Please consider supporting my writing at buymeacoffee.com/VoiceOfUnknown.
The Gryffindor first-years shuffled into the Charms classroom, a low hum of chatter filling the air. The room itself felt lighter than most—rows of desks neatly polished, high windows letting in golden morning light, and shelves stacked with curious instruments that whirred and chimed faintly of their own accord. Quills floated lazily in mid-air near the front desk, taking notes across rolls of parchment as though alive.
Cassian walked with measured steps, his satchel tucked close, eyes scanning every detail. The air here smelled faintly of chalk and candle wax. Not oppressive like the dungeon, not stern like McGonagall's chamber—something in between. Controlled chaos.
The professor appeared a moment later, a tiny man with a shock of white hair, his robes trailing slightly as he dragged a tall stack of books to the front. He clambered onto them with surprising energy, and now, perched at eye-level with the students, he grinned.
"Welcome, welcome! Charms, my dear students, is the art of subtlety and precision. And today, we begin with levitation. Simple to some, but foundational to all."
Excited murmurs rippled across the class. Seamus elbowed Dean, whispering something about floating teacups. Ron groaned under his breath. Hermione sat bolt upright, quill poised like a soldier's spear, her expression eager.
Cassian slid into a seat at the back corner, close enough to see, far enough not to be surrounded. He placed his wand carefully across the desk.
It thrummed faintly against the wood.
Professor Flitwick flicked his own wand, and a feather floated gracefully into the air before settling onto a desk in the front row. "The incantation, my students, is Wingardium Leviosa. Not Levio-sar, not Levisome—Levi-o-sa." His grin widened at his own joke. "Swish and flick of the wand. A charm delicate as breath, but firm as will."
He demonstrated again. The feather hovered obediently, rising and falling like a heartbeat.
Pairs formed across the desks. Harry sat beside Ron, their feather placed between them. Neville and Seamus fumbled with their own, already jabbing at it with their wands. Hermione leaned forward, whispering theory to Dean in a quick torrent.
Cassian's partner ended up being no one. An odd number of students, and in the bustle, no one shifted to his side. Flitwick glanced his way, opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it and carried on.
The feather before Cassian rested white and delicate against the dark wood of the desk. He studied it for a moment, not moving.
The classroom buzzed with attempts. "Wingardium Leviosa!" Ron snapped, swishing far too hard. The feather didn't move. Hermione corrected him immediately, exasperated. "No, you're doing it wrong—swish and flick!"
Seamus muttered his incantation, and his feather ignited briefly into sparks, making Dean laugh.
Flitwick clapped his hands. "Careful, careful! Remember, intention shapes the magic. Concentrate, feel the word in your bones."
Cassian placed his hand on his wand.
The warmth pulsed again, stronger this time, like a heartbeat echoing into his palm. His grip tightened.
"Wingardium Leviosa," he said softly, almost to himself.
The feather stirred. Not gently, not obediently. It shivered once, then jerked into the air as if seized by an invisible hand.
Cassian's breath caught. For a second, triumph flickered sharp inside his chest. But the feather didn't float—it convulsed, twitching violently, spinning end over end until it slammed against the ceiling and stuck there, quivering.
Several heads turned.
"Whoa," Seamus muttered.
Hermione's eyes darted to him, wide with surprise.
Flitwick beamed. "Excellent power, Mr.—ah—Thorne, isn't it? Very strong will!" He clapped his hands, clearly pleased.
But Cassian's fingers were still clenched white around the wand. The warmth wasn't fading. It was building. Swelling.
The feather suddenly ripped free from the ceiling, tearing downward with a violent snap. Cassian jerked his wand instinctively—and the feather exploded into a storm of white filaments, scattering across half the room like snow.
Gasps. Laughter. Nervous chatter.
Flitwick blinked, momentarily thrown, then chuckled. "An… ambitious start. Control, my boy, control. Let's try again—more gently this time."
Cassian set his jaw.
The feather's remains still fluttered in the air, weightless motes catching the sun like sparks. His wand pulsed hotter, as though daring him to push again. His breath came shallow, but he lifted it once more.
He chose another feather from the box, laying it before him. A fragile thing. Easy prey.
His voice low, deliberate: "Wingardium Leviosa."
This time the feather didn't just rise. It convulsed upward, whipping into the air so fast it snapped sideways, striking against Dean's quill hard enough to splinter wood. Ink sprayed across his parchment.
"Oi!" Dean exclaimed, jumping back.
The feather spun madly, circling above Cassian's desk like caught in a storm. His hand shook, not from weakness but from strain—the wand dragging his arm as much as he dragged it.
"Mr. Thorne, steady now!" Flitwick called sharply, his cheer dimming into caution.
Cassian's teeth clenched. He tried to will it down, to ease the wand's pull, but the magic only surged harder, a tide breaking past his grip.
The feather shot across the room. Neville ducked with a yelp as it sliced past his ear, sharp as a thrown knife. Gasps rippled. Someone screamed.
And then—
Cassian's wand flared. A surge of raw heat rushed from the core, searing up his arm like fire caught beneath his skin. His knuckles blanched around the handle as if prying it free might tear flesh from bone.
The air cracked. Feathers from every desk leapt into the air all at once, a blizzard of white swirling violently above the students' heads.
Children shouted, desks scraped, quills scattered. The room became a storm.
And Cassian's wand was at the center, trembling in his grip, power bleeding out in violent arcs. His breath hitched—half fury, half panic—as the charm spun entirely out of his control.
Flitwick's small voice was drowned in the chaos. "Stop! Mr. Thorne—release it!"
But the wand would not be released.
The storm thickened, feathers whipping like shards of glass, the windows rattling in their frames as if the entire classroom were caught in a gale. Hermione's hair whipped across her face as she raised her arms to shield herself. Ron grabbed Harry's sleeve, dragging him low under the desk.
And at the center, Cassian's dark eyes blazed with a mix of terror and defiance as the magic he thought was his seared to life, dragging the classroom into its spiral.
The moment before it broke—before the storm erupted into something far more brutal—Cassian's voice tore low and hoarse from his throat:
"Obey me."
The wand pulsed once more, violent as a heartbeat.
Then the feathers burst into flame.
The feathers did not simply burn. They combusted, violently, in mid-air. One instant they were white motes spinning in the sunlight, the next they were black cinders hissing with blue flame. The sudden heat slapped the room like a furnace door yanked open.
Gasps turned to screams.
Children ducked beneath desks. Harry threw himself flat alongside Ron. Neville tripped over a stool, sprawling as burning feathers hissed against the flagstone floor beside his head. Dean yelped as his sleeve caught an ember, slapping at it desperately.
The entire room seemed to be shrinking, every inch tightening around the violent flare of Cassian's wand.
He stood rigid at the storm's center, arm locked straight, knuckles white. His chest heaved, each breath dragged and harsh. The wand seared in his grip—not warm now but blistering hot, as though a coal had been pressed into his palm. He tried to force it still, to bend it, but it writhed against him like a living snake, the pulse of its core hammering against his skin.
"Release it, boy!" Flitwick cried, scrambling down from his stack of books. His tiny wand flicked, casting a containment charm that fizzled uselessly against the wild magic. Sparks spat back at him, making him stagger. "Drop the wand!"
Cassian bared his teeth. Drop it? He couldn't. His fingers were fused around the handle. The wand pulsed with that same alien heartbeat, a rhythm no longer his own.
The storm raged louder. Desks rattled. Glass rattled. The high windows trembled as the gale whipped harder, feathers-turned-embers swirling like a flock of burning birds.
And then it struck.
One shard of ember sliced through the air and slammed into a desk. The wood blackened instantly, fire crawling fast over its surface. A girl screamed, scrambling away as her ink bottle burst in the heat, smoke hissing into the air. Another ember struck a curtain near the windows, setting it ablaze.
The classroom erupted in fire.
Chaos devoured order. Students scattered—some diving under desks, some pressing against the walls, some frozen in place with terror. Flitwick's voice cracked above it all, sharp with fear now: "Protego Maxima! Contain it!"
But the flames bent around even that shield, swirling like they had minds of their own, feeding on the magic meant to cage them.
And still Cassian could not let go.
The firelight carved shadows across his face, eyes burning wide, jaw rigid. He was caught between terror and defiance, between the agony in his hand and the sheer hunger of the wand's power. Somewhere deep inside, something whispered—dark, low, promising: Take it. Do not resist. Wield it.
But his body screamed against it. His arm trembled violently, shoulders locking as though the wand were dragging every vein taut like wire. The heat was unbearable.
Hermione's voice, shrill but clear, pierced the storm. "He can't control it! Professor—he can't stop it!"
She shielded her eyes from the heat, her hair whipping in the gusts, ink staining her fingertips from the parchment that had torn loose. Unlike the others, she didn't hide. She was watching—studying—even through fear.
The storm cracked. Literally cracked.
Cassian's wand shuddered, and with it, the air tore. A boom like thunder rattled the windows as a surge of black flame erupted outward in a violent ring, knocking half the class to the floor. Harry's glasses flew off his face; Seamus was hurled against a desk; Pansy Parkinson shrieked, clutching at her arm as sparks grazed her sleeve.
And then silence.
No—silence only for a second.
The flames did not die. They converged.
Every ember, every spark, every burning feather coiled together above Cassian's desk, twisting and writhing into a single shape. A shape almost alive.
A bird.
Not flame as normal fire, but dark fire—blue-black, its wings stretching wide as it screamed a sound that rattled bone. It circled the rafters once, showering sparks, before diving downward in a violent arc.
Straight toward Cassian.
He staggered back. His wand dragged his arm upward, aligning with the creature as though beckoning it closer. The bird shrieked again, talons of flame slashing through air.
And then—impact.
The creature dissolved into his wand. The flame burst inward, not outward, swallowing itself whole until nothing remained but Cassian and the smoking wood clenched in his palm.
Every light in the room snuffed out.
The torches guttered to black. The windows cracked with frost at the edges. The classroom plunged into a suffocating darkness that seemed to swallow breath itself.
And in the center of it, Cassian stood trembling, wand blazing faintly with an eerie silver glow. His face was pale, eyes wide—not with triumph, but with something closer to horror.
The silence stretched. The smell of ash and burned parchment filled the air.
At last, Flitwick's wand lit with a flicker of light. His tiny face was ashen, mouth thin, eyes locked on Cassian like he was seeing something impossible.
"…That wand," he whispered hoarsely. "It should not… it cannot…"
He did not finish.
The rest of the class stirred back to life in whimpers and murmurs. Neville was coughing on smoke. Ron scrambled to help Harry find his glasses. Seamus rubbed his shoulder where he'd been thrown. Hermione still stared fixedly at Cassian, her quill abandoned on the desk, her lips moving silently as though trying to piece the magic together.
Cassian's knees nearly buckled. His palm was raw, blistered red where the wand had seared him. Still, he did not drop it. Could not. He dragged in a breath—hoarse, ragged—and for the first time since stepping into Hogwarts, felt eyes on him not with casual dismissal, but with raw fear.
He should have felt satisfaction. Instead, he felt hollow.
Flitwick swallowed hard, turning abruptly. "Class dismissed. All of you—out. Immediately!"
The students hesitated only for a moment before scrambling for the door, their voices hushed and frightened. They shoved past one another, tripping over chairs, desperate to be out of the smoke and heat. Only Hermione lingered at the door, glancing back once at Cassian before disappearing into the corridor with the others.
And then it was quiet again.
Only Cassian, his wand, and the professor remained.
Flitwick exhaled shakily, lowering his own wand, though his eyes never left Cassian's. "That should not have been possible. No charm, no core, no wood I know of could behave in such a way."
Cassian clenched his jaw, trying to still the tremor in his arm. He wanted to speak—to explain, to ask—but no words came. The wand still pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat echoing in his veins.
The professor's voice hardened, the genial cheer stripped away. "You will say nothing of this. Do you understand? Not to your classmates, not to any other professor. Not yet."
Cassian lifted his eyes, dark and steady despite the ash smeared across his cheek. "And if I do?"
Flitwick hesitated only briefly. "Then others will say it for you. And believe me, Mr. Thorne—rumors are far crueller than truths."
Cassian said nothing. He only tucked the wand back against his sleeve, even as its heat burned against his skin.
The faint curve of a smile touched his lips—not humor, not triumph, but something darker. A smile that promised he understood.
That he would master it.
Even if it killed him.