The month of August in Wiltshire was usually a time of lazy heat, garden parties, and the incessant droning of cicadas. For Orion Malfoy, however, August was a crucible of magical acceleration.
With the Stick of Spite retired to the digital void of his Inventory and the Hawthorn wand comfortably strapped to his forearm, Orion felt like a man who had been running in waist-deep mud and had suddenly stepped onto a paved track.
The difference was intoxicating.
Orion spent his days in the old dueling room in the basement—a reinforced chamber that Lucius used for "private practice" (which Orion assumed meant practicing looking menacing in a mirror). Here, Orion unleashed the full curriculum of the First Year.
He didn't just learn the spells; he dissected them.
"Wingardium Leviosa," Orion intoned, giving the wand a sharp, precise swish and flick.
The heavy stone bust of a goblin that he was using as a target rose smoothly into the air. It didn't rocket into the ceiling. It didn't vibrate. It hovered with the stability of a geostationary satellite.
"See?" Orion grinned, rotating the bust with a twist of his wrist. "It's all about vector control. The Hawthorn amplifies the intent, but the Dragon Heartstring provides the thrust. It's like driving a sports car after riding a unicycle with a flat tire."
"You're having entirely too much fun," Sparkle observed lazily. Her interface was currently displaying a game of Solitaire she was playing against herself. "You've cast the Levitation Charm four hundred times. We get it. Things float."
"I'm building muscle memory," Orion corrected, lowering the bust gently. "And I'm waiting for the dopamine hit of an achievement. Surely, mastering the entire Grade 1 curriculum in a week deserves something?"
"You'd think so," Sparkle sighed, moving a digital Jack of Diamonds onto a Queen. "But the System is stingy with participation trophies. You're in the tutorial zone, Orion. Malfoy Manor is a safe space. The narrative tension here is zero. Unless you decide to duel your father or set the curtains on fire, the algorithm is asleep."
And she was right. Despite his proficiency—he had mastered Alohomora (unlocking), Colloportus (locking), Incendio (fire), and Reparo (mending)—the blue screen remained stubbornly absent.
The drought of achievements was frustrating. Orion felt like a gamer who had grinded to max level in the starting village and was now just killing low-level boars for copper coins.
"I need variables," Orion complained one rainy Tuesday afternoon.
He was in the library again, bored out of his mind. Draco was sitting on the rug nearby, playing with a small, enchanted figurine.
"What is that?" Orion asked, peering over his book.
Draco jumped, clutching the doll to his chest. "Nothing! It's... it's an action figure."
"Draco," Orion drawled, closing his book. "It is wearing a glittery purple robe and holding a microphone. That is a Celestina Warbeck singing doll."
Draco flushed pink. "It's a collector's item! Mother gave it to me! It sings 'Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love' if you tap it!"
"Right," Orion stood up, his eyes gleaming with a sudden, chaotic idea. "Hand it over."
"No! You'll break it!"
"I won't break it. I want to... enhance it." Orion pulled out his wand. "Trust me, brother. I have a vision."
Reluctantly, and mostly because Orion looked scary when he smiled like that, Draco handed over the doll.
Orion placed the mini-Celestina on the table.
"Okay," Orion muttered. "The problem with dolls is that they are stiff. If I want to make it dance, really dance, I need flexibility."
He pointed his wand.
"Spongify."
The purple softening charm hit the doll. The hard plastic turned rubbery and pliable. Celestina slumped slightly, looking like she had had too much gin.
"Perfect. Now for the rhythm."
Orion remembered the Tarantallegra incident with the quill—the one where the quill had nearly assassinated him. But that was with the Thunderbird wand. The Hawthorn wand was precise.
"Tarantallegra," Orion cast, but he tweaked the wrist movement, adding a small, rhythmic jolt at the end.
The spell hit the rubbery doll.
At first, it looked horrifying. The doll began to convulse. Its rubbery limbs flailed in directions that anatomy should not allow. It looked less like dancing and more like a high-speed exorcism.
"Orion!" Draco shrieked. "You're torturing her!"
"Wait," Orion frowned, concentrating. "The frequency is off. It's too chaotic. I need to smooth the oscillation."
He poured more magic into the spell, visualizing a smooth, backward glide. He thought of the King of Pop. He thought of smooth criminal energy.
Suddenly, the doll stopped flailing. It stood upright. And then, with impossible smoothness, the rubbery Celestina Warbeck began to glide backward across the table, her feet moving in a perfect, fluid motion while her body remained stationary.
She was moonwalking.
She moonwalked right off the edge of the table, did a backflip (thanks to the Spongify bounce), and landed in a perfect split.
"Whoa," Draco whispered.
DING.
Orion's head snapped up.
[ ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! ]
"Finally!" Sparkle cheered. "I was about to fall asleep!"
Tier: 1 (Basic)
Name: Annie, Are You OK?
Description: You have successfully combined a Softening Charm with a Dancing Hex to force an inanimate object to perform a dance move that won't be invented by Muggles for another few years. It looked like torture at first, but the finish was spectacular. You are a smooth criminal, Orion.
Reward: 1x Pack of Everlasting Gobstoppers (Fruit Punch Flavor).
Orion laughed, catching the bouncing doll before it could careen into a bookshelf. "See, Draco? It's not broken. It's got moves."
"Do it again!" Draco demanded, clapping his hands.
Orion tried. He really did. He reset the doll, cast Spongify, and cast Tarantallegra.
But the magic of the moment was gone. The doll just wobbled, fell over, and vibrated on the table like a dying fish.
"Lightning doesn't strike twice, apparently," Orion mused, tossing the doll b. "Here, take your doll back. She's exhausted."
The second achievement of the month came from Orion's vanity.
He had been watching Lucius walk around the grounds one evening. His father used his cane—the one with the snake head that concealed his wand—with an air of supreme arrogance. It wasn't just a walking stick; it was a prop. It gave him something to do with his hands. It added weight to his gestures.
Orion looked at his own Hawthorn wand. It was sleek, pale, and deadly. But the handle was just... wood. Plain, smooth wood.
"It lacks panache," Orion decided.
He went to the Manor's workshop—a dusty room used by the house-elves to repair furniture. He found a block of silver-wood, a rare timber that was lightweight but metallic in appearance.
"I am going to make a custom handle," Orion told Sparkle, who was currently rating the dust bunnies in the corner. "Something that screams 'Malfoy' but also screams 'I am better than you'."
"A snake?" Sparkle guessed.
"Too cliché. Father has the snake. Slytherin has the snake. Voldemort has the snake. It's overdone."
Orion thought about the animals associated with his family. The dragon (his core). The peacock (the garden pests).
"A peacock," Orion decided. "But not a strutting one. A sleek, stylized peacock head. The beak forms the hook for the pinky finger. The crest forms the thumb rest. Ergonomic arrogance."
For the next week, Orion became a carpenter.
He didn't use magic for this—or at least, not entirely. He used carving knives. He used sandpaper. He sat in the workshop for hours, whittling away at the silver-wood block.
It was meditative. It was the engineer in him resurfacing. Shaping matter with hands rather than words.
When the head was carved, it was exquisite. The peacock's eyes were hollowed out. Orion found two tiny chips of sapphire in an old jewelry box Narcissa had discarded (broken earrings) and glued them in.
Then came the attachment.
He researched magical adhesion. Epoximise was the standard, but Orion wanted fusion. He used a permanent Sticking Charm layered with a structural integrity rune he had copied from The Art of Warding.
He slid the custom handle over the base of his Hawthorn wand. It fit perfectly. The pale wood of the wand merged seamlessly with the silver-wood of the handle.
It looked magnificent. It added about two inches to the length and gave it a weighted balance that felt like a dueling saber.
"Behold," Orion held it up to the light. "The Peacock's Pride."
DING.
[ ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! ]
Tier: 1 (Basic)
Name: Pimp My Wand
Description: You decided that a standard wand wasn't flashy enough for your ego. You spent a week inhaling sawdust and glue fumes to create a custom handle that serves absolutely no magical purpose other than making you look cool. Fashion souls is the true endgame.
Reward: 1x Box of Sugar Quills (Deluxe Assortment).
"It adds balance!" Orion argued with the screen. "It improves the grip! It's tactical!"
"It's pretty," Sparkle corrected. "Just eat your sugar quill."
Orion smirked, twirling the wand. The new handle spun effortlessly around his finger. "Tactical," he repeated firmly.
Those were the only two bright spots in a month of waiting. The rest of August bled away, day by slow day, until finally, the calendar ran out of squares.
August 31st.
The night before the departure.
The Manor was in a state of controlled chaos. House-elves were popping in and out of rooms, carrying piles of robes, checking lists, and polishing shoes.
Orion stood in the center of his room. His trunk—the massive, multi-compartment magical wonder—lay open on the floor.
He had packed everything.
Compartment 1: Clothes. Robes, uniforms, casual wear (silk shirts, because he refused to wear Muggle jeans), and his dragon-hide boots.
Compartment 2: Books. The entire first-year curriculum, plus his "light reading" list, plus a few volumes he had "borrowed" (stolen) from the Malfoy library regarding ancient bloodlines and obscure curses.
Compartment 3: Potions. The satchel from Snape, plus extra ingredients he had bought.
Compartment 4: Equipment. Telescopes, scales, the cauldron (shrunken), and the crystal phials.
Compartment 5: The "Fun" Box. His deck of cheat-cards. The marble that made rainbows. The wand polishing kit. The edible rewards from his achievements.
And, deep in a hidden sub-compartment he had discovered by fiddling with the trunk's magical signature: The Blackthorn Wand.
"You stay there," Orion murmured to the floorboards of the trunk. "Wait for the storm."
He closed the lid. The trunk latched with a satisfying, heavy click.
"Are you packed?"
Orion turned. Draco was standing in the doorway. He looked smaller than usual, perhaps because the reality of leaving home was finally hitting him. He was holding Titan's cage. The massive owl was asleep, looking like a feathered boulder.
"Packed and ready," Orion said, sitting on the lid of his trunk. "Are you?"
"Yes," Draco nodded. "Mother checked it three times. She put in extra socks. I told her I don't need twelve pairs of wool socks, but she said the castle is drafty."
"She's right," Orion said. "Stone walls. Scottish winter. We'll be grateful for the wool."
Draco hesitated, then walked into the room and sat on the edge of Orion's bed.
"Orion?"
"Hmm?"
"Do you think... do you think we'll be in Slytherin?" Draco asked, his voice quiet. "Father expects it. But what if... what if I'm not?"
Orion looked at his twin. This was the fear. The Malfoy burden.
"Draco," Orion said gently. "You are ambitious. You are proud. You value lineage and power. You are practically the poster child for Slytherin. The Hat will barely touch your gelled head before it screams it."
Draco managed a weak smile. "And you?"
Orion leaned back, resting his hands on his knees. "Me? I don't know. The Hat might have a seizure trying to sort me."
"Why?"
"Because," Orion smirked, tapping his temple. "I'm ambitious, yes. But I also like books. And I'm loyal to you. And I plan to work very hard to cause very specific types of trouble. I'm a cocktail of traits."
He stood up and walked over to Draco, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"But we'll be together," Orion promised. "Even if I end up in Hufflepuff—"
"Don't even joke about that," Draco gasped, horrified.
"—we are brothers," Orion finished. "Houses are just colors, Draco. We are Malfoys. We make our own rules."
Draco seemed to relax. "Right. Malfoys."
"Now go to sleep," Orion said, steering him toward the door. "We have to be up at dawn. The train leaves at eleven, and if we are late, Father will actually transfigure us into pocket watches."
"Goodnight, Orion."
"Goodnight, Draco."
Once Draco was gone, Orion didn't go to sleep immediately. He walked to the balcony doors and stepped out into the cool night air.
The moon was waning, a sliver of silver hanging low over the dark silhouette of the hedge maze. The peacocks were silent. The fountain murmured in the distance.
Orion gripped the railing. The stone was cold under his hands.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow he would step onto Platform 9 ¾. Tomorrow he would see the scarlet steam engine. Tomorrow he would walk through the doors of the Great Hall and see the enchanted ceiling.
"Seven years," Orion whispered to the night.
Seven years to unlock the secrets of the castle.
Seven years to figure out the Runes on the Cabinet.
Seven years to hunt for Achievements.
Seven years to mess with the plot.
He wasn't going to be a hero. Harry Potter could handle the basilisks and the Dark Lords. Orion didn't want to save the world; he wanted to understand it, exploit it, and maybe, just maybe, bend it to his will.
"You're monologuing again," Sparkle's voice drifted in, soft and sleepy.
"Let me have my moment," Orion smiled. "It's the end of the prologue."
"Fair enough. But get some sleep. The train ride is long, and I hear the trolley witch is terrifying up close."
Orion turned back to the room. He looked at his trunk, his wand, his life.
"Let the chaos begin," he said.
He closed the balcony doors, sealing out the quiet night, ready for the noisy tomorrow.