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The Slytherin common room had always been a cold place, its green-tinged light filtered through the murky, oppressive depths of the Black Lake. But on their first night back, the chill in the air had nothing to do with the dungeons. It was a new kind of cold, a quiet, watchful reverence that emanated from a single point of gravity: Kaelen, seated in a high-backed armchair by the emerald fire, a heavy, leather-bound book open on his lap.
He was not reading. He was observing. His constant, polite smile was a fixture in the flickering light, and his eyes, missing nothing, tracked the intricate social currents of the room. The previous year, this space had been dominated by the loud, arrogant pronouncements of Draco Malfoy. Now, a hush had fallen. Students spoke in low murmurs, their gazes periodically flicking towards Kaelen, not with the open fear of the bullied, but with the wary, calculated respect one gives to a sleeping dragon. They did not understand the source of his power, but they had all heard the stories of the summer—whispers of a new force in the London underworld, of rivals who had simply… stopped being a problem. They had seen the fear in the eyes of the older Ravenclaws on the train. They understood that the hierarchy had irrevocably shifted.
Draco Malfoy, a ghost at the feast of his own downfall, tried to make one last stand. He strutted into the common room, flanked by the ever-present but now uncertain forms of Crabbe and Goyle, and attempted to reclaim his territory by the fire.
"Hardly seems fair, does it?" Malfoy announced to the room at large, his voice a little too loud, a little too shrill. "A fraud like Lockhart teaching Defence. My father says the man's a complete dunderhead. He's lodged a formal complaint with the Board of Governors, of course."
Silence. No one agreed. No one offered the fawning support he was so accustomed to. They were all watching Kaelen.
Kaelen slowly, deliberately, turned a page in his book. He didn't look up. "An interesting strategy, Draco," he said, his voice a soft, conversational murmur that nonetheless carried to every corner of the silent room. "To complain about the quality of the swordsman before the duel has even begun. It sets a rather convenient precedent for your own expected failure in the subject."
A few of the older students near the fireplace had to physically smother their snorts of laughter. Malfoy's face, a canvas of pale arrogance, flooded with a blotchy, helpless red. He had been dismissed, disarmed, and dissected with a single, smiling sentence. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, utterly defeated. Without another word, he spun on his heel and stalked towards the dormitories, his two bookends trailing uselessly behind him.
The king was dead. Long live the king.
An hour later, when the common room had mostly emptied, Kaelen closed his book with a soft thud. He looked at Nott and Daphne, who had remained in their seats nearby, waiting. The lesson from the train had ended; the first official briefing of the year was about to begin.
"Our objectives for this term are twofold," Kaelen began, his voice dropping into the low, precise tone of a general addressing his command staff. He felt a familiar, exhilarating thrill—the joy of moving his own pieces on the board. "First, information consolidation. Second, asset development."
He turned to Nott. "Theodore, your work on the soul-leeching rune is primary. I want every variant, every counter-curse, every theoretical application you can find. Your family's library is your main resource, but do not neglect the castle. The Restricted Section is a treasure trove of forgotten lore." His smile took on a sharp, predatory edge. "I trust you can acquire access without the… theatricality… of last year's attempt."
Nott's face paled at the memory of his paralysis on the chessboard. "Yes, Kaelen. I understand."
"Good," Kaelen continued. "Your secondary task is to begin building an internal intelligence network. Focus on the younger years. The first and second-years. The overlooked, the resentful, the ambitious." He leaned forward, the firelight dancing in his cold, grey eyes, and began to spoon-feed them the logic, ensuring they, and the reader, understood the chilling brilliance of the plan. "The established hierarchy—prefects, Quidditch captains—is a closed loop. They trade information amongst themselves. They are arrogant and complacent. The true currency of this castle is the whisper in the corridor, the tearful confession in a lavatory, the bitter complaint of a student who feels they have been wronged. These are the secrets no one thinks to guard. A second-year Hufflepuff who feels slighted by a Ravenclaw prefect is more valuable to me than the Head Boy. They are invisible. And you will be their confessor. You will offer them a sympathetic ear, a small piece of useful information, perhaps help with a difficult piece of homework. You will indebt them to you. They will become your eyes and ears. Is that clear?"
"Perfectly," Nott said, his own eyes gleaming with a newfound, fanatical purpose. He was not just a researcher anymore. He was a spymaster in training.
Kaelen then turned to Daphne. "Your role is more subtle, but no less critical. You will be my minister of state. Your family's political connections are your primary asset. I want you to monitor the pure-blood social circles. Every dinner party, every Ministry gala your parents attend, is a data-gathering opportunity. I want to know who is gaining influence, who is losing it, and who is quietly betting on the return of a certain Dark Lord."
Daphne's expression was one of cool, intellectual appraisal. "A sound strategy. The old families talk. They are arrogant and believe their drawing rooms are secure."
"Precisely," Kaelen affirmed. "You will also be my social barometer within the school. This new DADA professor, Lockhart… he is a fool, but he is a popular fool. His incompetence is a variable that will undoubtedly create chaos. I want you to track his influence. Note which students are taken in by his act, and which are not. Specifically," he added, a teasing, condescending glint in his eye, "keep a close watch on Hermione Granger. Her blind reverence for published authority is a fascinating psychological flaw. A weakness that I intend to study very, very closely."
Daphne's lips curved into a faint, knowing smile. "Consider it done."
The first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson of the year was a spectacle of such breathtaking incompetence that Kaelen found it almost beautiful in its perfection. The classroom was a shrine to Gilderoy Lockhart. Dozens of framed, moving portraits adorned the walls, each depicting the man in a different heroic pose—winking, beaming, flexing. The man himself stood at the front of the room, dressed in robes of a forget-me-not blue that perfectly matched his eyes. He radiated an aura of smug self-satisfaction so powerful it was practically a magical phenomenon in itself.
Kaelen sat at a desk in the back with Daphne, observing the scene with the detached amusement of a biologist studying a particularly flamboyant, and likely poisonous, tree frog. He saw Hermione Granger on the front row, her face alight with an adoring, uncritical reverence that confirmed all his theories about her. She was practically vibrating with excitement.
"Now then!" Lockhart boomed, flashing a smile so bright it was a miracle it didn't count as a light-based spell. "I am your new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher! Me! Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award!"
He then proceeded to hand out a quiz, not on defensive spells, but on himself. Kaelen looked down at the parchment. Question 1: What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite colour? Question 3: What is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date? Question 32: When is Gilderoy Lockhart's birthday, and what would his ideal gift be?
Kaelen didn't write a single word. He simply slid the parchment to the side of his desk and met Daphne's eyes. She raised a single, elegant eyebrow. The silent, shared contempt was more articulate than any shouted insult.
The true chaos began when Lockhart, having graded Hermione's perfect paper with a flourish, decided a practical demonstration was in order. He unveiled a large, covered cage and, with a dramatic whip of his cloak, revealed a swarm of Cornish Pixies. They were small, electric blue, and chattering with a frenetic, malevolent energy.
"Freshly caught Cornish Pixies!" Lockhart announced grandly. "Let's see what you make of them!" He flung open the cage door.
What followed was not a lesson. It was a riot. The pixies shot out like a hail of blue bullets, wreaking havoc. They grabbed Neville Longbottom by the ears and hoisted him up to the chandelier. They tore pages from textbooks, squirted ink on the walls, and shattered the skeleton of a dragon near the back of the room. The students shrieked and ducked for cover. Lockhart, his charming smile now a rictus of panic, tried a half-hearted spell that only served to make the pixies angrier. He then fled to the safety of his office, deputizing Harry, Ron, and Hermione to "pop them back in their cage."
Throughout the entire pandemonium, Kaelen had not moved. He sat perfectly still, his chin resting on his steepled fingers, watching the chaos unfold with a serene, analytical smile. This was Dumbledore's choice to defend the children. It was a farce of such epic proportions that it gave him a genuine sense of goosebumps.
A particularly vicious-looking pixie, its tiny face contorted in a mask of rage, broke away from the main swarm and dive-bombed directly at his head, its needle-sharp fingers outstretched.
Daphne flinched, her wand half-raised. But Kaelen didn't even blink. He made no sound. He simply lifted a single, elegant finger.
A shimmer of invisible force, a silent, non-verbal expression of his will, shot out and struck the pixie. It froze instantly, its wings locked in mid-flap, its tiny scream of rage trapped in its throat. It hung in the air a foot from his face, a perfect, glittering blue statue of impotent fury.
Kaelen leaned forward, his smile never wavering, and examined the immobilized creature with the cold, detached curiosity of a collector studying a new butterfly. He gently tilted its head with the tip of his finger, observing the intricate structure of its wings.
"Fascinating," he murmured to Daphne, his voice a calm whisper amidst the shrieks and crashes that filled the room. "Their skeletal structure is far more robust than the literature suggests. Capable of withstanding significant kinetic force." He gave the frozen pixie a gentle poke. "A pity their intelligence is so negligible. They could be weaponized, if one could only train them."
He then casually flicked his finger. The spell broke, and the pixie, utterly terrified, let out a squeak of pure horror and shot up to the ceiling, refusing to come anywhere near him again.
Kaelen leaned back in his chair, the very picture of calm in the eye of the storm. He had not solved the problem for the class. He had not helped. He had simply, effortlessly, and terrifyingly, demonstrated that the chaos affecting everyone else was, to him, a complete and utter irrelevance.
The message was clear. He was not playing their game. He was not even on the same board.