"Tell me, Great One, does the fire ever stop?" "The fire is not the point, little spark. The point is the ash you leave behind. Do you have the stomach to stand in it?" — Albus Dumbledore, seeking audience with the Star-Eater of the Urals, 1899
September 2, 1969, The Slytherin Dormitory
Vega opened his eyes and immediately gasped, his hand flying to his chest. The air in the dungeon was dense.
The castle hadn't stopped singing just because he'd been asleep. If anything, the ambient magic felt heavier in the morning, a thick, syrupy resonance that settled in the lungs.
He sat up, rubbing his face. His skin felt tight, vibrating slightly as his Metamorphmagus physiology tried to match the frequency of the stone walls. It was exhausting, like treading water in a stormy sea, but beneath the exhaustion was a current of pure, unadulterated electric thrill.
He was at Hogwarts.
He wasn't reading about it in a stolen book under his duvet at Grimmauld Place. He wasn't dreaming about it. He was sitting in a four-poster bed under the Black Lake, and in an hour, he was going to learn how to rewrite reality.
"You look like you've been hit by a Bludger," Cyrus Greengrass's voice cut through the gloom.
Vega looked over. Cyrus was already dressed, his tie knotted with geometric perfection, leaning against his bedpost.
"The castle is loud this morning," Vega croaked, swinging his legs out of bed. The stone floor was cold, a welcome shock to his system.
"It's a Monday," Cyrus noted dryly. "Even the magic hates Mondays."
The Great Hall, 8:00 AM
Breakfast was a chaotic affair of toast, pumpkin juice, and owl post. Vega sat with his back to the wall—old habits from the House of Black died hard—and watched the hall fill up.
The ceiling was a brilliant, pale grey, reflecting the Scottish morning mist. It was breathtaking.
"Timetables," Narcissa Black announced, appearing behind them like a cloud of jasmine-scented judgment. She dropped a scroll of parchment onto Vega's plate and another onto Cyrus's.
"Do try not to be late," she advised, looking down her nose at a second-year who was chewing with his mouth open. "Punctuality is the courtesy of kings."
Vega unrolled the parchment. The ink was still wet, smelling of magic.
MONDAY 09:00 - 10:30: Magical Control (Professor Kael) - The Dungeons 10:30 - 11:00: Break 11:00 - 12:30: Ancient History (Professor Thorne) - 1st Floor
TUESDAY 09:00 - 11:00: Transfiguration (Professor McGonagall) - w/ Gryffindor 14:00 - 15:30: Charms (Professor Flitwick) - 3rd Floor
WEDNESDAY Midnight: Astronomy (Professor Sinistra) - Astronomy Tower 14:00 - 16:00: Potions (Professor Slughorn) - w/ Gryffindor
THURSDAY 10:00 - 12:00: Defence Against the Dark Arts (Professor Merrythought)
FRIDAY 09:00 - 11:00: Care of Magical Creatures (Professor Kettleburn)
Vega scanned the list, his mind racing.
"Binns was exorcised last year," Vega said, recalling a snippet of conversation from Arcturus. "Something about a contractual dispute with the Spirit Division. We have a new one."
"Magical Control first thing?" Cyrus groaned, buttering his toast with aggressive strokes. "My father warned me about this. He said Kael is less of a teacher and more of a prison warden."
"It's the foundation, Greengrass," Vega murmured, staring at the words. "Think about it. You don't put forty magical adolescents into a semi-sentient reactor core without teaching them how to keep the lid on. It's not new; it's ancient. Probably the first class Salazar ever taught."
"It's tedious," Cyrus countered. "I want to cast. I didn't come here to meditate."
"You came here to survive," Vega said, downing his juice. "Let's go. If the rumors are true, being late to Kael's class involves losing house points and possibly a layer of skin."
He glanced up at the High Table.
The teacher's seats were full. McGonagall was there, looking stern. Slughorn was eating a sausage with gusto. Dumbledore was absent.
But at the far end of the table sat a figure that made the hair on Vega's arms stand up.
He was pale. Not the aristocratic pale of the Malfoys, but the translucent, marble stillness of something that had stopped breathing centuries ago. He wore high-collared velvet robes that looked like they belonged in a 14th-century royal court. He was drinking a goblet of a thick, red liquid that definitely wasn't pumpkin juice.
"Is that..." Cyrus whispered, following Vega's gaze.
"A vampire," Vega confirmed, a grin spreading across his face. "Professor Thorne. Well, that beats a ghost. At least he has a pulse. Sort of."
09:00 AM, The Deep Dungeons
The descent to the Magical Control classroom was intimidating.
They went deep. Deeper than the Slytherin common room, past the dripping archways where the mold glowed with a sickly violet luminescence. They descended a spiral staircase so narrow that Crabbe—a boy built like a brick outhouse—had to turn sideways to fit.
The air here didn't circulate. It sat heavy in the lungs, tasting of wet granite and something metallic, like the taste of a penny held under the tongue.
"Why is it so far down?" Barty Crouch Jr. whispered, looking nervously at the damp walls.
"Physics," Vega said quietly, running a hand over the rough stone. "If a first year loses control and blows up a room, better it happens under the bedrock than in a tower. It's a blast shield."
They reached a heavy iron door. No handle. No keyhole. Just a single rune etched into the center: Thurisaz.
The rune of resistance. Of the thorn. Of the gate that hurts to open.
The door swung inward with a groan of stressed metal.
The room beyond was stripped bare. There were no desks. No comfortable armchairs. No blackboard. The walls were lined with lead plates, bolted directly into the stone. The floor was etched with twenty chalk circles, each spaced exactly six feet apart.
Standing in the center of the room was Professor Kael.
He did not look like a wizard. He wore no robes, just a fitted tunic of grey dragon-hide and heavy combat boots. His head was shaved, revealing a map of scars that ran up his neck and disappeared behind his ears.
But it was his arms that drew the eye.
From his wrists to his elbows, his skin was translucent, revealing muscles that glowed with a faint, pulsing blue light.
Magical scarring, Vega analyzed, his blood-sight picking up the turbulence in the man's aura. He didn't just get burned; he got overloaded. Someone pumped too much power through the conduit, and it blew the insulation.
"Inside," Kael barked. His voice was gravel and broken glass. "Find a circle. Stand in it. Do not speak."
The class—ten Slytherins and ten Ravenclaws—shuffled in. The Ravenclaws looked terrified, clutching their wands like lifelines. The Slytherins looked offended by the lack of furniture.
Vega walked to a circle near the back-left corner. He stepped inside. The moment his boot crossed the chalk line, a subtle snap of static electricity hit his ankle.
Containment ward, he noted.
When the last student entered, Kael waved a hand. The iron door slammed shut, sealing them in.
"Wands away," Kael ordered.
A murmur of confusion rippled through the room. A Ravenclaw girl raised her hand hesitantly. "Professor? But... how will we cast?"
Kael turned. He moved with a jarring, jerky speed. One moment he was in the center; the next, he was looming over the girl.
"Cast?" Kael repeated, the word dripping with disdain. "You think you are here to learn how to wave a stick and make sparks? That is parlor magic."
He turned to the room, pacing the perimeter like a wolf checking a fence line.
"You are in Hogwarts. The ambient magic density in this room is forty times higher than in London. The castle is feeding you. It is pushing power into your cores faster than your bodies can metabolize it."
He stopped in front of Barty Crouch Jr.
"You," Kael snapped. "Hold out your hand."
Barty, shaking, held out his right hand.
"Look at it," Kael commanded the class. "See the tremor? That isn't fear. That is voltage."
Kael grabbed Barty's wrist.
"The boy is vibrating because his core is overflowing. If he tries to cast a simple Levitation Charm right now, he won't lift the feather. He will punch a hole in the ceiling because he lacks the valve to regulate the flow."
He dropped Barty's hand and walked to the center of the room.
"This class has existed since the Founders laid the first stone. It is not about output," Kael said softly, and the silence in the room was absolute. "It is about compression. It is about taking the ocean trying to force its way into your cup, and building a dam."
He pointed to the floor.
"Exercise one. Close your eyes. I want you to find the 'buzz'. The itch under your skin. The static in your teeth. Find it."
Vega closed his eyes.
He didn't have to search. For a Metamorphmagus, the "buzz" was a constant companion. It was the Hum—the fluid, chaotic potential that allowed him to change his nose or lengthen his fingers.
Usually, the Hum was a gentle river. Today, fed by the castle's massive energy field, it was a raging torrent. It hammered against the inside of his skin, demanding release. It wanted to shift his hair color. It wanted to ripple his bones. It wanted to play.
It's too loud, Vega thought, gritting his teeth. The castle is shouting, and my blood is trying to shout back.
"You feel it," Kael's voice drifted through the room. "It feels like power, doesn't it? It feels like you could burn the world down."
A pause.
"Wrong. That is weakness. That is leakage. A wizard who leaks magic is a beacon to every predator in the dark. A wizard who leaks magic runs dry in a duel within three minutes."
The instruction came sharp as a whip crack.
"Crush it."
Vega frowned behind his closed eyelids. Crush it?
"Do not let it out," Kael commanded. "Push it back. Visualize a lid of cold iron. Visualize a vice. Take that static, that heat, and force it down into the marrow of your bones. Condense it. Make it heavy."
Vega took a breath. He focused on the Ring.
The platinum band was cool and logical. He used it as an anchor. He visualized the Hum—the chaotic, violet energy of his blood—and he imagined a wall of black onyx slamming down on it.
Sit, he ordered his own biology. Be still.
It fought him. The magic wanted to move. It squirmed, trying to leak out through his pores.
Vega pushed harder. He used the mental discipline Arcturus had drilled into him. I am not the wind right now. I am the stone. I am the mountain.
He pushed the energy inward, compressing it. He felt a physical heaviness settle in his chest. His limbs felt like they weighed a ton. The static in his ears faded, replaced by a dense, heavy silence.
"Mr. Black," Kael's voice was suddenly right beside his ear.
Vega didn't jump. He couldn't. He felt too heavy. He opened one eye.
Kael was studying him, his blue-glowing arms crossed.
"You are a Metamorphmagus," Kael stated. It wasn't a question.
"Yes, sir."
"Then this is twice as hard for you," Kael said, his voice dropping to a clinical monotone. "Your body is designed to be fluid. It resists structure. Look at your hand."
Vega looked down.
His hand wasn't shaking like Barty's. But the skin... the skin was rippling. Tiny waves of pigment—grey, white, tan—were washing over his knuckles like tide on a beach.
"You are compressing the magic," Kael analyzed, "but your physiology is trying to compensate for the pressure by shifting form. You are a balloon trying to change shape to accommodate the air."
Kael leaned in close.
"Stop the shift. Be solid. Not because the biology dictates it, but because you dictate it."
Vega swallowed. This was the hardest thing he had ever tried. To stop the shift was to fight his own nature. It was asking water to be ice without lowering the temperature.
He closed his eyes again. He ignored the Ring this time. He went deeper, to the core of the Hum.
Don't just hide the magic, he told himself. Become dense. Like a neutron star. Gravity so high nothing escapes.
He clamped down. He forced the fluidity to freeze.
The ripple on his hand stopped. His skin settled into a pale, motionless porcelain.
He felt like he was carrying a planet in his chest.
"Better," Kael grunted. "Ten points to Slytherin. Not for the success, but for the struggle."
Kael moved on, stalking toward a Ravenclaw boy who was panting as if he'd run a mile.
"Breathe, boy!" Kael shouted. "You are holding your breath! Magic runs on oxygen, not anxiety! Breathe!"
The lesson continued for an agonizing hour. By the end, the room smelled of sweat and burnt ozone.
"Open your eyes," Kael ordered finally.
Vega exhaled, releasing the compression. The relief was instantaneous, like taking off a tight corset. The Hum rushed back, happy and chaotic, but Vega felt a new sense of ownership over it. He knew where the "off" switch was now.
Kael stood at the front of the room. He looked at them with a grim sort of satisfaction.
"You are tired," Kael observed. "Good. That means you worked. This class will not teach you how to cast fire. It will teach you how to be the furnace."
He walked to the heavy iron door and placed his hand on the rune.
"Homework," Kael said, not looking back. "For the next week, I want you to hold a coin in your hand for ten minutes a day. If the coin gets warm, you have failed. If the coin stays cold, you are beginning to learn."
The door groaned open.
"Get out."
x0x0x0x0xx0x0x0x0xx0x0x0x0x0x0x0
They stumbled out of the classroom like survivors emerging from a bunker.
The air in the corridor felt delightfully thin and easy to breathe compared to the oppressive atmosphere of the cell.
"He's insane," Barty Crouch Jr. whispered, leaning against the wall. He looked pale and shaky. "He's absolutely mental. My hand feels like it's been asleep for a week."
"He's right, though," Cyrus Greengrass said, flexing his fingers. He looked unruffled, but there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead. "Did you feel it? When he told us to compress? The pressure in the room dropped."
Vega walked beside them, his mind still whirring. He looked at his hand. It was steady.
"It's hydraulics," Vega murmured. "He's teaching us to be hydraulic presses instead of water pistols."
"What?" Barty asked.
"Muggle engineering," Vega said absently. "Arcturus made me read about it. It means power through pressure."
He looked back at the iron door of the classroom.
Professor Kael hadn't taught them a single spell. He hadn't waved a wand. But looking at the exhausted, focused faces of his classmates, Vega realized it was the most magical thing they had done all day.
"We need coins," Vega said, pushing off the wall. "Galleons are gold; they conduct heat too well. Start with Sickles. Silver is more forgiving."
Cyrus looked at him, a spark of competitive respect in his eyes.
"You held it the longest," Cyrus noted. "The compression. I saw your skin stop moving."
"I had to," Vega admitted, a wry smile touching his lips. "If I didn't, I think I would have turned into a puddle on the floor."
"Well," Cyrus straightened his tie. "Next time, I'll hold it longer."
"You can try, Greengrass," Vega grinned, feeling the Hum purr in his blood, waiting for the next command. "You can certainly try."
1.00pm, History of Magic Classroom
The History of Magic classroom was located on the first floor.
The windows were draped in velvet and the room was lit exclusively by floating candelabras burning with a cold, blue-white flame that made the stone walls look like bleached bone.
Professor Thorne sat on the edge of his desk, legs crossed, examining his fingernails with the bored detachment of a creature who measured time in centuries rather than hours.
"Bagshot," Thorne said, his voice a soft, silken rasp that carried effortlessly to the back row without raising a decibel. He tapped a long, pale finger on a copy of A History of Magic. "A delightful woman. Makes excellent tea. Writes history for people who are afraid of the dark."
He stood up. He didn't walk; he translocated. It was a blur of motion too fast for the human eye, a vampire's casual disregard for physics. One moment he was at the desk; the next, he was leaning against the front row tables, looking down at a terrified Hufflepuff.
"You are here to learn about dates," Thorne sneered gently. "1612. 1692. The wars. The treaties. But dates are just the tombstone. I am interested in the body buried underneath."
The World Beneath the World
Thorne waved a hand at the blackboard. It didn't turn white with chalk; it turned black, then dissolved into a shimmering, three-dimensional projection of the globe.
But it wasn't a Muggle map.
"The mundane world sees borders," Thorne said, tracing a line through Asia that ignored every known country. "They see Russia. They see China. We see the Khanate of the Golden Horde. We see the Jade Lotus Empire."
He spun the globe.
"Here," he pointed to the Americas. "The Federation of the Thunderbird. And below it, the Aztec Remnant, sitting on the ley lines of the Feathered Serpent."
Vega leaned forward. The map was alive. It showed currents of magic—great, glowing arteries of gold and violet—pulsing across the planet.
"Magic is not dying, class," Thorne said, his crimson eyes flashing. "Do not believe the melancholy poets. Magic is thriving. It is the blood of the planet. But it has... retreated. Not from weakness, but from preference."
He looked at Vega.
"Mr. Black. Why do we hide? Why the Statute of Secrecy?"
Vega kept his face neutral, though his mind was racing. "Protection, sir. From Muggle persecution."
Thorne laughed. It was a dry, rattling sound.
"Persecution? Mr. Black, a competent wizard can turn a burning stake into a warm tickle. We did not hide because we were afraid of pitchforks. We hid because the mundane world is noisy."
Thorne walked to the window, pulling back the heavy drape just an inch to let a beam of sunlight cut the gloom.
"The Industrial Age. Iron. Steam. Radio waves. The mundane world screams. It is a cacophony of logic and static. The Spirit World—the Nevernever, the Dreamlands, call it what you will—requires silence to interface with our reality. We built the Veiling not to save ourselves, but to create a quiet room where the Deep Magic could continue to breathe."
The Veiling
Thorne let the curtain fall, plunging them back into shadow.
"1692," Thorne whispered. "You think it was a piece of parchment signed in a Ministry office? No."
He waved his hand, and the illusion on the board changed. It showed a mountain range—the Himalayas, perhaps, or the Andes. Standing on the peaks were figures. Small, glowing specks of light.
"The Veiling," Thorne said, reverence creeping into his voice, "was the single greatest act of high ritual magic in human history."
"It required twenty-one Archmages," Thorne recited, his eyes distant. "Grandmasters of the Guilds. The heads of the Great Families. And it required seven Elder Dragons."
A murmur went through the class.
"Elder Dragons?" Cyrus whispered, his quill hovering over his parchment.
"Not the beasts you see in zoos," Thorne snapped. "These were the Star-Eaters. Creatures the size of storms. They were the batteries."
The illusion flared. Beams of light connected the figures on the peaks to the dragons in the valleys.
"They wove a spell that covered the surface of the earth. It didn't just hide us visually. It excised the concept of magic from the mundane mind. It was a global cognitive edit. A psychological wall fueled by draconic magic and the will of twenty-one titans."
Thorne looked at the class, his expression severe.
"That is the price of your secrecy. It cost the lives of three Archmages and sent two of the Dragons into an eternal sleep. We burn that energy every second of every day to keep the Muggles blind. To keep their noise out."
"And in this quiet room we built," Thorne continued, walking down the aisle, the temperature dropping as he passed, "the Bloodlines grew."
He stopped at Vega's desk.
"Modern wizards think of 'Gifts'—Metamorphmagus, Seers, Parseltongue—as genetic accidents. Mutations."
He leaned down, peering into Vega's grey eyes.
"Tell me, Mr. Black. Do you feel like an accident?"
Vega looked up. He felt the heavy, cool weight of the Ring on his finger. He felt the Hum in his blood—that fluid, chaotic ocean that allowed him to rewrite his own face.
"No, sir," Vega said softly. "I feel like a construct."
Thorne smiled, exposing the tips of very sharp, very white fangs.
"Precisely."
"Modern wizards think of 'Gifts'—Metamorphmagus, Seer, Parseltongue—as genetic accidents. Mutations."
He stopped at Vega's desk.
"Tell me, Mr. Black. Do you feel like an accident?"
Vega looked up. He felt the heavy, cool weight of the Ring on his finger. He felt the Hum in his blood—that fluid, chaotic ocean that allowed him to rewrite his own face.
"No, sir," Vega said softly. "I feel like a construct."
Thorne smiled, exposing the tips of very sharp, very white fangs.
"Precisely."
Thorne turned to the class.
"In the Deep Era, before the Ministry regulated our breathing, wizards did not wait for evolution. They invited power in. They performed the Ritual of Invitation."
He began to pace, his voice hypnotic.
"Take the Dreamwalkers of the Australian interior. They did not just learn to navigate the Astral Plane. They invited the spirits of the Dreamtime to reside in their bone marrow. They exist in two places at once, anchored to the earth but walking the songlines of the spirit."
He spun the globe to the steppes of Mongolia.
"The Fire Singers of the Golden Horde. They do not cast fire; they are part fire. Their ancestors made a pact with the Salamander Kings of the volcanic vents. They sing to the thermal energy of the air, and the air burns in harmony."
He pointed to the high peaks of the Andes.
"The Aeromancers. Not flying on brooms, mind you. That is crude. These are wizards who hollowed out their own bones and invited the wind spirits of the upper atmosphere to fill the void. They float because the gravity of the earth no longer recognizes them as fully human."
The class was dead silent. Barty Crouch Jr. looked like he might be sick. Cyrus Greengrass was scribbling furiously, his quill tearing the parchment.
"And closer to home?" Thorne whispered. "The Natural Legilimens. The Queensie family of America. They didn't just learn to read minds. They made a bargain with the Eldritch things that live in the deep ocean, creatures of pure psychic pressure. They were born with the door to their minds ripped off the hinges. They hear everything. Always."
Thorne stopped pacing. He stood directly in front of Vega again.
"And you, Mr. Black. The Metamorphmagus."
Vega felt the class turn to look at him.
"You think it is a quirk? A party trick?" Thorne asked softly. "It is the result of the Ritual of the Fluid Self. An ancestor of the Black stood at the edge of the Void—the space between forms—and invited a spirit of pure Chaos to reside in their blood."
Vega stared at his hands.
He had always thought of his ability as a tool. A biological advantage. But Thorne was suggesting something else. That his blood was a doorway. That centuries ago, a Black had looked at the rigidity of the universe and said, No. I will not be fixed.
"You are not just a boy, Vega Black," Thorne whispered, and for a moment, his eyes flashed red. "You are a walking treaty between humanity and the concept of Change. That is why your family is prone to madness. It is hard to keep a human mind when your blood remembers being stardust."
"The world is full of these pacts," Thorne said, returning to the front and hopping onto his desk. "Some are blessings from Celestial entities—the Seers who looked too long at the stars. Some are pacts with Eldritch things that should have stayed sleeping."
He gestured to the stone walls around them.
"And schools like Hogwarts? They are not schools."
"This is a Noble Phantasm. A reality marble. The four Founders didn't build a classroom; they built a Catalyst. They realized that to keep the old pacts strong, to keep the blood from thinning, young wizards needed to be marinated in high-density magic."
He tapped the map on the board.
"Durmstrang sits on a 3 leylines. Beauxbatons is built into a vein of crystalline light. Mahoutokoro sits on a volcanic vent of fire magic. We are not just learning spells, children. We are being irradiated by the specific flavors of magic our ancestors chose to preserve."
He sat back, picking up his goblet of red liquid.
"So when you walk these halls, remember: You are standing in an artificial ecosystem designed to keep the impossible alive. The magic isn't fading. It's just... concentrated."
The bell rang—a mournful, deep toll from the clock tower.
Thorne waved a hand.
"Dismissed. Read the chapter on the Goblin Wars, but filter the bias. The Goblins didn't want gold. They wanted the right to forge souls into metal. There is a difference."