The next morning, Elias awoke before the sun.
He hadn't meant to sleep at all, not after discovering the book that spoke of severed soul bonds and erased identities. But sometime between memorizing the last rune on the final page and listening to Hermione's quiet breathing beside the fire, his body had surrendered to exhaustion.
Now, the common room was empty. A few embers still glowed in the hearth.
He flexed his hand slowly.
Magic rippled beneath the surface of his skin — not like a wizard's spell-ready energy, but something deeper. More alive. It pulsed, not with urgency but awareness.
He could feel the library.
He could feel the castle.
Elias stood, heart pounding. It wasn't that magic had awoken in him — it had always been there. But now, it was awake too. As if some internal seal had broken. The moment he'd opened that forbidden book, something inside his blood began to remember.
Magic wasn't just in his wand.
It was in his veins.
---
At breakfast, Hermione watched him like a hawk.
He barely touched his food. His attention flicked constantly — to sounds others didn't notice, to movements behind walls, to the flickering shadows of magical constructs no one else could see.
"Are you alright?" she asked, voice carefully measured.
"I'm seeing things," Elias whispered.
Hermione's grip on her spoon tightened. "Seeing what?"
"Not illusions. Layers. Magical threads. Flow paths. I can… I can read the spells embedded in this room. I can tell how the enchanted ceiling responds to time signatures. I can feel the wards on every student."
She blinked.
"You're saying… the castle is visible to you?"
He nodded, slowly.
"Like the magic itself is laid bare."
Hermione's breath hitched — excitement and fear warring in her eyes. "That's… not normal."
"I'm not normal."
He meant it literally now.
---
After class, Elias skipped lunch and vanished into a corridor no one used.
There, he placed a hand on the stone wall and closed his eyes.
Instead of darkness, he saw runes—etched in reality, burned into existence by centuries of enchantments. The castle hummed with ley lines, structured like a circulatory system. And Elias could trace them all.
He inhaled.
In that breath, he absorbed four enchantments within the stone: a proximity charm from the 1800s, a tracking glyph added by Dumbledore himself, a minor ward for temperature stabilization, and—
His eyes snapped open.
—and a tethering thread used for soul anchoring.
That spell wasn't Hogwarts standard.
It was experimental.
And it led downward.
---
By the time Hermione caught up to him, he was already halfway down a spiral staircase beneath the Transfiguration wing.
"You disappeared—again!" she said, half panicked.
"I found something."
He didn't explain. He couldn't. Not yet.
The tethering spell led them to a hidden door behind a false suit of armor. Behind it: a stone room with no torches, but it didn't matter. Elias could see the magic lighting the way.
On the far wall was a single mirror.
It stood on clawed feet. Silver trim curled like bones interwoven with vines. The glass shimmered faintly, even in the dark.
Hermione swallowed. "That's not… the Mirror of Erised, is it?"
"No," Elias said. "It's worse."
---
When he stood in front of it, the mirror didn't show his reflection.
It showed two boys.
One was Harry Potter — unruly black hair, green eyes behind his glasses, lightning-shaped scar glowing faintly.
The other… was him.
But not him now. A version of him that stood side-by-side with Harry. Matching smiles. Matching magic. Matching scars.
They looked whole.
Elias felt something twist in his chest.
The mirror shimmered, and the image changed — to Harry in the present, walking down a corridor laughing with Ron.
And Elias…
Alone.
In the same corridor, seconds later.
Always a few steps behind.
Always out of sync.
"I… I wasn't just forgotten," he said, voice shaking. "The magic itself is trying to replace me. Like I was never supposed to exist."
Hermione gripped his hand tightly.
"You do exist," she whispered.
"I don't just exist," Elias said, eyes burning. "I resist."
---
Magic surged through him, unbidden. The mirror cracked slightly, unable to hold his presence for long.
The soul tether — the thread that had led him here — pulsed at his back.
He turned to it, extending his hand.
For a moment, Hermione thought he was going to destroy it.
But instead, Elias understood it.
He read the runes. The purpose. The signature.
And what he saw made his heart go cold.
"Someone tried to bind me to this mirror," he said slowly. "Like a failsafe. A magical prison, hidden in plain sight. If I'd stayed too long… I would've been sealed inside."
Hermione stepped back, horrified.
"Who would do that?"
Elias didn't speak.
But his thoughts were already racing through every adult he'd met at Hogwarts. Every gap in his memory. Every professor who'd looked at him just a little too curiously.
Someone in this castle feared what he might become.
And tried to bury him before it was too late.
---
They returned to the common room in silence.
That night, Elias stood before the window, watching the sky.
Hermione approached carefully, arms folded.
"Are you scared?" she asked.
"No," Elias said. "I'm awake."
Hermione stepped closer. "Your magic. It's… different now."
"It always was." He turned to her slowly. "They cut me from my brother. Cut me from fate. But they didn't stop the magic inside me."
She said nothing.
And then he leaned in, forehead brushing hers.
"It's in my veins now, Hermione. Magic remembers. And so do I."
She didn't pull away.
Because somewhere deep down, something in her remembered too.
And whatever Elias became…
She would become with him.