There were days at Hogwarts when the magic felt alive.
Not in the obvious way—moving staircases or floating candles—but in the subtle hum that danced along your fingertips when you passed a certain corridor, or the way the light bent around old stones like it remembered something.
This was not one of those days.
The castle didn't feel alive.
It felt like it was holding its breath.
Fractures
Albus sat in Transfiguration, eyes unfocused as Professor Aldermere lectured on inanimate-to-animal transformations.
A feather on his desk quivered.
Not from magic.
But from something deeper.
It was the third time that morning he'd felt it. A tremor—not quite a sound, not quite a movement—but real.
The mark on his wrist hadn't stopped burning since the grove.
He looked up at the ceiling. The enchanted clouds were still, frozen mid-storm.
Even the sky was afraid.
Library Arguments
Later, in the library, he and Scorpius sat across from each other. Books between them. Tension thicker than silence.
Fiona wasn't there yet.
"You're not telling me everything," Scorpius said. No anger. Just a quiet, bitter truth.
Albus looked up. "That's rich, coming from you."
Scorpius flinched. "I haven't been sneaking off to talk to cursed books or dive into death caves."
"You think I want this?" Albus asked.
"I think part of you does," Scorpius said. "You like being chosen. Just like your dad."
There it was.
The room chilled instantly.
Albus stood slowly, chair scraping the stone.
"If you think I wanted this mark… or the gates… or the voices in my head at night, then maybe you don't know me at all."
Scorpius didn't reply.
Fiona arrived just in time to see Albus walk out.
She watched him go. Then turned to Scorpius.
"Did you seriously bring up his dad?"
He put his head in his hands. "I didn't mean to. It just… came out."
Fiona sighed.
None of them noticed that the books behind them had stopped shifting.
That every page in a five-foot radius had turned blank.
Vanishing
Two hours later, Fiona found them both again—together this time, though silent.
She tossed a folded piece of parchment onto the table. "Look."
It was a poster.
Ripped from a notice board. Slightly smudged.
It bore a student's photo: Leora Kettleburn, Ravenclaw fifth-year.
Albus frowned. "She's missing?"
"Vanished two days ago," Fiona said. "No one remembers her leaving the castle. Her wand was found in her bed. Still warm."
Scorpius looked up. "Warm?"
Fiona nodded. "It's like something pulled her out of her own skin."
Albus felt cold. "Why would they take her?"
Fiona didn't answer.
She was holding another parchment — this one from the back of the Charms room. Torn, old.
A list.
Dozens of student names.
All bloodlines traced, all related distantly to the old families. Slytherin. Black. Gaunt.
Leora's name was on it.
So was Delphi's.
So was his.
Return to the Depths
Albus went back to the lake alone that night.
He knew it was stupid.
But something was pulling him.
The prefects' bath was empty. Steam curled along the water's surface. He used the charm Fiona had taught him to reopen the secret drain at the edge of the pool. Cold air surged upward.
He descended into the tunnels.
There was no hesitation now. Just the beat of his heart, and the sense that something was waiting.
The water was cold. He moved fast, tracing the same path through the ruins toward the site of the Second Gate. Wandlight cut through the black.
Then he saw it.
A figure. Just beyond the gate.
Hair floating. Eyes open.
It was Leora.
Hovering.
Still.
Albus tried to swim to her—but the pressure in the water slammed into him, throwing him back. A voice swirled in the current:
"She dreams beneath."
The figure vanished.
Albus rose in a panic, lungs aching, the gate still whispering behind him.
Messages in the Journal
The journal was bleeding ink when he returned.
Silver lines spilled across the parchment like veins. They pulsed in time with his heart.
"She is not gone. She is beneath.""The roots drink deeper now.""The next door opens from within."
Then a line that stopped him cold:
"You will know her by her voice in your dreams."
Scorpius burst in a moment later. "You went alone."
Albus didn't respond.
Scorpius stepped forward, softer now. "We're still friends, Al. Even if I don't understand this."
"You're scared of me," Albus said flatly.
"No," Scorpius whispered. "I'm scared for you."
Fiona arrived breathless, holding a book in both hands.
"I found the Fourth Gate."
The Hall of Reflection
It was deep in the Charms wing.
An abandoned hallway known only to a handful of sixth-years and a retired ghost who liked humming.
Once used for mirror dueling practice, the Hall of Reflection had been sealed off decades ago. Some said it was cursed. Others said students saw things they weren't supposed to see.
Fiona led them there.
The corridor was narrow, lined with mirrors on both sides — tall, twisted things with tarnished silver and warped glass. Their reflections shimmered, slightly delayed.
At the far end stood a mirror unlike the others.
Black frame. No reflection.
Scorpius stepped forward. "That's not glass."
He was right.
It wasn't a mirror.
It was a surface—liquid and dark and humming with dormant power.
Fiona pointed to runes etched along the frame's edge. "I traced these through an old Founders-era grimoire. This isn't a mirror at all. It's a gate. The fourth."
Albus felt the mark on his wrist throb.
But this time it wasn't warm.
It was cold.
The same cold he'd felt in the lake.The cold of being watched.
The Mirror Does Not Open
They tried spell after spell.
Latin, Parseltongue, wandless incantations.
Nothing worked.
Then Fiona frowned. "This one doesn't open the way the others did."
"What do you mean?" Albus asked.
She stepped back. "I mean… it's not meant to be opened from this side."
Scorpius swallowed. "Then who opens it?"
Fiona turned slowly toward Albus.
"The one who's already inside."
A Name Unspoken
That night, Albus slept with the journal beside his pillow.
It was quiet for once.
But his dreams were not.
He stood in the forest again.
The trees were pale and bleeding.
And from their roots, something crawled upward—cloaked in shadow, wearing his face.
And it whispered a name he couldn't hear.
But in his bones, he knew it.