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Theo drew a long breath. If this were any other perk, he could wait. But for Severus Snape, Soul-Calling might crack open a door nothing else could. After Lily's death, Snape had lived like a ghost; making him a true Close Friend by ordinary means could take years… or never happen. And Theo needed what came next: Alchemy Sage—a talent that would supercharge his growth and his creature-breeding "Pokémon Plan". In short: the earlier, the faster.
He glanced at Harry. "I'm nipping to the lavatory first."
"Hagrid's rock cakes," he added, deadpan.
Harry's cheek twitched at the memory of that first bite in Hagrid's hut. He sucked at a tooth, confirmed it was still there, then nodded. "I'll wait. And I told you not to eat half the tray—Hermione's threatening to drag you to her parents' for a dental check."
—
Behind a locked lavatory door, Theo's eyes burned bright. "System—claim Soul-Calling and God of the Night."
Both sigils slid into place. At once, something in the dark outside… welcomed him. Night, which usually pressed on human hearts like an old stone lid, felt warm and familiar—home turf. The shadows around him seemed to thicken, not with menace but with favour. A boon like Earth-Spirit Primordial, but keyed to darkness: the night itself buoyed his body and art.
He rolled his shoulders. Blood and qi surged; Adamantine Body, Unclouded Mind flared. Gold lit his skin—brighter than before; that undying, unmarred resonance rang clearer. Even his hair caught a faint aureate sheen.
"Defence and physique, up at least twenty per cent," he murmured. "And…"
He tasted his magic. Stronger—decisively stronger. By his own reckoning, he'd pushed past even Harry's shard-swollen baseline. That drew a genuine smile. He knew high sorcery from the Flooded Age would outstrip modern spellcraft in time, but now, raw magical pressure still mattered. Until today he'd had few talents that boosted magical intensity itself. Now he had one—two, once he hunted down Day-Wandering Deity for a sunlit counterpart. With both, he'd be on full-time boost—and later, perhaps, Fuse Talents: marry Earth-Spirit Primordial and God of the Night into a single, heavier buff.
He turned to the second boon.
Soul-Calling was different: it demanded a medium. Theo slipped out, scanning the corridor, and stopped before a portrait.
Wizarding photographs and paintings moved, chatted, even visited their neighbours. He'd once wondered if that was a kind of immortality. Now, with Soul-Calling humming in his chest, he understood them.
"They aren't full souls. Not even fragments," he thought, fingertips grazing the frame. "They're… retained breaths—a thin echo of spirit. Behaviours impressed at the moment of capture, replayed like grooves on a record. No creativity."
Yet the new sense tightened. Through that thin breath he could haul the true soul, briefly, into parley. Even before summoning, the 'breath' unfolded to him like threads of quicksilver in a Pensieve. Corridor portraits, to this sense, were row upon row of little bowls filled with memories he could skim as easily as air.
"Night-warden gifts hit spirits hard," he conceded. "Against souls, I'm past Legilimency; this is a specialist's toolkit."
For a beat, he understood why Dumbledore, Voldemort, and Grindelwald had all flirted with ruling worlds. Reading thought at will was a heady, godlike thing.
Then he let it go. Fun to test. Not the path. Compared to true arts—divine abilities, the road to a stainless body and immortality—this was a toy.
He rejoined Harry, and together they reached Snape's office.
They didn't knock. The door unlatched itself and swung inward.
"You are forty minutes late," came Snape's voice, brittle with suppressed fury. "I despise tardiness. Combined with the fact that you are here for detention, this is—intolerable. Accordingly, Gryffindor will lose—"
Harry, who had learned alarmingly fast how to fend off Severus Snape, stepped in with liquid eyes. "Professor, we brought you a gift."
Snape's mouth tightened. "That will not spare you points, Potter. Not this time. Your behaviour is unacceptable, and my principles will not be softened by trifles."
Harry lifted the photograph with both hands, careful as if it were crystal.
Seventh-year Lily Evans smiled up from the frame, a Head Girl badge gleaming on her chest. She blinked—as if recognising the man holding her image—and lifted her fingers in a small wave.
"Hi, Sev," the Lily in the picture said lightly. "My, you've gone terribly old."
Snape's breath stopped—cleanly, utterly.
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