Chapter 50

Ryan sat down beside Andromeda, arranging his things naturally but without invading her space.

There was a moment of comfortable silence before Ryan glanced at the clock on the wall and noticed the time.

“Fifteen minutes left before class starts,” he murmured, then lowered his voice slightly, still casual in tone. “Won’t it get you in trouble if I sit here? I mean… when the people from your House show up and see you with me, that won’t look good.”

Andromeda turned her head slightly toward him, as if she hadn’t expected the question. The way she looked at him wasn’t annoyed, but… curious. As if she didn’t quite know what to do with that genuine concern.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said softly. “After buying the gray quill and sitting at the Gryffindor table for a few minutes, my relationship with them… is pretty much beyond repair,” she joked, though the weight of her words wasn’t as light as it sounded.

Ryan frowned. It wasn’t a subtle or restrained expression—it was real, a mix of irritation and indignation. As if what he’d just heard didn’t just bother him… it genuinely angered him, though he tried to hide it.

Andromeda noticed immediately.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.

“Nothing,” he said at first, like someone trying to hold back. “It’s just that…” He ran a hand through his hair and let it fall. “It’s ridiculous.”

She looked at him silently, waiting for him to go on.

“That they’re so dramatic,” he burst out at last. “Those damn purist Slytherins are so absurdly picky. You can’t buy a quill or sit at another table without it being treated like cosmic betrayal. Really?”

Andromeda lowered her gaze slightly but said nothing.

Ryan took a deep breath and went on:

“What did I do that was so awful? Did I punish Mulciber and Evan Rosier in front of everyone? Sure. Did I earn their hatred? Obviously. But I didn’t curse them, didn’t hex them. I just… spoke. I said what anyone should’ve said.”

He turned to her, his face more serious than usual. The joking tone was gone.

“I asked them where their honor was, their so-called Pride of Blood. Because attacking an eleven-year-old girl two-on-one, that’s not power. That’s cowardice. And you know what’s worse? Everyone else in your House saw it… and they didn’t get angry at the real culprits, Mulciber and Rosier. They’re angry at me. For pointing it out. Unbelievable. I wonder if they’re idiots or if they just pretend it’s fine to hurt a little girl like that.”

Andromeda listened in silence. She didn’t interrupt. She barely even blinked.

And when Ryan finished, when that last, frustrated line hung between them, she let a few seconds pass.

“They’re not idiots,” she said quietly, firmly. “They know exactly what they’re doing. They just… don’t care.”

Ryan tilted his head slightly, as if her answer confirmed what he feared most.

“Mulciber and Rosier are violent,” she continued. “And the rest… they’re comfortable with violence, as long as it’s aimed at those who ‘don’t matter.’ Muggle-borns, half-bloods, blood traitors… they’re all on that invisible list they wrote years ago.”

She turned a little toward him, her expression calm, though there was a spark in her eyes that was hard to ignore.

“And you don’t fit their rules. That bothers them. It bothers them that someone who doesn’t fear them talks about honor, something they’ve never truly had.”

A pause.

“And yeah…” she added with a soft exhale, “I don’t fit in either. But I’ve been pretending I do for years. Sometimes it’s easier to stay quiet. Or at least… it used to be.”

Her words carried the same weight as Ryan’s. She wasn’t complaining, nor playing the victim. She was simply telling the truth, in the calm voice of someone who’d carried that burden for a long time.

“So don’t apologize,” she added finally. “For what you said. For what you did. Because if no one else says it… someone has to. And you did. Even if it makes you the target of every stare in the room.”

Ryan looked at her for a moment longer, as if processing every word. Then his expression shifted. Subtly, a raised eyebrow, a faint smirk beginning to draw across his face.

“Apologize?” he repeated with mock disbelief. “After giving them the best lesson in dignity they’ve seen in years? Never.”

Andromeda turned her face toward him, the corner of her lips starting to curve upward.

“Besides…” Ryan continued, slipping back into that charmingly arrogant tone that seemed to be his natural state, “considering how easy it was to take down Mulciber and Rosier… honestly, I feel cheated. So much bragging about pure blood, only to end up so pathetically? Maybe I should’ve challenged someone from seventh year.”

He shrugged. “They say your sister Bellatrix is good, right? Though honestly, I’m not sure she’d be on my level.”

Andromeda’s laughter came instantly. And this time, she didn’t bother to hide it behind her hand. It was open and genuine.

“Now that sounds like the Ollivander I expected,” she said, still smiling. “Galactic ego confirmed.”

Ryan watched her laugh, that wide, genuine smile nothing like the usual composed elegance she carried. And for a second, just one, he thought that her laughter might be one of the most valuable things he’d ever managed to provoke.

But then time began to move again, and with a glance at the clock above the board, he noticed there were barely ten minutes left before class started. Any moment now, the room would begin to fill.

“Speaking of galactic egos…” he said, lowering his voice a little as if sharing a secret, “I’m going to show you my second invention. I don’t want you thinking it’s all quills and floating colored lights.”

He reached into his robe and carefully pulled out a small case. When he opened it, he revealed his Reading Glasses x2.

“These glasses double your reading speed. What would normally take you two hours, you do in one. They don’t improve comprehension, of course, but they do boost efficiency, no eye strain, no headaches. The Department of Inventions has already approved them, completely legal.”

He smiled as he caught the spark of interest in Andromeda’s eyes.

“I’ve sold fewer than ten units so far. Only close Gryffindors have them. But the rumors are spreading. And I wonder… when those self-proclaimed purists hear about them, will they keep their chins high or come begging me to sell them a pair before O.W.L.s?”

Andromeda looked at him with a mix of skepticism and genuine curiosity. She extended her hand silently, and Ryan handed her the glasses without hesitation.

She put them on carefully, adjusting them to her face. Then she picked up her small Astronomy book, the same one that had started this entire silent exchange, and began to read.

Seconds passed. One, two… five, ten, thirty.

At exactly three minutes, she lowered the book slowly and blinked.

“Incredible…” she murmured, almost to herself. “It actually works. I really did read faster, and I don’t feel the slightest bit of strain.”

Ryan said nothing, but his raised eyebrows and self-satisfied smile said it all.

“You are…” Andromeda began, removing the glasses carefully, “absolutely insufferable when you’re right.”

“Luckily, reason and I tend to walk the same corridors.”

Andromeda kept looking at the glasses between her fingers as if she were holding a precious secret. She carefully placed them back in their case, then turned toward Ryan with that expression of hers, somewhere between neutral and inquisitive.

“Could you make a pair for me? I’ll pay, of course,” she said.

Ryan had expected that. Who wouldn’t want to read faster as a student?

“Of course. Consider them already in production. Frame color?”

“Obsidian black,” she answered instantly. Then she narrowed her eyes slightly, as if remembering something. “How much do they cost?”

Ryan hesitated for just a second. He knew that with an invention like this, he could set any price he wanted. The last unit had sold for fifty-seven galleons, even though the materials had only cost him seven. The first two went for thirty, the next four for forty, and the most recent for fifty-seven. No one had ever haggled. Everyone understood their worth.

And yet, he remembered what she had told him minutes earlier, her relationship with her family was tense, maybe worse. And if they found out what she had done, and considering she’d said herself that her ties to her House were now beyond repair, it was likely her allowance had been cut off. Frozen. Or reduced.

“Forty galleons,” he said finally, without any showmanship.

Andromeda frowned slightly, as if she hadn’t expected the price to be that low. It wasn’t cheap, but for something so unique, it actually sounded reasonable.

“Are you sure? I don’t want a charity price,” she said, noticing Ryan’s thoughtful pause. It wasn’t that forty galleons seemed cheap to her, but for such an invention, it did, and his hesitation made her wonder.

“It’s not charity,” he replied, serious but with a faint smile. “It’s the price I think is fair, for a girl with a taste for stars and sharp remarks.”

She looked at him for a few seconds, unsure whether he was flirting, being kind… or simply being himself.

“Then obsidian black it is. I’ll pay you as soon as you hand them over,” she said, returning the glasses.

Ryan nodded, took his glasses, and put them away.

The first students began to enter, that subdued murmur filling the room, the kind that comes when everyone knows a professor like McGonagall could appear any moment. It only took a few seconds for a few brows to furrow.

Gideon and Fabian Prewett were the first to notice Ryan. They greeted him enthusiastically, as usual, until they saw Andromeda Black sitting beside him. They paused for just a second, but said nothing. No hint of annoyance, no judgmental glance. Just open smiles and a polite nod in her direction.

Callum and Jamie arrived next, exchanged greetings with Ryan, and without much ceremony, took nearby seats. Emmeline also entered at an unhurried pace. Her gaze rested on Andromeda for a few seconds, not mocking, not suspicious, just mildly surprised… followed by a courteous nod. She sat diagonally from Ryan.

Dorcas, Marlene, and Celeste arrived almost at the same time, settling nearby without a word. Not a single comment. As if seeing Andromeda there was simply part of the scenery.

When everyone was seated, Andromeda realized something. She was surrounded. Not by members of her own House, but by Gryffindors.

And, against all odds, she didn’t feel out of place.

After that conversation with Ryan, brief as it had been, she felt she had crossed an invisible line with him.

A line that, for her… felt like a huge step forward. And she didn’t regret it.

The Slytherin students began to enter as well.

Lucius Malfoy was the first to appear, immaculate as always and just as attentive to what he deemed unacceptable as to whatever might benefit him. He stopped short the moment he crossed the threshold. His icy eyes fixed on the scene with a mix of disbelief and distaste.

Andromeda Black. Sitting beside Ryan Ollivander. Not across from him. Not behind. Beside him. Her body turned slightly toward him, in that subtle posture you only take when you’re comfortable with someone.

Evan Rosier and Mulciber came in shortly after. Evan opened his mouth, as if ready to spit out some sarcastic remark, but stopped himself. He only exchanged a loaded glance with Lucius.

Mulciber tensed instantly, fists clenching. Rabastan Lestrange, walking behind them, didn’t bother to hide his disdain; he lifted his chin like someone inspecting something beneath his status.

Then Cassiopeia and the other three girls from Andromeda’s dorm arrived. The five of them stopped dead when they saw the scene. They frowned as if they’d just caught a whiff of something rotten.

That was when Ryan slowly lifted his gaze from his notebook. His gray eyes lacked their usual brightness, the sly glint that was so often there. What replaced it was a cold, glacial calm, like a starless night.

“What are you all staring at?” he asked, his voice firm and sharp as it cut through the air of the classroom. “Want another riddle?”

The words hung in the air like a veiled threat.

It didn’t sound like a joke. It wasn’t clever banter.

It was a reminder.

Evan and Mulciber looked away almost instantly. They didn’t respond, not because they didn’t want to, but because they knew what happened when they did. They’d already learned that lesson. Painfully.

Rabastan’s lips twitched as if he were about to retort, but he didn’t. Lucius, on the other hand, was the only one who held Ryan’s gaze… though not for long.

After all, one thing was clear, and everyone on that side of the room knew it. They could think whatever they wanted about Ryan Ollivander:

That he was an eccentric attention-seeker.

That he fancied himself a hero.

That even though his blood was pure, he lacked every trace of Slytherin’s traditional elitism.

But what they couldn’t deny… was what had happened.

Mulciber and Rosier had told the story, grudgingly, but they told it. Ryan had cast a nonverbal Expelliarmus with a speed neither of them could match. Mulciber hadn’t even managed to react. Evan, faster, had raised a half-formed defense, but his Protego was so weak and rushed that it shattered like glass under the spell.

The Slytherins stopped staring and sat far from the Gryffindor group. Only one green robe broke the sea of red, Andromeda’s.

The Gryffindors didn’t miss the exchange.

Callum crossed his arms, a faint smile tugging at his lips.

Jamie gave Ryan a quiet pat on the shoulder, the kind that said, well done.

Fabian raised an eyebrow and murmured with a crooked grin, “That’s the spirit.”

Gideon chuckled under his breath.

Andromeda only glanced at Ryan from the corner of her eye. Not with disapproval. Not with surprise. But with that strange feeling that she was seeing a side of him not many people knew. A colder one.

Was that how he’d looked when he faced Mulciber and Rosier?

Emmeline, Marlene, Dorcas, and Celeste exchanged glances too, somewhat startled by that chill in his tone, as if they sensed that if anyone kept staring, he might actually lash out.

The door swung open suddenly.

“Take your seats,” came McGonagall’s firm voice as she entered the classroom.

Class was about to begin.