The days that followed were not gentle. They were forged in exhaustion, sweat, and quiet agony.
Adrian was not the kind of master who believed in mercy. Power, in his mind, was a language, and pain was its grammar.
From dawn until the hour before midnight, Greg trained under his unyielding gaze. The black marble hall of Adrian's hidden estate became a battlefield. Wards shimmered in layers along the walls, isolating magic, absorbing shockwaves, distorting sound so that not even echoes could escape.
Adrian's voice was always calm. "Again."
Greg's body moved automatically — wand raised, deflecting curses that came faster than the human eye could follow. He stumbled, bled, fell, and rose again. The floor was often slick with sweat and his own blood, but he kept fighting.
"Block higher."
"Don't flinch — predict the angle."
"A duelist doesn't react. He anticipates."
Spells cracked like thunder between them. Adrian moved effortlessly; his mastery over wandless magic was a blur of precision. Every attack from him was meant to teach through suffering. Every deflection Greg managed was earned through pain.
When Greg collapsed for the first time that week, chest heaving, Adrian simply watched him in silence. "You survived longer today," he said at last. "That's improvement."
Greg coughed blood onto the floor, then grinned weakly. "You call this improvement?"
Adrian's eyes softened — barely. "You're still breathing. That's more than most."
It continued for weeks. Combat drills, wandless resistance training, and sensory deprivation exercises. Adrian pushed him past every limit until the body refused to move — and even then, he whispered, "Stand. Again."
To Greg's surprise, he did.
Somewhere between exhaustion and despair, the pain became fuel. His reflexes sharpened. His spells grew cleaner. When he finally managed to disarm Adrian — for the briefest fraction of a second — the young wizard smiled faintly.
"Good," Adrian said. "You're beginning to understand. Magic is not just will — it's clarity under chaos."
When at last he dismissed him for the night, Greg barely made it to his chamber before collapsing into sleep. Adrian, meanwhile, sat in silence at his desk, his mind already turning elsewhere.
Training a soldier was simple. Understanding a curse — that was art.
It began as curiosity.
By the third week, Adrian had started taking blood samples — small, harmless pricks, barely noticed between training sessions. He studied them through magically magnified lenses, tracing the reaction between human essence and the lycanthropic corruption.
The results fascinated him. Lycanthropy was not a disease. It was a design.
Under the microscope of magic, the structure of the infection glowed with complexity — a web of energy woven into the blood and anchored deep into the soul. Most wizards had dismissed it as a curse born of chaos, but Adrian saw precision. Ritual. Intention.
He spent nights studying, parchment scattered across his workbench, filled with diagrams of runes, alchemical patterns, and annotated theories.
When Greg entered one morning, bruised but alert, Adrian didn't look up.
"Did you know," he said absently, "that the Roman Empire experimented with ritual warfare?"
Greg blinked, confused. "What?"
Adrian turned toward him, eyes reflecting the soft blue glow of runic light. "They sought to merge spirit and beast — to create soldiers who could embody strength without limitation. It worked, once. Briefly. Then it failed… spectacularly."
"You think that's where—"
"Where did your kind begin? Yes." Adrian's tone was almost clinical. "Lycanthropy wasn't a curse in origin. It was a weapon — an ancient magical graft, meant to amplify vitality, speed, and regeneration through something akin to soul transmutation. Unfortunately, they misunderstood the balance between body and mind."
He gestured to the floating image of Greg's magical structure hovering above the table — a spectral silhouette marked with veins of silver and crimson light. "Here. The corruption sits between two essences: your blood and your core of energy. It's not infection — it's fusion. The Romans introduced what I call the 'Wolf Spirit' — a fragment of ancient consciousness. A spirit of instinct and hunger."
Greg frowned. "You mean there's… something alive inside me?"
"Alive is a generous term," Adrian murmured. "It's energy — ancient, primitive, but pure. It enhances your body's vitality but clogs your magical channels. Think of it as a parasite that strengthens muscle while suffocating the soul."
He paused, studying the shimmering model before him. "But if one could isolate it… extract it, then repair the damage — it might not be a curse at all. It might be evolution."
Greg hesitated. "You're talking about cutting into souls."
Adrian's lips twitched faintly. "I've done worse."
The experiments began carefully.
Adrian was meticulous. He placed protective circles on the floor, binding runes drawn with silver-infused ink. Greg stood in the center, shirtless, runes crawling faintly across his skin as the ritual began.
Adrian's wand traced symbols in the air, connecting threads of blood and light into a web that surrounded Greg like a cocoon. "Focus," he ordered softly. "Keep your mind steady. I'm not harming you — I'm listening."
The light flared. For a moment, Greg felt as though something deep within him stirred — a growl, distant but furious, vibrating through every nerve.
Adrian's eyes narrowed, fascinated. "There it is. The wolf."
He felt its presence like a second pulse — a rhythm woven into Greg's essence. It was wild, erratic, and almost defiant. And beneath it, he sensed something extraordinary: a current of ancient magic.
"Pure energy," he whispered to himself. "Unrefined. Untamed. What the Romans called Ancient Magic — the precursor to modern sorcery. No wonder they failed to control it. It requires balance of mind and spirit, not brute force."
He could see it now — how the Wolf Spirit acted as both key and lock. It empowered Greg's physical form while obstructing his magical flow. Remove it incorrectly, and the soul would tear itself apart. But if it is done properly…
Adrian's thoughts raced. 'If I can rebind the soul after extraction — stitch it back seamlessly — the host will retain the strength while freeing the flow of magic. He could surpass human limits entirely.'
His hand trembled slightly with anticipation. "Greg," he said quietly, "do you realize what you are? A flawed masterpiece. But flaws can be perfected."
Greg's breathing was ragged. "And what happens if you're wrong?"
Adrian smiled faintly. "Then you die. But it will be an educational death."
Greg let out a short, breathless laugh. "You're insane."
"I prefer curious," Adrian said, tightening the circle with a wave of his wand. "Hold still."
The ritual continued for hours. Each attempt brought him closer to understanding the delicate boundary between spirit and instinct. Each pulse of Greg's aura told a story older than the castle of Hogwarts itself.
By the third night, Adrian had concluded:
The wolf spirit could be removed. But the risk was immense. During a full moon, that is the time to do the removal ritual; however, the balance would fracture — reason overwhelmed by the ancient magic's primal instinct. In that moment, even a controlled host could lose themselves entirely.
"Power without mind," Adrian murmured, recording the note in his book. "A god reduced to hunger."
Still, his fascination only deepened. The Romans had not been fools — only premature in understanding. Their ritual had not cursed humanity. It had opened a door that no one had dared to walk through. Adrian intended to.
\\\
Time passed. Weeks turned into months, the rhythm of their strange companionship settling into something like routine. Greg served without complaint. He cooked, cleaned, fetched rare ingredients, and occasionally endured Adrian's experiments with grim humor. Adrian, in turn, began to trust him — in his own way. When Adrian needed rare materials, Greg traveled alone through Britain's underworld. When he required silence, Greg guarded the door. The man was uneducated in magic but dangerously loyal, and Adrian respected that.
He taught Greg how to Apparate, how to conceal himself, and how to defend against mental intrusion. Sometimes, in rare moments between work and research, he even spoke of himself — not much, but enough for Greg to understand the strange mind he served.
"You don't believe in good or evil, do you?" Greg once asked quietly.
Adrian looked up from his notes. "No. Morality is the language of the weak. I believe in purpose. Everything else is context."
The relationship of the two men became better as Greg got to know Adrian better; he got to know how wise his master is for his age.
It was late summer when Adrian finally decided to move.
The Black Family Manor.
He had long known of its existence — the wards, the secrets buried beneath its crumbling pride. Years ago, while dissecting memories from Peter Pettigrew's mind, Adrian had glimpsed flashes of forbidden knowledge: the old libraries of pureblood families, filled with texts that even Hogwarts' restricted section never dared to hold.
He had waited for the right time.
One night, under the veil of disillusionment, the two appeared at the outskirts of the ancient estate. The manor loomed above them — silent, decaying, and humming with old, protective magic. Adrian extended his hand. Violet flared at his fingertips. Layer by layer, the wards peeled away, dissolving into harmless mist.
"Beautiful craftsmanship," he murmured. "But outdated."
Inside, the air smelled of dust and pride. Portraits glared from the walls, whispering curses until Adrian silenced them with a flick of his wand. They reached the library — vast, circular, filled with towering shelves of black oak.
Adrian's eyes gleamed. "There it is."
With a motion, dozens of books levitated, pages fluttering as his copying enchantments activated. The air shimmered with light as every tome was duplicated, transferred into a cluster of black, enchanted notebooks that hovered beside him.
In the corner, a small creature appeared — the house-elf, Kreacher, glaring at them with burning eyes. "Thieves! Desecrators—"
Adrian's voice was soft but absolute. "Sleep."
Kreacher froze mid-motion, collapsing silently to the floor. Adrian approached him, placed a hand on his forehead. The elf's memories burned away like mist.
"Reset the wards," Adrian ordered. Greg obeyed. Within minutes, every trace of their intrusion was gone. When they vanished, the manor stood silent once more, undisturbed, as though no one had entered for centuries. By the time they returned home, the summer was fading.
Adrian packed quietly, his expression calm. "It's time."
Greg frowned. "Time for what?"
"For school."
Greg blinked. "You're… still a student?"
Adrian's lips curved faintly. "Technically."
\\\
Adrian Apparated directly to King's Cross. The platform was crowded, loud, alive with families and laughter — a noise that felt alien after months of isolation. He boarded the train without a word, found an empty compartment, and sealed it with silent spells: muffling, locking, warding.
The world outside blurred as the train began to move.
Adrian leaned back, eyes closing. He allowed himself to rest. His breathing slowed, his thoughts drifted, and soon — he slept.
When he woke, the night had fallen.
The train screeched to a stop before the familiar towers of Hogwarts. He stepped out, silent and composed, his black robes catching the wind. The castle loomed ahead, lit by hundreds of floating torches.
The moment Adrian stepped into the Great Hall, the air felt different.
It wasn't something one could name — not fear exactly, nor tension — but a faint vibration that crawled beneath the surface of every sound. Laughter that didn't quite reach the eyes. Conversations that stuttered between glances toward the staff table. Even the enchanted ceiling, painted with autumn constellations, seemed dimmer than usual — as if the stars themselves were watching in silence. The smell of roasted pheasant and honey-glazed pumpkin floated thickly through the air, but Adrian barely noticed. He moved between the rows of tables like a shadow, his expression calm and distant, and took his usual seat among the Slytherins.
The table around him was a mosaic of green and silver, polished plates reflecting candlelight and restless faces. Conversations stopped when he sat down — not entirely, but enough for the air to shift.
He was used to it.
After last year's events, after that duel, his name had turned from rumor to symbol. Some whispered his name in fear, some in awe that he had faced the Dark Lord and survived. Others said he'd made a pact with him. But Adrian never cared to correct them.
Truth was a currency best spent selectively.
He poured himself water, his movements quiet, deliberate. Across the hall, laughter broke from the Gryffindor table — too loud, too desperate. A kind of defiance against the fear pressing down on everyone. He let his gaze drift across the room and then, slowly, he began to listen. Not with ears — with thought.
Legilimency, an intrusion of consciousness. He invaded minds, feeling their surface emotions, their unspoken thoughts. The hall unfolded in whispers.
"…He killed people, I swear he did—"
"…Father says the Ministry's lying, that You-Know-Who's not back…"
"…But Bellatrix escaped, didn't she?"
"…If he's really back, we'll all have to choose sides."
Adrian's eyes moved from face to face — familiar ones. Daphne Greengrass pretended to laugh, but her mind was heavy with unease.
The Carrow twins, whispering about family meetings and letters sealed in black wax.
Even Draco Malfoy, usually smug and self-assured, looked thinner — like someone trying too hard to fill the silence left by a father's absence.
'They're all just children trapped between blood and ideology, ' Adrian thought. 'Their loyalty isn't conviction. It's an inheritance.'
He remembered something he'd once read: "The sins of the fathers live in the marrow of their sons." It felt almost literal here.
He watched a boy at the end of the table clench his fists as others mocked him for having a "half-blood cousin." Another girl, pale and composed, was smiling while thinking about the list her parents had made — of who should be spared when "the purge" began.
heir minds were loud with fear, but their faces were carefully still. Slytherin had always been a mirror of the real world — a collection of masks hiding trembling souls.
And then, silence.
Dumbledore rose.
Even the enchanted candles seemed to dim at his movement, the flame bending toward him as if pulled by gravity. His silver beard gleamed under the light, but Adrian's eyes were drawn to the faint stiffness in the man's hand — the way his sleeve seemed to hide something dark underneath.
"Another year," Dumbledore began, his voice low, gentle — yet every word carried through the hall as though the castle itself were listening. "Another chance for us to prove who we are when the world begins to lose its way."
His tone was calm, but his eyes carried the weight of a thousand wars.
"I know you have heard things," he continued. "Rumors, whispers in the corridors — tales of terror and resurrection. It is time we speak plainly."
The hall held its breath.
"The wizard once known as Tom Riddle — who called himself Voldemort — has returned."
The words dropped like a blade.
Even the ghosts froze.
Somewhere near the Ravenclaw table, a goblet shattered on the floor.
Dumbledore's gaze swept over them — steady, sorrowful, unyielding. "Many of you will doubt. Some will deny. That is natural. Fear breeds denial as surely as darkness breeds shadows. But truth does not bend to disbelief. It waits — patient and eternal — until the world has no choice but to look upon it again."
He paused, letting the silence expand.
"Make no mistake," he said, voice now harder, sharper. "This is not the time to turn away from one another. You will be tempted to choose safety over honesty, comfort over courage. But those choices, small as they seem, decide the fate of our world."
His words rolled through the hall like a tide — measured, ancient, filled with a strange, terrible compassion.
Adrian didn't move. His fork rested idle on his plate. His mind was elsewhere.
He wasn't listening anymore. He was watching.
Dumbledore's aura shimmered faintly to those who could see it — a vast field of magical resonance, deep blue and silver, like a sky filled with slow-moving stars. But Adrian's eyes glowed faintly violet. And through them, the world changed.
'Astralis Forma — Perceptum.' He thought.
The world dulled to grayscale. The torches dimmed. The chatter faded into a heartbeat.
Then he saw it.
Dumbledore's soul. The life-thread.
It burned brightly, yes — a vast, noble flame of mind and will. But beneath that brilliance was corrosion. A slow, creeping decay beginning from his hand and spiraling toward the heart, black and oily, pulsing with something old and cursed.
'Horcrux corruption, ' Adrian thought instantly. 'The ring. The fool actually touched it.'
He focused deeper, letting the spell unfold layers of vision — time, vitality, entropy. The decay had a rhythm, a pace, like the tick of a clock winding down. He calculated automatically.
'Six months. Maybe more, if he uses the potions protection wisely.'
He almost pitied him — the greatest wizard of his age, slowly eaten from within by the relic of a boy's obsession.
Then Dumbledore's gaze turned.
Directly at him.
For a fraction of a second, their eyes locked — blue meeting violet, age meeting youth, wisdom meeting something that didn't quite have a name.
Dumbledore's expression didn't change, but his aura flickered faintly — a ripple of amusement, perhaps recognition. He knew Adrian was watching. And he allowed it.
Adrian held the gaze. Calm. Unblinking. Testing. ' What are you planning now, old man?'
When he finally looked away, the spell faded, and color rushed back into the hall. Students were whispering again, some crying quietly, others pretending to be braver than they felt. Dumbledore raised his glass, his voice softening once more, offering comfort wrapped in inevitability.
When the feast ended, Adrian stood and left.
\
The greenish glow of the underwater common room wrapped the walls like a living veil. The lake pressed against the enchanted glass, its slow currents bending the light into wavering shapes. Adrian sat on his bed, his mind turning over the image of Dumbledore's decaying aura.
'You're dying, old man. But there is no way you will not try to deal with me. What method will you choose…' He wondered.
Last year, Adrian understood that he had managed to delay him for some time, but not forever, which is why he did not bother to even go back to cover his tracks; he knew that the old man would find something on him to prove to the world what he did.
'If I want back, I could be walking into a trap, but if I do not go, that in itself could be a trap…' By the time Adrian figured that Dumbeldoore is onto him, it was already too late; he could not take the chance to go back to investigate. Adrian thought of this until now; he survived by staying alert and never relying on luck or fate. He didn't hope for kindness from others or expect life to treat him fairly. He depended only on himself.
It was inevitable that Adrian would be exposed. The moment that Adrian knew of the old man's intentions, he never bothered to deny.
Denying in itself could serve as a confession, sometimes…
"The question that should be asked is: How?"
"How will he prove it? "
"And when?"
But the thought passed. " I'll leave future problems to future Adrian…" He smiled. He undressed, folded his clothes neatly, and lay down.
The faint hum of the castle pulsed beneath his body — wards older than time itself, thrumming like a heartbeat. Sleep came slowly, but deep.