The next morning, in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, the air was thick with the suffocating stench of garlic.
To most students, it was merely unpleasant.
To Lucian, it masked something far worse beneath it—something cold, rotten, like a corpse left too long in damp earth.
The smell of a decaying soul.
He sat at the back of the room.
In his sight, the man at the podium was nothing more than a tangled mass of threads.
Gray and dark red lines twisted around Professor Quirrell's body like parasitic vines, crawling along flesh and bone before converging at the back of his head, beneath the ridiculous purple turban.
Tentacles of a parasite.
The glow that should have represented vitality and fortune around Quirrell had almost vanished. Only a few thin, dim strands kept him upright.
This was not even a dying man's last flare of life.
At best, he was a corpse animated by strings.
A fresh piece of chalk snapped in his hand every few minutes for no reason.
His eyes occasionally went unfocused.
His robes bore tiny scratches, and the turban had an unfortunate streak of fresh bird droppings clinging to it.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the classroom, Harry and Ron basked in attention.
Harry was discreetly showing off a newly unwrapped Chocolate Frog card under the desk. Golden threads of fortune pulsed above his head, bright and lively.
I am the protagonist of this world.
Lucian lowered his gaze slightly. It could not be more obvious.
"R-regarding... b-bites from werewolves... emergency... treatment..." Quirrell stood behind the podium, pale and twitching.
His eyes flicked repeatedly toward the classroom door and windows, as if something might burst in at any moment.
The Slytherins had already begun snickering openly.
Draco deliberately scraped his quill against parchment to add to the irritation.
"First... we must... d-distinguish between... a full moon bite and... and an ordinary one..." Quirrell's hand shook violently. The chalk screeched against the board. "If it was... d-during the full moon... then the c-curse will..."
He froze.
His jaw began trembling unnaturally. A choking sound escaped his throat, but no words followed.
"And then what, Professor?" Theodore drawled lazily. "Do they turn into stuttering idiots?"
Laughter exploded across the room.
Harry winced, his scar suddenly prickling. He rubbed his forehead uncomfortably.
This was Hogwarts now.
The savior laughing. The Dark Lord hiding. And a classroom of sheep mocking a wolf in wool.
"Due to irreversible corrosion of the magical circuits, the infected individual's soul will gradually fall under the dominance of bestial instinct."
The calm voice cut cleanly through the noise.
Silence fell.
Every head turned.
Lucian had not stood up. He merely leaned back in his chair, eyes fixed beyond the rows of students, directly on the trembling figure at the front.
"Silver powder mixed with dittany can stop the bleeding, yes. But that only treats the body. The core issue lies within the soul."
"Werewolf venom is, in essence, a coercive magical parasite.
It suppresses the host's self-awareness and imposes a second, violent will upon the same body."
He paused slightly, gaze lingering on the purple turban.
"The struggle between two wills in a single vessel often leads to mental collapse.
Symptoms may include incoherent speech, motor instability, and... heightened sensitivity to light. Wouldn't you agree, Professor Quirrell?"
Not a sound stirred.
To the students, it was simply impressive knowledge. To Quirrell—or rather, to the thing inside him—it was a thunderclap.
The trembling stopped.
In its place came stillness. Coiled. Watchful.
Quirrell slowly raised his head.
Harry sucked in a sharp breath, clutching his scar.
"Mr. Ashford..." Quirrell's voice no longer stuttered as much. It had taken on a faint, hoarse edge. "A most... insightful perspective. Five points to Ravenclaw."
He turned back to the board.
But in Lucian's vision, the dark red mass at the back of Quirrell's head boiled violently, attention locked onto him.
Legilimency.
A probe from the Dark Lord himself.
Lucian smiled faintly.
The gray vortex within him rotated lazily. The magic once born from an Obscurus—now refined through inner cultivation—rose in his mind like a fortified dam.
The malicious tide crashed against it.
A fragment of that force was quietly absorbed.
At the same moment, Lucian's thoughts shifted. His gaze slid to Harry in the front row, still rubbing his scar.
With a subtle motion in the unseen space between threads, Lucian reached out.
Several golden strands—symbols of extraordinary fortune—were severed cleanly from Harry.
Under his guidance, they were grafted onto the unfortunate figure at the podium.
Quirrell's chalk snapped again.
But this time, instead of flying into his eye or smearing his robes, the broken piece arced neatly into the wastebasket.
He felt it.
The probe had vanished without a trace. Worse—had something been taken?
Impossible.
This was a first-year child.
The bell rang, shattering the tension.
"C-class dismissed," Quirrell muttered, dropping the chalk and retreating quickly into his office.
Curiously, not a single student managed to trip him on the way out. Every attempt missed by a fraction.
Students packed up and poured out of the room.
Hermione walked near the back, books clutched to her chest. When she passed Lucian, her steps faltered slightly.
Normally, she would have rushed over, demanding to know which obscure source he had read about werewolf parasitism in.
Or argued that he was venturing into dark magic.
Today, she simply looked at him.
Her hand tightened unconsciously around the freshly washed handkerchief in her pocket.
Then she lowered her head and walked away in silence.
If books could not explain reality, then she would observe first and speak later.
Lucian watched her leave, faintly satisfied with the progress of his variable seed.
His eyes drifted toward Harry's departing figure.
The golden aura above the boy's head, once radiant as the sun, now bore a faint crack. The thick strand of destiny still dragged him toward the next narrative checkpoint—
But this time, the road would not be so smooth.
"So," Lucian murmured, stepping into the corridor. "If the Dark Lord has noticed me, then it is time to expand the stage."
He opened his palm.
A thin strand of dark red energy—extracted from Quirrell moments ago—writhed within the gray magic that contained it.
"Energy is conserved. So is fortune."
He ascended the marble staircase unhurriedly.
Suddenly, a shout echoed from above. A heavy thud followed.
Lucian lifted his gaze.
At the next landing, Harry—the boy who normally escaped accidents by miraculous coincidence—was sprawled awkwardly over a staircase step that had abruptly vanished.
His right leg had plunged through the gap.
Worse, the rare misprinted Dumbledore Chocolate Frog card he had been showing off fluttered helplessly in the draft, drifting toward the dark abyss of the stairwell.
"Oh no! That was the rare one!" Ron wailed, leaning dangerously over the railing to grab it, nearly losing his balance as well.
"What the—why did the step just—" Harry grimaced in pain. The instinct that usually saved him from traps had failed.
Normally, the card would have been blown back by a passing ghost. Or conveniently caught on the next landing.
Instead, it disappeared into darkness before everyone's eyes.
Draco's laughter rang out from above.
"Looks like Potter used up all his luck surviving that curse. Can't even hold onto a card. Pathetic."
Lucian stood in the shadows, watching.
In his spiritual sight, the blazing fortune above Harry dimmed for a fraction of a second where the golden strands had been removed.
And that single moment of shadow had been enough.
The first ripple had begun.
__________
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