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Hogwarts
–Damian Hawthorne–
Humming a Jolly tune, he was walking down to his Dorm room, ready to call it a day after reading yet another interesting book, a perfect way to end the day in his opinion, and to start it as well, when he paused, the pathway in front of him rearranging itself in real time.
That was odd. It was not the first time he had encountered Hogwarts' uncanny ability to treat the inside of the castle as one giant Dungeon and with her being the Dungeon Master, manipulating the entirety of the castle in any which way. What was odd, however, was the process being done in real time, in front of him.
He had never witnessed it firsthand, with Hogwarts always being one step ahead and doing all the changes without alerting a single soul nearby. It was very magical, pun intended, in its operation, which is why he was kind of alarmed it was happening in front of him, on his way down.
He looked back and saw the hallway he had just walked through, being replaced with a moving wall, cutting off his return path, which meant Hogwarts wanted him to just move forward. That was his only option at this point, which is why he did it. Taking a step forward, he paused and looked back, as the sound of the wall sliding forward reached his ears.
Looking back, he took a step forward and watched as the wall slid forward, perfectly filling in the gaps, making it seem as if there had never been a hallway there. It sometimes boggled his mind thinking of just what the founders were thinking when they gave Hogwarts that function, or if Hogwarts herself made it work for herself.
Both possibilities had riveting thoughts just emerging out of his mind, but for now? Now, he just walked forward, ignoring the moving wall behind him. If he had been anybody less, they might have been crippled by the fear of a similar wall appearing on the other end of the hallway and then moving seamlessly to cover any gaps, or rather, escape routes, to squish him in the middle.
It was good then, that he was not just anybody, then, right? A single thought and the walls would be blown to smithereens, which is why he just raised an eyebrow at the staircase that was now available to him due to Hogwarts' machinations.
Normal staircases had safety features such as railings, no gaps in between stairs, and an identical spacing between stairs, so that students did not trip on every other step, or fall to their deaths from heights.
Unfortunately, Hogwarts seemed to have a pretty high opinion of his abilities, which is why he had stairs that were more akin to a rectangular block that was attached to the wall on one side and free on the other. Then, the other step was neither in a perfect angle nor the same size as the previous step. The distance between the steps was not something that could be crossed with just taking another step.
All of this without any kind of railing to hold onto. The walls were smooth, very smooth, so that option was out of question. A nightmare for someone with Acrophobia.
Before he could take the first step, however, and cross the chasm between the hallway and the first step, he heard the wall sliding once more, this time the sounds coming from two different directions. Looking back, he saw both the walls sliding forward towards him, seemingly intent on boxing him in.
Encouragement for him to take the first step, maybe?
Also, the nightmare fuel for someone with claustrophobia as well. Someone with both those phobias might as well throw in the towel at this point, he thought to himself as he jumped off the ledge and landed on the first step, immediately crouching down to balance himself.
Now, he could have just as easily flown to the first step, or used his magic telekinesis to hold onto the ledge, but on the off chance that this was a test of some sort, he would like to have some sort of plausible deniability regarding his advanced powers. It would also mean that he would have to contact the Hawthornes and get his NEWTs scheduled soon because he was just not built to hide everything about him under intense scrutiny.
He was much more likely to just blow his gasket at the tediousness of it all and just reveal some stuff in a spectacular fashion before moving on to the real prize at the end of this journey.
That sweet, sweet Sorcery. Reality warping on a Universal scale, not magic that warped reality much more easily but only worked on the planet and a bit beyond, with the magic decreasing in potency as the distance from Earth increased, likely because of Mother Magic and Mother Earth being either the same entities or one of them being an avatar of the other,.
Either way, Dimensional Energy Sorcery was far superior to wizardry, simply because it worked in space, the final frontier for much of humanity. It would open so many avenues for him, something that he intended to discuss with the head honcho of Kamar Taj when he was done becoming a Master of the Mystic Arts.
Sure, hiding magic was the logical choice, both in terms of Sorcery and Wizardry, but that was a different time, and the mechanisms of separation used right now were failing at an accelerated pace, with his predictions predicting about a decade before the curtain will fall short, with cascading failures after that.
If the separation was to be continued, they needed to just either separate the planets themselves or create pocket dimensions, not occupy the same plane of existence, because that way was soon going to be untenable. He intended to be the starting stone to expose the world to magic, in a controlled way.
Use the capitalist society's greed against itself, by exposing magic and its wondrous utilities to the world, making it a cornerstone of the economic system, fueling untold growth, especially after the world as a whole was stagnating, with space running out at a fast pace on the planet, with easy outer space expansion still generations away. If he came in and just acted as a glorified taxi for humanity to the rest of the solar system, he could make tons of money, funnel that to like minded individuals, install them in positions of power, and eventually, create a better atmosphere for magicals.
He predicted that most countries would fall over themselves to make sure that magicals were well cared for in their countries, just so they could get that workforce. Any attempts at force would be easily taken care of by the head honcho, uber powerful figure, which hopefully, at that time, would be him. If not, Ancient One had more than terrified figures older than civilization itself, so that was a non issue, provided she didn't croak despite his attempts to save her.
He shook his head, as he realised that he was idly musing about the future and what he would do to create his version of an idolised society, whilst doing something that would be categorised as an adventure activity for most normal people. Jumping after steps that were not going in a coherent direction.
Sometimes, Hogwarts led him up, sometimes down, sometimes sideways, and one time, through a tunnel in the wall, to another section that had an identical step configuration, which was confusing to say the least.
Alarming as well, because Hogwarts never did something without reason. It was not human in that regard, doing stuff for whimsy. No, it did something either because of its protocols in place or if the Ward Master was ordering it to do something. The Ward Master must have had wildly different powers when it came to Hogwarts, if his understanding was even remotely correct.
In his not so humble opinion, Hogwarts was mostly independently run, using its protocols to do most of the stuff, with the Ward Master acting more as its spokesperson rather than Master, because due to the way the Founders had made it, its topmost priority could not be subverted by any Headmaster. Sure, most could try to suppress it and might even have succeeded, but even that could only work so far because completely suppressing Hogwarts would just result in the castle collapsing in on itself, because at this point, it was more magic than solid matter.
A fact that was demonstrated in front of him by the way Hogwarts was able to manipulate all matter that made up the castle as if it were made up of clay.
So, this whole setup either meant that Hogwarts was doing it on her own because of some credible threat or she was just going along with the Headmaster's will, which seemed unlikely because the man currently only had eyes for his Golden Boy, Harry Potter.
Half the school was also invested in his life, because he was going to become the Youngest Seeker in Hogwarts history, and also was pretty strong magically, in terms of both theory and practical prowess. Something that no doubt burned Snape, to see not just Lily's eyes in him but also her intellect, somewhat.
Somewhat, because there was no way in hell that Harry Potter managed to become as smart as Lily was, if his theory of just how Harry survived and what Lily did that day turned out to be true.
As he stepped on what seemed to be the hundredth step, he thought of things that could be constituted as a threat to him? Or to the student body as a whole? Tommy boy wouldn't make a move this soon, not with Halloween coming so soon. The man turned wraith believed too much in symbolism to not time his plan to be executed on a magically significant day, like Halloween, the night of the day when he died and had been roaming like a pathetic wraith since then.
Too bad he would have to wait for the man to regain his strength to—
He paused, instinctively flexing his magic, the step beneath him disintegrating as he felt something or someone try to lock down on his position, likely due to a ritual. An advanced and most likely, dark ritual as well, judging by how close they had come. They could not lock down his position or place the tracker like they planned, but the fact that they reached so far meant they likely had a good idea of his general location now.
Floating mid air, he forgot about keeping a low profile as he gracefully floated down, the steps receding back into the wall, as Hogwarts understood his intention. All the while, his mind went back to any enemies he could have made that had such capabilities. If he had been back in his Lair, it would have been impossible for them to track down even his general direction, and he had assumed Hogwarts to have the same level of protection, but apparently, Hogwarts was weaker in that aspect.
Sigh. So much for some relaxing light reading.
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