The morning light that filtered through the narrow window of Harry’s dormitory was thin and gray, doing little to warm the cold concrete walls.
Underneath a mountain of mismatched blankets, a sudden shiver ran through Alice.
“Urghh, it’s so cold,” she scoffed, her voice thick with sleep.
With a dramatic groan, she snuggled closer into Harry’s side, seeking the heat radiating from him.
She yanked hard at the edge of the heavy wool blanket, trying to pull the rest of it over both of their shoulders until they were completely buried in a makeshift of blankets.
Harry chuckled softly, the sound vibrating against her cheek.
He rubbed his eyes, looking toward the door with a sudden prickle of anxiety.
“Wake up, dear,” he murmured, his voice a low, raspy whisper.
“You’ve got to sneak out before anyone else in the hall wakes up and sees you.”
“Mhm, you’re right. I should get going,” Alice mumbled.
But her actions completely contradicted her words.
Instead of untangling herself from the mess of sheets and stepping out into the freezing room, she shifted her weight, sliding gracefully on top of Harry.
Straddling his waist, she leaned down, framing his face with her hands, and kissed him deeply.
The cold room was instantly forgotten.
Harry wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her against him as he kissed her back, his hands tracing the small of her back.
When they finally broke apart, Alice was smiling, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“I had such a great time last night. We should definitely do it again sometime,” she teased, leaning down to plant a playful, affectionate peck right on the tip of his nose.
Harry smiled, his heart doing a familiar flip.
“Of course we will,” he promised softly.
He gave her one last lingering kiss on the lips before reluctantly letting her go, bracing himself for the cold air that rushed in the moment she finally pulled away.
******
After Alice left Harry on the cold bed.
The room was unnervingly quiet.
Ever since the rumors of his return had solidified, the space in the dorm had become entirely his own; the campus administration hadn’t even bothered assigning him a new roommate because no one wanted to share a breath of air with a man who carried the attention of Andrew Mayfair.
For Harry, the isolation was a luxury.
But not until a heavy, rhythmic knocking rattled his door.
When he opened it, the corridor was empty, save for a pristine, matte-black box sitting squarely on the floorboards.
It was wrapped meticulously, bound by a satin ribbon of deep navy blue, with a silver-embossed card that bore his name in elegant, sweeping calligraphy.
*For Harry.*
“Urgh Lucas that bastard, could he have left this here on purpose?” He peeked out of the door, searching for the person that left the parcel.
But the hallway was empty, with no life on sight.
Harry sighed as he carried the box inside.
“Fine then, I’ll just burn everything myself.”
He shook the box side to side by his ear.
It was heavy on the hands, but hollow with the sound.
His mind started racing through a list of potential allies or enemies who would send him a box instead of Lucas.
And judging by its appearance it was a gift box, adorned with luxury.
And it reminded him of the past, back when Lolleta was declared her daughter by the public.
He had received so many unpleasant gifts from the people, threats wrapped in luxury gift boxes and now this very box in front of him suddenly felt like one of those.
But nothing prepared Harry for the sudden, metallic scent of iron that escaped the seams the moment he broke the seal.
He reluctantly pulled the lid away.
The breath caught violently in his throat, and his vision swam.
Resting on a bed of dark velvet tissue paper was Jace’s head.
Jace’s features had frozen in the same blind, unadulterated terror Harry had witnessed in the shadows just hours before.
It was all arranged neatly.
And beside the severed neck were Jace’s hands, dismembered cleanly at the wrists, the fingers slightly curled as if still pleading for mercy from his executioner.
A wave of intense, violent nausea hit Harry like a physical blow.
He staggered backward, with his hand flying to his mouth as his stomach heaved.
He forced the bile down, his knuckles scraping against the edge of his desk as he stared at the gruesome display as it lay in front of him, adorned in a luxurious box.
Harry didn’t need to guess the identity of the sender.
The clinical precision of the cuts, the mocking elegance of the presentation—it was the unmistakable signature of Andrew Mayfair.
But the sheer speed of the retaliation was what sent a cold, paralyzing spike of panic straight through Harry’s chest.
He had met Jace in the dead of night, deep within the shadows of the commoner dormitories, a sector Andrew’s elite circle usually disdained to even look at.
They had spoken in whispers, shielded by the darkness and the stone.
Yet, before the first morning bell could even ring, Jace had been hunted down, interrogated, and systematically dismantled?
‘How?’ The question burned into Harry’s brain, making his pulse hammer against his temples.
Had Andrew been watching them from the shadows the entire time?
Had the slow approach from afar been a deliberate performance to let them know that they were already caught?
Or worse—did Andrew have eyes so deeply embedded within the commoner ranks that not a single word could be muttered without it being relayed directly to the high tower?
The reality settled over the room like a suffocating shroud.
Andrew’s network within the campus wasn’t just extensive; it was an absolute, omniscient web.
Every alliance Harry tried to forge, every desperate hand he reached out to grasp in the dark, would be severed before he could even utilize it.
He wasn’t just fighting a man; he was trapped inside a cage where the warden heard every single heartbeat.
‘This can’t be happening–…if it goes on like this then what was the point of me to even come back here?….
doesn’t this mean that I’ve already failed?’ Harry’s breath heaved as he quickly closed the box once again.
He’d have to get rid of it himself.
He placed the box on the refrigerator and then scoffed clasping his chest tighter.
‘Burning it is the best option…but first, I need to get out of here and prepare for my leave once again.
No–…actually I need to talk to Andrew.
Fast.’
******
The campus paths were unusually quiet as the morning lectures let out.
Harry walked with his gaze fixed straight ahead, his jaw clenched so tightly it ached.
The horrific image of the black box still burned against the depths of his memory, but he forced it down into a dark corner of his mind.
He had to compartmentalize.
Revenge, justice, anger—they all had to wait.
As he was right now, stripped of leverage and isolated in the commoner dormitories, he was entirely powerless.
Survival and his studies were the only shields he had left to improve his life.
That fragile illusion of a quiet academic routine was shattered before the noon bell.
Andrew appeared at the threshold of Harry’s lecture hall just as the professor dismissed the class.
The other students scrambled out of the room like scattering mice, sensing the lethal aura radiating from the Mayfair heir.
Andrew didn’t offer an greeting. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
He simply tilted his head toward the door, demanding a walk that involved only the two of them.
They walked along the stone arcade bordering the quad, their footsteps echoing in a tense, uneven rhythm.
“So, how did you like my gift?”
The question unexpectedly dropped like ice water.
Harry froze on his toes, his whole body locking up for a fraction of a second before he forced himself to keep walking.
“There’s no point in asking how I found out or how I knew what transpired between you and that rat,” Andrew continued smoothly, not even looking at Harry as they paced.
“I witnessed it for myself last night. I couldn’t care less what your little meeting was about, but his arrogance is what troubled me. He touched you with those dirty hands of his and even tried to kiss you—right in front of me. He coveted what never belonged to him, and that was the price he had to pay with his head and hands.”
Andrew paused, a dark, clinical amusement dancing in his eyes before continuing to recite what had transpired the previous night right after Harry had left Jace’s side.
“Jace only confessed your plans after a few beatings, that coward. Sang like a bird about how you tried to screw me over.” Andrew looked over at Harry and chuckled, a sound that made the hair on Harry’s neck stand up.
“That’s actually cute, Harry. Trying to ruin my reputation in my own territory? I mean, you know I can wash away all of my sins without doing anything here, right?”
Harry kept his lips pressed together, his eyes tracing the gray stones of the path, but his silence was loud.
“Or was this about Lolleta?” Andrew asked, his voice dropping into a softer, more dangerous tone.
“Were you trying to dig up dirt on me to prove to a court of law that I am unfit to be a part of her life as her father?”
At the mention of his daughter’s name, Harry’s silver eyes widened slightly, a sharp, involuntary tremor of confirmation that he couldn’t mask in time.
Andrew caught it instantly.
He stopped walking and laughed.
He laughed out loud, the sound rich and genuinely amused, echoing off the high stone arches.
Harry’s fists clenched in his pockets, a fierce, burning annoyance flaring hot in his chest.
He hated how easily Andrew read him.
He hated how small his desperate plans felt under the weight of the Mayfair empire.
It all annoyed him.
“Oh my, wow,” Andrew gasped, clearing his throat as his chuckles subsided.
“That… that really made me laugh. You’re just too funny, Harry. Erhm! But anyway…” He straightened his blazer, his expression shifting with terrifying speed back into absolute seriousness.
“If you want to continue being in Lolleta’s life and get my protection, then you’ll have to come under my wing. Let us be close again, and we will raise Lolleta together without you having to worry about me or my family demanding a solo custody for her.”
Harry stopped, turning to face the man who had systematically dismantled every safety net he had ever built.
“But how can I trust that?” he asked, his voice raw and laced with skepticism.
“We’ll form a contract, you and I,” Andrew answered, his lips curving into a confident, easy expression.
“You’ll see, once I have it all drafted up.”
Harry scoffed, biting his lower lip until he tasted copper.
As much as he yearned to just accept everything—to take the path of least resistance purely to guarantee that Lolleta would remain safe and in his arms—he couldn’t shake the sickening feeling that he was willingly signing his name into a ledger held by the devil himself.
But then, the memory of his daughter’s laugh flashed through his mind.
He had promised himself, and the universe, that he would sell his very soul if he had to for her sake.
So why was he even hesitating now?
What pride did he have left to protect?
But this felt wrong, he didn’t want to be chained into the palms of the Mayfairs, he wanted freedom but not at the cost of his daughter….but what was he supposed to do now?, if he refuses he’ll lose Lolleta but if he agrees he’ll keep Lolleta but be stuck with the demon that will never let him go and ruin his very life.
“I will think about it,” Harry said, his voice dropping all of its heat, turning into something dead and flat.
“Let’s not decide now, we will talk it over once you get the contract ready.”
“Harry what is even there to think about?, don’t you want to keep Lolleta into your life?, I’ll even help you raise her. And you know with me on your side everything will change for the better for both you and my child Lolleta.”
“Don’t speak as if you’re doing this for the goodness of your heart because we both know that you don’t have one. I know you want to break me Andrew, you want to make me pay in the most painful way for all that I have done to you.”
Silence hovers between them for a moment and then Andrew sighs, still keeping his composure.
Deep down he already knows the decision that Harry will make in this situation.
“Now enough of this. Just please, send one of your lackeys to go take back the gift that you sent me. Burn it to ashes and clean my room. It stinks of decay.”
Andrew smirked, stepping closer, his sharp eyes scanning Harry’s frozen expression.
“You’re still so cold, Harry. That was your friend remember?”
“My friend?” Harry looked at him, a bitter, humorless smile touching his lips.
“Oh, please. If it wasn’t for you, that very same friend could have sexually assaulted me last night. He even threatened me, so…”
Andrew’s smirk only widened, a dark, possessive understanding settling over his features.
“I know,” Andrew murmured softly, leaning in until his voice was a whisper against the morning air.
“Why do you think I decapitated him?” He chuckled softly before leading the way once again for their walk.
Harry felt his stomach churn in terror.
This was a situation he put himself in.
******
The distance across the main quadrangle felt like a vast, unbridgeable distance, but from Molly’s point of view beneath the shadowed eaves of the administrative building, she saw every single detail.
She saw the tense rigidity in Harry’s shoulders, the sharp way the Mayfair heir leaned in close—close enough to whisper, close enough to claim the air that Harry breathed.
To anyone else passing by, it looked like a private, hushed conversation between two people bound by a shared, miraculous history.
But to Molly, the sight twisted her insides until she felt physically ill.
By the time the afternoon lectures commenced, the campus grapevine had already done its monstrous work.
The truth— and the gruesome reality of Jace’s abrupt disappearance—was entirely swallowed by a much more glittering, palatable lie.
Whispers rippled through the commoner dining halls and the elite lounges alike.
*”Did you see them by the arcade?”*
*”They say the King finally brought him back into the fold.”*
*”A sweet reunion…
for the sake of the child, of course…Harry knew the moment that he came back he’d claim back what belonged to him….perhaps they reconciled a long time ago.”*
The rumors painted a picture of domestic reconciliation, a romantic surrender where the fierce McGuire independent had finally bent the knee to the Mayfair’s dominance.
It was sickening.
The campus wanted a fairy tale, entirely blind to the bitter, silent war being waged beneath the surface.
Molly couldn’t stand it.
The sheer injustice of Harry being forced into the lion’s den just to keep breathing the same air as Lolleta made her blood boil.
But if Molly was drowning in a wave of helpless fury, the twins were a localized storm.
In the cramped confines of the lower-tier study room, Bryan and Bryson sat staring at the digital forum feeds on their tablets, the glowing screens reflecting the absolute disgust written across their identical expressions.
“A ‘sweet reunion’?” Bryson hissed, his fingers snapping the stylus he was holding cleanly in half.
The sharp *crack* echoed against the concrete walls.
“They’re talking about him like he’s a prize Andrew just won back in a card game. They don’t know what those monsters even do in the dark. Harry and Andrew are alike but somehow are stark contrast of each other.”
Bryan didn’t break her instrument, but his eyes were dark, fixed on a high-resolution photo someone had snapped from a distance—Harry looking down, biting his lip, while Andrew smiled that lopsided, victorious smile of his.
Just then Bryan zoomed the picture to Harry’s face.
‘Gorgeous’
Bryan scoffed with a faint smile playing on his lips but just then Bryson disturbed his daydreaming but banging his fist on the table.
“Harry thinks he’s gonna sign whatever contract Andrew is drafting and then move on with his life like nothing ever happened?….Ha! he has forgotten one thing!, the Mayfairs don’t forget a grudge, we will make him pay for his sins one way or another.”
They both looked up at Molly, who had just closed the heavy wooden door behind her, her face pale from the rumors echoing in the corridors.
“A Mayfair never stops at one concession,” the twins said in near-unison, their shared frequency humming with a dark, defensive intent. New chapters come out on g.com first.
“If Harry sells his soul for Lolleta today, we will have him surrender his body to us. We need to move before that contract is signed.” Bryson added and Bryan agreed without hesitation.
The surrendering of Harry’s body is what anchored his resolve.
But little did they know, they were misunderstanding each other somewhere along their determinations.
******
“How interesting.”
The voice didn’t come from the physical world, but from the frigid patch of air directly over Lucas’s left shoulder.
Malfoy’s ghost had spent the last few weeks blending into the environment, perfectly assimilated into the shadows like a stain on the night.
He followed Lucas everywhere, stuck to him like a dark, parasitic ego.
At first, the haunting had been a waking nightmare, but Lucas had eventually accepted the phantom as if it were just an extension of his own fractured mind.
Wherever Lucas went, Malfoy’s spirit was there.
It hovered over his mattress every single night—a suffocating weight that ensured Lucas never slept, a silent warden keeping guard over his deteriorating sanity.
Now, two pairs of eyes—one pair living and sharp, the other a translucent, hollow phantom blue—were fixed on the field across them.
They watched Harry and Andrew as the two figures approached from a distance.
Lucas didn’t harbor any explicit malice toward them.
He had no immediate desire to ruin their lives or strike them down.
For now, his instructions were simple: watch, observe, and document how the dominoes fell.
“Mhm… look at that, Lucas,” Malfoy purred, his voice like dry leaves scraping across a tombstone.
“Andrew never loved you. Not for a second.”
“I don’t care,” Lucas muttered.
He pulled the rim of his dark hood lower, casting a deep shadow over his face, though it couldn’t quite hide the sharp, mocking smirk playing on his lips.
He had been there the night Malfoy died.
He had stood in the stifling dark, watching every agonizing second as Malfoy gasped his last breath at the hands of the Mayfairs.
He had stayed until the very end crying and painted with guilt over his death, recording the finality of it.
But seeing Harry now—standing face-to-face with his own brother’s executioner, completely devoid of the slightest inkling of the truth—made Lucas want to throw his head back and laugh until his lungs burst.
It was an entirely pathetic sight.
There was Harry, parading around with a facade of strength and independence, desperately trying to protect himself and his daughter.
Yet, beneath that fragile armor, he was still so tragically emotional.
He was completely blind to the fact that he was being maneuvered across a metaphorical chessboard, played from side to side by Andrew’s invisible hands.
A pawn thinking it was a king.
It was a thoroughly disappointing, pitiful display.
“But he’s still not quite as pathetic as you, is he?” Malfoy’s ghost taunted, swirling closer until the temperature around Lucas’s ear dropped to a freezing point.
“Getting swayed so easily by me. Letting a dead man colonize your head.”
“You’re not real. You’re just a ghost,” Lucas shot back, his voice completely level.
He turned his head and casually poked a finger straight through Malfoy’s phantom torso, watching the mist ripple and reform.
“But I have to say… even you were better compared to that guy. To me, Harry just looks like a spoiled stray dog acting like the world owes him a living. At least you had guts, at your best. He’s just sad.”
Lucas clicked his tongue, shaking his head in mock pity.
He realized, with a jolt of grim satisfaction, that he wasn’t afraid of the ghost anymore.
The terrifying specter that had broken his mind weeks ago was now just a minor nuisance.
‘Could the pills that guy recommended actually be working?’ Lucas wondered.
A sudden, strange wave of mock-nostalgia washed over him.
He looked at the spirit with a twisted grin.
“Urgh, now I suddenly miss you, my old friend. Are you resting in peace yet? Because it’s too bad… in no time at all, you’re going to disappear. I can already feel the change happening.”
Malfoy’s form flickered slightly, but the ghost said nothing, his hollow eyes narrowing.
“But this sudden burst of emotions… is it because of the pills, too?” Lucas mused aloud.
He stretched, straightening his spine and rolling his shoulders.
“Mhm… I actually feel quite refreshed. Like I’m brand new. God, I love this feeling.”
A dark chuckle escaped him as his mind drifted back to the catalyst of his sudden recovery, the stranger who had paid him a visit in the dead of night.
The man had slipped into his room like a professional thief, slipping through the shadows without making a sound.
He had been dressed entirely in black, perfectly camouflaged by the darkness, yet he had spoken with an unsettling, intimate familiarity.
Lucas bit his lower lip, the memory playing vividly in his mind, the man’s parting words echoing with chilling clarity.
‘Lucas, I know exactly what happened the night Malfoy died.
I was right there in the dark.
I watched the entire ordeal they put you through.
The guilt is eating you alive, isn’t it?
You can’t sleep.
You can’t breathe.’
The stranger had pressed a heavy, unmarked prescription bottle into Lucas’s trembling hands.
‘Well…
take this.
These antidepressants will help you clear your head.
Every month, you’ll get a fresh refill.
Why?
Because my boss wants you alive, alert, and well…
until the time comes.’
‘The time comes?’ Lucas had whispered, his voice hoarse from sleeplessness.
‘Is your boss Andrew?’
The man had offered a slow, ambiguous smile in the dark.
‘Well—you could say that.
But ask no questions, Lucas, and just do as you’re told.
You’ll never see my face again, but rest assured, I’ll be watching your every move.
And as for your pills…
you’ll get them every single month.
So sleep tight.’
Lucas snapped back to the present, his smirk widening as he watched Harry and Andrew draw closer in the distance.
The fog in his brain was entirely gone, replaced by a cold, chemically induced euphoria.
The stage was set, the players were clueless, and he finally had a front-row seat to the circus.
******
NOTE: The abrupt change of personality in Lucas’s character from being timid isn’t to confuse you, but it is to clarify the change of attitude after inducing a drug.