The courtyard still crackled with magic, the air thick with burnt frost.
Lantern ash drifted like dying prayers, carried by a wind that reeked faintly of iron and ozone.
Arthur stood in the wreckage — breath ragged, chest rising and falling with effort, eyes fixed on the lake. The fractured cuffs on his wrists pulsed a faint, unsteady blue, each flicker slower than the last. They were holding, but barely.
For a second, there was quiet.
Not peace — just the kind of silence that pretends it's over.
Then — the ground moved.
Not a quake.
A heartbeat.
The ripples rolled across the lake's surface, slow and deliberate, spreading outward like something vast was breathing beneath.
Arthur's voice cut through the silence — low, resigned, and entirely done with the universe.
"Of course. Because one's never enough."
Micah, standing a few feet behind, groaned. "Tell me that was a joke."
"I wish it was," Arthur said.
Dorian glanced toward the water, wand already drawn. "That's not the 'it's fine, just the plumbing spell malfunctioning again' tone, is it?"
Arthur didn't answer — because the mist over the lake was starting to move.
Shapes were emerging, not the smoke and shadow from before but flesh.
Real. Heavy. Wrong.
They came crawling out of the fog, silhouettes stitched from contradictions — fangs of wolves, the claws of basilisks, feathers knotted with scales. They moved in jerks, like something that hadn't quite learned how to use its own body.
Vivienne whispered, "Please tell me those are illusions."
"Illusions don't leave claw marks," Arthur murmured.
Micah's voice cracked. "Please tell me that's not—"
"It is," Dorian said grimly. "The weird creature from Muncain's back again." He tilted his head toward Arthur. "You really need to tell your admirers to back off."
Arthur sighed, hand lowering slightly. "Trust me, they're not the clingy type."
The nearest beast stepped into the light — its chest streaked with crimson sigils that pulsed faintly with each breath. The symbols weren't decorative. They were alive, crawling across its skin like living circuitry.
Arthur took one look and muttered, "That's not natural magic."
"You don't say," Dorian shot back. "Like a creature with the eyes of a snake and the body of an insect screams normal. Obviously, someone merged runic design with creature transmutation."
Micah blinked at him. "English, please. Some of us can only handle so much science when there's a nightmare zoo marching our way."
"Basically?" Dorian said. "Illegal hybridization. Someone built these things. Alchemy and spellcraft fused. It's—"
"Illegal?" Micah guessed.
"Unholy," Vivienne whispered.
"Same thing," Dorian muttered.
Arthur's eyes didn't leave the lake. His tone went calm again — too calm.
"Someone who didn't stop at theory," he said softly.
A heavy silence fell. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Then the largest of the hybrids stepped forward.
It towered above the rest — the head of a serpent, the torso of a wolf, and skin laced with burning red runes that pulsed like veins. Steam curled from its open jaws, the sound inside it more scream than growl.
"Why does it have to breathe like that?" Micah hissed, half hiding behind a broken bench. "Couldn't they make a quiet one?"
"Quiet monsters don't give you time to run," Dorian said dryly.
"Oh, comforting."
Vivienne took a slow step back, wand raised. "Arthur, what do we do?"
Arthur didn't answer at first. His gaze was locked on the symbol glowing along the creature's ribs.
His stomach dropped. "Oh, no."
"Oh no what?" Micah asked. "You can't 'oh no' right now!"
Before he could respond, the creature lifted its head and spoke.
Not in any human tongue.
The sound was jagged, guttural — like bones cracking under pressure. But Arthur understood it perfectly.
"Kill… the one…"
Arthur smiled.
Micah blinked. "Why are you smiling? That's your 'I'm about to do something stupid' face."
Dorian groaned. "No, that's his 'I already did something stupid' face. We're past the point of no return."
Arthur stepped forward, hand raised, his cuffs glowing too bright to be safe.
Arthur didn't answer. He just lifted his hand into the air.
The world seemed to hold its breath.
His fingers twitched — searching, feeling — until he found it.
A pull.
Like a rope tightening around iron.
He exhaled.
"Accio."
The word struck the air like thunder.
Far above, a window shattered — a sharp, perfect note in the chaos.
A blur tore through the night, faster than sound, faster than thought — slicing clean through one of the beasts as it came.
The creature detonated into black mist and blood as something metal glinted through it —
— and landed neatly in Arthur's outstretched hand.
His wand.
A single heartbeat passed. Then the containment cuffs on his wrists began to glow, crack, and —
shatter.
Blue light flared, searing against the frostbitten air.
Arthur staggered, the magic rushing back through him like a returning tide. His eyes flashed — bright brown for a second (the wild flicker of Beasttongue), then grey (the cold glint of Cryomancy) — before settling back to normal.
Micah's mouth dropped open. "Okay. That's new."
Dorian just stared. "You called your wand through a monster."
Arthur twirled it once between his fingers, eyes still on the lake. "It was in the way."
Not bad, Auren drawled. Dramatic. Little overkill. I approve.
Arthur flexed his freed wrist, the last bits of frost flaking away.
"Yeah," he muttered. "Welcome back."
The serpent-headed hybrid hissed, its runes pulsing hotter.
Arthur raised his wand, expression sharp enough to cut glass.
The serpent-wolf hybrid let out a distorted howl — and Arthur whispered back in the same guttural tone, the words leaving his mouth like fire laced with ice
"Now," he said softly, "let's talk about your maker."
The creature stopped, confused for half a second — then lunged.
The lake boiled. The air warped.
Arthur fired the first spell, the recoil bursting through his hand.
You felt it too, Auren whispered, voice all ice. That heartbeat wasn't the lake. It was the thing beneath it.
Arthur's grip tightened.
He didn't answer. Because he knew Auren was right.
The real storm hadn't ended.
It had only just learned how to breathe.
The courtyard burned and froze all at once — a paradox of battle. Fire crackled through walls of ice, the aurora above dimming beneath clouds of ash.
Then came a voice from the northern archway — firm, commanding, alive.
"First to fifth years are being evacuated! Sixth and seventh, stand and fight!"
"Micah... Do whatever you want."
Daniel Reeves strode through the smoke, cloak torn, boots scorched. His falcon, which was on fire, streaked from the northern courtyard, slicing through the fog. It wheeled once, screaming defiance, and dove.
Arthur turned, startled. "Daniel?"
"You look like hell, cousin," Daniel said, taking in the wreckage, the bodies, the flickering lake. "You ready to earn your surname?"
Arthur gave a grim half-smile. "Was starting to wonder when you'd show up."
The lake answered for them — rippling violently. Dozens more hybrids clawed their way out, shrieking, scales glinting, wings mangled and twitching.
Daniel's eyes glowed gold, Beasttongue igniting. His voice dropped into something primal that only Arthur could interprete — the falcon above him splitting into three, then six, each one bursting into flame and diving into the beasts below.
A column of fire tore across the courtyard, sending shockwaves through the air.
"Now that's an entrance," Dorian muttered, flipping his wand into position.
Derwin, the head prefect — blood on his sleeve, calm even in chaos — appeared beside him, wand spinning in clean arcs. "For once in your life, Dorian, focus!" he snapped, shooting a creature mid-leap before it could reach his partner.
Dorian grinned through the madness. "Just saying! I could draw the spell first, make it look cooler."
"Oh, for Merlin's sake—" Derwin groaned, blasting another hybrid into frozen shards.
Professor Lucent shouted from across the courtyard, "Focus, both of you!" as he summoned a wall of earth to block an incoming wave. Behind him, Headmistress Wren stood like a pillar of calm, magic flaring around her feet in concentric rings of light.
"Hold formation!" Wren commanded, voice cutting clean through the noise. "Protect the wards!"
Vivienne stood near the fountain, her magic weaving seamlessly. Her barrier charms shimmered, reflecting bursts of flame and frost alike. Liam who refused to leave stayed behind her
Micah stumbled beside them, pale but determined.
"Freeze them!" Dorian yelled.
Micah lifted his wand with shaking hands. "Glacies… Maxima!"
The ground erupted in white-blue light. Ice spread outward in jagged veins, coating the courtyard. Beasts slipped, roared, and shattered under the sudden frost.
Daniel barked a laugh. "Guess the kid's got it in him after all!"
Arthur was already moving — wand one hand. Frost and magic coiled in harmony around his arms, responding to instinct rather than thought. Every motion was deliberate, clean, perfect.
For the first time, Ilvermorny's defenders fought as one — students and professors, prefects and prodigies, bound not by rank but by survival.
Then — Vivienne's scream cut through the chaos.
She'd turned, eyes widening as a hulking hybrid burst from the mist — serpent-headed, claws like swords. Liam froze where he stood.
Vivienne moved first. She shoved him aside.
The creature's claws slashed across her shoulder — a brutal arc of blood and light — sending her crashing into the shattered fountain.
"Vivienne!" Dorian roared.
Arthur turned — and something in him broke.
The ground shuddered. The air rippled like a mirage. For a moment, everything froze — sound, motion, breath. Time itself held still as power flooded through him.
Frost crawled up the stones; fire ignited in the cracks.
Dorian's voice cut through the haze. "Arthur, stop! You'll bring the school down!"
But Arthur wasn't there anymore — not completely. His eyes glowed silver-white, the air around him pulsing with chaotic energy. Auren's voice laced through the static — soft, amused, dangerous.
There it is. The real you.
Daniel seized his shoulder, shouting, "Arthur! Focus! You're Reeves — not a weapon!"
Arthur's voice came out warped, layered — his and Auren's overlapping.
"Then why does it feel like I was born to be one?"
A single gesture — and the energy snapped outward, freezing the air mid-flame. The ice that had once been chaos now obeyed him. It twisted, healed, formed.
He dropped to Vivienne's side. His hand hovered over her wound — frost spiraling down his wrist.
The bleeding stopped. The gash sealed in a lattice of crystalline ice. Vivienne gasped, breath trembling back into her lungs.
Silence followed. A stunned, fragile silence.
Arthur's gaze lifted, silver still flickering in his eyes. He twirled his wand once, the motion calm and deadly.
The courtyard had gone still.
Steam hung in the air, ghosts of heat rising off the shattered cobblestones. The lake's surface was calm now — too calm — reflecting a sky bruised by smoke and dying magic.
Around the wreckage, everyone stood frozen.
Students. Professors. Prefects. Even Headmistress Wren herself — her wand still faintly aglow, her silver badge scorched black at the edges.
The last of the hybrid beasts lay scattered and burning. The falcons of flame that Daniel had summoned faded into sparks above him, one by one. Dorian's sigils hovered midair, trembling like half-finished constellations.
For a heartbeat, it felt like the battle was over.
Then —
"Touching."
The voice slithered through the air like frost through veins.
Soft. Amused. Everywhere and nowhere.
Dozens of heads turned at once. Even the air seemed to recoil.
"I expected resistance," it continued, tone smooth and deliberate, "not… potential."
The lake rippled.
Not from wind, nor magic — but as though something vast had shifted beneath it.
Reflections warped. Lantern ash drifted aside.
And then, from the still water, a shape began to emerge.
Not rising, not walking — simply appearing.
A tall figure cloaked in lightless fabric, silver runes crawling like veins beneath the surface. The darkness around it wasn't absence; it was alive.
Derwin's wand trembled slightly.
"What in Sayre's name—?"
Headmistress Wren stepped forward, calm but sharp, her tone measured.
"Students. Stay back."
The figure's head tilted toward her voice — though it had no face, no features, just a suggestion of one.
"The headmistress speaks."
The tone turned almost warm.
"Authority wrapped in morality. I've made her kind before."
Wren's jaw clenched. "Identify yourself."
A soft chuckle echoed — deep enough to rattle the air.
"You may call me Father."
A pause.
"Most do, eventually."
The courtyard went dead silent.
Even the magic in the air seemed to falter.
Daniel's eyes widened. "Wha—"
Arthur stood still, his breathing shallow, every sense straining. "Father?"
"Names," the voice replied, "are only useful to the living. What matters… is recognition."
The lake darkened. The moonlight bent away from it.
When the next words came, they weren't just heard — they were felt, like pressure in the bones.
"You bear my marks, boy. Your blood sings in my creations"
Arthur froze.
Daniel hissed, "Arthur, don't respond—"
"Ah."
The voice shifted, directed toward him.
"Reeves blood. Only one out of five. Unremarkable. The first clay I tried to mold."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Even Derwin — usually unshakable — went pale.
Professor Thorne raised her wand. "Fascinating. It's… communicating through reflectional resonance—"
"Clever," the voice interrupted. "For someone still bound by textbooks."
A faint shimmer spread across the lake's surface — runes forming, pulsing, mirroring those that branded the hybrid beasts. They extended outward, crawling up the stones like veins of light and rot intertwined.
Arthur stepped back as they reached his boots, burning faintly on the ground.
Wren's wand ignited brighter. "All staff — shield formation! Now!"
Barrier wards flared — blue and silver arcs encircling the crowd.
But the figure only seemed amused.
"You tried to bury my work beneath this mountain," it said softly. "How quaint."
"But blood always remembers its maker."
Arthur's voice cracked through the tension. "You're Silverfang's creator."
A low, almost pleased sound.
"Silverfang? A prototype. Years ago"
The lake's reflection trembled, images breaking apart.
"I create species."
Dorian muttered under his breath, "I hate that I'm impressed."
Derwin shot him a look. "For once in your life, shut up—" and blasted apart a tendril of black mist that slithered too close.
The figure ignored the exchange.
Its shadow stretched longer — reaching the edges of the courtyard, over the professors, over the students. Its presence felt like gravity, pulling them downward, suffocating and vast.
Arthur's eyes narrowed, the words trembling on his tongue. "Wait… that voice—"
"Recognition," the figure said again, almost gently. "There it is."
Arthur's heart beated. "I knew something was up."
He took a step forward, breath caught halfway between denial and horror.
"Professor Ignatius?"
A ripple passed through the figure — something like laughter, fractured through a dozen tones.
"Not Professor Ignatius. Not anymore."
The voice warped — deeper, layered with something vast and inhuman.
"Ignatius wanted to run… but he became useful. A vessel is a vessel, no matter how reluctant."
Headmistress Wren's jaw tightened. Her wand glowed in her grip, but her voice stayed calm — dangerously so.
"I always knew he was off," she said quietly.
The voice almost smiled.
The lake pulsed once — a heartbeat made of water and sound.
Every rune across the courtyard flared white-hot.
Wren's spell flared, countering. "Seal the circle! Now!"
Professors moved in unison — light and sigils slamming downward, forming containment runes.
For a moment, it worked.
The containment circle flared—then flickered.
Light guttered, magic fraying at the edges like it was being siphoned away.
Then the voice spoke again, quieter now, almost curious.
"Do you know what happens when blood returns to its source, Arthur Reeves?"
Arthur's jaw clenched. His breath came uneven.
He didn't answer.
"It obeys."
Across the courtyard, one of the fallen hybrids twitched.
Then another. And another.
The murmurs started small, confused. But when the beasts began to stand again—bodies rigid, runes burning through the wounds Arthur had carved—silence swept through the crowd.
They didn't move like living things anymore.
They moved like memories.
Arthur's throat went dry. "No…" he whispered. "That's not—"
"And sometimes," the voice added, smooth as oil, "it tries to consume it."
A sharp pressure filled his chest, tugging at something deep in his veins. He staggered, hand clutching his wrist as frost spidered out beneath his palm. He was losing control again.
"Arthur!" Daniel's voice cut through the air. "Don't let it in!"
"I'm—trying," Arthur hissed. His vision blurred at the edges. "It's—loud—"
Dorian lifted his wand. "Dispellare!"
The circle shuddered, then rebounded the spell. Sparks snapped back, scattering over the stones.
"Great," Dorian muttered, shaking his hand. "That went well."
"Try focusing next time!" Derwin barked, shooting down a stray tendril of shadow before it reached them.
Micah's voice wavered. "W-We can freeze it out, right? Just—freeze the connection?"
"Don't—" Arthur tried to say, but Micah was already casting.
"Glaciem Vincula!"
The air dropped ten degrees. Frost surged outward in jagged waves, coating the courtyard in white. The motionless hybrids turned blue around the edges—then cracked. For a second, it worked.
Until Arthur screamed.
The frost on the ground shivered, then melted instantly under a surge of raw heat. Steam exploded upward, masking everything in a dense, white fog.
"Fight it!" Daniel shouted, dragging a barrier over the nearest students.
Arthur stumbled forward, palms pressed to his head. "He's not controlling me—" his voice shook, "—they're calling me!"
The voice deepened, every word vibrating through the air and the water alike.
"You were made for this. You are the convergence I waited for. The child of darkness and of ice. The Fivefold."
Arthur dropped to one knee. His veins blazed blue-white beneath his skin, pulsing like runes alive.
Daniel stepped toward him slowly, cautious. "Arthur—hey—look at me."
Arthur's eyes lifted—grey shot through with brown—and for a moment, everything stopped. The lake, the air, even the flame hovering behind Daniel's shoulder seemed to wait.
And as the echo faded, every reflection on its surface leaned toward Arthur… watching.
Then—
Light burst from the tree line — a flare of gold cutting through the fog.
Then another.
Then a dozen more.
A shockwave rippled through the air as shapes began apparating into the courtyard — a full formation of Aurors, uniforms marked with the silver insignia of MACUSA's Magical Beast Control Division.
"Contain the perimeter!" someone shouted. "Shield the wounded!"
The order snapped through the chaos like a whip. Barriers shimmered into place, beams of blue and amber sealing the breaches in the wards.
At the front of the formation strode Director Elaine Margrave — cloak whipping behind her, wand raised, eyes already scanning the wreckage. Her voice cut through the smoke like glass.
"Everyone back from the water! No one engages without my order!"
Behind her — moving slower, steadier — came Cassian Reeves.
Reinstated.
But the second his eyes found Arthur, his step faltered.
"Arthur!"
Arthur barely heard him. The words inside his skull were louder, echoing and layered — a thousand whispers folding over one another until they pressed against the inside of his mind.
His smile twitched, distant, wrong. "They're still calling," he muttered under his breath.
Elaine's team moved fast, spreading in formation. Wands glowed as they began firing synchronized containment spells at the lake's surface — streaks of blue and gold slamming into the black water.
Each impact vanished instantly.
No splash. No recoil.
Just absorption.
Elaine frowned. "It's—drinking the magic?"
"Director!" a field agent called, panic edging his tone. "Readings are off the scale! There's something—"
He didn't finish. The air above the lake pulsed once — a ripple of darkness rolling outward.
"Ah. There you are."
Arthur flinched — but it wasn't him the voice was addressing.
Cassian froze mid-step. His wand lowered an inch. The color drained from his face.
"…No."
It wasn't disbelief. It was recognition.
Arthur turned to him slowly. "Uncle?"
The word barely left his lips. "You know him?"
Cassian didn't answer.
Couldn't.
His wand trembled, light flickering unsteady at the tip.
"Did you really think I would stay down, Cassian?"
The voice rolled across the courtyard like thunder wrapped in silk.
Every Auror went still.
Even the lake stopped moving.
Cassian's lips parted — no spell, no denial. Just a whisper. "It's not possible."
"I left you defeated," the voice said softly. "And you left me unfinished."
The reflection began to smile — a slow curl of distortion across the lake's surface.
Then the water cracked — silver lines spiderwebbing outward like veins of living light.
Cassian took a step back, breath catching in his throat."
Oh, …" he whispered, not to anyone else — just to the ghost of his own past.
"He's back."
The lake pulsed, glowing from beneath. The reflection — that same tall, faceless silhouette — lifted an arm like a showman preparing to unveil a stage.
"Remember what I told you last time?"
Cassian's wand slipped slightly in his grasp.
"That was just the prologue."
The shadow's head tilted.
"This—" it said, voice deepening to a resonant echo, "is the first act."
The lake erupted.
Water, light, and shadow exploded skyward — a column of black and silver tearing through the air as the courtyard vanished into chaos once more.