"The stars remember the names of kings whose empires turned to dust, and still they burn without bowing to any throne."
June 10, 1970
The Great Hall had been stripped of its house tables. In their place stood three hundred individual desks, spaced exactly three feet apart. The enchanted ceiling was a blinding, cloudless blue, mocking the students who were sweating over their parchment below.
The air shimmered with anti-cheating charms. If you tried to use a Self-Correcting Ink, the quill would explode. If you tried to whisper an answer, your tongue would stick to the roof of your mouth for an hour.
Vega sat at desk number forty-two. He dipped his quill.
Transfiguration was first.
Professor McGonagall walked the rows, her eyes sharp. On each desk sat a simple wooden mouse trap.
"You have one hour," McGonagall announced. "The task is to transfigure this trap into a living, breathing mouse. Points will be awarded for anatomical correctness, temperament, and the complete removal of the wood grain."
Vega looked at the trap.
It was dead matter. Metal spring. Pine base.
He engaged his Mage Sight. He saw the structure of the wood, the cellulose, the lignin. He saw the cold iron of the spring.
He raised his wand. He didn't use the incantation immediately. He held the image of the mouse in his mind, not a frightened prey animal, but a scavenger. A creature that lived in the walls of Grimmauld Place.
"Avifors"
He flicked his wand.
The metal spring uncoiled and twisted, becoming a spine. The wood fibers softened, greying into fur.
In three seconds, a mouse sat on his desk.
It was a slate-grey field mouse with intelligent eyes. It didn't run. It stood on its hind legs, sniffed the air, and began to groom its whiskers.
McGonagall stopped at his desk. She picked up the mouse by its tail. It didn't squeak in panic; it tried to bite her finger.
She set it down. It immediately scurried to the edge of the desk and looked down, calculating the jump.
"The skeletal structure is perfect," McGonagall murmured, making a note on her clipboard. "And you gave it... attitude, Mr. Black."
"A mouse without survival instincts is just snake food, Professor," Vega said.
"Outstanding," she murmured. "I haven't seen a transformation this clean in a first year since 1938."
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Magical Control was not held in the Great Hall. It was held in the bedrock chamber below the dungeons.
Professor Kael stood in the center of the room, arms crossed. There were no desks. There was only a single, heavy iron candle holder in front of each student. The candles were unlit.
"Lighting a fire is easy," Kael rasped. "Keeping it still is hard."
He snapped his fingers.
The candles flared to life. But the flames weren't normal. They were magical fire, wild, roaring, reaching two feet into the air. They were chaotic, feeding on the ambient magic of the students.
"Suppress it," Kael ordered. "Do not extinguish it. Compress it. Turn the roar into a whisper. You have ten minutes before the wax melts and burns your fingers."
Vega looked at the roaring flame in front of him. It was hot, licking at his eyebrows.
He closed his eyes. He found the Anchor Ming Yue had taught him, the cold gravity in his gut.
He didn't cast a spell. He just pushed his presence outward. He wrapped his will around the fire like a fist.
Smaller, he commanded. Denser.
The flame fought him. It wanted to consume.
Vega pushed harder. He felt the Hum in his blood try to feed the fire, but he locked it down. He used the cold void of the Black family discipline.
The two-foot flame shuddered. It shrank. It turned from orange to yellow, then to white, then to a deep, intense blue.
It became a single, motionless point of light, no bigger than a pinhead, hovering over the wick. It didn't flicker. It didn't radiate heat.
Kael walked down the line.
Barty's flame was flickering wildly. Cyrus had managed to shrink his to an inch, but it was sputtering.
Kael stopped at Vega. He looked at the pinprick of blue light.
He reached out and passed his hand over it.
"Cold fire," Kael noted. "You stripped the thermal energy and kept the illumination. That is dangerous control, Mr. Black."
"You asked for stillness," Vega said, sweat trickling down his back despite the lack of heat.
"I did," Kael grunted. He marked his sheet. "Full marks. And Black?"
"Sir?"
"Be careful. If you squeeze too hard, you might forget how to let go."
________________
Charms was the final hurdle.
Professor Flitwick was bouncing on his heels. The task was the Levitation Charm, but with a twist. They had to levitate a heavy crystal goblet, and then float it through a series of golden hoops suspended in the air.
"Precision!" Flitwick squeaked. "It is not enough to lift! You must guide!"
Vega stepped up.
"Wingardium Leviosa."
The goblet rose.
Now came the hard part. Moving the goblet without spilling a drop.
Vega didn't use his wrist. He used the vector calculations he had studied in the library. He visualized the path through the hoops as a mathematical equation.
The goblet glided. It didn't wobble. It banked smoothly through the first hoop, climbed for the second, and dove for the third. Not a single ripple disturbed the water's surface.
As it passed the final hoop, Vega added a flourish. He cast a Cheering Charm on the water.
The water turned pink and bubbled effervescently.
He landed the goblet gently on Flitwick's desk.
"A toast, Professor," Vega said.
Flitwick clapped his hands, delighted. "Wonderful! The stability! The trajectory! And a modification at the end! 120%! I daresay, Mr. Black, you have set the record."
The Name in the Gold
The exams were over.
The castle relaxed. The students spilled out onto the grounds, loosening ties and burning notes.
But Vega didn't go outside. He had a question that had been nagging him since McGonagall's comment. Since 1938.
He went to the Trophy Room.
It was a long, dusty gallery on the third floor, filled with glass cases containing shields, cups, and medals dating back centuries. The afternoon sun hit the gold and silver, creating a blinding glare.
Vega walked past the Quidditch cups. He walked past the Service to the School awards.
He found the academic records.
He traced the dates. 1960. 1950. 1940.
He stopped at a large, gold shield inside a cabinet dedicated to "Special Services to the School."
1938-1945.
There was a name engraved at the top of every list. Highest marks in Transfiguration. Highest marks in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Highest marks in Potions. Head Boy.
Tom Marvolo Riddle.
Vega stared at the name.
"Tom," Vega whispered.
It was... mundane.
It wasn't a pureblood name. There were no Riddles in the Sacred Twenty-Eight. There were no Riddles in the social registry.
"Marvolo," Vega muttered. That sounded older. Gaunt, perhaps?
He looked at the face in the old photograph next to the shield. The boy was handsome, dark-haired, with a Prefect's badge gleaming on his chest. He looked calm. Controlled. He looked like he owned the room.
"Who are you?" Vega asked the glass.
It didn't make sense. A wizard this powerful, Head Boy, record-breaking scores, commended for special services, should be famous. He should be Minister of Magic. He should be a Grand Sorcerer.
But Vega had never heard of him.
A Muggle-born, Vega deduced. Or a half-blood with a Muggle father.
That explained it. In the 1940s, blood mattered even more than it did now. A genius with a Muggle name would have hit the glass ceiling hard. The pureblood families would have shut him out. The Ministry would have buried him in a desk job.
"What a waste," Vega murmured.
He looked at the boy's eyes in the photo. They were dark, intelligent, and utterly cold.
"You were the best they had," Vega said to the photograph. "And they let you disappear because your surname."
He felt a strange kinship with the boy in the frame. They were both top of the class. They were both ambitious.
But Vega was a Black. He had the name. He had the keys to the kingdom.
Tom Riddle unfortunately, had neither.
"I won't disappear," Vega promised the silent image.
He turned away from the cabinet, leaving the ghost of Tom Riddle behind in the dust. He had a train to catch tomorrow.
He walked out of the Trophy Room, completely unaware that the boy in the photograph wasn't a ghost. He was a monster. And he hadn't disappeared; he had simply changed his name.
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Tom Riddle shadow foreshadows what's to come...
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