Six months.
By now, Greystone House almost felt like a home—almost. It halls and corridors had softened from what feels like a prison in the beginning to a routine and patterns in his life.
Caelum Sanguine had carved out a space for himself. Not through friendships or loud declarations, but through silence, observation, and the slow, meticulous construction of control. Most children barely noticed him anymore, as if their eyes simply slid off him
And that suited him perfectly.
….
The staff thought he was harmless. Quiet. Cooperative. Slightly withdrawn, perhaps, but always polite. He followed the schedules. Answered questions. Drank his blood elixir on time. Smiled faintly when spoken to, then disappeared into the library for hours.
They never saw what he was really doing.
What he was becoming.
….
It started with the elixirs.
Every week, after every feeding, something surfaced—shards of memory, fragments of spellcraft, ritual echoes written in the blood itself. The Ministry claimed the mixture was synthetic, magically neutralized. But it wasn't. Not to him.
It whispered when it touched his tongue.
At first, he assumed everyone felt it—that strange hum at the edge of thought. But after careful questions, silent observation, and watching the other hybrids during their feedings, he realized the truth.
He was the only one.
Vampires were known for stealth, tracking, and a kind of low-grade mental influence—something like a much weaker form of the Imperius Curse. But none of them known to learn through blood, absorbing knowledge. Not like this.
It was his gift. Or his curse. But either way, it was his alone.
…
In these six months, he had pieced together enough fragments to fully reconstruct three spells from memory alone.
Lumos. Levioso. And—most surprisingly—the Disillusionment Charm.
The first two were common—spells so universal that traces of them clung to nearly every wizard's blood, like fingerprints left on glass.
But the Disillusionment Charm… that was different. Rare. Refined. Intimate.
And somehow, it made perfect sense.
If you could vanish into shadow, wouldn't you do it every chance you could?
…
Caelum didn't have a wand. The Ministry still denied him one, citing "safety precautions." But he didn't let that stop him. He adapted.
Through repetition, visualization, sheer will, he coaxed magic from his bare hands. It was clumsy at first—unsteady, weak, more like spark rather than flame. But slowly, painstakingly, the magic began to listen.
Lumos sparked to life with pressure and focused breath.
Levioso could lift small objects if he focused hard enough, sometimes without even speaking.
But the Disillusionment Charm—that was his crown jewel.
It didn't work all the time. It drained him faster than the others. But when it did work… the world blurred around him. His body melted into the backdrop like paint running in water. A shimmer. A ripple.
And when he stood in shadow—it became perfect.
He didn't disappear.
He simply… ceased to be noticed.
….
Last month, he'd tested it for the first time in daylight hours, hiding behind a broken statue near the West Wing stairwell.
Two staff walked past. One glanced in his direction. Frowned. Then looked away.
"Weird. Thought I saw something."
"Probably just magic feedback. That wing's full of wards so it always buzzing."
He hadn't even needed to move.
From that day on, he stopped caring about stares and whispers. He knew how to slip by them now—how to thin himself out, to become less.
No one noticed when he ghosted down the corridor between curfew hours. Or when he lingered outside the staffroom door. Or when he watched, silent and hidden, as other residents had meltdowns, fights, breakdowns.
He was learning. Not just magic.
But people.
….
Tonight, he stood pressed against the wall of his room, the candle unlit, the runes on the door pulsing faintly blue. He drew in a slow breath, feeling the hum of magic threading beneath his skin.
He closed his eyes. Let the magic flow inward.
Intention. Focus. Shadow.
His body shimmered—and vanished.
He opened his eyes.
Nothing of him remained.
Only the dim ripple of air, like heat haze. And even that faded as he stepped backward into the darker edge of the room.
They don't know what I am.
And they won't. Not until I choose to show them.
He stayed there for another hour, invisible and unmoving, just listening to the breathing walls of Greystone House.
The world outside feared what he might become.
They were right to be afraid.