The chamber beneath Hogwarts breathed with its own pulse.
Stone walls shimmered faintly, absorbing the residual power Eric Dillan had harvested in London. The Leviathan orb floated above the throne, its mirrored surface splitting and refracting light into geometric fragments. Each shard carried the memory of siphoned spells, Auror shields unraveled, the stolen sparks of combat now feeding into the Architect's grand design.
Eric sat in silence, the echo of the storm still clinging to his cloak. His eyes burned with clarity. London had been more than a skirmish—it was a demonstration. The Ministry now knew he was real. The ICW would whisper his name in secret chambers. But they still did not understand.
That ignorance was his greatest weapon.
---
Phase Three
He rose from the throne, cloak whispering against obsidian. "Phase Two is complete," he murmured. "The world has seen the Leviathan's shadow."
His fingers traced glowing runes that pulsed across the throne's armrest. They rearranged themselves into equations, fractals looping endlessly outward.
"Phase Three begins."
This was no longer about visibility. It was infiltration.
Eric's mind stretched into uncharted territory—into the roots of spellcraft itself. He crafted self-replicating equations, enchantments that attached to existing systems like parasites. A blood-ward. A marriage contract. A Ministry regulation. Each one was a potential host. His spells would bind to them quietly, rewriting lines of logic so subtly that no mage would see the corruption until it was too late.
He tested it on Hogwarts itself.
Raising his wand, he whispered a thread of the new Code. The school's defensive wards—woven by centuries of headmasters—shimmered faintly, accepting his addition without resistance.
No alarms sounded. No phoenix-song.
Even Dumbledore, pacing somewhere above, would feel nothing amiss.
Eric smiled. Infection disguised as correction.
---
Fractures in the Circle
The Inner Circle stood before him, each shadowed by the Leviathan's shifting light.
Lisette Tenebral's eyes followed the glowing runes uneasily. "You're not just building anymore," she said softly. "You're rewriting what already exists. Infecting it."
Eric turned, calm but sharp. "Infection destroys. Correction stabilizes. The world is diseased by entropy. I am aligning it."
Ailis Fenwick crossed her arms, anger flashing in her eyes. "Aligning? You mean bending every system to yourself. You don't fix broken bones by replacing the marrow with your name."
For a heartbeat, the chamber grew colder.
Eric stepped closer, his voice low, deliberate. "And how many bones must be broken before the world admits it needs healing? I am not stealing. I am refining. Without me, chaos will consume everything."
Cyrus Dawlish sat apart, his quill scratching furiously across parchment. The drawings spilled in jagged black lines—cities burning, spires collapsing, rivers of flame cutting through maps. He didn't look up, but the meaning was clear.
Regulus Black finally spoke, his tone quiet but cutting. "The fire in his sketches… is it what you're building, or what you're preventing?"
Eric's gaze flicked to him. Regulus didn't flinch, though tension burned in his shoulders. He was loyal, yes, but not blind.
"I don't ignite fire," Eric said finally. "I redirect it."
---
The Hidden Triggers
He shifted the Leviathan's display, projecting a lattice of London above their heads. Each street shimmered, etched in leyline blue. Small red pulses glowed at intersections, like embers in a storm.
Lisette's breath caught. "What are those?"
"Seeds," Eric answered. "Minor triggers—each bound to emotional surges: fear, anger, desire. They feed into the Code."
Ailis stiffened. "You're using people's feelings as conduits?"
Eric ignored her protest. "A wizard argues with his spouse—wards collapse for a heartbeat. An Auror feels hatred—his wand misfires. A merchant's greed spikes—his communication spell reroutes into my circuit. None of them will trace the cause. To them, it will look like the world itself is destabilizing."
Regulus studied the map. "You're creating chaos."
"No," Eric corrected. "I am proving inevitability. When reality begins to splinter, who will they turn to? The Ministry that cannot hold its own wards? Or the Architect whose system can stabilize it?"
His hand brushed the Leviathan. The pulses on the map flared brighter, threads weaving between them like veins. London shivered with hidden life, unaware of the parasite breathing beneath its skin.
---
Doubt
The Circle was silent, the only sound Cyrus's relentless quill. Finally, Lisette broke it. "And when the world chooses you, what happens to the people who resist? What happens to those who never asked to be part of your Code?"
Eric turned, his expression unreadable. "They become anomalies. And anomalies must be corrected."
Lisette flinched. Ailis's jaw tightened.
Regulus said nothing, but his eyes lingered on the burning sketches Cyrus laid out on the floor.
---
Closing
Eric dismissed them at last, sending the Circle into shadowed corridors. Alone again, he faced the Leviathan. Its mirrored surface rippled, projecting not just London now, but the whole world.
The continents unfolded across the chamber floor—Hogwarts, Paris, Tokyo, New York. But now, thin red fault-lines cracked across them, branching outward like veins. Small pulses flared where his seeds had begun to take root, invisible to all but him.
The map glowed with creeping inevitability.
Eric raised his hand, letting the threads of the Code coil around his fingers. His whisper carried like a promise, low and sharp:
"Let them hunt me. Every chase, every strike, every denial only deepens the weave. By the time they understand what I've built, they'll already be living inside it."
The Leviathan pulsed once—steady, hungry, eternal.
And the world above shivered, unaware that its foundations were already changing.