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Chapter 13: Familiar faces
🕑 Added 2025-08-29 02:20:41 +0000 UTCThe train’s whistle echoed in the distance, a solemn warning. There were still minutes left before departure.
Ryan was alone now.
Leaning against the window frame, his dark sunglasses still on, more for style than necessity, he observed the platform with a feline stillness. From his compartment, he could see Platform 9¾ coming to life. A hive of robes, unruly pets, enchanted trunks, and farewell shouts.
But he wasn’t looking at the general chaos. He was searching among the faces.
He already knew this wasn’t canon. There would be no Harry Potter, no Ron Weasley, no Granger. But this wasn’t an empty era. It was the prelude to something great. The beginning of a legendary, and tragic, generation.
So he should be able to recognize faces.
At last, he spotted someone familiar: Alicia Fortescue. Neville’s future mother, if everything went according to plan. She walked briskly down the platform, her newly polished prefect’s badge gleaming in the morning sun.
Her robe was perfectly pressed, her hair tied back without a strand out of place, and her expression hovered between focused and irritated. A parchment in hand, she was already corralling a group of lost first-years, as though the train itself wasn’t wide enough to contain all her sense of responsibility.
From the memories he carried, Alicia had often clashed with the old Ryan. Then again, nearly everyone at Hogwarts had butted heads with him at some point, because of his sarcasm, his chronic lateness, or his selective disdain for authority. And given his personality hadn’t changed much, those clashes would likely continue.
Another girl caught Ryan’s attention, standing beside Alicia.
Marlene McKinnon. Ryan’s ex-girlfriend from fourth year.
Marlene had the kind of beauty that didn’t seek attention, yet drew it like an invisible cloak. Light hair, artfully tousled, intense eyes that needed no makeup, and an attitude halfway between defiant and laid-back. She was the same girl who had thrown his sarcasm right back at him during fourth year, and for a few months, had been his girlfriend.
Close to her was Dorcas Meadowes, radiating the air of a warrior ready to fight anyone, her confidence so palpable it was nearly visible. The kind of person you’d want at your side in a magical, or verbal, duel.
Ryan didn’t move.
He was half-reclined against the compartment window, arm draped casually outside, dark sunglasses covering half his face. His golden hair, deliberately tousled, caught the light of the platform.
And then, it happened.
Marlene saw him.
For a second, their eyes met. There was no surprise, no smile.
Dorcas noticed too. She shifted her gaze toward him, lifting one eyebrow, just slightly.
Ryan held her stare calmly, expressionless. The same lazy look he used in class whenever McGonagall told him not to be late for the fifth time.
After a couple of seconds, Marlene looked away. She went on talking as if nothing had happened.
Dorcas, who never missed a single nuance from her best friend, murmured with a sideways grin, “I think there’s invisible tension in the air.”
“Shut up. I couldn’t help it,” Marlene muttered, not amused, as if the admission left a bitter taste in her mouth.
“What is it?” asked Alicia Fortescue, without lifting her eyes from her parchment. She had two lost first-years to deal with, and her tone carried both weariness and resignation.
“Looking at him,” Marlene muttered. “Because he draws attention without lifting a finger.”
Alicia automatically raised her gaze, following her friend’s line of sight. And then she saw him.
Ryan Ollivander.
Leaning out the window of a compartment, half his body outside as though the train were his private balcony. Golden hair, dark glasses hiding his expression, and that posture that screamed, I don’t care about anything, but I still stand out.
Alicia frowned. “Him again? Great… just what we needed to start the school year. I hope we don’t begin with negative points. Last year we lost the House Cup by a handful,” Alicia grumbled under her breath, more to herself than to the other two.
“Mm, he looks a little different,” Alicia couldn’t help but comment.
“What do you mean?” asked Dorcas, glancing back at him.
“I don’t know. He doesn’t have that usual I-don’t-give-a-damn smirk. He seems more… serious, I guess.”
“Maybe he matured,” Marlene joked with an ironic smile. She had tried to get him to take things more seriously and never succeeded. It would be funny if now the bastard suddenly took everything seriously.
“Maybe,” Alicia replied with a shrug, as if it wasn’t worth dwelling on.
Ryan, meanwhile, had already stopped looking at them. From behind his dark glasses, still leaning comfortably against the window, his eyes scanned the platform.
A faint smile formed on his face when he spotted a small group of second- or third-years near carriage five. One of them was writing in the air.
“Check this out!” one said, as he traced his name in the air with a quill of silver body and bluish details. The word floated like enchanted smoke, sharp, bright, and elegant.
Around him, at least five more students stared in awe.
“Where’d you get it?”
“Does it work in all directions?”
“How much did it cost?”
Ryan lowered his glasses just enough to enjoy the scene.
Free advertising. Exactly as he’d imagined.
And the school year hadn’t even begun.
He let his gaze wander across the platform again. Searching for more. Recognizing figures, gestures, groups.
And then he saw them.
The Marauders.
James Potter, hair as unruly as if he had just fought with the wind—and won. Smiling with the confidence of someone convinced the world would cheer for him no matter what he did.
Beside him, Sirius Black. Tall, lean, with that careless elegance only someone raised in a pure-blood household could carry… and which, at the same time, he seemed to despise with every fiber of his being. His robe hung open, and he walked as though nothing mattered, except the things he kept hidden.
Remus Lupin trailed behind. Quiet. With a book in hand, of course. His eyes were sharp, his posture restrained. He scanned the surroundings as though measuring every move. He didn’t speak much, but when he did, his friends listened.
Peter Pettigrew, lastly, followed in short, scurrying steps, laden with bags and a nervous expression. He smiled too soon, laughed without being asked, and seemed to work twice as hard just to be noticed half as much.
Ryan studied them without hurry. They weren’t just popular boys. They were history in the making. Legend before the legend.
But his gaze lingered on Peter.
The rat.
He shuffled half-hidden behind Sirius, as if his shadow offered magical protection. Carrying a cage and two bags, stumbling over his own robes, smiling out of sync with that look of: Please don’t leave me behind.
Ryan watched him for several seconds, unmoving.
What if I eliminated him now to avoid future damage?
The idea arrived like ink on a feather: thin, absurd… but not entirely dismissible.
He knew of a secret chamber where a mythological serpent slept, eager to kill children at school. Of course, he couldn’t speak Parseltongue. But he had time. Maybe he could find a way. Or find a Slytherin who spoke Parseltongue, pay them, and make them his partner.
He wasn’t entirely serious. But he wasn’t a hundred percent joking either.
The story was already written.
Peter would be the traitor.
The one who betrayed the Potters.
The one who killed Cedric, who helped resurrect Voldemort, who betrayed them all.
'And now he’s right there… looking like he wouldn’t hurt a fly,' Ryan thought with a curl of disdain.
He didn’t take his eyes off the Marauders until another group caught his attention.
As he turned his head slightly, he saw them.
Severus Snape, skinny and hunched as always, walked with a firm stride, though his shoulders were drawn inward. His gaze was fixed straight ahead, as if ignoring everything around him, yet his right hand never strayed from the inner pocket of his robe.
Beside him, like a sharper and more elegant shadow, walked Evan Rosier.
He wore his robe open, as if putting it on were nothing but a formality, and the Slytherin crest stitched on his chest looked more like part of a military uniform. His dark hair was slicked back, gleaming faintly under the platform’s light, and his blue eyes scanned the crowd with a predator’s calm.
Evan carried a faint, measured smile that never reached his eyes.
The kind of smile that came hand in hand with comments that humiliated with polish and surgical precision.
With them was Mulciber.
Shorter than Rosier, but stocky. Square jaw, thick arms, heavy movements. A block of stone in a robe. He said nothing, but his very presence drew attention, earning nervous glances, especially from a group of Hufflepuffs who stepped aside as soon as they saw him coming. And the fear wasn’t unfounded.
Mulciber’s reputation preceded him: brutal duels, dark hexes, punishments for attacking students, and a twisted grin that made it look like he enjoyed others’ pain.
Ryan watched them carefully. Rosier and Mulciber were fifth-years like him. But Snape was a fourth-year, and yet he ran with them. Not entirely unusual.
Snape had excellent grades, was talented, won points for his house.
'A pity,' Ryan thought.
He had always liked Snape as a character in the books—of course, once he learned the full story. The sacrifice, the redemption, the double agent who never stopped loving Lily even decades after her death.
Even so, his pity or any desire to befriend him wasn’t particularly strong. For one thing, he had the other Ryan’s memories and knew a few things. He knew well that this Snape wasn’t just some poor outcast bullied by James and Sirius.
No. Snape had venom in his tongue, replies sharp as blades, a fierce intelligence, and a pride far too big for his bony frame.
He always clashed. He never let anything slide.
Yes, the Marauders (James and Sirius) teased him, but he never stayed quiet.
He met them with such razor-sharp rage that at times it seemed like he was provoking them on purpose.
And that was why Rosier and Mulciber had become “friends.” For his talent, his brilliant marks, his obsession with dark magic…
And Snape clearly didn’t just tolerate Rosier’s purist remarks.
Sometimes he echoed them.
And though he was a half-blood, he spoke with the arrogance of a pure-blood.
The irony was obvious: the girl he secretly loved was a “Mudblood,” yet he surrounded himself with those who despised her kind. And Snape never contradicted them. Maybe he didn’t say it aloud, but he didn’t need to. His silence spoke for him.
And even if he did harbor some inner conflict, the truth was he chose that environment. He tolerated it, validated it, upheld it.
And besides, if not for Lily, Snape most likely would never have betrayed the Death Eaters.
He only turned on Voldemort when he realized his own mistake could cost the life of the only person he had truly loved. But before that? He served. Otherwise, how the hell did he gain Voldemort’s trust?
Why would someone as paranoid, as obsessed with control, as twisted as Voldemort, come to consider Snape more trustworthy than Bellatrix Lestrange, who quite literally lived to please him?
There was only one answer.
Because Snape had earned it.
Voldemort did not give his trust lightly. He didn’t share it. He was a being who had torn his soul into pieces out of fear of death.
And yet, when things got difficult… he didn’t send Bellatrix, or the Lestranges, or even any of his loyal pure-blood followers.
He sent Snape. Trusting him.
And to achieve that, it was because Snape had been part of the Death Eater system. Because he had killed, tortured, obeyed orders without hesitation.
Because he knew how to act like one of them. He was one of them.
And that, even if he later redeemed himself, could never be erased.
Ryan knew it. And deep down, he struggled to decide what to do with that knowledge.
'Should I kill him now?' he thought. The school year was long.
The idea came unfiltered.
After all, many said that Snape’s level of magic rivaled Voldemort’s when he became an adult, and that he had even taught the Dark Lord charms.
What if he eliminated him now, before he became a problem?
If this were the main canon, he wouldn’t even consider it, since Snape was an ally.
But this wasn’t the canon timeline, and Snape, no matter how much tragedy he carried, no matter how much pain he bore… was a future enemy.
Because the reality was clear:
Snape would only betray Voldemort at the end of the war.
Which meant that before 1980, for at least five or six years, he served the Dark Lord with total loyalty.
Not as a pawn.
As one of his best recruits.
How many people had he killed? How many “Mudbloods” had he delivered up? How many had he killed with his wand trembling… or perhaps not trembling at all?
The thought was so absurd he almost laughed out loud.
He had already considered using the basilisk on Peter… and now he was thinking about killing Snape.
Ten minutes on the train and he was already planning to murder two historical characters.
“Relax…” he muttered under his breath, scratching his head, “I’m not a serial killer. They haven’t done anything yet.”
Of course, the word yet left a strange taste in his mouth. Because he knew what they would do.
He knew Peter would become a filthy traitor in the future.
And Snape would join the Death Eaters, one of Voldemort’s most loyal, earning his trust.
And there lay the moral trap.
Is it right to kill someone for what they’re going to do, even if they haven’t done it yet?
Even if right now, at this very moment, he was just another boy, dragging his robes down the corridor with the look of someone who hadn’t slept well?
Even if, as of now, he hadn’t committed a single crime worthy of death?
It was an uncomfortable question. A dilemma.
If he said yes… if he accepted the idea of killing someone before the crime, then he became the executioner of destiny.
Judge and executioner of the future. Truly questionable.
And following that logic, he should also kill: Evan Rosier, Bellatrix, Mulciber… the list was long. The basilisk would have more than enough to eat.
But what if he was wrong? What if things changed? What if, by the slightest alteration of the present caused by his being here, that future didn’t unfold exactly the same way?
Yet following that line of thought led him to another conclusion.
If he let them live, if he allowed the pieces to keep falling into place out of fear of dirtying his hands, then…
he also had to accept that he was letting potential monsters live.
Future murderers.
Torturers.
Traitors.
Ryan stopped watching the students still arriving at the station through the window and turned his eyes to the ceiling of his compartment.
'Not yet…' he concluded. He’d keep an eye on all these future Death Eaters. The moment he had the slightest suspicion they’d crossed to the dark side… he wouldn’t hesitate.
That was an advantage. Because while no one knew who the Death Eaters were, hidden behind masks, attacking out of nowhere and disappearing, he already knew who was under them. Which families, which names. Not all of them, of course, but the most important ones.
'How the hell didn’t the Ministry catch them earlier? They’re ridiculously obvious,' Ryan thought.
The Lestranges, for example.
Fanatical pure-bloods, rich, arrogant, with stares that screamed genocide and black robes even at weddings.
Seriously, did no one suspect them?
Evan Rosier. Son of an important purist family, with the charisma of a dictator and the attitude of an opera villain.
Mulciber. With the face of a torturer, hatred for Muggle-borns and half-bloods, and a smile that reveled in others’ pain. That was already plain to see at Hogwarts.
And Sirius Black…
Well, he broke the mold. But his entire family was practically a blacklist of surnames, except for a few, like Andromeda.
Just then, as he was lost in these thoughts, the door of his compartment slid open and a female voice asked:
“Mind if I sit here?”
