January 29, 1993.
Night had settled deep over Hogwarts, a cold, unyielding blanket that seemed to turn the very stones of the castle into ice. It was that peculiar, pressurized stillness that only arrived long after curfew, when the corridors were empty of the frantic scuttle of students, the torches burned down to low, golden embers, and even the portraits stopped their bickering to whisper secrets in the dark.
Outside, the Scottish sky was a masterpiece of clarity. The stars didn't just twinkle; they glittered with a violent, piercing intensity, like scattered shards of diamond glass thrown across a velvet shroud.
Inside the Ravenclaw boys' dormitory, however, sleep was a distant secondary concern. The air in the room was thick with the scent of old parchment, lingering peppermint from Tobias's stash, and the low-frequency hum of magical energy that always seemed to emanate from the corner where I slept.
Tobias Finch was currently cross-legged on his bed, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth in a display of supreme concentration. He was surrounded by a chaotic, towering pile of Chocolate Frog cards, carefully constructing what he insisted—with very little evidence—was a "historically accurate model of the Tower of Babel."
Elliot Moor watched from the edge of his own bed, his fingers twisting the hem of his duvet. "It's not stable, Tobias," he whispered, his voice hitching every time the cards wobbled. "The base-to-height ratio is completely skewed. You're inviting a structural collapse."
Tobias didn't look up. "Structural stability is a Muggle concern, Elliot. It's a tower of Chocolate Frog cards. It's held together by ambition and the lingering residue of sugar."
"You're building it three cards wide at the base and it's already four feet tall!"
"That is how towers work in my imagination, and my imagination has a much better grasp of physics than you do."
Across the room, Cassian Rowle lay on his back, staring up at the silver-threaded canopy of his bed. His arms were folded behind his head, his dark eyes reflecting the flickering candlelight. His mind wasn't on the cards. He was still replaying the dinner at the Rowle Estate—the way his father's hand had trembled slightly when I mentioned the shop, the way the air in the dining room had turned into lead. He was watching me through the periphery of his vision, trying to solve the puzzle of Orion Blackheart.
Adrian Shah sat by the window in a stiff wooden chair, reading a massive volume on The Geopolitics of Wand-Wood Procurement beneath a dim, floating candle. He turned each page with a quiet, rhythmic precision, his posture so straight it looked painful.
I was standing near the door.
Celeste was perched lightly on my shoulder, her silver-blue feathers usually glowing with a faint, inner gold that pulsed in time with the "Star-blessed" current in my blood was now restrained. She looked nothing more than an ordinary owl. I was wearing my heavy traveling cloak, the fabric absorbing what little light remained in the room.
Cassian noticed the shift in my weight first. "You going somewhere, Orion?"
I turned slightly, the gold streak in my hair catching the light. "Just for a walk, Cassian. The tower feels... crowded tonight."
Tobias snorted, his hand hovering over a card of Merlin. "At midnight? During a petrification crisis? When the Headmaster specifically told us to walk in groups of three?"
"The stars are aligned tonight," I said evenly. "I'd rather not miss the conversation."
Elliot frowned, his anxiety spiking. "That seems... highly suspicious. Even for you."
I gave the faintest hint of a smile—the kind that never reached my eyes but told them exactly what I wanted them to know. "It usually is."
I opened the door and slipped out. The click of the latch echoed like a gunshot in the silent room.
The room went silent for exactly four seconds. Then, the inevitable happened. Tobias's card tower gave a long, slow creak and collapsed into a heap of cardboard wizards.
"I knew it!" Tobias hissed, leaping off the bed. "He's doing it again! The 'Mysterious Midnight Vanishing Act'!"
Cassian sat up immediately, his eyes sharp. "He's been doing this for weeks. Every time the pressure in the castle spikes, he heads for the heights."
Elliot looked terrified. "But there's a monster in the walls, guys! We can't just let him wander around alone! What if he... what if he is the monster?"
Cassian scoffed, grabbing his robes. "Orion isn't the monster, Elliot. He's just the one who knows where it is. Move. If we lose his scent now, we'll never find him."
Adrian calmly closed his book and stood up. "I suspected he was heading for the Astronomy Tower. The celestial resonance tonight is at an eighty-year peak. If he's 'aligned,' that's where he'll be."
"Then at least attempt stealth," Adrian added, looking at Tobias. "I'd prefer not to spend the rest of the semester in detention with Filch."
They were, quite objectively, terrible at stealth.
Tobias nearly knocked over a suit of armor on the third floor, his shoulder clipping a breastplate with a loud, metallic cland-g. Elliot stepped on a loose floorboard near the Charms corridor that squeaked like a dying mouse. Cassian, trying to look cool, walked face-first into a heavy tapestry of dancing trolls because he was too busy looking over his shoulder.
Adrian eventually had to physically drag them all behind a massive stone column as I paused at the top of a landing. "Subtlety," Adrian whispered, his voice flat and murderous, "is not a suggestion, Tobias. It is a survival requirement."
They followed me at a distance, watching as I turned toward the spiral staircase that led to the highest point in the castle.
"He's going up there," Cassian whispered. "The Astronomy Tower."
"Classic mysterious wizard behavior," Tobias grinned, his excitement overriding his fear. "Bet ten galleons he's going to summon a demon."
"Shut up, Tobias," the other three whispered in unison.
They reached the top of the stairs, stopping just below the final stone archway. They peeked out, four heads stacked vertically in the shadows.
The Astronomy Tower was a cathedral of wind and light. The air was freezing, sharp with the scent of frost and ancient magic. I was standing at the very edge of the stone railing, silhouetted against the vast, glittering expanse of the cosmos.
Celeste was perched beside me.
"So far... normal," Cassian whispered. "Just Orion talking to the sky."
Then Celeste moved.
At first, it was a subtle shimmer—a ripple across her feathers that looked like oil on water. Then, the glow intensified. Her silver-blue feathers began to lengthen, spreading outward as if drawn by invisible fingers. Her body expanded, the structural fabric of her form snapping and rearranging. Wings unfolded wider and wider, each feather beginning to blaze with the blue-white fire of starlight and the jagged flicker of lightning.
Within seconds, she wasn't a bird anymore. She was a Titan. She stood nearly as tall as I did, her wingspan enormous enough to cast a shadow over the entire platform. The air around her hummed with a celestial frequency that made the boys' teeth ache.
Tobias made a strangled, choking sound in the back of his throat. Adrian clamped a hand over his mouth instantly.
"That... that is not a bird," Cassian whispered, his voice shaking with a primal, genetic fear.
Celeste stretched her vast wings, the light rippling across the tower stones like the reflection of stars on deep water. Then, I did something that made Elliot nearly faint.
I stepped onto the very edge of the railing. I stood there for a heartbeat, my cloak whipping in the gale, looking as though I were balanced on the edge of the world.
"WHAT IS HE DOING—" Elliot's whisper was a shriek.
I stepped off.
I didn't fall. Not truly. For one long, horrifying second, gravity claimed me, and I plummeted toward the jagged rocks of the Forbidden Forest. And then—
Wings.
They burst from my back in a flare of soft, silver-black light. They were massive, feathered, and shimmered with the same "Star-blessed" energy as Celeste's. The fall stopped instantly. I caught the updraft from the lake like a hawk, my wings beating once with a sound like a thunderclap, and I glided smoothly upward.
Celeste launched beside me, her wingspan dwarfing the tower as she soared into the night.
Cassian leaned over the railing, his knuckles white against the stone. "…He has wings. He actually has wings."
"HE HAS WINGS!" Tobias wheezed, finally prying Adrian's hand off his mouth. "He's a literal angel! Or a bird-man! He's a bird-man!"
Elliot looked like he was about to vomit. "That's not normal. That's... that's a biological impossibility."
Adrian watched in a heavy, contemplative silence as I banked gracefully through the night sky. I wasn't just flying; I was dancing. Celeste circled me like a blazing star, her lightning trailing behind her in long, beautiful streaks. Our silhouettes crossed the face of the moon, two anomalies weaving through the stars.
I turned in the air with absolute, predatory control, feeling the "Current" of the world beneath my feathers. Celeste dove playfully past me, her trill echoing across the grounds—a sound of pure, unadulterated joy.
For ten minutes, we flew together, free from the walls of the castle and the weight of the "Heir."
Below us, the four silhouettes on the tower watched in a trance.
"…We're friends with a flying celestial wizard," Tobias whispered, his voice full of a new kind of reverence. "My life just got so much cooler."
Cassian slowly rubbed his face, his mind finally making sense of his father's warning. "My parents told me he was dangerous. They told me he was the 'Hand' of something ancient."
"They forgot to mention the wings, Cassian," Elliot whispered weakly. "That seems like a major detail to leave out."
Adrian folded his arms, his gaze fixed on the way I moved through the sky. "Do not tell anyone. Not the teachers. Not your parents. Not even the other Ravenclaws."
The others turned to him. "Why?" Tobias asked.
"Because," Adrian said, his voice hard, "if the world finds out what he is, they'll try to put him in a cage. And I don't think Orion is the type of person who stays in a cage. He'd burn the castle down to get back to those stars."
The others nodded solemnly. "Agreed," Tobias said. "Absolutely," Cassian added. "No one would believe us anyway," Elliot muttered.
Above them, Orion and Celeste soared through the heavens, weaving between the constellations like living threads of starlight. Far below, the rest of Hogwarts slept peacefully—completely unaware that the architecture of their world had just been irrevocably changed by a twelve-year-old boy who refused to stay on the ground.
I looked down and saw the four small shapes on the tower. I saw the threads of their loyalty tightening into a bond that would survive the coming war.
I banked one last time, tucked my wings, and prepared to land. The walk was over. The flight had begun.