Fractured Foundations.
The concern had started as a whisper.
Small things, insignificant on their own. Harry’s quiet nature. His unwillingness to talk about his guardian. His detachment. His thin frame.
Then it became a murmur.
The way he flinched, just barely, at unexpected movement. The distant, predatory stillness in his eyes. The fact that he had not reacted to the Dementor the way a child should—no cries, no desperation, just cold anger.
Now, it was a roar.
Because now, they *knew*.
And there were **two** horrors to process.
“I—I do not understand.”
Pomona Sprout’s hands were trembling.
The staffroom was quiet. Unbearably so.
Dumbledore sat in his usual chair, his expression unreadable, but his hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists. McGonagall was stiff, her lips pressed so tightly together they had gone bloodless.
Lupin was the first to break the silence. His voice was hoarse.
“They starved him.”
Flitwick let out a breath, barely a whisper.
Snape’s fingers drummed against the table, slow and methodical. “We knew something was wrong.” His voice was controlled, but his eyes burned. “He never spoke of them. Not once.”
Lupin looked sick. “He never even *considered* telling anyone.”
The silence stretched, thick with a dawning, horrifying realization.
“Why would he?”
The voice was small. Trelawney. She was rarely taken seriously, but her expression now was solemn.
“He does not trust adults. He never has.”
But the worst of it wasn’t just that they had failed to protect him.
It was the second truth.
The one that made McGonagall feel like the breath had been stolen from her lungs.
“The Dursleys don't even have him,” she whispered. “He was *kidnapped* when he was six.”
Silence.
Utter, devastating silence.
A child. A *baby*, taken from where he was meant to be, placed in a home that had never been meant for him.
A childhood filled with cruelty, with beatings, with starvation, with *neglect*.
“And we still do not know who has him *now*.”
Snape’s voice cut through the air like a blade.
They had questioned Potter, more than once.
He had given them nothing.
Harry did not know.
He sat alone, curled up in the Astronomy Tower, staring at the sky.
He missed Teeth.
Teeth, who *understood*.
Teeth, who *saw* him.
He pulled his knees to his chest, resting his chin on them.
The night was cold. The stars stretched endless above him.
Somewhere in the darkness, a predator longed for its pack.