaid. "—a wand like that might make it listen."
Cassian didn't reply. His fingers tightened around the box. In the darkening air, the ember inside him flared brighter, sharp and undeniable.
The silence of the Manor closed around him once more. But this time, the weight of it felt different.