The next morning arrived with thunder.
Elias stood alone on the Astronomy Tower, cloak rippling in the wind. The storm hadn't begun yet, but he could feel it — not in the sky, but in himself. A pressure behind his eyes, deep in his skull, coiled and writhing like a creature not meant for human flesh.
He rubbed his temples, breathing slowly.
His Heaven-Defying Insight was changing.
It no longer required his will to activate. The moment he glanced at a person, an object, or even a spell, knowledge poured into his mind unbidden. Layered truths. Hidden functions. Subtle flaws and ancient designs.
It was exhilarating. Terrifying.
And maddening.
He could barely look at the stars without seeing the threads of fate that governed their motion. Every pattern overhead now whispered prophecy and contradiction — lines of destiny forming and unraveling in real time.
And in the center of it all… was him.
Or rather, something watching through him.
---
In class, it grew worse.
When Professor McGonagall demonstrated a transformation charm, Elias didn't just understand the incantation. He saw the atomic breakdown of mass transference, the bending of fundamental magical constants, and the flaw in the wand motion that caused her spell to wobble microscopically.
He copied it — then corrected it — then evolved it.
When he performed the spell, his apple didn't become a rat.
It became a living construct, a fusion of fruit and beast, twitching and humming with borrowed magic.
The class went silent.
McGonagall stared.
"That… was not what I taught," she said softly.
Elias merely nodded, eyes blank.
He was still seeing.
Still trapped inside the Heaven's Eye — the name he'd begun to give this condition. Because it wasn't just comprehension anymore. It was a lens. A second sight that pierced illusions, lies, intentions.
And sometimes, people.
---
By dinner, the whispers had started.
Some said he was cursed.
Others said he'd cracked under pressure.
Even Ron, despite Harry's scolding, muttered, "Mate's not right. It's like he's reading your soul when he looks at you."
Hermione defended him — always. But even she had begun to notice that Elias wasn't quite… present.
He spoke less. Slept less. Blinked less.
When he touched her, his fingers lingered too long. Not out of affection, but as if scanning her magic, her essence, her very being.
And she… didn't flinch.
Something in her had long since entwined with his.
---
That night, Elias sat on the floor of the dormitory with a dozen books around him — none of them from Hogwarts' public collection.
He'd gone deeper.
Borrowed volumes from the Forbidden Section. Copied scrolls from secret compartments under the library stairs. Some pages were blank to others. Some screamed if touched by anyone unchosen.
But to Elias, they were wide open.
He absorbed them like oxygen.
One diagram in particular held his attention — a circle with an eye in the center. Twelve sigils around it. Eleven crossed out in blood. The last one still glowing.
"The All-Seeing Mind: A Path Toward Transcendental Clarity."
A note scrawled beside it, half-erased:
"If you stare too long into the truth… it will stare back. And it is hungry."
Elias smiled grimly.
Too late.
It already had.
---
That same night, Hermione caught him in the common room, muttering in a dead language — runes swirling in the air around his fingers like golden serpents.
She didn't interrupt at first. She just watched.
His eyes didn't reflect the firelight. They glowed on their own — faint, blue-white, like ancient crystal burning from the inside out.
"Elias?" she said gently.
He stopped.
The runes shattered into mist.
He blinked and finally looked at her. And for the first time in days, truly looked at her.
Not through her.
At her.
"I see it now," he whispered.
"See what?"
"Myself. What I'm becoming."
Hermione stepped forward, voice trembling. "And… what is that?"
"A lens." He tilted his head slightly. "The world reflects through me now. I see the falsehood of fate. The lies of prophecy. The flaws in design. But… it's too much."
His voice cracked for the first time.
"It's too much, Hermione."
She didn't hesitate.
She stepped forward and embraced him.
And for a moment, the Eye blinked shut.
The world became quiet.
Human.
---
Later, as they sat on the couch, Elias resting with his head in her lap, she whispered, "Will it stop?"
"No."
"Will it consume you?"
"…Maybe."
Her fingers curled gently in his hair. "Then I'll stand between you and it."
"You can't."
"Try me."
He smiled faintly.
"Then I suppose Heaven will have to deal with both of us."
She didn't smile back.
Instead, she leaned down and kissed his forehead.
"Let it try."
---
In the darkness above the castle, far past mortal eyes, a ripple passed through the ley lines of the sky.
Somewhere in the shadows of the Forbidden Forest, an old, broken seer shuddered violently in her sleep.
She had seen many things in her life.
But not this.
Not the boy with the Heaven-Eyes.
Not the twin the world forgot.