Chapter 52

[POV of Lily Evans]

Filch’s office was exactly as I remembered it:

Dark, damp, thick with old dust and heavy cobwebs in the corners. Though admittedly, much better than the first day we came in.

At the far end, against the stone wall, stood the massive bookshelf assigned to us today, a five-tiered, worm-eaten structure crammed with crooked books, hand-labeled jars with questionable contents, objects that looked neither magical nor entirely legal, and a collection of bones I preferred not to ask about.

I sighed, and without thinking too much about it, unbuttoned my Gryffindor robe. I wasn’t about to let it get covered in cobwebs and grime just for an hour of cleaning.

I laid it neatly folded over a rickety chair. Left in my white uniform shirt, wrinkled from the day, my red-and-gold tie loosely knotted, and my arms bare after rolling up my sleeves to the elbows.

Beside me, Ryan watched for a second, then did the same.

He took off his robe with that casual, almost theatrical air of his, folded it with surprising care, and placed it next to mine.

White shirt. Loosened tie. Arms crossed, waiting.

“Alright,” I said. “I’ll take care of the first and second shelves. There are a lot of dusty books out of order and jars left open. You can handle the third and fourth. Clean as you organize. If you find anything weird, let me know if you want.”

Ryan nodded without a word. No complaints. No jokes. He just picked up a rag and got to work, as if my instructions were law.

Or as if figuring out the best way to clean would take too much effort, so he’d rather let me decide everything.

I sighed and got to it. We had exactly one hour.

One hour among jars of rancid toad essence, sticky leather-bound books, and ancient dust that seemed almost alive. Every time I pulled out a book, it left a darker silhouette behind.

Next to me, the sound of Ryan doing the same.

A jar clinking against another. A rag rubbing wood. A book closing with a dull thud.

Nothing else. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Ryan stayed silent. Not a word. Not even one of his usual witty remarks about the bizarre things he found while cleaning. Nothing.

I glanced at him sideways.

He was leaning over the third shelf, carefully wiping the spine of a book with almost methodical precision. White shirt rolled to the elbows, loosened tie, a few strands of hair falling over his forehead. He didn’t look annoyed.

Or distracted. Just focused.

Why are you so quiet?

The question crossed my mind uninvited, and I wasn’t sure why it even mattered.

Was I expecting him to say something, like he did the other days?

And then another thought crept in, one even more uncomfortable:

What if he’s just not interested in joking with me anymore?

I shook my head slightly, trying to focus on the dust and the jars. It was ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. But there it was, that faint, irritating feeling, like a pebble stuck in my mental shoe.

Why do you care, Lily?

We weren’t friends. We weren’t here by choice. And if he had decided to treat this detention as an hour of silent, efficient work, I should’ve been glad.

It meant fewer distractions. Fewer sharp remarks. Fewer smiles that caught me off guard.

And yet, a part of me missed his voice. That slightly teasing tone, never cruel.

The way he’d throw out a line that made me frown and smile at the same time.

As if he somehow knew exactly when to speak to irritate me just enough.

As if he enjoyed reading my reactions. I shook my head, as though that could chase the thoughts away.

I reached toward one of the lower shelves and tugged at a book wedged tightly between two others. But it was stuck.

I frowned, tightened my grip, and pulled harder. A sharp crack echoed through the wood as the spine finally gave way.

Then I felt it. The shelf trembled, barely, almost imperceptibly. But it was enough.

From the fourth level, between two clumsily aligned jars, one of them, a tall glass cylinder filled with a thick, greenish liquid that bubbled sluggishly, tilted forward.

No.

The jar fell. I had barely looked up when a hand caught it midair, just inches from my face.

Ryan.

He’d moved right beside me to grab it, far too close. His arm still raised, white shirt slightly loose, the jar held steady between his fingers with surgical precision.

I turned to look at him, and for a moment, our eyes met, just a few inches apart.

His face, a little higher than mine, tilted slightly downward, held no trace of mockery. Just a raised eyebrow. And that familiar half-smile of his, calm, effortless, as if he hadn’t just saved me from a third-level corrosive potion.

“Wow… that was close, Evans,” he murmured, not stepping back an inch. “Were you thinking about your Potions homework or something?”

A second passed, and I still didn’t respond, because at that moment, honestly, I couldn’t quite remember how normal conversation worked.

My back was against the bookshelf. Hard book spines pressed lightly against my shoulder blades, and Ryan’s arm was still raised, resting beside my head to hold the jar.

It wasn’t intentional. It wasn’t a calculated pose. It had just happened.

And yet, there we were. I didn’t move, and neither did he.

His gray eyes watched me with a light that wasn’t teasing or sarcastic. Just quietly curious.

“Thanks,” I finally said, my voice lower than I intended.

I didn’t look away. But I did notice, with mild internal annoyance, how shyness slipped in uninvited the closer his face was.

Gray eyes. Tousled golden hair. Sharp, almost unfairly perfect features that didn’t even seem aware of the effect they had.

Ryan didn’t reply right away. He only lowered his arm slowly, without stepping back, and examined the jar he still held.

“You’re welcome,” he said at last, calm and unbothered, as if he hadn’t noticed, or maybe had, but chose not to comment on, the lack of space between us.

I couldn’t tell if he did it on purpose, or if he simply saw no reason to move.

And, to my own surprise neither did I.

I looked at the jar. The greenish liquid inside kept bubbling lazily. There was a label on the side, half peeled off with age.

“What is it?” I asked, still not moving. My voice came out softer than I meant, almost genuinely curious.

Ryan slowly turned the jar toward me so I could read it without stepping back. He kept the same distance, as if perfectly at ease there.

“Grindylow Tentacle Extract,” he read aloud with a theatrical grimace. “Dangerously viscous. Probably acidic. Do not ingest. Keep away from children, pets, and absent-minded Hufflepuffs.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed, a soft, genuine laugh that slipped out without a filter.

Ryan, smiled too. From up close. Very close.

“I don’t know how they even allow the caretaker to keep things like this…” I said, still looking at the jar, though I could feel his gaze fixed on me.

The distance between us hadn’t changed. So close that neither of us needed to raise our voices. It felt almost like we were talking in some secret corner of the castle, even though we were just in a damp, dusty office.

“Yes, it’s rather questionable, isn’t it?” he murmured, barely above a whisper. “Technically, we could report him.”

He leaned slightly toward the jar, though not away from me.

“And if you’d ended up with a mild burn or a strange rash, who knows… maybe we could get compensation. Benefits. A reduced sentence. Perhaps even another public trial. I do have experience with those, after all.”

I looked at him, unable to stop a smile. He caught it, and smiled a little himself.

“Although of course,” he added, glancing at the jar for a second before looking back at me, “it’s good it didn’t hit your face. That would’ve been unforgivable. Not for the pain, but for the aesthetic damage.”

“Aesthetic damage?” I repeated, raising an eyebrow, trying not to grin, though I could feel something quicken inside me.

Ryan nodded solemnly, that expression of his balanced perfectly between humor and a hidden compliment.

“Yes. It would’ve been a tragedy for Hogwarts if one of its prettiest students got even a scratch on her face.”

My smile froze. Not because I was offended—because I didn’t know what to do with that. I just stared at him in silence, suddenly nervous.

My back still pressed against the books. The jar still hanging between us. His calm gray eyes locked on mine.

He’d just called me pretty.

One of the prettiest.

And not jokingly, just plain, natural. As if he had no idea what kind of effect words like that could have, spoken from that close.

I said nothing, and neither did he.

We stayed like that, in a silence that wasn’t awkward but definitely… charged. A few seconds. Maybe three. Maybe forever.

Until a harsh meow snapped us back to reality. We both turned our heads at the same time.

Mrs. Norris sat by the door, watching us with accusatory red eyes, her tail coiled neatly around her paws, as if judging us for daring to have a moment of, whatever that had been.

Ryan stepped back slowly, exhaling softly. “Easy there, your majesty,” he said to the cat with a small bow of his head. “Your servants are getting back to work.”

The cat meowed again, a rasping, almost offended sound, before returning to her corner near the door, sitting upright, vigilant, and unyielding.

I started breathing normally again, or tried to.

The spell of the moment broke, or rather, was shattered by a cat, and we went back to work.

Neither of us said anything more about what had happened.

The silence wasn’t distant, nor was it awkward. The hour flew by.

When Filch returned, hunched over as always, he inspected the shelf from bottom to top with narrowed eyes and his usual grumpy expression.

He nodded, once.

“Acceptable,” he said. Which, in his language, was the equivalent of a standing ovation.

We stepped out, and I heard the door click shut and lock behind us.

“See you…” I said, hurrying away with a nervousness I couldn’t quite explain.

A moment later, I realized I might have sounded rude, since I hadn’t waited for him to reply, and he probably would’ve walked me to the Gryffindor common room if I had.

The quill! I thought. I’d completely forgotten to ask him about the installments.

Well, I’ll do it tomorrow.

After dinner that evening, I returned to the common room and went upstairs with my roommates, Karen, Mary, and Rihanna, to our dormitory.

The moment the door closed, all three of them looked straight at me.

“Alright, now you’re spilling everything! No more excuses!” said Mary, pointing at me.

“So…” Karen dragged out the word as they all began to move toward my bed, like a pack of curious hyenas closing in on hesitant prey. “What happened?”

In less than three seconds, the three of them were sitting on my bed, surrounding me like part of a well-rehearsed ritual.

I knew there was no escape.

Not after leaving them hanging all through dinner.

I sighed and had no choice but to tell them everything exactly as it had happened.

Within minutes, they were all making a huge fuss over the fact that Ryan Ollivander had called me one of the prettiest.

“And you?” asked Rihanna. “What did you feel?”

“I don’t know… a little nervous, I guess,” I said, shrugging.

“Whoa, you’re tough,” said Karen honestly. “I think I would’ve kissed him without thinking twice after he said that and was that close.”

I couldn’t help rolling my eyes.

“The important thing now,” said Mary in an overly serious tone, “is to find out whether he meant it, or if he says that kind of thing all the time. Because if he’s going around calling one of the prettiest to any girl who doesn’t get hit in the head by a falling jar, we need to know immediately.”

This is going to be a very long night, I couldn’t help thinking.

Though, I had to admit, I was a little curious too.