September 6th – Ravenclaw Tower, 3:11 a.m.
The rune had vanished.
Three nights ago, it pulsed faintly on the wall behind Rowan's bed—a simple marking etched into the stone like chalk burned into bone. But now the wall was smooth, ordinary. Cold to the touch. Like nothing had ever stirred there.
Rowan wasn't discouraged. He had spent years training himself not to chase the obvious, but to study absence. Magic, truly ancient magic, wasn't flashy. It didn't shout.
It waited.
He waited too.
But tonight, the waiting ended.
The enchanted stone—once warm, now dormant—lit suddenly in his palm. Not hot. Not humming. But with a subtle flicker, like a star behind clouds.
Rowan sat upright in his bed, fully awake before his eyes even opened.
He crossed the dormitory floor barefoot, careful not to wake the others. The floorboards here were unusually silent—he'd noted that on the first night. Another enchantment, likely. Sound-dampening for young minds too full of questions to sleep.
The wall behind the bookshelf was cool again.
Until it wasn't.
The rune returned.
Not drawn this time. Carved.
Eiwaz.
Again.
But this time, the rune turned.
It rotated like a dial, clicking gently beneath his fingers.
And then—the stones pulled back.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. They simply… shifted. And revealed a narrow corridor spiraling downward, into the foundation of the tower.
There was no light.
But Rowan didn't hesitate.
The Secret Passage
He descended with wand raised.
"Lumos."
The tip flared softly, casting long shadows over the narrow stairwell. The air smelled of ancient parchment and cold iron. The stones were older than those in the rest of the tower. Older than Hogwarts itself, perhaps.
As he moved downward, symbols lined the walls—some in Old Runic, others in scripts he didn't recognize. One resembled fluid icicles. Another looked like spiderwebs trapped in frost.
He didn't stop to copy them. Not yet.
The path opened into a chamber.
A perfect circle, maybe fifteen feet wide. At its center, a single, hexagonal pedestal. Upon it, a black slab of glass—no frame, no embellishment.
A mirror.
Or something like it.
Rowan stepped forward cautiously.
"Nox."
Darkness returned, but not total.
The glass on the pedestal shone faintly from within, like moonlight trapped beneath a surface. As he approached, his reflection appeared.
But it wasn't right.
Rowan Weasley stared back.
Same sharp eyes, same dark red hair tousled to one side. But the eyes in the reflection were… older. Not in years, but in knowing. As if the reflection had seen further down a path Rowan hadn't yet taken.
It blinked exactly when he did. Tilted its head the same way.
But then—it moved differently.
A fraction of a second late.
And then, it smiled.
Rowan did not.
He felt his wand raise slightly.
The reflection raised nothing.
It was no longer mirroring him.
Rowan leaned closer.
"Who are you?" he whispered.
The reflection didn't speak. But its lips moved.
And he could read them.
You already know.
Then the light died in the glass.
Darkness.
Moments Later – Back in the Tower
Rowan exited the hidden passage without panic. Without confusion. His pulse was elevated, but steady.
He returned to his bed, lay down, and stared at the ceiling for a long time.
He replayed the scene in his mind, again and again, not trying to understand it—but to observe it fully. There would be time for conclusions. For now: data.
The figure in the glass had looked like him, but not perfectly. Not like Polyjuice. Not like a mirrored charm. Something… older.
A version of him that knew more.
A future?
A possibility?
A warning?
And the last words: You already know.
He wrote them down in his spell journal before sleep found him.
And when it did, he dreamed of corridors without end—and mirrors that watched from both sides.
The Next Day – Astronomy Tower
Classes had begun in full.
Charms with Professor Flitwick, who immediately asked Rowan to demonstrate the "Featherlight Protocol" after seeing his wandwork on the first day.
Transfiguration with McGonagall, who gave him one sharp glance and said, "Try not to turn your desk into something permanent."
He hadn't meant to create a self-folding table. But she left it in the classroom.
Astronomy, though—that was different.
Up on the tower roof, beneath a sky swimming with constellations, Rowan felt something familiar. Something deep.
Professor Sinistra had just dismissed class when she approached him, her voice soft and even.
"You're not looking at the stars," she said.
"I'm looking at their patterns," he replied.
She paused. "Do you recognize them?"
"Some. But I think the sky's not the same here as it is elsewhere. Slight differences. A drift."
She studied him carefully. "How old are you really?"
Rowan looked her in the eye. "Eleven. For now."
She smiled, then turned away. "The stars don't lie. But they don't always tell the full truth, either. Just like mirrors."
He froze.
Sinistra didn't look back.
She simply said, "When you find it again—ask it what you refuse to ask yourself."
Then she vanished down the spiral stairs.
Hogwarts Library – Forbidden Section Periphery
Rowan had found the map two days later.
Not a map of the school. Not like the Marauder's Map, which he'd overheard Fred and George whispering about.
This was older.
Bound in dark barkskin, covered in glyphs stitched in silver thread. No title on the spine.
It wasn't in the restricted section. It had been misfiled in Arithmancy.
He opened it, slowly.
There were no words. Just rooms. Drawings. Hidden floors. Chambers that didn't appear on any architectural layout.
And then—The Spiral.
He recognized it immediately.
A staircase descending into a circular room. The mirrored pedestal. It was labeled simply: AUREM.
The gold one.
He copied the layout into his spell journal. Under it, he wrote:
Why is a mirror called "Aurem"?
He had no answer.
But he had a direction.
A Week Later – Gryffindor Common Room (Briefly)
Fred and George had invited him over.
"We want you to see something," Fred said.
"Not a prank," George clarified. "A theory."
They'd cleared a table and laid out an elaborate network of moving diagrams: shifting staircases, secret doorways, known Filch patrol patterns. It was part map, part puzzle, part predictive algorithm.
"You're trying to chart the castle's behavior," Rowan said.
Fred beamed. "Exactly!"
George pointed to a shifting glyph in the center. "But there's a variable. A door that appears randomly in the fourth-floor corridor. No logic."
Rowan stared at it. Thought of Aurem. Thought of the runes.
"It's not random," he said. "It's listening."
"To what?"
"To the question you ask as you approach it."
The twins stared at him.
Then Fred muttered, "We need more parchment."
Later That Night – Aurem's Return
The mirror had changed.
When Rowan returned to the chamber, the glass didn't show a reflection this time.
It showed a door.
Not one he recognized.
A simple wooden door with black iron bands. A keyhole shaped like a crescent moon.
He leaned forward, whispering, "What is this?"
The door in the mirror opened.
Light poured through.
And Rowan saw—
A hallway of black stone. Floating candles. Walls with carvings of creatures he'd only read about in ancient bestiaries: Thestrals, Basilisks, Phoenixes fighting serpents made of starlight.
And at the far end—
A second mirror.
But this one was cracked.
And from it, something was reaching out.
Rowan stepped back.
The glass returned to black.
The room fell silent.
He made no sound. Only turned, walked up the spiral staircase, and sealed the wall behind him.
Not out of fear.
But because he knew this wasn't the end of the question.
It was only the first part.
And the castle was beginning to answer.