Closing the Case

[Prof. Sindor Aloyarc]

Thorne Everwick looks exactly like the sketch in the Ministry files. His robes hang like shadows in the fog, flickering at the edges. His eyes gleam. Not mad, but bright. Brilliant and calculating, perhaps slightly wounded.

He smiles. “You’ve made quite a mess of my quiet little world.”

You tighten your grip on your wand. “You’ve been tampering with Muggles. Warping the town. That’s illegal, Everwick.”

He shrugs, as if that’s the least interesting part of this conversation. “Did you ever wonder why even when someone happens to notice something strange going on, nobody is starting to panic? They hardly make even the slightest fuss over any of it, quickly accepting it all as nothing to worry about.”

He gestures toward the fog. It shimmers faintly now, like threads of silver in water. “Because I rewrote the rules. A tiny twist of memory here, a charm on perception there. They forget what doesn’t make sense. Like dreams in daylight.”

Your pulse quickens. “That’s not harmless. That’s control.”

He steps closer.

“No,” he says softly. “It’s kindness. You forget how cruel the world can be to the ones who don’t fit. This town gave me silence, so I gave it safety. A place where magic could murmur instead of roar.”

Behind him, the alley stretches further than it should. You see flashes of library books flipping themselves open, a lamppost leaning protectively over the bakery, children laughing as their toys hover just out of reach.

“Bridgeton remembers,” he mutters. “Because I helped it forget.”

You hesitate. The Ministry wants him brought in. Questioned and contained. But standing here in the strange hush of his magic, you realize something else. ’He never meant harm.’

But his spells are fraying now. You’ve seen the cracks. The teleporting bench, the singing tools, the mirror that moves before you do. If left unchecked, his experimental enchantments could unravel not just memories, but minds.

You speak carefully. “You can’t stay… but you don’t have to run.”

For the first time, his expression falters. Then, a sigh. Long, tired, and resigned.

“You know,” he says, “I always liked the idea of a masquerade. A place where no one knows who you are, so you get to decide. But the mask doesn’t last forever, does it?”

He pulls something from his pocket, a tiny silver charm shaped like a clock’s winding key. With a wordless flick, he places it on the cobblestone between you and the fog begins to lift.

Light returns in thin slices. You hear distant traffic and bicycle bells as a church bell rings for midnight. And when you blink—he’s gone.

All that remains is the charm, and a memory already slipping like sand between your fingers.
__________

Come morning you’ve already packed your things.

The café’s regulars wave you off with curious smiles. Someone bakes you a lemon drizzle loaf, and the woman with the aura obsession hugs you tightly, telling you to “watch your third chakra on the train.” You laugh, still not knowing what that means.

Greg meets you back at the spot leading to Platform 7¾, a steaming takeaway coffee in each hand.

“Well done, Agent,” he says. “Town’s recalibrated. Memory stabilizers are holding. Ministry scrubbed the hideout and sealed off the spell residue.”

You hand him the charm.

He whistles low. “We’ve been looking for this. It’s Everwick’s signature: temporal softbending. Only three known wizards ever mastered it.”

“Do you think he’s still out there plotting?” you ask.

Greg sips his coffee. “If he is, I doubt he’ll show his face for a while. Masquerade’s over.”

You look back at the quaint Muggle town. People bustling around, unaware that magic danced through their streets and halls. That it still whirs faintly beneath the bricks.

You’ll never see Bridgeton again, not like this at any rate. But you’ll remember it. Maybe not in the way the Ministry expects. Not just as a mission, but as a question. A line blurred and a whisper in the mist.

Back at your flat, you find something tucked into your Ministry-issued notebook. A single sheet of parchment, written in curling script:

Thank you for seeing what I built.
Sometimes magic doesn’t need to conquer.
Sometimes it just wants to be left alone.
—T.E.

You tuck it away. Not into your report, but into your memory. Where it will stay, gently pulsating, long after the other details of this masquerade have slipped away.