Zorketh Zoulic | First Year | Slytherin

Full Name: Zorketh Zoulic
House: Slytherin
Age: 11
School Year: First year
Species: Human

History/Background Story:

Zorketh Zoulic had always been a mystery even to himself. Found beneath the mossy overhang of a forest ridge on the outskirts of Edinburgh, barely swaddled in a torn blanket and nestled against the roots of an ancient ash tree, he was no older than a year when Susan Galloway, the lone caretaker of Greystone Hollow Orphanage, stumbled upon him during her morning gathering walk. She claimed it was the silence that drew her in not the cries of a lost child, but the absence of birdsong, the way the air stilled, as though the forest itself was holding its breath. Wrapped with him was nothing but a name, handwritten on a soot-stained scrap of parchment. Zorketh.

Greystone Hollow wasn’t the sort of place one left easily. It crouched between decaying brickwork and ivy-smothered walls at the end of an alley no one cared to name, always just a little colder than the rest of the world. Yet it became his only home. The other children avoided him, whispering about how lights flickered when he was angry, how shadows seemed to grow longer around him at dusk. Even the bravest boys who once dared to bully him stopped after the incident with the shattered window no one saw him lift a finger, but the shards had moved like knives in the air. Susan never asked questions. She simply placed a warm hand on his shoulder, and he stayed still.

Physically, Zorketh stood out. He was tall for his age, with a lanky frame that seemed always too large for the thin jumpers he wore. His hair, dark brown with a stubborn wave, was always neatly brushed to one side a habit he picked up from watching old Muggle films. But it was his eyes that unsettled most: sharp green, pale like sea glass, yet oddly distant, like they were always watching something beyond what others could see. He rarely smiled. His voice was quiet when it came, clipped and formal, like someone who had spent more time with books than people.

He had no memories of his parents. Not even dreams. Only once, in a restless sleep, did he see two figures standing over him one cloaked in crimson, the other in silver whispering something about choices and fate. But it vanished the moment he awoke. Still, he often felt watched, like there was something in the world waiting for him to remember. The first real sign of his magic came when he was seven. A cruel boy had tried to steal his only photo a water-stained picture of an unknown woman smiling in a garden and Zorketh, in a blur of emotion, had made the boy's shoes melt into the floorboards. No one believed it at first, but Susan did. That night, she sat beside him, brushing his hair gently, whispering that he wasn’t broken just different.

The letter arrived in late July, hand-delivered by an owl that knocked thrice at the window with perfect, almost human rhythm. It was addressed in curling green ink, and Susan wept when she read it. Not from sadness, but something like relief. She had known, she said. Known for years. Zorketh simply stared, heart quiet, mind racing. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A place he had only read about in the strangest of books that somehow kept finding their way into Greystone’s dusty shelves.

He boarded the train alone, Susan watching from the platform, her figure shrinking behind steam and chattering crowds. She had packed his bag with careful hands, slipping a note between his robes that said: Find your truth. But don’t forget your heart. At Platform 9¾, surrounded by families and excitement he couldn’t understand, he felt more distant than ever. Children laughed, hugged, ran. He sat by the window, reading quietly. No one joined his compartment. He didn’t mind.

The Sorting Hat barely touched his head before it shouted “Slytherin!” There was no drama, no inner debate. It had seen his mind sharp, precise, calculating. But also something else. A sliver of something darker, buried deep. Something ancient. Zorketh took his place at the table in silence, observing more than participating. The other students whispered about him, called him cold, strange, even dangerous. He never corrected them. He found it useful.

Despite the whispers, he longed secretly for connection. Not popularity or attention, but understanding. A friend who saw past his silence. Someone who didn’t flinch at the way his magic sometimes coiled like smoke around his fingertips when he was lost in thought. But trust was difficult. He had learned too early that closeness often meant pain, and pain meant weakness. So he watched from shadows, listened more than he spoke, and carried secrets in his pockets like marbles.

Each night, in the quiet of the Slytherin common room, beneath the green glow of the lake water above, Zorketh sat near the far wall, tracing the ridges of his wand. He still didn’t fully understand it why it thrummed differently in his hand when he was angry, why it pulsed when he dreamed of fire and screams. He knew only that magic was more than power. It was memory. It was blood. And his, though still a mystery, was beginning to sing.

Susan’s letter remained tucked inside his trunk, unread but never forgotten. He would return one day. Not as the orphan of Greystone Hollow, but as someone who finally knew what he was made of. Perhaps then, the silence in the woods would make sense.

And until that day, Zorketh Zoulic remained a name half-written a question still waiting for its answer.