Thaddeus continued moving through the ship as the afternoon slowly shifted toward a duller, more exhausted light. The golden tone that had once poured through broken gaps in the hull had begun to fade, replaced by a softer, colder glow that made everything feel even more distant. The ship creaked constantly now, not violently, but steadily, like an old structure that had accepted its fate of endless drifting.
He no longer stopped at every body he passed.
At first, the sight of them had been overwhelming. Now it had become something else—something his mind tried to process without emotion just to keep functioning. The passengers were still there, frozen in their final moments, but Thaddeus forced himself to look past them instead of at them.
Survival demanded distance.
His wand remained in his hand and the faint connection he felt with it earlier still lingered, grounding him slightly as he moved through the silent corridors. The system interface remained quiet, only showing his status when he chose to check it.
Eventually, after what felt like a long walk through death itself, he found it.
A heavy wooden door at the upper rear section of the ship. Unlike the others, this one was reinforced with iron bands and carved markings that suggested authority.
Thaddeus paused for a moment before pushing it open.
The room was the captain's cabin, built entirely from thick, weathered wood that creaked softly with every movement of the ship. Compared to the other wooden cabins, it was slightly larger, though still modest and cramped by modern standards. The wooden planks of the walls were darkened by years of sea air and lantern smoke, giving the cabin a warm but aged appearance.
At the center stood a heavy wooden captain's desk, bolted to the floor so it wouldn't slide during rough waters. Its surface was cluttered with scattered charts, a set of navigation tools, dividers, a brass astrolabe, and rolled sea charts tied with faded string. Ink stains marked the surface from years of scribbled orders and voyage logs.
Behind the desk, shelves carved into the wooden walls held weathered books, glass bottles, and thick logbooks documenting countless journeys. Some bottles contained ink, while others held mysterious liquids collected from distant ports. A lantern hung from a hook on the ceiling beam, its dim light swaying gently with the rhythm of the waves.
The air carried a mixture of salt from the sea, ink, aged wood, and old parchment, creating a scent that spoke of long voyages and countless nights spent charting unknown waters. Even in its simplicity, the cabin clearly belonged to someone of authority—the quiet heart of the ship where every course, command, and decision began.
But what immediately caught his attention was the silence of understanding.
There was no crew here either.
Just complete abandonment.
Thaddues stepped inside slowly, eyes scanning everything at once. His mind already connected the pieces of the problem his facing right now. The entire crew had died simultaneously, and the ship is an old ship isn't run by engine but by people. Now that everyone is dead, no one had been left to steer the vessel afterward.
The ship was drifting completely without direction, without control and without destination.
He walked toward the desk and looked down at the scattered materials. Most of it was written in a language he didn't recognize. The characters were sharp, curved, and unfamiliar, like something older than the simplified script he vaguely remembered from modern education.
He frowned slightly.
"This isn't English…"
That thought should have been impossible.
If this world was truly the one he knew from Harry Potter lore, then English should still exist as a dominant language. Even ancient magical texts in that world still used recognizable forms of it.
But this writing was different.
It's more archaic, more fragmented. Almost like a precursor language that had not yet evolved into anything familiar.
His gaze lingered on a large parchment map spread across the desk.
Strange coastlines. Unfamiliar continents. Symbols marking routes that meant nothing to him. Even the names written along the edges were incomprehensible.
He traced one of the lines slowly with his eyes.
He wasn't a hardcore fan, but Marco—who had dragged him to watch the movies before he transmigrated—was obsessed. He used to bombard him with trivia from the books, the kind that should have been helpful in this situation, but wasn't.
Where is Britain? Is this the world map? Why is it different from what he knew?
A quiet realization formed in his mind.
"If this is what the map looks like now… then this must be an older era."
The world laid out before him wasn't fully accurate, not the kind of refined, familiar geography he expected. It was rough, incomplete—still half-shaped by guesswork.
Which meant this might not be the Hogwarts he knew from stories.
The wizarding world here might not yet be the structured society he remembered, with standardized spells, formal schools, and a centralized Ministry.
This felt older. Less refined. Less controlled.
An era before everything was properly documented and regulated—when maps were still being corrected by every voyage, and even language itself could shift from place to place.
And that made it more dangerous.
He leaned back slightly, the weight of that thought settling in.
Then another realization followed, sharper than the first.
If he couldn't understand the map, then he had no way of finding out where he was.
He was completely lost.
The ship could drift for days, weeks, or even months without reaching anything. No guidance meant no certainty and without certainty, survival became a matter of luck.
His eyes moved toward the window.
Outside, the sea stretched endlessly in every direction, darkening slightly as the afternoon began slipping toward evening. The horizon was empty. No sails. No land. No signs of rescue.
Just the endless water.
A slow tension built in his chest as his mind began calculating possibilities.
He had options.
He could leave the ship.
Use a smaller boat, likely one of the wooden boats stored somewhere on board. That would give him control over direction, allow him to search for land actively instead of drifting aimlessly.
But that came with its own problem.
Supplies.
He had livestock in the cargo hold. Food source, yes, but not a sustainable system at sea without preparation. No clear water source.No proper storage. No inventory system to track anything beyond what he could physically carry.
Most importantly—he had corpses.
A floating ship filled with dead bodies.
If he stayed, how long could he tolerate that? Days? Weeks? Months? Decomposition would eventually turn the entire vessel into something far worse than it already was.
But if he left…
He would be abandoning resources.
Risking everything on a small boat in an unknown ocean.
His fingers slowly tightened against the edge of the desk.
Another thought surfaced uninvited.
What if it took months to reach land?
What if he chose a wrong decision?
What if there was no land at all in this direction?
The questions didn't have answers. Only consequences.
Thaddeus stood there for a long time inside the captain's cabin, the fading light of the afternoon slowly shifting toward evening behind him. The ship creaked softly, continuing its endless drift, as if waiting for him to decide its fate as well.
Hours passed without him realizing it.
He studied the map again.
He checked the supplies.
He walked through the ship once more, confirming its condition, the livestock, and check if small wooden boat exists in the ship—which it is.
Each pass added more weight to the decision.
And by the time night finally began to settle over the ocean, the answer still hadn't come.
Not yet.
He returned to the captain's cabin and sat down heavily near the desk, the wand still in his hands.
For the first time since waking on this ship, survival was no longer about immediate danger.
It was about choice.
And choice required understanding consequences that stretched far beyond the present moment.
Thaddeus closed his eyes briefly.
This decision would define everything that came next.
And somewhere beyond the drifting darkness of the sea, the world continued without him—unaware that a single boy stood in the middle of an old wooden ship, deciding whether to stay with the dead or sail alone into the unknown.
TBC
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