At Hogwarts, Tom made it back too late after all.
By the time he reached the Great Hall, students were already trickling out in twos and threes, and Professors Flitwick and Lupin were dismantling the platform that had been set up for the match.
"Tom!"
Daphne was always the first to spot him. She came bounding over, dragging Astoria along by the hand.
"Where were you all day? I couldn't find you anywhere."
"Holed up in the pocket world studying. Picked up a new bit of magic."
Tom ran a hand over her head, smoothing down her hair the way she liked. "How did the match go? Did Hermione make it through?"
He didn't bother asking about Ginny. There'd never been any doubt there.
"Mm-hm, though she nearly lost to Potter," Astoria said, still looking a little shaken by the memory. "He used the Disarming Charm like it was a Blasting Curse, and the noise it made scared Hermione so badly she completely lost her footing. In the end she won almost by accident, when a Transfiguration spell turned a crack in the platform into a giant mouth that swallowed Potter whole."
"After that, in the final against Malfoy, she settled down and won without much trouble."
Just from Astoria's account, Tom could picture exactly how chaotic and absurd that first match must have looked. Still, a win was a win, and it would do wonders for Hermione's confidence.
When it came to fighting, appearances aside, presence mattered above everything. Whoever seized control of the mood had already won three points before the first spell was even cast.
Didn't matter if it was wandwork or a bare-knuckle brawl. Same rule applied either way.
"So where's Hermione now?" Tom asked.
"She and Ginny both got dragged off by the Gryffindors to celebrate," Astoria said. "This year both the second and third year representatives happened to be Gryffindors."
Tom nodded, not wanting to intrude on that. "Alright. I'll head back and keep working. I'll spend time with you two tomorrow."
He gave each of them a quick pat on the head by way of apology, then hurried off, eager to chase down the spark of insight that had struck him mid-battle.
Watching the boy's retreating back, Daphne pouted, clearly put out.
"Busy again already."
Ever since the Mind Avatar had come into the picture, Tom's free time had multiplied, and most of it had gone toward the two of them. Going a couple of days without seeing him now felt strange, almost unfair.
Astoria, playing the older sister for once, offered comfort instead. "Tom must have something important to deal with. Let's not bother him."
"I know that," Daphne huffed. "I'm just allowed to complain a little. Come on, let's go find the Giant Squid."
She took her sister's hand and headed off toward the Black Lake.
...
Back in the learning space, the battle replayed itself endlessly in projection overhead. Tom lay stretched out on the grass, staring up at it, his eyes unfocused.
On the surface, he'd won that fight easily, close enough to a one-move finish that the word wasn't an exaggeration. The real danger buried inside it hadn't shown on the surface at all.
Without the Scream of Terror, there was no way he could have broken that many Aurors before Dumbledore arrived. And even if Dumbledore had never shown up at all, by the time the fight reached its end, at least half of them would have kept enough strength left to run.
One spell had turned the entire battle. There wasn't much else worth picking apart there.
What Tom kept turning over instead was the pressure he'd felt, surrounded by hundreds of enemies at once. His own magic had felt crushed under some invisible net, every spell he cast a struggle to break free of quicksand.
That feeling, under that kind of pressure, bore no resemblance to how casting normally felt. It wasn't even close to facing Andros at full strength.
A wizard shaped the world through will, with magic as the thread connecting the two. Hundreds of minds, briefly united by a single shared intent, had all but reshaped that stretch of sky and earth around one idea: that he was the enemy.
"Andros." Tom called the name softly, and Andros appeared before him almost at once.
"Do me a favor. Break my shield."
Tom sprang to his feet and layered wards around himself. Andros had no idea what he was chasing, but obliged anyway, loosing a powerful curse without hesitation.
It didn't break.
Tom said nothing, but the look he gave spoke plainly enough: is that really all you've got?
Andros's old face went a shade red. A Patronus more than ten meters tall rose up behind him and slammed a paw down like a hammer. This time Tom held nothing back either, and the shield cracked open like an eggshell.
He hadn't asked for a beating for its own sake. This was an experiment.
Andros had judged the force perfectly, breaking the shield clean and pulling back at once. He watched Tom, and after a moment his eyebrows rose, a look of quiet satisfaction spreading across his face.
The shattered ward was slowly, painstakingly knitting itself back together. Tens of seconds later, Tom opened his eyes and shook his head, frustrated.
"It didn't work."
"No, this is what success looks like," Andros corrected him. "You're already on the right path. Will, ruling over magic itself. The day you can command that at will is the day you become a king."
An ordinary wizard's control over magic followed a single fixed sequence: gather the power inside the body, layer intent and emotion over it, then release it outward.
What Tom had just attempted was different entirely, reaching for magic that had already been spent, completing the whole process outside his own body. That was the will asserting itself over magic directly, the very first step toward bending the world to one's own shape.