I woke before dawn, before any of the boys in the dormitory had even stirred in their sleep. For a moment I lay still, listening to the quiet breathing around me and the steady murmur of the lake muffled by the stone walls of the dungeon. My left eye burned faintly - not like in the bathroom, not like when I felt something pass through me, but enough that I couldn't pretend nothing had happened.
I touched my face. The skin was dry. No blood.
This wasn't physical pain. It was a reminder.
Yesterday's scene returned in short, broken fragments - the distortion of the air, the feeling of someone else's helplessness, the shadow of movement that did not belong to the present. I hadn't seen a face. I hadn't seen anything concrete. I had seen the effect.
And that was enough.
I got up and went through my training as usual, though this time the movement was not just discipline. It was a way to regain control. A series of push-ups, squats, steady breaths counted silently in my mind. My body responded properly, familiarly, predictably. Unlike my eyes.
Under the shower I closed my eyelids and almost immediately felt the same tension that had accompanied me yesterday in the bathroom on the second floor. Not an image. Not a vision. More like the space around me had an extra layer I had suddenly gained access to. I opened my eyes faster than I had planned. Water ran down the stone as it always did. Everything was ordinary.
Too ordinary.
The Great Hall was filled with morning chaos. Gryffindor moved to its own rhythm - loud and direct. Someone was talking about the flying lesson, someone else was laughing about Neville's stumble. Malfoy sat in his usual place, leaning toward Crabbe with the same expression of self-satisfaction I had already seen dozens of times.
I sat at the end of the Slytherin table and ate in silence for a moment, letting the noise fill the space between me and the rest of the students. I had no intention of testing anything. Not after yesterday.
And yet when I looked up, my gaze rested on Malfoy a little longer than it should have. It wasn't hostility. More like an impulse that was difficult to ignore.
I focused.
The sensation appeared immediately - like the tension of an invisible string stretched between us. I didn't see a shadow or a fracture. The lines of magic around his figure simply trembled slightly, like the surface of calm water disturbed by a stone.
Malfoy cut off his sentence halfway through. He frowned and looked toward me with clear irritation.
- Do you have a problem, Peverell? he asked coldly.
I didn't answer. I deepened my focus.
My left eye burned more sharply, but the pain was tolerable. Malfoy slowly straightened in his chair and his gaze sharpened. He didn't look frightened. He looked like someone who felt watched in a way he didn't understand.
- Stop staring like that, he hissed.
I let go.
The tension vanished instantly, as if someone had cut a thin thread between us. Malfoy leaned back and returned to his conversation, though his tone was more strained than before.
It wasn't imagination.
He had felt it.
After breakfast, when most students began heading to their classes, someone lightly nudged my elbow.
- Peverell.
I turned. It was one of the first-year Slytherins, tall, with dark hair and lips that always seemed pressed together, as if he was trying to look more serious than he really was.
- You going out to the grounds after lessons? he asked. A few of us want to practice flying. Without teachers.
Two other boys stood behind him. They didn't look hostile. Just curious.
We heard you're pretty good, added the second. You could show us how to stabilize the takeoff.
For a moment I simply looked at them.
It was an ordinary suggestion. Not a test. Not a provocation.
- Maybe, I answered calmly. - If I have time.
- Drop by then, the first one shrugged. We'll be there anyway.
They didn't push. They didn't analyze my tone. They walked off talking about who had almost crashed into a tower during a sharp turn the last time.
For a moment I remained where I stood.
I didn't feel reluctance.
I didn't feel the need either.
I noticed something else.
Before answering, I had spent a second analyzing their posture. Their stance. The tension in their shoulders.
Not because I wanted to.
Because it had become automatic.
After classes I did go out to the grounds.
It was cool, the air clear. A few first-years hovered a few meters above the ground, trying to turn without dropping too sharply.
- All right, show us, someone said when he saw me.
I mounted the broom and pushed off the ground smoothly. I rose higher than they had, made a calm arc, then landed softly on the grass.
- Don't jerk your hand, I told one of them. - The broom reacts to tension.
He tried again. This time it was better.
Well look at that, he muttered with approval.
For a few minutes I explained small things. Breathing. Relaxing the shoulders. Looking where you want to fly.
It was ordinary.
Simple.
I wasn't testing anyone.
I wasn't pushing.
But at one moment, when one of the boys flew a little too close to me, my gaze instinctively sharpened.
Only for a fraction of a second.
He wobbled in the air and nearly lost his balance.
- What the… he muttered, regaining stability.
I released immediately.
- You tensed up too much, I said calmly.
He accepted it without hesitation.
He didn't notice.
I did.
It hadn't been a conscious test.
It had been a reflex.
Later that day, returning from the grounds along the corridor leading to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, I saw Professor Quirrell. He stood a few steps away, speaking with a Ravenclaw student. His voice trembled as usual, his hands nervously adjusting the turban.
My left eye burned immediately, more strongly than it had with Malfoy.
I stopped.
This time I did it deliberately.
I focused on him, ignoring everything else. The tension was stronger, deeper. The lines of magic around the professor didn't just tremble - they began to twist, as if the natural direction of their flow had been disturbed.
I pressed further.
Quirrell's hand rose more sharply to his turban. His posture straightened for a second and the air behind him distorted in a way I had never seen before - not like a shadow, but like a fracture that should not exist.
And then I felt the response.
Not from the man.
From the depth of that fracture.
The pain in my eye was sudden and sharp. My vision blurred for a fraction of a second.
I released immediately.
Quirrell cleared his throat nervously and returned to his conversation, but for a brief moment his gaze had been different - focused, alert, as if he knew something had touched him.
That was not the same reaction Malfoy had.
Something had answered.
I shouldn't have tried again.
And yet the next day, when I saw a younger Hufflepuff student standing uncertainly near the entrance to the Slytherin common room, curiosity won.
He was small, clearly uncomfortable in the Slytherin dungeon. He held a letter in his hand and waited for someone to take it.
I looked.
Not aggressively. Not with anger.
I focused.
The tension appeared faster than before, as if the eye was learning to react more efficiently. The lines around the boy trembled slightly.
He fell silent mid-sentence.
He frowned and looked around uncertainly.
I deepened the pressure.
My eye burned more intensely, but I didn't stop. The boy paled, his breathing quickened, and the hand holding the letter began to shake.
- I feel… dizzy, he muttered, grabbing the edge of the table.
The letter fell to the floor. Someone nearby asked if he was alright. He nodded, though he was clearly trying to catch his breath.
This wasn't irritation like Malfoy's reaction.
This was the body reacting under pressure.
Just a moment longer.
Just a little more.
The boundary was closer than I had expected.
At that moment I understood that if I didn't stop, I would hurt him.
I released.
The tension vanished instantly. The boy inhaled sharply and stepped away from the table, clearly confused by his own state.
I looked at my hands.
They weren't trembling.
I felt no triumph.
I felt no guilt either.
I felt something far more disturbing - growing ease.
With every attempt it became simpler.
With every attempt the boundary moved further.
That night I didn't train. I didn't read. I lay in silence staring at the stone ceiling, and my left eye was completely calm.
As if it was waiting.
And I knew one thing.
I would not stop.
Not yet.
I lay there for a long time in silence, but sleep would not come. When I closed my eyes I no longer saw the bathroom or the shadow from the past. I saw the face of the Hufflepuff boy and the moment his breathing sped up, as if invisible hands had tightened around his chest.
I didn't feel guilty about it.
That was the strangest part.
I should have felt uneasy. Afraid of myself. Maybe even disgusted.
Instead I analyzed.
The reaction had been cleaner than Malfoy's. Stronger. Faster. That meant it wasn't only about character or willpower. Perhaps it was susceptibility. Perhaps something in the structure of another person's magic.
The thought was cold and orderly.
I noticed that I no longer thought of him as a boy.
I thought of him as an example.
The following days passed under the sign of subtle tests.
I did not do it openly. I did not stare long. I did not press hard.
Sometimes a fraction of a second of focus was enough to see someone frown, adjust their robe, look around uneasily as if they had suddenly grown cold. Some reacted with irritation, others with confusion, others simply looked away faster than before.
I began to see a pattern.
Stronger personalities reacted confrontationally. Weaker ones withdrew. Animals were the most honest.
In the owlery one of the owls ruffled its feathers and moved away along the perch before I had even come close. Filch's cat, passing beside me, suddenly stopped, looked straight into my left eye, and hissed quietly as if instinctively sensing something it could not name.
It was pure.
Without ego. Without pride.
Animals reacted on a level humans did not understand.
I noticed that I had to concentrate less and less intensely than at the beginning. The tension appeared faster, as if the eye was learning on its own. As if the line between looking and pressing was slowly fading.
And that began to worry me.
Not because I could hurt someone.
Because it was starting to require no effort.
During one Potions lesson Snape walked between the desks, criticizing Gryffindors with the same cold precision as always. For a moment I wondered how someone with such strong control over himself would react.
I did not try.
Not because I was afraid.
Because I decided it was not the moment yet.
The thought came naturally, like the decision of a researcher postponing an experiment.
Only after a moment did I realize how much my way of thinking had changed.
Not "should I".
Not "is it right".
Only "when will be the best moment".
In the Room of Requirement the training dummy stopped being only a spell exercise. I began testing whether focusing through the eye influenced the structure of a spell, whether it changed its weight, whether it made it more decisive.
With Expelliarmus the impulse felt clearer, more direct. With Lumos the light was distinctly brighter, as if the pressure of the gaze strengthened the intent.
I wasn't sure whether the change was real or just autosuggestion.
But with each attempt I felt greater coherence between gaze and action.
As if the eye were not an addition.
As if it were an extension.
The boundary came unexpectedly.
Not during some grand scene.
Not during a dramatic moment.
A small thing was enough.
In the library a Gryffindor first-year accidentally bumped my shoulder, scattering my parchments. He apologized immediately, clearly embarrassed.
I should have answered calmly.
Instead I looked.
Reflexively.
The tension appeared on its own.
The boy froze. His eyes widened slightly. He stepped back as if a wave of cold had suddenly struck him.
I wasn't pressing consciously.
And yet the reaction was stronger than in my earlier deliberate attempts.
That was new.
The eye acted faster than my decision.
I released immediately.
The boy stood stiffly for a moment longer, then walked away, glancing back over his shoulder.
I sat down slowly.
My heart beat steadily.
I understood something I did not like at all.
This was no longer an experiment.
It was becoming a reflex.
That night I stared into the darkness for a long time.
Not because I feared sleep.
Because for the first time a thought appeared that I had never allowed before.
If this keeps progressing…
then at some point I will stop choosing.
And when you stop choosing, you no longer have control.