Two days.
That's how long it took for something to feel… off.
Caelum had been settling into his role well enough. His classes weren't thrilling, but they were effective. He taught like a man who'd lived magic his whole life, and with 8% synchronization with the Archmage template already achieved, he had just enough edge to back it up. Students respected him. A few feared him. He encouraged both in small doses.
But he hadn't come here just to teach. The Role Player System had been clear:
Mission: Change the plot. Speedrun the story. Eliminate Voldemort permanently. No future resurrections. No second chances.
He was still feeling out what "speedrun" even meant when the crack showed itself.
It was during a lazy evening walk past the second-floor corridor, near Gryffindor Tower. A group of second-year students were chatting near a portrait, laughing over something.
He paid them no mind—until a name stopped him in his tracks.
"…Neville's hopeless, yeah? And he's the Boy Who Lived."
Caelum kept walking, but a weight dropped in his gut. The words looped in his head like a spell gone wrong.
The Boy Who Lived?
Neville?
He hadn't misheard it. He'd barely paid attention to the kids so far, but even still, that name carried weight. It was supposed to. But not his. Not Neville's.
That was Harry's role.
He didn't show anything on his face. Didn't pause or glance back. Just kept walking, heart thudding a little harder against his ribs.
Something was wrong. Not a small detail. A foundational flaw in the timeline.
That night, after curfew, Caelum sat in the Hogwarts library beneath the dim, enchanted lamps reserved for staff. He was alone—he'd made sure of it. He opened the school's registry archives and began to dig.
Longbottom, Neville Frank
Born: July 30th, 1980
Status: Second-year Gryffindor
Noted as "The Boy Who Lived" in multiple Daily Prophet articles dated 1981. Survived an attack by Voldemort in his crib. Parents: Frank and Alice Longbottom—both killed during the incident.
Caelum stared at the entry, expression blank.
That wasn't how he remembered it.
In the Harry Potter he'd watched, the Longbottoms were driven insane by Bellatrix Lestrange. They were alive—broken, but alive. And Neville… he wasn't the Boy Who Lived. He was the other one. The possible one. A footnote in the prophecy, not its focus.
But here… here Neville was the legend. The hero.
He flipped to the next name.
Potter, Harry James
Born: July 31st, 1980
Status: Second-year Gryffindor
Parents: James and Lily Potter—alive. No historical connection to Voldemort. No mention of a Killing Curse. No scar.
Caelum's fingers drummed softly on the table. The mission suddenly felt less like a speedrun and more like a blindfolded maze.
This isn't the world I watched.
It wasn't a slight deviation. It was a different route entirely.
So what does that make Harry?
He hadn't spoken to the boy. Hadn't even paid much attention to him in class yet. He remembered a quiet kid in the second row, not failing, not excelling. Nothing stood out.
Which, in itself, was unusual for someone named Harry Potter.
No scar. No tragedy. A normal life. That… doesn't feel right.
Still, it wasn't enough to draw conclusions. Not yet. He couldn't afford assumptions.
But he was sure of one thing now.
This wasn't the Harry Potter universe he remembered. The plot wasn't off-track. It was running on a completely different set of rails.
And if I'm supposed to change the plot…
Then I need to understand exactly what the hell it is first.
---
Caelum didn't act immediately. He waited, watched.
For a man playing the role of an archmage, patience came with the territory.
He began paying closer attention in class—quietly reordering his seating chart to make sure Neville Longbottom sat near the front. At first, it was under the guise of correcting a seating imbalance. But in truth, it was a calculated move.
By the third day, he'd seen enough.
Neville fumbled his wand again, knocking over a flask of diluted salamander oil. It splashed on his robes. He yelped, panicked, and tried to smother it with his sleeve before Caelum flicked his wand and doused it with a breath of cold wind.
"Mr. Longbottom," Caelum said mildly, "you're holding your wand backwards. Again."
A few students snickered.
Neville flushed red, his voice small. "Sorry, Professor."
Caelum watched the boy closely, then let the moment pass. He turned back to the lesson without adding more. But internally?
This kid is supposed to have taken down Voldemort?
Even at eleven—no, twelve now—there should've been something. A spark. Hidden talent. Pressure tempered by trauma.
But there was nothing. Neville was timid, unremarkable, and constantly anxious. He wasn't hated, but he wasn't respected either. And yet everyone—the professors, the students, even the Daily Prophet—called him the Boy Who Lived like it was an undeniable truth.
No.
He's not the hero of this story. He's just the one who got hit by the curse.
A thought tugged at the back of Caelum's mind. Something dark.
Was Harry supposed to be the real target that night?
The prophecy could've been about either of them, right? That was how it went. Two boys, born days apart, both marked by fate.
So what if Voldemort chose wrong in this timeline? Or someone made him choose wrong.
Caelum didn't have enough pieces yet. But he was sure of one thing:
Neville Longbottom might carry the title, but he wasn't the Boy Who Lived. He was just a scared kid who'd been pushed into the spotlight because the real candidate was… absent.
Or hidden.
And then there was Harry.
Caelum had caught the boy glancing at him during class. Nothing strange—he was a new professor, after all. But once or twice, their eyes had met, and Caelum had felt something… odd.
A flicker of awareness. Caution. Like Harry knew more than he let on.
Not a challenge. Not suspicion. Just… awareness. As if he were quietly studying Caelum the same way Caelum was beginning to study him.
It unsettled him.
But it also made him curious.
What are you hiding, Potter?
He didn't need to interrogate him. Not yet. If Harry was anything like the one from his world, poking too soon would make him pull away. Better to be patient. To observe. To wait for a crack.
After class, Caelum lingered at his desk under the pretense of grading a few scrolls. He let the students file out one by one.
Neville was slow to leave. He packed his bag awkwardly, almost knocking over his ink pot, and paused near the door.
"Professor?" he asked, voice hesitant.
"Yes?"
"Um… am I doing okay? In class, I mean?"
Caelum looked up. Neville's face was tight with nerves. There was no arrogance, no sense of entitlement. Just a kid trying desperately not to drown in expectations that weren't meant for him.
Poor kid.
"You're making progress," Caelum said honestly. "You lack confidence, not capability. Magic answers to clarity of will. Find that, and the rest will follow."
Neville blinked, surprised. "Th-thank you, sir."
He hurried out.
Caelum leaned back in his chair.
That wasn't the Boy Who Lived.
Not the real one.
-