Two Years Later
By the time Rigel turned six, the Black ancestral home no longer felt like an ancient fortress—it felt like a living memory.
From the very first step he took into its halls, the house had accepted him. Not as an intruder, not even as a guest—but as heir.
The moment his young magic had flared in St. Mungo's, something deep within the ancient wards had stirred awake. And when his small hands first touched the cold, carved doors of the Black estate, they had opened not by command, but by instinct.
The house knew its own.
Walls did not creak at his steps; they adjusted around him. Portraits of ancient ancestors who had once sneered at "impure blood" nodded silently as he passed. Some whispered his name—Rigel—like a forgotten prophecy rediscovered.
He had not needed permission. He had been expected.
In those two years, Rigel learned more than any six-year-old should. Daily etiquette routines in the great drawing room became as natural as breathing. He could recite the 28 Sacred Houses in alphabetical and bloodline order, trace warding runes with a steady hand, and perform minor charmwork with admirable focus.
But it was at night when his true education began.
In the library beneath the house—unreachable unless the wards acknowledged one's birthright—he studied the Doctrine of Metamorphmagi.
The book, which had once glowed with cautious curiosity, now opened to him without resistance. As he matured, so did its teachings.
Runes on the page shifted as he read, rearranging to suit his growing comprehension. And with each lesson came change—not just in his body, but in how he felt it.
He could now morph with precision. His face , hands, posture—each a conscious effort, each a practiced art. He spent hours mimicking the features of ancient Black portraits, some of whom even critiqued his accuracy with ghostly pride.
But what fascinated him most wasn't appearance.
It was presence.
Rigel had begun to understand how to shift aura—to make himself noticeable, or forgettable. To draw attention with a twist of the jaw or dispel suspicion with softened eyes.
The Silent Veil had become second nature.Portraits sometimes forgot to greet him, blinking in confusion as he walked past.
The passage that suddenly appeared on the last page of the book often captured his thoughts.
"The Heir Who Shapes the Blood Will Shape the Future."
He did not know if it was prophecy or promise.
But the house was listening.
The magic was listening.
And deep down, Rigel was beginning to listen too.
The practice went on for many more weeks—etiquette carved into his bones, the language of ancestral enchantments whispered nightly into his dreams. He was beginning to master the art of becoming, of belonging.
Until it all cracked.
The owl came at dusk. Its feathers were ash-grey and its eyes the color of old, burnt parchment. It bore no crest.
Only a letter, sealed with red wax and scorched around the edges, as though it had flown through fire.
Andromeda Tonks, née Black.
Daughter of Cygnus. Sister to Bellatrix and Narcissa.
Dead.
A magical incident, they said. Unstable flux. Spell collapse.
Too quick for healers. Too sudden for farewells.
Rigel didn't know her—not truly. He had only seen her once in an old moving photograph where she laughed with her infant daughter.
She had been the other Black. The rebel. The one they never spoke of except in clenched tones and unfinished sentences.
But her death sent a shiver through the house.
Doors refused to open for hours. The walls wept condensation. The ancestral tapestry shifted—threads blackening slowly around her name as if reluctant, ashamed.
And for the first time since he had arrived, Rigel felt the house wail. Not aloud. Not in any human tongue. But in the language of old, wounded magic.
In the creaking floorboards. In the flickering of candlelight. In the way his bedroom mirror turned its face to the wall and refused to speak to him for three days.
It was a death.
But it was also a warning.
Even exile did not grant immunity.
Even distance could not cut away the blood.
And Rigel, just six and a half, stared at the tapestry and whispered,
"Is that what happens when the magic mourns you?"
No one answered.
But the silence rang louder than any voice ever could.
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Author's notes.
Please give me power stones.