Observations
Albus Dumbledore prided himself on his ability to notice the unseen.
It was a skill honed over years of war and intrigue, sharpened by his encounters with the kind of people who lurked in shadows and shaped the world in ways most would never perceive. He had learned to read the space between words, the hesitation in a handshake, the way a person occupied a room.
And Professor Evans did not occupy a room like a man should.
At first, it had been subtle—things he could have dismissed as imagination.
The way the candles in the Great Hall burned lower when Evans entered, their once-steady flames trembling, guttering ever so slightly. The way the portraits blinked more often, their inhabitants quieting as if they had forgotten their words.
And then there were the ghosts.
Dumbledore had long grown used to Hogwarts’ spirits. The Grey Lady, floating through the corridors with her eternal sorrow. The Fat Friar, ever cheerful, ever kind. The Bloody Baron, whose very presence sent a chill through students' bones.
Yet it was he who hesitated now.
Dumbledore had seen it with his own eyes—the Baron, that silent specter wrapped in chains, had begun giving Evans a wide berth. The Grey Lady refused to drift past him, turning sharply on translucent heels. Even Peeves, for all his mischief, had grown oddly quiet when Evans walked by.
That was when Dumbledore truly began to watch.
There was something different about the man.
It was not just his paleness, though that was striking—his skin had lost its warmth, fading from merely fair to something approaching the color of ash.
It was not just the way shadows stretched toward him, curling at his heels like eager hounds.
It was not just the way sound seemed to dull in his presence, how conversations would dip in volume when he entered a room, only to resume as if nothing had changed.
It was all of it.
And more than that—it was a feeling.
Dumbledore did not often trust things without proof, but he had spent enough time around dark forces to recognize when something was unnatural.
And there was something about Evans that was utterly, entirely wrong.
The realization settled into his bones one evening as he watched the man walk across the Great Hall.
Students barely noticed him—some greeted him, some did not. To them, he was simply another professor, another mind behind a desk. But to Dumbledore, he was a fracture in reality itself.
And for a moment—just a flicker of an instant—Evans turned his head, and their eyes met.
There was nothing human in those eyes.
They were green, yes, but too dark, too endless. As if something else was staring through them.
Dumbledore held his gaze, but Evans only smiled. A polite, meaningless thing. And then he turned away, continuing on as if nothing had passed between them.
Dumbledore exhaled slowly.
He had fought many things in his life. He had encountered dark wizards, creatures of the abyss, things that whispered in forgotten tongues.
And yet, as he watched Professor Evans sit at the staff table, utterly at ease, utterly unreadable, he thought:
"I do not know what he is."
But he would find out.