The private ward of the London hospital was a temple of sanitized despair. It smelled of antiseptic and broken dreams. In the center of the room, lying beneath a mountain of white linens, was Shawn Sterling. The eighteen-year-old looked less like a professional athlete and more like a hollowed-out shell. His gaze was fixed on his right leg, which was encased in a thick, cumbersome cast—a heavy weight that seemed to be dragging his entire future down into the dirt.
For Shawn, the world had ended on a rain-slicked road three days ago. He could still hear the screech of tires and the sickening crunch of bone against metal. He had just signed with Arsenal. He was supposed to be at London Colney, training with the best in the world, not lying in a bed watching his muscle tone wither away.
The words of the surgeons had been polite, professional, and utterly devastating. "Comminuted fracture. Multiple fragments. We've used titanium pins to stabilize the structure, but football... well, son, let's focus on walking first."
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the red and white jersey he was supposed to wear. Now, it felt like a ghost shroud.
When the door opened and a group entered, Shawn didn't even blink. He didn't care about visitors. He didn't care about his father's desperate attempts to find "alternative" solutions.
"Shawn," Jonathan Sterling said, his voice thick with a forced optimism that was painful to hear. He stepped to the bedside, gesturing toward the young man in the dark coat. "This is the man I told you about. Mr. Swann. He's... he's a specialist. A Wizard. He has a way to fix this, Shawn. Truly fix it."
Shawn's eyes flickered over to Sebastian. He saw a man who looked barely older than himself, dressed in clothes that were expensive but ordinary. No robes, no glowing staff, no Gandalf beard.
A Wizard? Shawn thought, a bitter, cynical laugh bubbling in his throat that he didn't have the energy to release. Dad's finally lost it. He's brought in a stage magician to heal a shattered femur. He looked away, returning his gaze to the ceiling, the silence in the room growing heavy.
"Mr. Wizard," Jonathan turned to Sebastian, his hands trembling. All the authority of a Member of Parliament had vanished, replaced by the raw pleading of a father. "Please. As I told White, anything you want. Money, influence, whatever it takes. Just give him his life back."
Even Mary Sterling, who had been so vocal with her doubts in the hallway, was silent now. She stood by the window, clutching a damp handkerchief, looking at Sebastian with the wide, terrified eyes of someone staring at a liferaft in the middle of a storm.
Sebastian stepped forward, his boots clicking softly on the linoleum. He reached out a hand toward the cast, but before he could touch it, the door was flung open.
"Councilor Sterling! What is the meaning of this?"
A man in a crisp white coat stormed in, followed by two nurses. This was Dr. Pete, the head of orthopedic surgery and the man who had spent six hours in the operating theater putting Shawn back together. He was a man of science, and his face was currently a very bright shade of purple.
"I told you the boy needs absolute rest!" Pete barked, ignoring Sebastian entirely. "And I certainly told you that bringing in these... these disreputable 'miracle workers' is a violation of hospital policy. This is a medical facility, not a séance!"
Dr. Pete had heard the whispers about Jonathan Sterling looking for a "Wizard." He had laughed it off as grief-induced hysteria. But seeing a stranger standing over his patient was a bridge too far.
"If anything happens to those titanium pins, if that wound gets infected because of some charlatan's 'energy healing,' the responsibility will be yours, Councilor! I won't have it!"
Sebastian didn't move. He didn't even look at the doctor. He simply kept his eyes on Shawn, waiting for the father to decide. He wasn't going to fight for the right to save someone. If they wanted the doctor's slow, incomplete healing, they could have it.
Jonathan Sterling stood in the middle of the room, looking between the prestigious surgeon and the silent young man who claimed to be a wizard. He remembered the look in Regulus Black's eyes when he spoke of Sebastian. He remembered the sheer impossibility of the things he'd heard.
He gritted his teeth and stepped in front of Dr. Pete, physically blocking the surgeon's path. "Dr. Pete, thank you for everything you've done. But we are going to try this. Please... stand back."
"You're insane!" Pete shouted, his voice cracking. "Fine! I'll stay. I'll stay right here and watch this 'Wizard' fail. And when he does, I'm calling the police. If any Tom, Dick, or Harry can heal a comminuted fracture with a wave of his hand, I'll run naked through Piccadilly Circus!"
Sebastian's lip curled into a tiny, almost imperceptible smirk. Careful what you wish for, Doctor.
He had already used a silent, wandless diagnostic pulse the moment he entered the room. The injury was a mess—the bone had exploded into dozens of pieces. In the wizarding world, a Brackium Emendo would have fixed it in seconds if it were fresh. But the Muggles had already been "helpful." They had drilled holes. They had inserted metal. They had anchored the trauma into the boy's very biology.
If he used a simple mending charm now, the bone would knit around the titanium, fusing the metal into the skeleton forever. That wouldn't do for an athlete.
Sebastian reached into his coat and pulled out his wand—a slender, dark length of wood that seemed to pull the light from the room toward it.
"Everyone," Sebastian said, his voice cold and commanding, "stay exactly where you are. Do not speak. Do not move."
With a sharp flick of his wrist, the heavy deadbolt on the ward door slid shut with a resounding clack.
Then, he pointed the wand at the bed.
"Mobilicorpus."
A collective gasp echoed in the room. Shawn, bedsheets and all, rose slowly into the air. He didn't just sit up; his entire body drifted five feet off the mattress, suspended by an unseen force.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Jonathan Sterling fell to his knees, his eyes wide. Mary covered her mouth to stifle a scream. Dr. Pete's face went from purple to a ghostly, sickly white. He began to tremble, his hand subconsciously reaching for the crucifix under his shirt.
Oh God, the doctor thought, his heart hammering against his ribs. He's real. He's actually real. And I just called him a charlatan. He's going to turn me into a toad. He's going to curse my entire family line... I'm dead. I'm absolutely dead.
Sebastian ignored the surgeon's mental breakdown. He floated Shawn so that the boy was level with his gaze. Shawn was no longer lifeless; his eyes were wide, filled with a terrifying, wonderful hope.
"Shawn," Sebastian said, his voice echoing in the small room. "Listen to me. If you had come to me an hour after the crash, I could have fixed this with a flick of my wrist. But the doctors have put steel into your marrow. They have pinned your future to metal."
He moved closer, the tip of his wand glowing with a soft, blue light. "To fix this properly—to make you a footballer again—I have to undo what they did. I have to vanish the metal. I have to break the bone again, internally, and then regrow it from scratch."
Shawn's breath hitched.
"It will be an entire night of agony," Sebastian continued, his gaze piercing. "It will feel like a thousand hot needles are dancing in your leg. It is a pain no Muggle medicine can dull. Tell me now—are you willing to pay that price for the pitch? Or do you want to stay in that bed and walk with a cane for the rest of your life?"
Shawn looked down at his floating, useless leg. He thought of the stadium. He thought of the roar of the crowd and the feel of the ball at his feet.
"Do it," Shawn whispered, his voice shaking but certain. "I don't care about the pain. I don't care if it kills me. Please... I want to run. I want to go home. Heal me, Mr. Wizard. Please."