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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Kaelen stepped back through the black flames, the icy sensation of the potion receding, replaced by the cold reality of his failure. He emerged into the potion chamber to find Daphne exactly where he had left her, her wand held ready, her posture alert. She saw his empty hands and the look on his face—a stillness more terrifying than any rage—and knew the outcome instantly.
"He's gone," she stated, her voice a low whisper.
"Potter has it," Kaelen said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. "The final ward was a test of sentiment. It rewarded a fool's intentions over a master's skill. Dumbledore's work." He began walking towards the purple flames, not waiting for her. "The host has been neutralized. The conflict, for now, is over."
Daphne's eyes widened slightly at the sheer volume of information delivered in those three cold sentences. She took the purple potion he had given her and drank it, following him back through the fire into the troll's chamber.
They made their way back to the chessboard room. Theodore Nott was still lying on the floor, paralyzed, his eyes wide with a mixture of terror and impotent fury. He watched them approach, the sound of their footsteps echoing like hammers in the vast, silent chamber.
Kaelen stood over him, looking down with the same detached air as before. "The operation was a failure," he informed the paralyzed boy. "The objective was claimed by Potter. Your attempted intervention was, in the end, an irrelevant and pathetic footnote."
He crouched down, retrieving the satchel of runic charts and handing it to Daphne. He then looked directly into Nott's terrified eyes. "You have two options, Theodore. You can remain here until the spell wears off, at which point you will be discovered by the returning professors and can tell them your story of a heroic attempt to stop the Gryffindors. Or, you can offer your unconditional loyalty to me, and we can get you out of here before you are discovered. The choice is yours. You have ten seconds."
He didn't need to elaborate on what "unconditional loyalty" entailed. The unspoken threat was a physical force in the room.
Nott's eyes, the only part of him that could move, darted from Kaelen's cold face to Daphne's impassive one. He saw no mercy, only calculation. After three seconds of frantic, terrified thought, he blinked twice, rapidly. A signal of assent.
"A logical choice," Kaelen said. He raised his wand. "Finite Incantatem."
Nott's body unlocked with a series of sickening cracks. He gasped for air, scrambling to his feet, rubbing his stiff limbs. He looked at Kaelen with a new expression: a deep, profound, and abiding fear. The ambition that had driven him to act alone had been surgically removed, replaced by the certainty that he was a pawn in a game far beyond his comprehension.
"Let's go," Kaelen commanded. "And do try to keep up."
Their escape was a masterpiece of silent efficiency. They were three ghosts, moving through the castle's sleeping veins, returning to the Slytherin dungeons minutes before the first hint of dawn touched the high windows of the castle. They melted back into their dormitories as if they had never left.
The end of the year arrived with a speed that left the rest of the school breathless. The story that circulated was a heavily redacted, heroic fantasy: Harry Potter had confronted the evil Professor Snape, saved the Philosopher's Stone, and vanquished the lingering spirit of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Dumbledore's return had sealed the victory. It was a fairy tale, just as Kaelen had concluded.
The End-of-Term Feast was a sea of green and silver. Banners bearing the Slytherin serpent hung from the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall. They had won the House Cup for the seventh year in a row. The mood was triumphant. Malfoy was preening, having conveniently forgotten his role in losing them twenty points. The rest of the house was smug, their dominance reaffirmed.
Kaelen, sitting between a silent, watchful Nott and a coolly composed Daphne, felt nothing but contempt for the spectacle. The House Cup was a child's game, a system of rewards and punishments designed to keep the students compliant. It was irrelevant.
Dumbledore rose to his feet, his blue eyes twinkling over the assembled students. He gave a short speech, and then, with a theatrical pause, he announced his last-minute points. Ten points to Ron Weasley for the best-played game of chess Hogwarts had seen in many years. Ten points to Hermione Granger for the use of cool logic in the face of fire. And twenty points to Harry Potter for pure nerve and outstanding courage.
The Great Hall erupted. The Gryffindor table exploded in a roar of disbelief and ecstasy. The Slytherin table was a mask of collective, stunned fury. With a final clap of Dumbledore's hands, the green and silver banners melted away, replaced by the garish scarlet and gold of Gryffindor. They had lost.
Malfoy looked as if he was about to be physically sick. The rest of the Slytherins were shouting, booing, their faces contorted with rage at the blatant, unfair favoritism.
Kaelen did not shout. He did not even scowl. He watched Dumbledore, who was smiling benevolently at the celebrating Gryffindors, and he felt a moment of perfect, chilling clarity. He started to laugh. It was not a loud laugh, but a soft, cold, and utterly humorless sound.
Nott and Daphne turned to look at him, startled.
"He's not a king," Kaelen whispered, his eyes gleaming with a dark, intellectual fire. "He's a storyteller. And he will always ensure his favorite characters get a happy ending, no matter how much he has to cheat to make it happen." He looked at the Gryffindor banner, at the celebrating heroes. "He's not playing chess. He's rigging a children's card game."
His laughter subsided, replaced by a look of profound, absolute contempt. This wasn't a system he could win by mastering its rules. This was a system that had to be broken.
The journey home on the Hogwarts Express was a quiet affair for their small compartment. While other students were loudly recounting their holiday plans, Kaelen sat by the window, not looking at the passing countryside, but at a small, tattered piece of parchment he held in his hands—the parasite rune he had recovered from the final chamber.
"What will you do this summer?" Daphne asked, her voice pulling him from his thoughts.
Kaelen looked up from the rune, his grey eyes seeming to absorb all the light in the compartment. He looked first at her, then at the subdued, loyal Nott. They were his inner circle. His first true assets.
"The same thing I will be doing next year," he said, his voice a low, prophetic whisper. "I am going to study my enemy's greatest weapon." He tapped the rune with a single, decisive finger. "I am going to learn how to dissect a soul. And then, I am going to learn how to build a better one."
The first war was over. The fairy tale had its happy ending. But as the train sped towards London, Kaelen was already drafting the new opening chapter.