The library was quiet this early in the morning, save for the soft rustle of parchment and the occasional flick of a turning page. Caelum leaned over a thick tome on ritual theory, fingers tapping against the wooden table in thought. Diagrams of containment circles, sympathetic links, and magical anchors sprawled across the pages.
He traced one with a finger, muttering, "A possession-bound Horcrux anchored to a diary… Malice reinforced through emotional resonance. If I were Tom Riddle, how would I safeguard the tether?"
The synchronization had reached 11.14%. Not much, but enough to unlock the most basic spells from the Archmage's arsenal—elemental control, a few detection charms, and the first stage of mental reinforcement. Yet it wasn't enough. Not if he wanted to isolate the diary and sever its influence without risking the life of the girl bound to it. Not if he wanted to survive what might come next in a world no longer bound to canon.
He scratched out a sigil on his notes. If he could identify the ritual matrix the diary was using to connect to its host, he could invert it—turn it inward, trap the fragment of soul in a recursive loop until it burned itself out. But that would require precise calibration, a place saturated in old magic, and time.
Too many variables.
Caelum leaned back, exhaling. "So," he murmured, "next step is to test containment spells. Preferably without triggering a school-wide incident…"
The bell tolled the half-hour. Time for class.
Defense Against the Dark Arts had a reputation for inconsistency, chaos, and last-minute substitutes. This year, it was Caelum's turn to redefine the subject—or at least make it through a term without losing a limb.
He stepped into the classroom, robes clean and unassuming, face unreadable. The third-years sat scattered through the room, murmuring and whispering among themselves. Some looked eager. Others wary. A few—like Malfoy—carried the habitual sneer of someone expecting a show.
Caelum raised a hand, and the room quieted without him saying a word. He liked that. The subtle weight of magic behind a gesture. The Archmage's discipline seeped into moments like these.
"Today," he said, "we're doing runes."
A collective groan went up from the back. Ron Weasley slumped over his desk.
Caelum didn't flinch. "Not the decorative kind. Not the ones you draw in books and forget. These are functional runes. You will inscribe them. You will channel through them. If you fail, they'll burn your parchment. If you really mess up, they'll short your wand."
More than a few students sat up straighter.
He passed around thin sheets of treated dragonhide and a few simple rune templates. The students leaned over them with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
As they worked, he walked between the desks, watching. Hermione was quick, meticulous, cross-checking every line with a reference chart she'd memorized before class. Ron... well, his lines were passable. Not impressive, but not explosive either.
Harry sat in the second row, quietly inscribing a containment glyph. His strokes were sure. Confident. Oddly practiced. Caelum narrowed his eyes.
Above average magical circulation, the Archmage's instincts whispered. Not just potential—experience.
But he said nothing. There was nothing definitive to act on yet. And suspicion alone wouldn't justify anything.
Instead, he stopped by Neville, who was struggling to hold his wand steady.
"You're pressing too hard," Caelum said evenly. "Runes respond to intent, not pressure."
Neville nodded quickly. "S-sorry, Professor."
"Don't apologize. Focus." Caelum placed a steadying hand on the boy's wrist, guiding it just slightly. "Try again."
Neville's rune sparked faintly—imperfect, but stable. His eyes widened. "I did it?"
"You didn't fail. That's progress."
As the class moved into testing the runes—some flaring properly, others fizzling or cracking—the room filled with quiet bursts of light and the occasional muffled curse. Caelum observed all of it, calculating. Watching how they reacted under pressure. Where their minds went when faced with risk.
He needed to be ready. If Tom Riddle's diary was already in motion, and if the plot had shifted from canon, then every minute counted. He would speedrun the end, if needed.
Because failure here… wasn't just failure. It could be the death of this entire timeline.
----
By the time the last student left, the classroom had quieted into that strange, echoing stillness unique to old stone corridors and long-forgotten spells. Caelum remained at his desk, wand idly tapping against a parchment covered in trial runes. He wasn't really looking at it.
The lesson had been... fine. Enough interaction to pass as engaged, enough guidance to keep suspicion away. He hadn't drawn too much attention. Not from Dumbledore, not from the students.
Still, the atmosphere tugged at him. That nervous energy in the room wasn't just from young minds. Something in the air felt unsettled—like tension held just beneath the surface, waiting to ripple outward.
That could've just been him.
Caelum stood, his chair scraping softly. He needed the library.
It was quiet when he arrived, Madam Pince eyeing him with her usual hawkish stare before returning to her cataloging. As a professor, he had access to the Restricted Section, which saved him the trouble of explaining his choices.
He selected three books after only a few minutes: Dark Artifacts and How They Think, Magics of the Soul: Theory and Practice, and an old, weathered volume titled Unmaking Anchors: A Study on Magical Parasitism. The third one was especially promising.
Back in his office, he cleared his desk and laid the books out. Candlelight flickered across the cracked leather covers as he opened the first volume.
Every page added something new: details on cursed objects that developed a will of their own, enchanted items that anchored fragments of sentience. There were similarities to the diary's behavior—or at least, what he suspected the diary was. If it functioned as a conduit or storage vessel, then its destruction wouldn't be simple.
It couldn't just be burned or obliterated.
It had to be unraveled, layer by layer.
He reached for a quill and began drafting a preliminary ritual design. Not a true counter-curse yet—more of a containment scaffold. Something to restrict the diary's influence long enough to study it more directly.
He kept working. Hours passed without distraction. He wasn't waiting for the System to respond, but when the notification arrived, he acknowledged it without pause.
Synchronization: 11.73%
Good. He could feel it, too. His thoughts flowed cleaner. Spells made more sense. Even his instinct for magical structure had sharpened slightly. Nothing flashy yet—but if he could push beyond 15%, he might start accessing practical applications from the template. Utility spells. Defensive enchantments.
Spells he could trust.
His fingers paused over the parchment as a thought surfaced: if the diary had already started influencing someone, he needed to act soon. He couldn't delay under the assumption that the plot would follow familiar beats.
This world didn't follow the original. That was the danger. Neville being the Boy Who Lived proved that the butterfly effect was in full force.
And if Voldemort—or a part of him—was already embedded here…
He forced himself back to focus.
He'd start with a modified isolation charm layered with soul-resonance markers. If he could bait the artifact into responding, he might map the limits of its magic. If it reacted aggressively, that would confirm it was more than a cursed diary. But for now, theory came first.
The runes on the page were sharp, clean. Each stroke carried a weight he hadn't felt before. Not just from the template—though that helped—but from a quiet urgency creeping in beneath him.
-----
The next morning, Caelum made his way to the Great Hall early, hoping for a quiet breakfast before classes. He didn't get it.
"Professor Caelum!" called a voice—young, too enthusiastic for the hour.
He turned, mug in hand, to find a third-year Hufflepuff girl walking toward him with two others trailing behind. Bright eyes. Eager minds. It wasn't unusual.
"Yes?" he asked, neutral but not unkind.
"Sorry for bothering you! It's just—we were wondering if we could ask about the rune you drew yesterday in class. The one that shimmered."
Caelum blinked, sipping his tea. "You mean the compound glyph for 'layered intent'?"
"That's the one! We checked the standard texts, but it wasn't there."
Of course it wasn't. That particular formation came from Veylan's personal spellwork—advanced ritual design far beyond Hogwarts curriculum. He shouldn't have used it so openly, but old habits crept in when he wasn't careful. [A/N: The template he has was a teacher that died from saving his students and the templates influence him but not fully just some minor habbits and such]
He offered a polite nod. "I'll sketch out the theoretical basis for it and post it on the classroom board by tomorrow. But it's well beyond third-year level. You may want to revisit it in your sixth."
The girl nodded quickly, scribbling in a small, leather-bound notebook. Her friends followed, murmuring thanks before returning to their table.
He resumed his meal, quietly considering whether the interaction was helpful or a mistake. A few well-placed explanations might bolster his presence—give him credibility. But teaching while role-playing a template like Archmage Veylan was a tightrope. Too much complexity would raise suspicion. Too little, and he'd fail to earn meaningful synchronization.
His synchronization hovered at 12.06% now. It was slow, but progress.
He needed more.
Caelum spent the rest of the day alternating between lecturing and research. When evening came, he slipped into the Restricted Section again—this time hunting for tomes on soul rituals and memory anchoring. His first theory was starting to shape into something solid.
If the diary was indeed a soul vessel, then it wouldn't be enough to destroy it physically. He needed to disrupt the anchor itself—sever the connection between soul and object.
He made a list of components. A few herbs. Silver dust. Phoenix feather ash, ideally, but dragon bone powder might substitute in a pinch. The ritual he planned wouldn't destroy the soul fragment, not yet. It would isolate and expose it—force it into visibility.
He could work from there.
Later that evening, as he stood near the entrance to the Astronomy Tower for a moment of quiet, he noticed a small group of students below in the courtyard. From this height, their voices didn't carry. But one of them—Neville—stood awkwardly in the center, his shoulders drawn tight.
Caelum watched silently.
He didn't pity the boy. That wasn't useful. But he did understand fear, the weight of expectations not chosen. Especially when they came from the world.
Even now, the details bothered him.
Neville Longbottom, not Harry Potter, was the Boy Who Lived. That divergence alone was dangerous. It meant Voldemort's return wouldn't follow the same beats. If the diary had already found its way into someone's hands…
He stepped back from the edge.
Tomorrow, he'd test the first layer of the counter-ritual on a proxy object. If it responded the way he expected, then he'd know he was on the right track.
If not—well, he'd adapt. There wasn't another option.
He couldn't afford to wait for the story to catch up. Not in a world where the rules had already shifted.