The Slytherin dungeons were pitch black when Alister's eyes snapped open.
There was no lingering grogginess, no desperate urge to pull the blanket back over his head.
He glanced at the faintly glowing clock on his bedside table. 5:15 AM.
"It's really fucking early," he mumbled to the empty air.
He sat up, stretching his arms above his head until his shoulders popped. With his Tier 2 physical constitution, his biological needs had shifted drastically. Four hours of sleep was now more than enough to achieve complete cellular and magical recovery. Lying in bed any longer just made him restless.
Slipping out from under the covers, he threw on a simple grey tracksuit and quietly exited the dorm, leaving his softly snoring roommate behind.
The castle was dead silent as he navigated the shifting staircases and labyrinthine corridors. He pushed open the heavy oak front doors and stepped out into the crisp, biting chill of the Scottish morning. The sky was a bruised purple, the sun only just beginning to threaten the horizon over the Black Lake.
For the next hour, the grounds belonged to him.
Alister moved through a grueling routine of high-intensity calisthenics, acrobatic flips, and deep stretching exercises. Magic was the ultimate equalizer, but having a Tier 2 physical vessel meant his reflexes, speed, and flexibility were far beyond a normal wizard's. It required maintenance, and he enjoyed the burning sensation in his muscles as he pushed his limits in the cold morning mist.
By the time the sky had lightened to pale grey, he was drenched in sweat. He made his way back into the dungeons, took a long, hot shower, and changed into his crisp, perfectly pressed school robes, fixing his green and silver tie with practiced ease.
Another productive morning, he thought with satisfaction, smoothing down his collar. Hogwarts might not be a war zone, but complacency is a luxury I can't afford.
When Alister strolled into the Great Hall for breakfast, the huge space was nearly empty only a handful of dedicated Ravenclaw early birds, a sleepy-looking Hufflepuff clutching a mug of coffee like a lifeline, and the distant echo of his own footsteps.
And there, sitting alone at the vast expanse of the Slytherin table, was a beacon of shimmering silver hair.
Artoria was calmly buttering a piece of toast, a heavy, leather-bound book propped open against a jug of pumpkin juice. She looked, impossibly, like she had been sitting there for centuries fully composed, unbothered, radiant in the low morning light.
A slow, genuinely evil smile crept across Alister's face.
His footsteps were already light thanks to his physique, but he focused on softening them completely, adopting the silent, predatory stride that usually unnerved his housemates. He approached from behind, angling perfectly into her blind spot.
He raised his hands, fingers hovering inches from her shoulders.
"Alister," her voice cut through the quiet hall, melodic and utterly unfazed, "can you be a good boy and quietly find a seat?"
Alister froze. His hands hovered awkwardly in the air for a long, humiliating moment. He lowered them slowly.
"...You didn't even look up," he said flatly, stepping over the bench and dropping into the seat across from her.
"Yeah," she agreed, turning a page.
"How did you—"
"Your footsteps disappeared about eight meters back." She finally raised her head, gold and blue eyes locking onto his with calm precision. "Normal people don't eliminate their footsteps when approaching a friend at breakfast, Alister. Only predators and people with very poor social habits."
"I could be both," he told her as he smiled.
"Really," she agreed pleasantly, and took a bite of her toast.
He leaned forward, studying her face with open calculation. The System had identified her right eye as holding the power of Precognition. He had assumed it only activated in combat situations but perhaps he had gravely underestimated the scope of that ability.
"Do you Grindelwalds actually see the future?" he asked, his voice dropping into something genuinely serious.
Artoria didn't answer immediately. She chewed, swallowed, dabbed the corner of her mouth with a napkin, and then fixed him with a look of grave solemnity.
"Yes," she said softly, her voice taking on an otherworldly, reverent quality. "I can see your future, Alister. It is bleak. Filled with devastation. Ruin beyond measure."
Alister went completely still. His mind immediately began cycling through variables, enemies, threats, potential assassination plots. He calculated a dozen doomsday scenarios in the span of three seconds, his jaw setting into a hard line.
The silence stretched.
Then the corner of Artoria's lips twitched. The solemn facade cracked cleanly, melting into a dry, aristocratic smirk as she reached out and tapped the highly polished silver tea pitcher sitting in front of her.
"I saw your reflection," she deadpanned. "You really need to work on your stealth face. You looked like a cartoon villain."
Alister stared at the pitcher. He could only imagine his own expression, frozen mid-sneak, eyebrows arched dramatically, fingers splayed in what had clearly been the most unsubtle ambush in recorded Hogwarts history.
A low chuckle escaped him. He shook his head, reaching for a green apple from the nearby bowl.
"Fair enough," he conceded, taking a bite. "Though for a second, I genuinely thought those eyes of yours were predicting my downfall."
"Thinking about all the rumors I have heard about you since yesterday they might really do that one day," she said lightly.
He pointed the apple at her. "That's cold. You know that Grindelwald's ability to predict are really terrifying."
"I know," she agreed, with the particular serenity of someone who had long since made peace with being terrifying.
He studied her again, the way her mismatched eyes caught the light, the quiet confidence in how she held herself. The gold eye drifted slightly, never quite focused on the present.
"Mesmerizing," he said, more to himself than to her.
Artoria's hand stilled mid-page-turn. "...Mesmerizing?" she repeated. "Not ominous?"
Alister blinked, as if catching himself. He leaned back with a shrug, but held her gaze. "What kind of bastards looks at eyes like yours and calls them ominous? I'd genuinely like to meet them so I can explain how wrong they are." He paused thoughtfully. "Actually, no. I'd rather not. I'd probably just pity them."
The silence that followed had a different texture than before softer and uncertain.
Artoria turned her head slightly to the side, just enough that he couldn't see her face clearly. But in the polished surface of that same silver pitcher, he caught it anyway as a small, involuntary smile, and the faintest flush rising along her cheekbone.
He pretended not to have seen it.
After a comfortable stretch of quiet, Alister broke it with his usual directness.
"So Hogwarts," he said, leaning his elbows on the table. "Why here? You're a Grindelwald. Durmstrang would have rolled out a golden carpet. Beauxbatons would have probably built you a wing. Why this cold, drafty, occasionally-haunted castle in Scotland?"
Artoria was quiet for a moment.
"I don't know," she said simply.
"That's really not an answer."
"It's the honest one." She closed the book, meeting his gaze fully. "It was an intuition. And we Grindelwalds take our intuitions very seriously." A slight pause. "When the thought of Britain crossed my mind, something told me very clearly that this was exactly where I needed to be."
Alister's eyes flicked to her right eye. Given what the System had shown him, he had a strong suspicion her "intuitions" operated on an entirely different level than ordinary ones.
"And what exactly did your intuition tell you would be here?" he pressed.
Artoria's lips curved in that same small, enigmatic smile.
"I haven't figured that out yet," she said. "But I'm sure it will become obvious eventually."
He was about to push further when every alarm bell in his body went off at once.
It wasn't a gentle nudge from the Arcane Network. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. A cold bead of sweat thicker and colder than anything his grueling morning workout had produced slid slowly down his spine. The air itself felt suddenly saturated, heavy with invisible intent.
Bloodlust.
And not casual bloodlust. Alister had navigated Knockturn Alley after dark more times than he could count. He had stood in rooms with dark wizards who wore their malice like armor. But the sheer, concentrated intensity of what he felt now made those encounters feel like mild social tension at a dinner party.
His hand drifted instinctively toward the wand holstered at his wrist. He turned slowly.
His gaze swept the Great Hall past the Hufflepuff table and few yawning Gryffindors until it locked onto the Ravenclaw table.
There, sitting a few seats down from where his sister Astra was cheerfully chatting, was Cho Chang.
She was staring directly at him. Dark eyes narrowed to slits that promised in extraordinary detail exactly how many pieces she intended to rearrange him into. The fact that Alister was sitting alone in the quiet early morning, deeply engaged in conversation with the breathtaking, silver-haired student, had clearly not escaped her notice.
For three long, eternal seconds, those eyes held his with the calm conviction of a duel already decided.
Then, with a sharp, dismissive flick of her glossy black hair, she turned her back on him entirely. The pressure in the room vanished like a candle being snuffed out.
The damage, however, was done.
Alister turned back around very slowly. His expression was rigid. He was, very carefully, not looking at the silver tea pitcher, because he didn't want to know what his face looked like right now.
Artoria was watching him with one eyebrow raised in mild, aristocratic amusement.
"Acquaintance of yours?" she inquired politely.
"Define acquaintance."
"Someone you know."
"Then yes."
"She looks like she's mentally composing your death notice."
"She's had practice," Alister said grimly. He stood up slowly, brushing non-existent dust from his robes with hands that were trying very hard to remain steady. He looked down at Artoria with the solemn intensity of a man making final arrangements.
"Artoria," he said, his voice completely flat. "If I don't make it back alive look after my sister. She likes butterscotch and gets grumpy before noon. You've been warned."
Artoria blinked once. "...You're going to talk to her 'now'?"
"The longer I wait, the worse it gets. Trust me, I've learned this lesson before." He rolled his shoulders back. "Also, if my wand ends up somewhere structurally inconvenient, please retrieve it. It was expensive."
"Alister—"
"Goodbye, Artoria. It was a pleasure knowing you."
He stepped over the bench and began the long, treacherous march toward the Ravenclaw table his back carrying a heavy burden.
Behind him, he could have sworn he heard the soft, barely contained sound of someone trying extremely hard not to laugh.
Worth it, he decided, and kept walking.
(END OF CHAPTER)
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