Stories never pause for the absence of a single person.
Even the protagonist.
No matter how precious an individual may be, the grand tale always marches on. It grows, evolves, and continues its cycle.
It happened with Newt once. Then with Harry. And now, even Ino finds himself swept up in that same current.
Lake Town.
A small secondhand shop had quietly opened its doors.
To be honest, in a city this large, a new shop popping up barely made a ripple. It was like tossing a pebble into a vast pond. A few ripples, sure, but gone in seconds.
And that's exactly what happened.
In the two weeks since it opened, the shop had barely seen a soul walk in, aside from the Night Watchers. That alone made the place practically invisible. And the fact that it sat beside the clocktower? Well, that was just asking people to avoid it.
After all, clocktowers and Night Watchers together? Anyone with half a brain knew what that meant.
But the shop's owner, Ino, hadn't the faintest idea.
He'd only been here for a week. Ever since he was welcomed into the city by a nearly flawless automaton named Alice, things had moved quickly. With her help, he'd not only settled in but had somehow managed to open a legitimate business.
Looking around his humble store, Ino couldn't help but feel a little amazed.
Alice wasn't just a machine. She was a true mechanical lifeform, although not quite in the traditional sense. More than wires and gears, she was something closer to alchemy, a fusion of mystery and machinery.
Despite that, Ino saw her as a friend.
Maybe because, in a city full of the bizarre and uncanny, she was the only one who seemed remotely normal. Everyone else he'd met either stared blankly like the innkeeper who'd checked him in, or wandered around as if their souls were still catching up to their bodies.
But Ino wasn't too bothered. He was just a traveler, passing through.
What truly fascinated him wasn't the people, but the knowledge he gained through his chats with Alice, mechanical civilization unlike anything his original world's Muggle technology had to offer.
It felt… alien.
Yet everything about it intrigued him. In his conversations, he discovered that this strange land wasn't just built on gears and steam. It pulsed with all kinds of supernatural forces: fleshcrafting, curses, enchantments, potions… a hundred strange disciplines.
It was the kind of world that begged to be explored.
In his shop, Ino rose from his chair and shut the front door, beginning the next stage of his setup.
This story was far too interesting to give up on now.
Even if the building was conjured through dreams and magic, he still needed to pin down a proper landmark. Something to root him here. Who knew? He might even explore other cities in this strange land.
One in particular caught his attention, Crimson Rose, a city made of flesh and blood.
That one tugged at his curiosity more than the others. It reminded him of a certain notebook left behind by the Gaunt family, filled with twisted flesh magic of its own.
At that very moment…
As Ino shut the door to his shop, the heavy doors atop the old clocktower creaked open.
Celia strolled in, humming a light tune as she carried out her routine maintenance of the massive gears.
Lately, her world had felt like something out of a dream. The Hall had actually sent someone to this tiny town, someone she'd only ever heard of in hushed tones.
The leader of the Mechanical Hall.
Unlike people like Nord or the others, Celia understood what that title really meant. The leader could communicate with the Primal Machinery, the ancient source of mechanical power. There were only a handful across the entire continent who could face down extraplanar threats without flinching.
It was thanks to that leader that the Hall still had its place among the great powers of this chaotic land.
And now, the transmission portal had opened. When the figure stepped through, identical to the one in the portraits, Celia felt a rare sense of safety and peace.
Everything was going to be fine.
Time flowed like water. It always slipped by when no one was watching.
Just as before, the story didn't wait on anyone. It pressed on.
And at Hogwarts, December had brought a flurry of anticipation.
There's a strange truth to holidays: the days leading up to them are often more exciting than the holiday itself. The waiting, the thrill, the decorations, it all builds to a joyous crescendo. But once the day arrives? Every passing moment feels like sand slipping through your fingers.
By mid-December, the castle was beginning to transform. Tinsel and magical ornaments started appearing in the corridors, some gently glowing, others changing colors depending on who walked by.
While Hogwarts basked in pre-Christmas cheer, the rest of the magical world was celebrating for another reason altogether. This was the first Christmas since Voldemort's defeat, and across England, witches and wizards were still in full-blown celebration mode.
The storm cloud that had hung over the British Isles was gone.
Vanished completely.
Hogsmeade.
Not far from Dervish and Banges, a curious little building had appeared. It was barely twenty square meters in total area but stood out like a miniature manor plucked from a child's toy set.
If not for the ten-foot-tall front door, it would've looked more like a goblin's playhouse than an actual home.
People found it amusing, sure, but no one dared laugh at it.
Because this was the former ancestral home of the Lestrange family. And now? It belonged to none other than Ino Swinburne, the so-called Miracle Wizard.
That was the title wizards had given him. Just like Dumbledore was once hailed as the greatest white wizard of the twentieth century, people seemed to love giving names to anyone who stood above the crowd.
After all, the magical movie mirrors had made it overseas, and two months of buzz had made one thing perfectly clear:
Miracles couldn't be replicated.
The Killing Curse remained one of the Unforgivable Curses. But to transform that very curse into fireworks and candy? That was something even the most skeptical scholar had to admit defied reason.
It wasn't just spellwork. It was resurrection. Reversal of death itself.
And when someone pulls far enough ahead of the curve, the clever ones will try to study and copy them.
But when they realize they're staring at something beyond comprehension?
Even the cleverest know when to stop.
Outside chatter drifted like falling snow, soft, harmless, easily brushed aside.
There were rumors, praise, wild guesses. But none of it pierced the walls of the toy-like estate.
Because the moment you opened the door, it became clear: this wasn't a dollhouse.
It was a fortress.
And honestly, it had to be. If the Lestranges lived here once, the place was bound to be bigger on the inside.
On the second floor, inside a cozy study, Ino and old Mr. Bance were hard at work on a small mechanical lighthouse.
If anyone deserved the title of "first magical contact," it was Dervish Bance.
From the time Ino had bought his first accordion in Diagon Alley, to the many instruments he later commissioned, the two had shared a quiet partnership. And now, reunited after two months away, they'd fallen straight into their old rhythm - only this time, with strange machinery instead of string instruments.
Ino had returned from the storyworld not to rest, but to test the knowledge he'd gained.
Two months inside the tale. Two months outside it. The flow of time was nearly identical.
A little disappointing, perhaps. But reasonable.
If time had frozen while he was gone, it would've raised all kinds of questions. Was this turning into another Hans scenario?
Thankfully not.
And now that he could move freely between realities, he planned to take full advantage of it. If all went well, he might even add a new subject to the Hogwarts curriculum.
After all, this tale from another world wasn't ending anytime soon. The coordinates were already fixed.