The first-year physicals were scheduled for the second morning of term.
Tobias stood in the corridor outside the hospital wing with two other boys—a stocky kid who kept cracking his knuckles and a freckled one who stared at the ceiling like it owed him money.
Their names hadn’t stuck.
Pomfrey’s voice cut through the quiet: *”Vesper.”* The wing was bright, almost sterile in its cleanness.
Sunlight pooled in squares on the floor.
Pomfrey guided him to a cot near the high windows, handed him a folded nightshirt, and turned away with the brisk efficiency of someone who had seen hundreds of children undress without interest.
Tobias changed quickly.
The fabric settled over his shoulders, loose and thin enough that he could feel the air moving through the hole in his chest if he thought about it.
He didn’t.
Pomfrey returned, wand out.
She checked his eyes (follow the light), his ears (which side is the clicking?), his reflexes (knee-jerk, predictable).
The core assessment was next—a quick, clinical pulse of magic that made his stomach tighten.
Her brow furrowed slightly at whatever she saw there, but she moved on without comment.
Then the mapping spell.
Her wand traced a slow arc over his torso, leaving a faint gold shimmer in its wake.
Halfway through, her hand stilled.
The shimmer over his chest flickered oddly, the light bending *around* something the spell didn’t know how to parse.
Pomfrey glanced at his chart.
Then back at him.
“Lift the nightshirt, please.” Her tone gave nothing away.
Tobias exhaled.
He lifted the nightshirt the way he had always lifted it.
Pomfrey began with the standard healer charms and worked outward through her whole repertoire.
Soft-tissue first—her wand flicked, the spell dissolved against his skin like water hitting stone, leaving no trace.
Lung and heart locator next; the light bent sharply around the hole, skirting it entirely.
Scar identifier, deep-magic resonance—nothing registered where the hole sat, as if the spells were encountering an absence they couldn’t acknowledge.
She tried three further charms not in the first-year protocol—a diagnostic for cursed wounds, one for magical anomalies, another she muttered under her breath.
Each time, the same: her wand twitched, the spell flared briefly, then died against the hole’s edges without reaction.
Tobias watched her hands, the way her fingers tightened slightly around her wand before she set it down on the cot.
“Lie back,” she said, not unkindly.
He did.
The sheet was cool against his shoulders.
Pomfrey looked at him for a long moment—not with fear, or disgust, but something quieter, more considering.
Then she covered him with a sheet and went out into the corridor.
The doors opened again later and Dumbledore came in with Pomfrey at his shoulder.
He wore deep blue robes that whispered against the floorboards—no twinkling eyes today, just a quiet focus that made Tobias sit straighter without meaning to.
Dumbledore sat on the cot opposite without ceremony, took the chart Pomfrey handed him, and read it with the same deliberate care Tobias had seen his mother give to old medical texts at home.
“You came by train,” Dumbledore said finally.
Not a question, but Tobias nodded anyway.
“And the Hat put you in Hufflepuff after some deliberation.” Another nod.
“Are the dormitory beds treating you well?” “They’re fine,” Tobias said.
The mattress had been softer than his at home, but he didn’t mention that.
Dumbledore studied him a moment longer—not at his chest, not at the sheet still draped over him, but at his *face*, like he was memorizing the exact shade of grey in Tobias’s eyes.
Then he turned to Pomfrey.
“Meredith Dawlish and Hector Bexley,” he said, the names smooth as old coins.
“They’ve seen similar anomalies in the ’68 cohort.” Pomfrey crossed to the floo and threw in a pinch of powder.”St.
Mungo’s,” she said clearly, and the flames roared green.
The two healers from St.
Mungo’s arrived together within the hour.
The elderly woman stepped through first—Meredith Dawlish, Tobias guessed—her long grey braid swinging against the stiff fabric of her robes.
Behind her came Hector Bexley, heavyset and adjusting his spectacles with a practiced flick of one finger.
Their robes smelled faintly of antiseptic and something herbal Tobias couldn’t name.
Dawlish greeted Dumbledore with a nod that managed to be both deferential and assessing.
Bexley offered Pomfrey a clipboard without preamble.
Tobias watched their hands—Dawlish’s fingers were knotted with age but moved with precise economy; Bexley’s thumbs bore faint inkstains, like he’d been marking charts before they came.
“Undressed?” Dawlish asked, glancing at Pomfrey.
“Nightshirt,” Pomfrey confirmed.
Dawlish turned to Tobias.
“May we see?” Tobias lifted the nightshirt the same way he had for Pomfrey—quickly, without fanfare.
Dawlish’s breath hissed between her teeth, not quite a sound of surprise.
Bexley adjusted his spectacles again, leaning in slightly.
They worked in silence for half an hour, trading spells Tobias had never seen before—silver filaments that spiraled through the air like living thread, a pulsing indigo light that made the edges of the hole gleam wetly for a moment.
Dawlish murmured coordinates to Bexley, who jotted them down with quick strokes.
Twice they passed the chart between them without speaking, their eyebrows doing the talking instead.
At one point Dawlish paused, her wand hovering just above the hole.
“Does this—” “No,” Tobias said, before she could finish.
She nodded and tried a different charm, this one leaving behind the scent of burnt sugar.
When they straightened at last, Dawlish’s mouth was pressed into a thin line.
Bexley shook his head once, sharply, at Dumbledore’s questioning look.
“Congenital,” Dawlish said finally.
“Not cursed, not magical in any recognized sense.
Not…” She trailed off, her gaze drifting to the window where sunlight pooled on the floor.
“Not anything we’ve catalogued,” Bexley finished.
He removed his spectacles and rubbed at the bridge of his nose.
“We’ll need to consult the ’68 files again.” Dawlish touched the edge of Tobias’s nightshirt, guiding it back down with surprising gentleness.
“You’ve had this since birth?” Tobias nodded.
“And it’s never—” “No.” She exchanged another look with Bexley, then with Dumbledore.
The Headmaster’s expression was unreadable.
They conferred in low voices at the far end of the wing for a while.
When the healers had gone Dumbledore came back to the cot opposite Tobias.
The wing was quiet now except for the distant murmur of Pomfrey’s voice somewhere near the supply cabinets.
Sunlight had crept further across the floorboards, gilding the edges of Dumbledore’s folded hands where they rested on his knees.
“What does it feel like?” Dumbledore asked.
No preamble, no softening—just the question laid bare between them.
Tobias considered it.
Adults always wanted metaphors—a coldness, a pressure, some poetic descriptor to slot into their charts.
He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the sheet pooled in his lap.
“It doesn’t hurt,” he said finally.
“Never has.
The closest word…” He paused, testing the shape of it in his mouth.
“Empty.” Dumbledore didn’t blink.
Didn’t lean forward or back.
Just held Tobias’s gaze with that same quiet focus, like he was weighing the word against something only he could see.
“Yes,” he said at last.
Not agreement exactly—more like recognition, the way someone might nod at hearing a street name they’d half-remembered from a dream.
They sat like that for a while longer, the sunlight stretching their shadows thin across the floor.
Somewhere beyond the windows, the whomping willow stirred in a breeze Tobias couldn’t feel.
Dumbledore stood up after a while and went out, and Tobias began to dress.
Pomfrey let him go in the late afternoon with no notes he had not already heard.
He dressed slowly, layering the shirts first—cotton against his skin, wool over it—before shrugging into his robes.
The high collar settled against his neck with familiar pressure.
Pomfrey watched him button it without comment, then handed him a slip of parchment.
“Come back if anything changes,” she said.
Her tone was brisk, but her fingers lingered on the paper a moment longer than necessary.
The castle was quiet as he made his way down the moving staircases, the stone cool beneath his shoes.
Shadows stretched long across the corridors, pooling in the corners like spilled ink.
He passed a suit of armor that tilted its helmet slightly as he walked by, but said nothing.
The kitchens corridor smelled of yeast and roasting meat.
At the portrait of the fruit bowl, Pomona Sprout stood waiting, her hands tucked into the pockets of her patched robes.
She smiled when she saw him—not the quick, automatic smile adults often gave children, but a slower thing that warmed her eyes first.
“Ah, Tobias,” she said.
“Just the person I wanted to see.” He stopped, wary of the sudden attention.
Sprout didn’t mention the hospital wing, didn’t ask about the healers or the hours he’d spent under their spells.
Instead, she tilted her head toward the greenhouses, visible through a narrow window at the end of the hall.
“Planning the Yule project,” she said.
“Thought you might have an opinion on whether we should focus on devil’s snare or venomous tentacula for the first-years.
Devil’s snare’s more forgiving, but the tentacula—well, they’ve got personality.” She fell into step beside him as they approached the barrels, her boots scuffing against the flagstones.
Her shoulder brushed his once, lightly, like an accident that wasn’t.
The entrance swung open at her touch.
Warm light spilled out, along with the low murmur of voices and the scent of fresh bread.
His year-mates were at the homework table in the corner and did not yet know.