Lookon did not sleep that night.
He didn't need to.
The immortality protocol had rewritten that particular requirement somewhere between the truck's grille and the void. His body still felt fatigue—the same dull heaviness in his limbs after a long walk—but it never crossed into true exhaustion. No eyelids drooping, no mind fogging. Just endless, quiet awareness.
He spent the hours wandering the castle grounds in slow, widening circles.
He traced the edge of the black lake until the water lapped at his sneakers again and again. He stood beneath the Whomping Willow from a safe distance, watching its branches sway like a restless animal testing its chain. He climbed partway up one of the lower hills behind Hagrid's hut and sat with his back against a boulder, letting the night wind dry the last traces of Leekelo rain from his hoodie.
The castle never truly slept. Windows flickered at odd hours—late-night studying, perhaps, or a prefect making rounds. Once, around what his internal clock guessed was 3 a.m., he saw a small light moving along the Astronomy Tower ramparts. A silhouette paused, leaned on the parapet, stared out at the dark for a long minute before disappearing inside again.
Lookon wondered who it was.
Dumbledore? Snape? A homesick first-year?
He didn't go closer to find out.
Not yet.
Instead he listened.
To the wind in the pines.
To the occasional splash of the giant squid.
To the distant hoot of an owl carrying post across the grounds.
And to the castle itself.
Hogwarts breathed in a way no building in Leekelo ever had. Stone shifted minutely, almost imperceptibly, like a living thing settling its bones. Magic hummed in the air—not loud, not flashy, but constant. A low, steady vibration he could feel in his teeth if he paid attention.
The System annotated it in real time, small notifications appearing and fading like fireflies.
**Thaumic Density: 1.47 milligauss (stable)**
**Ambient Enchantment Layer: 87% intact**
**Residual Spell Echoes Detected: 214 (mostly benign housekeeping charms)**
**Anomaly Cluster Alpha: Horcrux signature confirmed (7 fragments, fragmented soul integrity 14.2%)**
**Estimated Bleed Risk: 0.008% per solar cycle (rising)**
He read each one without reacting outwardly.
Inside, though, the numbers settled like stones in his stomach.
He knew what horcruxes were. He'd argued about them on forums until his fingers cramped. He'd rolled his eyes at people who said "Voldemort was justified" and people who said "Dumbledore was evil" and people who just wanted to simp for Tom Riddle.
But knowing in theory was different from feeling the wrongness.
The entropy wasn't loud. It wasn't a screaming tear in reality. It was quiet rot. A slow leaching of something vital from the world's magical fabric. Like a battery with a hairline crack, losing charge one electron at a time.
If left alone long enough, that crack would widen.
And then—
Cascade.
The word appeared unbidden in his mind, courtesy of the System's earlier briefing.
One universe collapsing into another. Magic bleeding into chakra into quirks into ki until nothing held shape anymore.
Lookon pressed his palms against the boulder behind him until the rough stone bit into his skin.
He didn't bleed.
The small cuts closed instantly, leaving no mark.
He let out a breath that misted white in the cold.
"Okay," he whispered to no one. "Slow. Observe. Don't fix what isn't broken yet."
He stood.
Dawn was still hours away, but the eastern sky had begun to pale at the edges.
He needed to decide how to approach this.
Ghost-walking the grounds forever wasn't sustainable. Sooner or later someone would notice footprints in dew-wet grass where no one should be. Or a cloak would brush against him by accident. The System's field was good—very good—but perfection didn't survive prolonged exposure to curious teenagers and paranoid professors.
Infiltration, then.
But how?
A transfer student? Possible, but first-years were already sorted. Mid-year transfers were rare and heavily scrutinized.
A Ministry observer? Too official. Dumbledore would smell something off immediately.
A groundskeeper's assistant? Hagrid already had the job, and Lookon wasn't built for manual labor that involved wrangling Blast-Ended Skrewts.
He walked back toward the castle as the first thin light touched the highest turrets.
The front doors were still closed, but a side entrance near the greenhouses stood ajar—probably for early-rising Herbology students or Filch making his morning rounds.
Lookon slipped inside.
The corridor smelled of old parchment, wax, and something faintly herbal. Torches sprang to life as he passed, flames blue and steady.
He moved deeper, avoiding main hallways.
Eventually he found a small, disused classroom on the third floor. Dust lay thick on the desks. A cracked blackboard still held faint chalk traces of a long-ago lesson on vanishing spells.
He sat on the teacher's desk, legs dangling.
The System panel appeared without prompting.
**Suggested Identity Constructs (Low-Interference Options):**
1. **Visiting Scholar (Durmstrang/Beauxbatons exchange program pretext)** – Moderate credibility. Requires fabricated credentials.
2. **Independent Researcher (unsanctioned but tolerated)** – Low scrutiny from staff, high from students.
3. **Lost Muggle-Born (memory charm residue plausible)** – High risk of emotional entanglement.
4. **Custom Alias: Luka Orion, Seventh-Year Transfer (Ilvermorny)** – Balanced risk/reward. System can generate supporting documentation and minor aura adjustment.
Lookon considered.
Luka Orion.
Simple. Neutral. Easy to remember.
Ilvermorny was American—far enough away that few people would know the details, close enough that a transfer made vague sense.
Seventh-year meant he could blend with older students, avoid the first-year spotlight, and still have access to restricted areas if needed.
He nodded once.
"Option four."
**Identity Lock Confirmed.**
**Documentation Generated (Ministry owl delivery in 47 minutes).**
**Aura Adjustment: Minor illusion overlay (Leekelo human baseline + faint North American magical signature).**
**Name: Luka Orion**
**Age (apparent): 17**
**House Preference: Neutral (Sorting Hat consultation recommended if formal enrollment pursued).**
**Backstory Summary: Family relocation due to MACUSA internal audit; previous school records sealed for privacy.**
Lookon felt a faint tingle across his skin—like static electricity settling.
When he looked down, his hoodie had changed.
No longer faded navy cotton.
Now a dark charcoal robe, simple but well-cut, edged with faint silver thread. Underneath, a crisp white shirt, black trousers, polished boots that looked like they'd never seen mud.
His hair was still black, still slightly messy, but it felt… neater somehow. As if someone had run a comb through it without asking.
He touched his face.
Same features. Same warm brown skin. Same tired dark eyes.
But the exhaustion lines had softened. He looked younger. Less like a man who'd worked night shifts and more like a teenager who'd stayed up reading instead.
Close enough to his real self that lying wouldn't feel like wearing someone else's skin.
He stood.
The mirror in the corner of the room—cracked, dusty—reflected a stranger who wasn't quite a stranger.
"Luka Orion," he said quietly, testing the name.
It fit.
Not perfectly. But well enough.
Outside the window, the sky had turned the pale grey that comes just before sunrise.
Students would be waking soon.
Breakfast in the Great Hall.
Sorting Hat echoes still fresh in everyone's memory.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, already a whispered legend.
Lookon—Luka—took a slow breath.
He would go down.
He would sit at a table—maybe Ravenclaw, maybe Slytherin, maybe just the end of one where no one looked twice.
He would eat toast.
He would listen.
He would watch.
And he would wait for the first real crack to show itself.
Because it would.
He knew the story.
But knowing and being there were two different things.
He opened the classroom door.
The corridor waited, torches still burning blue.
Somewhere deeper in the castle, a bell began to toll—soft, insistent, calling the school awake.
Lookon stepped out.
The door closed behind him with a quiet click.
And for the first time since the rain, he felt the smallest flicker of something that might have been anticipation.
Not excitement.
Not fear.
Just the quiet certainty that the next page was turning.
And he was finally allowed to read it.