Watching the new students get sorted into Hogwarts was a fascinating experience. Not long ago, he, too, was in their place.
The Great Hall gleamed once more with candlelight, golden plates, and the endless chatter of students returning for another year of magic and ambition. Adrian Atlas sat quietly at the Slytherin table, his chin resting lightly on his hand as he watched the flickering flames dance above.
It felt… different this time.
The laughter around him was louder, but the glances — sharper. Where once there had been polite curiosity, now there was calculation. Whispers trailed behind him wherever he walked that day, subtle but unmistakable.
"That's him — the Muggle-born in Slytherin."
"No way, must've had a reason…"
"A half-blood, maybe?"
"No, I heard McGonagall brought him from some orphanage—"
The words drifted through the air like smoke, poisonous and faintly amused.
Adrian didn't react. He cut a piece of roast neatly and ate in silence, eyes never leaving his plate.
'So, the truth's out,' he thought calmly. His mind was a perfect mirror, still and reflective. "Interesting how quickly they lose their manners when status is questioned."
He didn't need to look up to feel the stares. Across the table, Draco Malfoy leaned slightly toward his little court of followers, his smirk thin and deliberate.
"Well, well," Draco said just loud enough for nearby students to hear. "Our little prodigy returns. I was beginning to think you'd transferred to Beauxbatons, what with all your Muggle charm."
A few chuckles followed. Adrian's fork paused midair. Slowly, he set it down, dabbed his mouth with his napkin, and turned his head just enough for their eyes to meet.
"Good evening to you, too, Malfoy." His tone was smooth as silk, his eyes utterly unbothered. "I see you've made no progress in your education — socially or intellectually."
The smirk faltered for a heartbeat before returning, weaker this time. Pansy Parkinson leaned in with a hissed laugh, but even she seemed uneasy under Adrian's gaze.
The table quieted.
Adrian resumed eating. The noise of the hall filled back in — chatter, clinking silverware, laughter — but the tension remained, hanging over the green and silver table like invisible smoke.
What most of them didn't understand was simple: Adrian didn't care. Bloodlines were relics of a broken system — and relics were meant to be buried.
He had no intention of defending his heritage to children who could barely cast a proper Shield Charm.
Still, he observed. Quietly. Coldly. Every look, every whisper, every sneer — catalogued and stored.
He noticed how Crabbe and Goyle avoided meeting his eyes. How some of the older Slytherins gave him curt nods — respect, or perhaps wary acknowledgment. Even among serpents, strength spoke louder than lineage.
As the feast dragged on, Adrian leaned back slightly, letting the flickering candlelight catch his eyes — calm, but calculating.
'This is what they call purity?' he thought, glancing down the table where the Malfoys of tomorrow laughed too loudly. 'Let them sneer. Let them draw their lines in the sand. When the storm comes, it won't care whose blood runs purer — only who is stronger.'
A shadow passed near the staff table — Snape, gliding silently between the rows of students, his eyes scanning Slytherin House like a hawk. When they met Adrian's for the briefest moment, something passed between them: a flicker of mutual understanding, perhaps even silent amusement.
Snape moved on without a word.
The feast ended, and students began filing toward their dorms. The whispers continued, but none dared speak them aloud when Adrian passed. His presence had changed over the summer — colder, sharper, more deliberate.
As he descended into the dungeons, the chill air of the Slytherin common room greeted him like an old friend. The walls gleamed faintly green under the light of the Black Lake.
Draco's group lingered near the fireplace, laughing about something trivial. The moment Adrian entered, their laughter faltered — not out of fear, but uncertainty.
He didn't even glance at them. He crossed the room, his robe trailing lightly behind him, and took his usual seat by the far window where the shadows of giant serpents slithered past outside.
He opened his enchanted notebook — the black one that carried secrets no other student could even imagine — and began to read. A faint smile touched his lips.
He would not waste energy defending himself from fools. He would use them.
The whispers could spread. The prejudice could fester. None of it mattered.
Because Adrian had long since understood a truth no one else at that table had yet grasped — Might makes right.
And power… answered to no lineage. It answered only to those who were willing to use it.
\\\
The days after the feast passed like ripples in still water. The whispers hadn't stopped — if anything, they had evolved.
It wasn't just curiosity anymore. It was a challenge.
The name Adrian Atlas was now spoken in Slytherin corridors with equal parts fascination and resentment. For some, he was the clever Muggle-born who dared to look purebloods in the eye. For others, he was an insult — a reminder that talent and intellect could outshine inheritance.
And some, like Draco Malfoy, could not stand it.
It began in the dueling room — an empty chamber Snape occasionally allowed the older students to use for practice. The floor was smooth stone, the walls enchanted to absorb stray spells. A ring of green flames burned faintly around the dueling area, humming with quiet menace.
That evening, a small crowd of Slytherins gathered there — drawn by rumors of an "informal challenge."
Adrian entered last. Calm. Silent. His black robe hung neatly, his wand held loosely at his side like a mere afterthought. He looked like someone who had come to observe a lecture, not fight one.
Draco stood in the center with two older boys — fifth-years, broad-shouldered and smirking with arrogant amusement.
"Ah, there he is," Draco said, twirling his wand between pale fingers. "The famous Muggle-born genius. I was beginning to think you'd lost your courage."
Adrian's expression didn't change. He stepped into the light of the ring, his eyes steady and unreadable. "What would you know of courage?" he said softly.
That earned a few murmurs. Even the older students raised eyebrows.
Draco's smirk faltered for a heartbeat. "Big words," he sneered. "Let's see if your spells are as sharp as your tongue."
The fifth-year on Draco's left — Marcus Nott — grinned. "Three on one, Malfoy? That's hardly fair."
Draco's smile returned. "For him, you mean."
Adrian tilted his head slightly. "Three?" He raised a single brow. "Then I'll try not to disappoint."
The crowd shifted, whispers turning into excited murmurs. Someone muttered, "He's insane…"
Snape wasn't present — but Adrian had the strange feeling he knew about this already.
A third-year student gave a curt nod. "Wands ready."
The green flames around the dueling circle flared brighter. The hum of enchantment filled the air.
Adrian exhaled once — slow and even. Then silence fell.
"Begin!"
Draco struck first. "Expelliarmus!"
A flash of red shot across the room — fast, precise. Adrian barely moved. He flicked his wrist, and the spell shattered against an invisible barrier, vanishing like smoke.
The second boy followed instantly. "Stupefy!"
Adrian's wand moved before the syllable finished. A quick, elegant twist — Protego and Deaflect — and the red jet curved backward, grazing Draco's sleeve instead. The blond yelped, spinning to glare at his companion.
Adrian smiled faintly. "Coordination could use work."
"Shut up!" Draco snapped, his pride already cracking. "Incarcerous!"
Ropes burst from his wand, twisting through the air like serpents — but they froze mid-flight, suspended. Slowly, deliberately, they turned back toward Draco.
He barely ducked aside as the ropes struck the wall behind him and coiled uselessly on the floor.
Now the murmurs turned to laughter — sharp, disbelieving laughter.
Adrian's eyes glinted — calm, detached, and almost… amused. " And here I thought I was the one being challenged."
The third fifth-year stepped forward, face flushed. "You little Mud-blood— Bombarda!"
The explosion cracked against Adrian's shield — loud, bright — but when the smoke cleared, he was still standing, unharmed. His wand rose slightly.
"Your mistake is that you continue to underestimate me," he said softly.
He raised his wand. No word was said. The air itself turned against them — a swirling current that caught all three opponents in a spiraling gust. Their wands flew from their hands, clattering to the floor. The boys stumbled, gasping, their robes whipping around them.
The wind vanished as suddenly as it came.
Adrian stepped forward through the silence, lowering his wand.
"Magic," he said, voice quiet but razor-sharp, "is about intent. About precision." His eyes swept over the fallen trio. No one spoke. The only sound was the faint hiss of dying enchantments around the circle.
Draco struggled to his feet, his pride in ruins, his cheeks burning. "You… you cheated!"
Adrian's gaze turned colder. "You lost." He took a slow step forward until Draco had to tilt his chin up to meet his eyes. "Next time you challenge someone, Malfoy — make sure you understand who you're standing against."
He brushed past them and left the dueling chamber without another glance.
The crowd parted silently, their expressions a mixture of awe and unease. No one dared speak until he was gone.
When they finally did, it was in hushed voices — not mocking now, but reverent, fearful.
"Did you see that?"
" That was wordless magic."
"He didn't even break a sweat…"
"Merlin's beard — he's not normal."
By the time the whispers reached the Slytherin common room, Adrian's legend had grown.
And somewhere in the castle, Professor Snape closed a dusty book and allowed himself the faintest smirk.
Whispers of the duel lingered for weeks, echoing through corridors like ghostly rumors.
Adrian ignored them.
The noise of admiration and fear meant nothing — noise was transient. What mattered was control.
Control of the mind.
Control of magic.
Control of self.
And so, while others basked in gossip, Adrian disappeared.
He spent his nights beneath the castle, where even portraits dared not hang — and where the stones whispered in voices only magic could hear. He no longer sought the Room of Requirement for knowledge; his black notebook, swollen with copied texts from its endless shelves, held more wisdom than most professors would see in a lifetime.
Now, he returned for one purpose: training.
The door melted into being as he passed the tapestry of the dancing trolls. The room greeted him like an old friend — vast, silent, endlessly adaptable. Tonight, it transformed into a cathedral of magic: walls lined with mirrors that reflected every flicker of light, and runic symbols glowing faintly along the floor.
He stepped into the center.
"Let's begin."
His wand moved — no words, just intent. The air shimmered. A stone chair in the corner rippled, stretched, and reshaped into a silver bird, feathers gleaming under torchlight. It spread its wings, mechanical grace perfect to the smallest detail.
Adrian exhaled, eyes narrowed. "Better," he murmured. "But still imperfect."
He flicked his wand again. The bird convulsed and shattered back into a swirl of dust. The particles hovered midair, shifting, recombining into a cluster of glass spheres — each glowing faintly with transfigurative residue.
He'd been pushing Transfiguration harder than any other field.
It was, to him, the purest form of control — not destruction, not manipulation, but redefinition. The act of rewriting reality itself.
For weeks, he practiced tirelessly: turning water into steam and back without heat, reshaping steel without losing its density, commanding raw material to obey not command but understanding.
Transfiguration, he'd learned, was the marriage of logic and imagination. The wand alone was nothing — the wizard had to see both the object's present and its potential.
He pushed his will further.
The air vibrated. A desk in front of him folded inward, shrank, and reformed into a coiled viper of polished wood, eyes glowing faint green. It slithered across the floor, hissed once, and turned back into oak dust.
Adrian smiled faintly. "Progress."
But mere replication wasn't enough. He wanted to create.
He wanted to explore Transfiguration not as a school subject, but as a language of creation, a means of imposing his logic onto chaos.
And so, he experimented. He used his notes to calculate Arithmantic correspondences between matter and energy, testing how emotional resonance influenced magical stability. He discovered that fear made transformations brittle, anger made them volatile, but resolve — calm, steady resolve — produced flawless transitions.
He began working on living transfigurations — mice conjured from spare material, their movements stiff but eerily real. He never kept them long; as soon as he confirmed the stability, he dispelled them gently.
One night, while experimenting with animating small constructs, he spoke softly to the room:
"Give me resistance."
The floor pulsed. Targets appeared — metal mannequins etched with glowing runes.
He aimed his wand. "Bombarda Minima!"
A soft explosion rippled the mannequin's chest — barely denting it. He adjusted his stance, his breathing steady. "Again."
The next spell was sharper, faster, more focused — the mannequin shattered, fragments hovering midair before slowly reassembling.
He practiced until dawn — spell after spell, transfiguration merging seamlessly with combat. Turning rubble into shields, broken furniture into blades of hardened air, molten glass into barriers that refracted curses like mirrors.
Every movement became efficient. Every charm, transfiguration, and counter-curse woven into a single, seamless rhythm.
By October, Adrian's wand was an extension of his thoughts.
By November, he no longer needed the wand for minor transfigurations.
He would sit in his dormitory, hands folded, eyes half-lidded, and the quill before him would change shape — feather to steel, steel to glass, glass to smoke.
He found beauty in the process — not vanity, but something akin to awe. The realization that creation itself was bound to comprehension.
He noted every discovery carefully:
"Matter obeys the mind that comprehends its limits."
"Magic amplifies comprehension through will."
"Transfiguration is the conversation between truth and possibility."
Even Snape noticed the shift.
During Potions one afternoon, as Adrian stirred a complex Draught of Perception, Snape's voice cut through the room.
"Atlas."
Adrian looked up. "Yes, Professor?"
"That stirring technique," Snape said softly, his black eyes narrowing. "That is not in the standard method."
Adrian tilted his head. "It improves consistency, sir."
Snape regarded him for a long moment — calculating, intrigued. "You've been studying."
"Always," Adrian said simply.
Snape's expression didn't change, but something flickered in his gaze — amusement, perhaps, or quiet recognition.
When winter came, Adrian's practice deepened. The Room became colder, darker, more responsive. It mirrored his intent — now a true forge of will.
He began experimenting with merging fields — blending Transfiguration with Warding. Reinforcing his transformations, crafting objects that could resist reversal. It was dangerous work. Once, a backfired experiment nearly melted his desk into a pool of unstable matter. The shockwave threw him backward, his ears ringing.
He sat there, breathing heavily, staring at the shimmering remnants. Then, slowly, he smiled. "Perfect," he whispered.
Failure was only progress misunderstood.
By December, Adrian Atlas had reached a level of control that would have humbled most seventh-years. He no longer needed the comfort of affirmation, nor the validation of others' awe. His power wasn't a performance.
Every spell, every line of theory, every midnight experiment in the Room or silent practice at his desk — all of it was shaping him into something new.
And somewhere in the distance, beyond even the reach of the castle's enchantments, the world itself seemed to shift — as if sensing that a mind within Hogwarts had begun to touch the fabric of magic not as a student …but as an equal.
\\\
The R.O.R. (Room of Requirement) had changed again.
Adrian stood in the center, his breath steady, eyes glinting under the dim, shifting light. The air shimmered faintly with magic — living, breathing, bending itself to his will.
For months, he had stretched the room's limits — reshaping it into a crucible of mastery. No longer just a sanctuary for Transfiguration or Charms, it had become something far valuable to him.
Tonight, it was vast and labyrinthine — corridors spiraling endlessly, walls whispering in tongues older than Hogwarts itself. Shelves lined with forgotten relics and cursed texts stretched into the dark. The faint echo of his footsteps sounded like the ticking of time itself.
Adrian had gone beyond. His training now encompassed every field that could sharpen his edge — Charms, Defensive Magic, Elemental Manipulation of Transfiguration, and even Curses. The Dark Arts, once forbidden to him by ignorance, had become another field of study — logical, dissected, mastered.
He understood them.
Knowledge was never evil — only the intent behind it. And even if it was so, what of it?
Adrian has never understood wizards of this world, they hold power to reshape the world, yet to afraid to use it? What is the difference between a murderer who kills using the cutting charm and someone who uses the killing curse? What's the difference? They have both killed someone. So why is it that the three Unfrugivable curses were banned?
He could understand why fear dark magic… After all, not every wizard can commend the forces of darkness without succumbing to them. But to ban them? And for what, moral? Huh, Adrian would simply laugh at that…
"The wizards of this world are stupidly manipulated by rules. What's sadder is that when they see others not being restrained, they would jump out and criticize, trying to impart these morals and ideas to the people, not allowing others to have more freedom than they do. In this process, they would even enjoy this ridiculous moral superiority and bliss."
Thinking about his classmates and fellow students, he said, "These people had a mind full of abilities, and some even had higher talent, resources, and knowledge than him."
But for what?
"They're just pawns, merely restrained dogs."
What truly stalls a person's success is not talent, but mindset.
Any organization, once a person is born, would impart their morals and rules, constantly brainwashing. Those who want to surpass humanity's achievements have to break this restraint on their mindset.
"Sadly, most people are trapped by this their entire lives, using this to move forward with motivation and even use their chained collar as a symbol of pride." He chukceld to himself. Shaking his head, he focused on the present.
His Occlumency has been perfected over the past year. He could approach even the darkest spells without being consumed by them. Where others lost themselves, Adrian remained still, cold, deliberate.
He had recently begun studying from two tomes he had uncovered in the Room's deepest recesses:
Secrets of the Darkest Arts and Magic Moste Evile.
Both were heavy with enchantments that resisted being opened. But Adrian was patient. He layered revealing charms, subtle wards, and truth-binding runes until their secrets unfolded like trapped whispers.
What he discovered fascinated him — theories on soul magic, the nature of binding essence to objects, the alchemical symmetry between will and existence.
It was the kind of knowledge that terrified the ignorant and elevated the wise.
He documented everything in his black notebook. Each line written with clarity, no judgment — only comprehension.
And then one night, while searching for a specific cursed tome rumored to contain notes on ancient mind-binding rituals, the Room changed.
It became colder. Older.
The shelves bent away, forming a long, silent corridor filled with dust and forgotten magic. Adrian followed the pull — his instincts sharp, his wand alight with a faint, cautious glow.
Something ancient stirred here.
The whispers grew faintly louder — not words, but impressions. The kind that pressed against one's consciousness like half-remembered dreams.
He turned a corner and saw it — resting upon a high pedestal of stone, covered in centuries of dust:
a silver diadem, elegant and ancient, crowned with a deep blue gem that pulsed faintly with ethereal light.
He froze.
Even before his mind named it, his instincts recognized it.
Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem.
"Wit beyond measure…" he murmured. "…is man's greatest treasure."
The relic was impossibly intact, its runes faintly alive. But beneath the beauty, he sensed something else.
Something wrong.
The air around it was cold, charged. The kind of stillness that followed death — or worse. His Occlumency shield instinctively tightened, pushing back a whisper that brushed against his mind like icy breath.
"Curious…"
The voice wasn't his own. It came from the edge of thought, old and seductive. But Adrian stood unmoved.
His wand flicked, scanning. The aura was dark — ancient, fragmented, yet undeniably sentient. He recognized it from his readings.
A Horcrux.
He exhaled slowly, a spark of fascination igniting behind his calm eyes. "So this is how he did it…But still, Tom, could you not have picked a different artifact?" He felt a sense of loss over the ruin of such a divine alchemy creation.
The theories in Magic Moste Evile had spoken of soul-binding rituals — but this, this was proof. A piece of soul anchored in an artifact of power. Dangerous. But valuable.
He circled it, calculating. Destroying it was something he could always do. But studying it… that was another matter.
After several minutes of silent examination, he raised his wand and whispered, a shimmering distortion rippled through the air as he drew out a small black satchel — his own enchanted creation. An Undetectable Extension Charm layered with space-folding wards. The bag was, in essence, a library without walls — containing scrolls, books, potions, and now, perhaps, something far more dangerous.
Carefully, Adrian levitated the diadem into the bag. The moment it crossed the threshold, the air shifted — the whispers stopped. He sealed it shut with a silver rune-lock.
For a moment, he stood still — listening to the silence.
He wasn't afraid. He was… intrigued.
What kind of mind could divide a soul and still hold itself together? What was the mechanism — the structure — that allowed such division without collapse? Could it be replicated? Reversed?
He wrote later in his notebook:
"The soul is not singular — it is symphonic. Each act of division must retain coherence. What he achieved was not immortality, but a distortion of essence. To understand this is to understand the very architecture of being."
For weeks, he studied the diadem in secret. Never touching it directly — always through layered enchantments, isolation wards, and sensory magic. The Horcrux reacted subtly to his presence. Sometimes the whispers returned, probing at his defenses. Sometimes the gem pulsed faintly — as if aware.
Adrian remained unyielding. His Occlumency kept him safe.
By winter's end, his research had taken him to places even the Room itself hesitated to reveal. The connection between soul, intent, and transformation had become his obsession.
But destiny, as always, has a way of crossing paths at the right — or wrong — moment.
\\\