"I really don't know what you're talking about," Obadiah Stane stammered, his face pale with terror. "If I knew where Tony was, I'd have sent people to save him already. His disappearance tanked the stock. I'm losing money too."
His expression, his voice, even the panic in his breathing were flawless.
If Rowan weren't reading his thoughts directly, he might have believed every word.
Under mortal pressure, Stane could still lie convincingly. That alone said plenty about the kind of man he was. You didn't manipulate Tony Stark or arrange the extermination of an entire terrorist cell by being harmless.
"Afghanistan," Rowan said calmly. "Near Bagram. You don't know the exact location either."
Stane froze.
"How… how do you know that?"
Rowan didn't bother answering. He raised his wand.
"Obliviate."
It was the only spell Rowan had truly learned from Lockhart, and for all of the man's flaws, it worked. Rowan couldn't sculpt memories with elegance, but erasing a short stretch from an ordinary mind was well within his grasp.
He cast it on Stane.
Then again on the unconscious bodyguard.
Minutes later, Rowan mounted his motorcycle and vanished into the night.
When Stane and the bodyguard came to, all they remembered was a violent crash and darkness. Nothing else.
"Idiot!" Stane shouted, clutching his head. "I'm firing you the moment we're out of here. Call for help, now. And lock this down. If the press hears about this—"
They already had.
The next morning, New York's tabloids ran the story anyway, courtesy of an anonymous source with impeccable timing. With Tony Stark missing and Obadiah Stane injured, Stark Industries' stock plunged to a new low.
Painful, but not fatal. Just the difference between profit and lost opportunity.
"That's a lot of desert," Rowan muttered.
Snow drifted gently outside the gates of Hogwarts as he stood watching the sky. Finding one man in Afghanistan wasn't impossible, but it wasn't simple either.
He turned and headed for the Defense Against the Dark Arts corridor.
"The Restricted Section it is."
If he wanted to find someone across vast terrain, he needed tracking magic. The standard library shelves had offered nothing useful. If such spells existed, they would be locked away.
Many spells, Rowan knew, originated from magical creatures. Legilimency itself had been inspired by creatures born with the ability to sense thoughts. Owls could find anyone, anywhere. There was no chance wizards hadn't tried to replicate that.
Tonks had once mentioned practicing a tracking spell used for hunting Dark Wizards. Sirius Black had famously countered such magic, vanishing even from owls.
But Tony Stark wasn't a wizard.
No countermeasures. No wards.
One decent tracking spell would be enough.
The problem was access.
No professor in their right mind would approve a first-year entering the Restricted Section. Not even Snape, no matter how much he favored Rowan.
So Rowan went to the one professor who never resisted praise.
Lockhart signed the permission slip with barely a question.
Madam Pince inspected it with a frown.
"Don't damage anything," she warned sharply. "Or I'll know."
The Restricted Section was quieter than the rest of the library, its shelves neat and dustless from lack of visitors. Rowan ignored the volumes whispering about forbidden power and focused on his goal.
The moment he stepped inside, his psychic sense prickled.
Someone was watching.
Dumbledore, most likely. Whether by spell or artifact, Rowan couldn't tell. Ever since certain dark knowledge had been uncovered years ago, the Restricted Section had become closely monitored.
As long as Rowan avoided dangerous material, he'd be fine. If questioned, he could always claim he was searching for his parents.
There would be time for darker studies later.
"Found it."
The book was thin but promising: Eight Methods to Locate the Lost.
Inside were eight distinct tracking spells. Some created glowing arrows. Others revealed footprints. One even manifested a translucent image of the target's past movements, similar to magic Newt Scamander was known for.
The final spell bordered on the impossible, a form of temporal tracing that reconstructed past events by rewinding time itself. No record existed of anyone ever mastering it.
Rowan closed the book.
He didn't need miracles. An arrow would do.
In an open desert, that was more than enough.
He checked the book out properly, returned to the Slytherin common room, and began practicing the simplest spell.
At the same time, in another world, Rowan's other self began moving against the Carlson family's leadership.