"Time is not a river but a loom, weaving consequence and intent in equal measure."— Ngwabe Idoyabe, Celestial Magister, Addendum to Celestial Mechanics
January 7, 1970
The classroom for Magical Control was located in the deepest part of the castle, far below the dungeons where Slughorn pickled his toads. It was a circular chamber hewn directly from the bedrock of the mountain, the walls damp and humming with the intense pressure of the ley lines that crisscrossed beneath Hogwarts.
There were no windows here. The light came from a single, massive brazier suspended from the ceiling by chains the width of a man's torso. It burned with a cold, white fire that cast no shadows, only stark, exposing illumination.
Professor Kael stood in the center of the room.
"Put your wands away," Professor Kael rasped. His voice sounded like stones grinding together in a riverbed.
The class hesitated. A wizard without a wand felt naked.
"I said away," Kael barked. "If you cannot hold magic in your blood, you have no business pushing it through a stick."
Vega slid his wand into his sleeve. He liked Professor Kael. The man didn't care about essays or button-polishing. He cared about the raw Truth of what they were.
Kael paced the circle of students.
"You have been told that magic is a gift," Kael said, stopping in front of Barty Crouch Jr., who flinched. "You have been told it is a tool. Incendio creates fire. Aguamenti creates water. Simple. Transactional."
He held out his hand. He didn't speak. He didn't gesture.
The air above his palm twisted. It screamed silently.
A sphere of pure, distorted gravity formed. It sucked the light from the brazier, bending the room's illumination into a swirling vortex of darkness. It wasn't a spell. It was raw, unshaped power.
He crushed his hand closed.
CRACK.
The sphere imploded with the sound of a whip crack, sending a shockwave of wind blasting against the students' robes.
"Magical Control," Kael announced, "is the discipline of the Vessel. Your core is a furnace. If the walls are weak, you burn. If the chimney is blocked, you choke."
He walked to a table covered in clear, crystal spheres the size of grapefruits.
"The Prism," Kael said. "Pick one up."
The Exercise
Vega took a sphere. It was heavy, cold lead crystal perfectly polished.
"This is a containment unit," Kael explained. "It is magically neutral. Your task is not to cast a spell. I do not want light. I do not want heat. I want you to fill the sphere with Intent."
He looked around the room with his pale, scarred eyes.
"Push your will into the glass. If you are angry, the glass will crack. If you are fearful, it will cloud. If you are disciplined... it will sing."
Cyrus looked at his sphere skeptically. "Just... push?"
"Don't think about the word, Greengrass," Kael snapped. "Think about the weight. You are a pureblood heir. You know the weight of your name. Push that."
Vega held the sphere in both hands.
He closed his eyes.
He thought of Ming Yue's lesson in the courtyard. The Breath. The Anchor.
He thought of the Lei Shen egg sleeping in his trunk, the heartbeat of the storm.
He felt the Hum in his blood. It was eager. It wanted to rush out, to flood the glass with chaotic, shifting colors.
No, Vega told it. Not chaos. Structure.
He remembered the onyx button. He remembered the geometric perfection of the Sphinx library.
He pushed.
He didn't shove. He poured. He opened the floodgate of his core just a fraction, letting the magic flow down his arms, through his palms, and into the crystal lattice of the sphere.
At first, nothing happened.
Then, the sphere began to vibrate.
It darkened.
Inside the glass, the space seemed to stretch. It turned a deep, inky violet, the color of the sky above the Kunlun Mountains. And within that violet void, tiny points of silver light began to form. Not random sparkles, but a constellation.
Lyra, Vega visualized. The Harp.
The sphere hummed. It was a low, resonant sound, like a finger rimming a wine glass.
"Look at Black," Barty whispered.
Vega opened his eyes.
His sphere wasn't just holding magic; it was structuring it. The violet darkness swirled inside the glass, a contained nebula.
Kael was suddenly there, looming over him. He stared at the sphere.
He reached out and touched the glass. He snatched his hand back as if bitten.
"It's cold," Kael said, looking at Vega with sharp intensity. "Most first-years run hot. Their magic is uncontrolled friction. Yours is cold."
"I learned to stand still, Professor," Vega said quietly, echoing his grandfather's words.
Kael looked from the sphere to Vega's face. He saw the grey eyes, the stillness that masked the Metamorphmagus chaos beneath.
"Deep Magic is not about force, Mr. Black," Kael said, addressing the room but keeping his eyes on Vega. "It is about density. A gallon of water can put out a fire. A single drop of poison can kill a king."
He tapped Vega's sphere.
"You have density. But be careful. If you pack the magic too tight..."
Crack.
A hairline fracture appeared on the surface of the crystal sphere. The violet light winked out instantly, leaving just a flawed piece of glass.
"...the vessel breaks," Kael finished softly.
Vega looked at the cracked sphere. He felt the Dragon Scale in his pocket warm against his leg, pulsating in sympathy.
"I'll work on reinforcing the walls, sir," Vega said.
"Do that," Kael grunted, moving on to yell at a Hufflepuff whose sphere had just turned into a puddle of goo. "Because if you don't, the explosion will be spectacular."
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As the class ended, the students filed out, rubbing their temples. Magical Control was exhausting in a way spellwork wasn't; it drained their core directly.
"My head feels like a squeezed lemon," Cyrus complained, massaging his temples. "My sphere just turned grey and rattled. Apparently, my Intent is 'mild annoyance'."
"Mine got warm," Barty said proudly. "Kael said it was 'adequate thermal output'."
"Vega broke his," Cyrus noted. "Because of course he did. Show-off."
"I didn't mean to," Vega said, pocketing the fractured crystal. "I just... put too much sky in it."
"Too much sky," Cyrus repeated dryly. "You talk like a poet, Vega. A dangerous poet."
They turned the corner toward the dungeon.
Vega felt a sudden, sharp pull on his magic. Not from the school. From his pocket.
The Dragon Scale.
It wasn't humming. It was burning.
Vega stopped dead.
"Vega?" Rhea asked, turning back. "You okay?"
"Go ahead," Vega said, his voice tight. "I forgot my... quill in Professor Kael's room. Save me a seat at lunch."
"Don't be long," she said, eyeing him curiously, but she led the others away.
Vega ducked into an alcove behind a suit of armor. He pulled the scale out of his pocket.
It was glowing. A bright, urgent blue.
And then he heard it. Not with his ears, but with his blood.
Thrum-THUMP. Thrum-THUMP.
It wasn't his heartbeat.
It was coming from the dormitory.
The egg.
It wasn't sleeping anymore. It was waking up.
"Not now," Vega hissed, staring at the scale. "It's January. It's freezing. You're supposed to wait for a storm."
The scale pulsed again, a jagged rhythm.
Hungry.
The word wasn't spoken, but felt. A primal, electric demand.
Vega shoved the scale back into his pocket and sprinted for the dungeons.
Because if he didn't get to that trunk in the next five minutes, the Lei Shen was about to hatch
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January 7, 1970
The run from the dungeons to the Slytherin common room wasn't a sprint; it was a blur of adrenaline and panic.
Vega didn't feel his feet hitting the stone steps. All he felt was the Dragon Scale burning a hole in his pocket and the phantom heartbeat of the egg hammering against his ribs.
Thrum-THUMP. Thrum-THUMP.
It was getting faster. Louder.
"Vega!" Cyrus's voice echoed down the corridor behind him. "Slow down! Did you steal something from Kael? Is he chasing us?"
Vega didn't answer. He slammed his hand against the stone wall of the common room entrance.
"Ambition!" he shouted.
The wall didn't open fast enough. He squeezed through the gap before it was fully wide, ignoring the stone scraping his shoulder.
The common room was empty, the fire low. Vega didn't stop. He vaulted over a sofa, sprinted down the spiral stairs to the boys' dormitory, and kicked the door open.
His trunk wasn't just humming anymore. It was shaking.
Violent tremors rattled the wood against the floorboards. Blue light was leaking from the seams, pulsating with a strobe-light intensity that cast jagged shadows across the room.
"By Merlin," Barty gasped, skidding to a halt in the doorway behind Cyrus. "Is that... is that a bomb?"
"It's hatching," Vega breathed, dropping to his knees.
He threw the latches open.
The wool sweaters he had wrapped it in were smoking. The egg sat in the center, glowing with a blinding, electric blue radiance. The obsidian shell was translucent now, revealing a coiling, writhing shadow inside.
Vega reached for it.
SSSSZT.
A static shock snapped at his fingers, strong enough to numb his hand.
"It's too early," Vega hissed, ignoring the pain and grabbing the egg. It was burning hot—not like fire, but like a fever. "It's January. There's no storm. It needs lightning to break the shell membrane, or it'll suffocate inside."
He hauled the heavy egg into his arms. It vibrated so hard his teeth rattled.
"Lightning?" Cyrus stared at him. "Vega, look outside! It's snowing! It's the calmest day of the year!"
"I know!" Vega shouted, turning to the door. "That's why we have to go to the Viaduct. Higher ground."
"You're going to the roof?" Barty shrieked. "With a glowing rock that wants to eat electricity? Are you insane?"
"Probably!" Vega yelled back, rushing past them.
The Viaduct Courtyard
They burst out of the castle doors and into the biting cold of the Viaduct Courtyard.
The snow was falling in soft, silent flakes, muffling the world. The sky was a flat, oppressive grey. No thunder. No lightning. Just a suffocating winter calm.
Vega ran to the edge of the stone railing, overlooking the precipice where the bridge spanned the chasm. The wind was stronger here, whipping his robes around his legs.
He set the egg down on the snowy flagstones. It hissed, melting the snow instantly into a puddle of boiling water.
Thrum-THUMP.
The pulse was erratic now. Desperate.
"It's dying," Vega whispered, his hands hovering over the shell. He could feel the life force inside thrashing, suffocating in its own unspent energy. "It needs a jump start. It needs pure voltage."
He looked up at the grey sky. Nothing.
"Cyrus, Barty," Vega commanded, his voice tight. "Stand back. Keep a shield up. If this goes wrong, it's going to explode."
"If it explodes, I'm telling your grandfather!" Cyrus yelled, dragging a terrified Barty behind a stone gargoyle.
Vega reached into his pocket. He pulled out the Dragon Scale.
It was black, iridescent, and hot.
"Ming Yue," Vega muttered, gripping the scale. "You said this held the charge of the storm. Let's hope you weren't speaking metaphorically."
He needed a conduit. He couldn't just touch the scale to the egg; the raw discharge would shatter the shell and kill the spirit. He needed to channel it.
He drew his wand. The Quetzalcoatl feather woke up, sensing the ozone.
Wind, Vega thought. Structure. Flow.
He placed the scale on top of the egg.
He pointed his wand at the scale.
"Conductus!"
He didn't use a standard spell. He used his Metamorphmagus ability, his internal fluidity, to bridge the gap. He poured his own magic into the scale, acting as the primer.
The scale flared.
A beam of pure, blinding white light shot upward from the scale, piercing the grey clouds like a spear.
CRACK-BOOM.
The sound was deafening. The scale wasn't just releasing energy; it was calling it. It was the memory of the Panlong, the Storm-Eater, screaming at the sky.
The grey clouds swirled. They darkened instantly, bruising purple and black.
"It's working!" Barty screamed over the sudden gale.
"Too slow!" Vega gritted out, sweat freezing on his forehead. "The shell is hardening! It needs more!"
He looked at the egg. The blue light inside was dimming. The spirit was fading.
Vega made a choice.
He dropped his wand.
He grabbed the scale with his left hand and the egg with his right.
"Vega, NO!" Cyrus shouted.
Vega didn't listen. He became the lightening rod.
He closed his eyes. He found the Anchor in his gut. He found the Hum in his blood. And he opened the floodgates.
He pulled the energy from the scale, raw, ancient storm magic, into his own body. It hit him like a physical blow, locking his muscles, turning his blood into liquid fire. He screamed, his back arching, but he didn't let go. He forced the current down his right arm, through his palm, and into the obsidian shell.
WAKE UP!
He shoved the power into the egg.
CRACK.
The world turned white.
A shockwave of air blasted outward, knocking Cyrus and Barty flat. The snow around Vega vaporized in a ring of steam.
Silence.
Vega collapsed onto the wet stones, gasping, his hands smoking. He felt drained, hollowed out, his nerves singing with residual static.
"Vega?" Cyrus called, coughing in the steam.
Vega didn't answer. He was staring at the pile of shattered obsidian shards in front of him.
Something was moving in the steam.
A head poked out.
It was a serpent, perhaps two feet long. Its scales were the color of midnight, glossy and wet. But down its spine ran a ridge of crystalline spikes that glowed with a soft, electric blue light. It had two tiny, nubby antlers made of coral-like lightning, and whiskers that drifted in the air like smoke.
It blinked large, intelligent golden eyes.
It looked at Vega. It let out a sound—not a hiss, but a high, bell-like chime. Kreee?
"You crazy bastard," Cyrus breathed, stepping out from behind the gargoyle. "You actually did it."
Vega sat up, wincing as his muscles protested. He reached out a shaking hand.
The creature coiled. It looked at his fingers. Then, with a sudden burst of speed, it slithered up his arm, wrapped itself around his neck like a scarf, and nuzzled its cold nose against his ear.
A small spark jumped from its antler to Vega's cheek. Zzt.
Vega laughed. It was a weak, exhausted sound, but it was genuine.
"Hello," Vega whispered, stroking the creature's spine. It felt warm, vibrating like a purring cat. "Welcome to Scotland. Sorry about the weather."
Barty crept closer, staring at the creature with wide eyes. "What... what is it?"
"A Lei Shen," Vega said, feeling the creature settle against his pulse. "A Thunder Spirit."
"It's terrifying," Barty decided.
"It's beautiful," Cyrus corrected, though he kept his distance. "Does it have a name?"
Vega looked at the creature. He remembered the storm in the Kunlun mountains. He remembered the sound of the thunder.
"Raijin," Vega said softly. "His name is Raijin."
He looked up at his friends. The snow was falling again, gentle and quiet, covering the scorched stones of the courtyard.
The euphoria of the hatching lasted exactly ten seconds.
Vega sat on the wet flagstones, the baby Lei Shen coiled around his neck like a scarf of living obsidian. It was warm, vibrating with a frantic, purring energy.
But then, the vibration changed.
It stuttered.
The brilliant electric blue light pulsing through the crystalline spikes on the serpent's spine began to dim. The creature uncoiled, slumping heavily against Vega's chest. It let out a high, keening sound, a sound of hunger so profound it made Vega's own stomach clench.
Thrum... thud. Thrum... thud.
"It's fading," Vega whispered, panic seizing his throat. "It burnt through the initial charge breaking the shell. It's starving."
He tried to push more magic into it. He reached for the Hum in his blood, willing his core to open up again, to become the battery the creature needed.
Nothing happened.
He was hollowed out. The magic control class,the Dragon Scale discharge, the had scraped the bottom of the barrel. His hands were shaking uncontrollably, and his vision was swimming with grey spots.
"Vega," Cyrus said, stepping closer, his voice laced with fear. "Its eyes are closing. Do something."
"I can't," Vega gasped, clutching the cooling serpent. "I'm empty. I don't have anything left to give it."
He looked up at the sky. It was a flat, oppressive white. The unnatural storm he had summoned with the scale had dissipated, leaving only the silent, suffocating snow. There was no charge in the air. No ozone. Just cold.
"It needs lightning," Vega choked out. "Pure lightning. Right now."
"There isn't any!" Barty shouted, pointing at the clouds. "It's snowing! You can't just order the sky to—"
"Ahem."
The sound was polite, quiet, and yet it cut through the wind as effectively as a foghorn.
Vega froze. Cyrus and Barty spun around.
Standing at the entrance to the bridge, wearing robes of midnight blue velvet embroidered with silver moons, was Albus Dumbledore.
He looked like a man who had just happened upon an interesting puzzle in his garden.
He walked toward them. The snow didn't seem to land on him; it simply parted around his aura, leaving him dry.
He stopped in front of Vega. He looked down at the dying spirit in Vega's arms.
"A Lei Shen," Dumbledore murmured. His blue eyes twinkled, sharp and piercing behind his half-moon spectacles. "A long way from the Kunlun mountains, isn't it? And born in January. A remarkably ambitious piece of scheduling, Mr. Black."
"Professor," Vega wheezed, trying to shield the creature. "It's dying. It needs—"
"Sustenance," Dumbledore finished. "Yes. I can hear it singing the hunger song. A terrible sound."
Dumbledore looked up at the sky. He hummed a low note, inspecting the heavy, snow-laden clouds with the critical eye of an artist looking at a blank canvas.
"The atmosphere is rather flat today," Dumbledore noted conversationally. "Not a volt to be found in the lower stratus. We shall have to reach higher."
He drew his wand.
It wasn't a normal wand. It was long, knobby, old, and looked like a piece of bone.
Dumbledore didn't take a stance. He didn't shout an incantation. He simply raised the wand like a conductor raising a baton before a symphony.
"Observe," Dumbledore whispered.
He flicked his wrist upward.
The air in the courtyard changed instantly. The silence of the snow vanished, replaced by a deep, resonant thrum that vibrated in Vega's teeth. The hairs on his arms stood up.
High above, the grey cloud cover didn't just swirl; it was punctured.
Dumbledore twisted his wand.
A hole opened in the clouds, a perfect circle of clear night sky in the middle of the day. But Dumbledore wasn't aiming for the stars. He was aiming for the ionosphere.
He pulled.
It looked like he was dragging a heavy weight from the heavens.
CRACK-BOOM.
A bolt of lightning descended. But this wasn't the jagged, chaotic lightning of a storm. This was a single, coherent pillar of blinding white plasma, thick as a tree trunk. It didn't flash; it flowed. It poured down from the upper atmosphere, guided solely by the tip of the wand.
"Hold him up, Mr. Black," Dumbledore commanded calmly, his voice cutting through the roar of the thunder.
Vega lifted the limp serpent with trembling hands.
Dumbledore brought the wand down.
He didn't strike Vega. He guided the pillar of light to stop exactly six inches above Vega's hands, turning the raw electricity into a suspended sphere of crackling, pure energy.
It was terrifying control. It was the kind of magic that made mountains shake, handled with the delicacy of a lace-maker.
"Dinner is served," Dumbledore said.
The Lei Shen's eyes snapped open.
It sensed the power. With a desperate lunge, the serpent uncoiled and struck the sphere of lightning.
It didn't burn. It drank.
The creature opened its jaws and inhaled the plasma. The white light flowed into its small black body, filling the translucent veins, charging the crystalline spikes on its back until they glowed with a brightness that hurt to look at.
The serpent grew visible, solidifying, its scales turning from matte black to a glossy, iridescent obsidian. It let out a shriek of pure ecstasy, a sound like a high-voltage wire snapping.
Dumbledore flicked his wand again. The pillar of light cut off. The hole in the clouds sealed shut. The snow began to fall again, as if nothing had happened.
Vega sat there, breathless, holding a creature that was now buzzing with so much energy it felt like holding a vibrating tuning fork.
Raijin burped. A small puff of ozone smoke drifted from his nostrils.
Dumbledore tucked his wand away. He looked at the three stunned Slytherins.
"Ten points to Slytherin," Dumbledore said cheerfully. "For sheer, audacious gumption. Though I must deduct five for nearly blowing up the Viaduct."
He leaned down, peering at the Lei Shen, which was now curling contentedly around Vega's neck, its hunger sated.
"He will need a habitat, Vega. The dungeons are too damp. The static will give Mr. Filch's cat a heart attack."
"I... I have a trunk," Vega stammered, still reeling from the display of god-tier magic. "I can ward it."
"Excellent," Dumbledore smiled. "And perhaps, when you have recovered your breath, you might bring him by my office? I have some very fine Cockroach Clusters. And I believe Fawkes would be delighted to meet a cousin of the sky. Phoenixes get terribly lonely being the only immortal creatures in the castle."
He straightened up, adjusting his velvet cuffs.
"Best hurry inside, gentlemen. Hypothermia is a rather mundane way to end such an exciting afternoon."
With a wink that felt like a secret, Dumbledore turned and walked back across the bridge, humming a jaunty tune.
Vega stared after him. He touched the Ring. He touched the warm, vibrating serpent.
"Did you see that?" Barty whispered, his voice trembling. "He pulled the sky down. He just... grabbed it."
"A Grandmaster," Vega breathed, the awe settling deep in his bones.
He stood up, his legs shaking but holding. He felt drained, but seeing the power Dumbledore wielded, he also felt something else.
Hunger.
That, Vega thought, watching the Headmaster's retreating figure. That is the level.
"Let's go," Vega said, clutching Raijin close. "Before the adrenaline wears off and I pass out in the snow."
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And Raijin is born :D. Dumbledore swoops in to save the day and does some crazy wizardry!
Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please Like and Review!! It would mean the world to me