The static died. The crackling, violet lightning that had attempted to roast Orion's fingers retreated back into the grain of the wood, forced down by the overwhelming density of his newly matured core.
Orion slowly loosened his iron grip. He didn't drop the weapon.
He twirled the dark, rough-hewn stick between his fingers with a practiced, fluid motion. The sharp, thorny bark grazed his palm, leaving a faint, familiar tingle of raw, kinetic potential that hummed all the way up his forearm.
"Well," Orion murmured, his voice echoing in the cavernous, mirrored ballroom. "It has been quite a while since I last felt that particular sting against my skin."
He stopped twirling the wand, holding it loosely at his side, looking down at it as if addressing a defiant, disobedient subordinate.
"Honestly, I can understand your lingering resentment," Orion said, a faint, self-deprecating smile touching his lips. "I locked you away in the dark. I never brought you out into the light after the initial months of playing around. But then again... it wasn't as if I had any real way of dealing with your temperament back then, was there?"
He began to pace the polished white marble, his boots clicking softly in the quiet.
"Upon mature reflection, I am willing to admit the truth: I was certainly not worthy of you two years ago," Orion confessed, his tone devoid of pride. "I was an eleven-year-old child living in a gilded cage. I was attempting to force my raw, undisciplined magic through your conduits like a blunt instrument. I was fighting you for every inch of control, and when you bit back... I was essentially groveling before you, pleading for an allegiance you were never built to grant."
He scoffed softly, his eyes flashing with a sudden, cold sharpness.
"Unbefitting of a Malfoy. And certainly unbefitting of whoever carved you from the briar."
Orion stopped pacing, turning to face his own reflection in the towering mirrored wall.
"Guess what?" Orion said to the glass, lifting the dark stick to eye level. "I am no longer the same person who struggled to lift a feather in this house. These last two years have fundamentally re-engineered who I am."
He tapped the side of his temple.
"Combined with my deep, foundational understanding of the living nature of magic, and the true purpose of a focus... I can now stand here and tell you something with absolute, unwavering truth."
Orion lowered the wand, looking directly at the dark wood.
"I don't need you."
The Thunderbird core inside the wand seemed to pulse, a faint, angry thrum of ozone vibrating through the grip. Orion didn't flinch.
"I am a wizard who can wield the language of magic directly through my own skin," Orion stated flatly, his voice ringing with absolute certainty. "I have stood ten feet from a rampaging Mountain Troll and cast spells at it's face. I have stared into the darkness of the Chamber of Secrets, fought a sixty-foot King of Serpents, and walked away without a scratch. I have stood my ground against a swarming horde of Dementors, and driven them into retreat."
His indigo eyes narrowed into terrifying slits.
"And you were not there for a single second of it. You sat in the dark, forgotten in a digital void. I survived every storm this world threw at me without you."
He let the silence stretch, letting the weight of his independence settle over the pseudo-sentient wood.
"So to speak... I have no tactical necessity for your existence," Orion said, his tone shifting into an intriguing, dangerous proposition. "However... if Merlin Ambrosius is to be believed, a properly synchronized focus allows a wizard to touch the boundaries of the impossible. A focus prevents the bleeding of stamina. It sharpens the blade."
A slow, wicked, incredibly ambitious smirk spread across Orion's face.
"So yes. While I do not need you... I do want to believe that together, you and I could achieve monumental feats. We could do great things."
He tilted his head, his voice dropping into a dark, thrilling whisper.
"Terrible, perhaps. But undoubtedly great."
He twirled the wand once more, snapping it into a high dueling guard.
"I won't force you into submission," Orion laid down the terms. "I won't grovel for your compliance, nor will I crush your core beneath my willpower like a tyrant. But I also have absolutely no intention of dumping you back into the dark without settling the score between us. I am a Malfoy. And I despise losing."
His knuckles tightened against the thorns.
"I lost to you once, when I was weak and ignorant. I utterly refuse to lose to your aggression a second time."
He stepped forward, his magical core surging, warming the air around him.
"You like to make my magic destructive, don't you?" Orion challenged, his voice rising, carrying a razor-sharp edge of pure mockery. "You despise domestic utility. You enjoy over-amplifying my smallest sparks into kinetic railguns and blinding flashbangs, purely for the violent, theatrical show of power. You demand a storm."
Orion's eyes blazed with indigo fire.
"Well, let me show you a spell. And I dare you—I dare that wild, untamed Thunderbird feather inside your spine—to try and make it backfire on me now. My challenge to you, you bloodthirsty stick of spite."
He planted his dragon-hide boots firmly on the marble floor.
"Let's see what you do with this."
Orion raised the Blackthorn wand high above his head. He didn't reach for tactical triumph. He didn't reach for the cold, calculating thrill of an outmaneuvered enemy.
He bypassed his shields, diving straight into a memory that was warm, absurd, and completely untainted by magical politics: sitting on a dark green bench at an English theme park, holding a cup of hot chocolate, watching Draco covered in burger grease, laughing like a maniac with his hair completely ruined by the wind after riding a Muggle rollercoaster. It was a memory of pure, ridiculous, unburdened brotherly joy.
He channeled that absolute, radiant peace straight down his arm, bypassing his mind, and slammed the unadulterated emotion directly into the volatile heart of the Blackthorn wand.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" Orion roared.