A World That Listens
Wren had died once.
Or maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she’d just… shifted.
One moment she was twenty-two, sipping tea and rereading The Half-Blood Prince, and the next, she was eleven again, in a different body, with magic stitched into her veins like it had always been there.
She didn’t fight it. Because she loved this world. Had loved it since she was a child.
But living it was different than loving it from a page.
The air tasted richer. The magic thrummed deeper. Emotions — hers, others’ — rippled around her like water. Sometimes it was overwhelming. Like feeling the whole castle breathe.
She didn’t tell anyone.
Not about the before. Not about the memories of a world with phones and trains and laughter that wasn’t laced in Latin.
Instead, she played.
At night, by the Black Lake, where the moonlight softened everything, she poured her confusion and love and grief into her violin until it felt like the lake itself was listening.
And someone else, too.
She’d felt him before she saw him. A flicker of warmth. A heartbeat just outside the edge of her focus.
One night, she paused mid-song.
“I know you’re there,” she said, not turning. “You breathe too loudly.”
There was a rustle. Then a sheepish, “Sorry.”
She turned.
James Potter stood a few feet away, wind-tousled hair even messier than usual, his hands buried in his Quidditch jacket.
“You’ve been watching me,” she said softly.
He didn’t deny it. “Yeah.”
A pause.
“I’m not a ghost,” she added, half-teasing. “You could have said hello.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” James said. “You looked… like you were part of the night.”
That made her blink.
No one had ever said something like that to her. Not in her old life. Not here.
“Why?” she asked.
He looked at her, eyes honest. “Because when you play, it feels like the world slows down. And I didn’t want it to stop.”
She tucked her violin under her arm, unsure what to say.
So he stepped closer, hands out like he was approaching something sacred.
“Do you… think you could teach me?” he asked. “Not music. Just… how to listen the way you do.”
And that — that was when she knew.
This wasn’t just James Potter, the prankster, the Quidditch captain, the boy with the sunshine grin.
This was someone who saw her — really saw her — even when she was made of other worlds and old songs and magic she hadn’t spoken aloud.
Wren smiled softly. “Okay. But only if you bring snacks.”
He grinned. “Deal.”