Moonlight shimmered through the ancient trees of the Forbidden Forest, casting silver shadows across the forest floor. Aarav moved in silence, each step enchanted with Muffliato and Shadow-Step spells.
He wasn't hunting.
He was being called.
"Come alone," the message had read, scrawled in star-dust across his dormitory window.
Only one kind of being left signs in starlight.
The clearing opened like a wound in the forest, ringed by mushrooms and frost-dusted roots. And there, waiting beneath the gaze of the constellations, stood a centaur—unusually tall, silver-haired, his bow slung loosely across his back.
His name was Vaelyr.
"You have seen the veil," Vaelyr said without turning. "And now, you chase the stone that parts it."
Aarav stepped forward cautiously.
"You know of the Resurrection Stone?"
Vaelyr's black eyes gleamed. "The stars scream your name, worldwalker. They scream… warnings."
Vaelyr pointed his staff skyward, drawing patterns in the air. Star trails glowed behind it.
"Time is not a string. It is a web. And you've plucked too many strands."
Aarav listened as the centaur described what the stars had shown:
A Time-Turner, ancient and unrecorded, fractured in five shards across space and magic
Voldemort's new horcrux attempt, no longer in objects—but in moments of time
A celestial conjunction, 9 moons away, that would let one born of two worlds rewrite life or death
"You will be offered the power to undo the death that haunts you," Vaelyr whispered. "But if you take it… the price will be everyone else."
System Questline Unlocked:
Quest Title: Starbound
Arc: The Fractured Time
Objective: Recover the 5 Shards of the Broken Time-Turner
Current Location: Forbidden Forest – Shard 1 nearby
Subquest: Prevent Voldemort from infecting Time Fragments
Rewards: Temporal Skill Tree Access, Resurrection Stone Synchronization Path
Warning: Tampering with Time Shards will draw attention from Nexus Guardians
Aarav exhaled slowly. "Where's the first shard?"
Vaelyr tilted his head. "Buried beneath the roots of the Deathgrove Tree. Guarded by a memory bound in pain."
Together, they descended deeper into the forest.
They reached a gnarled tree, leafless, taller than Hagrid's hut, with roots like petrified serpents. It radiated anti-life—the opposite of the Whomping Willow's wild energy.
Aarav stepped forward. His spell lens activated automatically.
Detection: Reality Warp Field
Warning: Memory Echo Trap Imminent
Still, he pressed a palm against the bark.
The world fractured.
Suddenly, Aarav stood in Godric's Hollow—but unseen, uninvited. He watched through shattered time.
Voldemort stood before Lily, wand raised. Baby Harry screamed.
"Step aside," Voldemort hissed.
"No," Lily whispered.
Aarav moved to stop it, but—
System Warning: This is a locked echo. You cannot change it. Only understand it.
He saw the spell. Avada Kedavra. The scream. The burst of magic. The collapse of the timeline.
Then, behind the echo… he saw it.
A golden gear, spinning in air, cracked through the center.
"Shard of Time," he whispered.
He leapt.
He grasped it.
The world snapped back to the Deathgrove.
The shard glowed in his hand like frozen sunfire.
System Update:
Time Shard 1 of 5 Acquired: The Mother's Stand
Unlocked: Passive Skill – Memory Lock
→ Reduces damage from illusion-based memory spells
→ Allows viewing of locked echoes without mental strain
EXP +6000
Next Shard Location Hint: "Where blood betrayed the bloodless—Chamber of Stone and Song"
Vaelyr watched as Aarav pocketed the shard.
"You've now touched time itself," he said solemnly. "Its guardians will notice."
Aarav asked, "What kind of guardians?"
The centaur turned to go.
"The kind that erase the reckless. Be ready, Gaunt of Many Worlds… or you will die in every one of them."
And with a flash of starlight, Vaelyr vanished into the trees.
Aarav stood alone, holding the first piece of a future too dangerous to exist.