Harry wasn't breathing until he was three corridors and two staircases away from Draco.
Even in the Cloak, he moved fast: slipping through shadows, avoiding suits of armor and half-asleep portraits. His pulse hammered against his ribs hard enough he felt each beat in his fingertips.
Malfoy.
Down there.
At that wall.
Coin in hand, a Tower coin.
Harry had seen the sigil only twice: on the disc, and in Azelar's memories. A relic from a dead civilization. Metal forged in a time-magic furnace. Something that should have been buried under kilometres of shattered city - or erased from existence when the Tower fell.
But Draco Malfoy had one.
And he hadn't been surprised to see the wall shimmer.
That's what bothered Harry the most.
He reached his dorm room, shut the door softly behind him, and let the Cloak fall only then.
The silence hit him like a slap.
His mind was still running; thoughts circling, tripping over each other: Draco in that hallway, Kingsley's warnings, the book in the library, the Tower.
And that coin.
Azellar's memories weren't just memories - they were instruction manuals, keys to a world older than Hogwarts, older than modern magic. But they had gaps. And his head hadn't exactly taken notes during the burning-city apocalypse vision.
He paced, running a hand through his hair. His fingers were trembling slightly.
Draco Malfoy. Of all people.
Harry stopped pacing, sat on the edge of his bed, stared down at the floorboards as if they could supply an explanation.
Draco had been many things over the years-a bully, a rival, an unwilling Death Eater, a survivor-but he'd never been stupid. And he'd never been curious in any way that wasn't self-serving.
So why hunt down forbidden magic now?
Why sniff around anomalies that might get him erased from time if handled wrong?
The coin.
That blasted coin.
Harry pulled out a scrap of parchment and a quill, drawing the sigil as best he remembered it, serpent biting its tail, surrounding a tower, surrounding a single eye.
The quill stilled in his hand.
The eye was the same shape as the glow inside Azelar's ring, the same shape he'd seen in a hundred statues in that bleeding-city memory.
He leaned back in his chair and exhaled through his teeth.
"Bloody perfect," he muttered. "Malfoy's playing archaeologist with ancient time-magic."
A knock broke the silence.
A soft, hesitating knock.
Harry froze.
He did not need the Cloak for slipping into silence; the war had trained him too well. He reached the door without his footsteps having betrayed him.
The knock came again - same rhythm, not threatening, but familiar.
He cracked the door open.
Hermione stood there, wrapped in a blanket, hair frizzed from sleep. Her eyes looked tired but sharp, the look she got when she'd already put too many pieces together.
"I figured you'd be awake," she said quietly. "Can I come in?"
Harry stepped aside, and she walked past him, clutching the blanket tighter around her shoulders.
"I couldn't sleep," she said. "The castle feels.strange tonight. Like it's bracing for something."
Harry didn't answer. He sat down on the edge of the bed. Hermione hovered a moment and then took the desk chair.
Her gaze caught the drawing on the parchment.
Her back straightened instantly.
"What's that?" she asked.
Harry thought of telling a lie.
He didn't.
"Something old," he said. "Something dangerous."
Hermione reached for the parchment. "Is this-?"
Harry pulled it back. "Careful. Even the symbol feels charged."
Hermione blinked. "You think a drawing can hurt someone?"
"I never said that. But neither did I ever think portraits could bleed, or a diary could possess anyone, and yet-"
Hermione let her breath out. "Fair."
In between them, the silence hummed.
Finally, she said, "It's the anomalies, isn't it? Kingsley's been sending me updates. He asked if I'd help with archival research. I told him yes." Her eyes narrowed. "And I can tell from your face you already know more than I do."
Harry didn't answer.
Hermione walked to the window and stared out at the storm-lit grounds.
"Harry," she said softly, "talk to me.
Those three words weighed harder than any curse.
He rubbed his temples. "I found something last night."
"In the corridor where the temporal spike happened?"
He nodded.
Hermione's breath caught, barely audible. "And?"
Harry hesitated.
He didn't know how to tell her without sounding mad. How to tell her the truth without inviting the Ministry into his skull. How to explain that part of him recognized ancient magic like muscle memory.
So, he told her part of it.
"There's a room," he said. "Hidden. Not on the Map. Not in the history books. Old magic in the stone older than Hogwarts. It reacts to me."
Hermione swallowed. "React how?
"It listened to me," said Harry. "It opened when I wanted out. It woke up when I touched it."
Hermione's hand pressed against her chest. "Like… a Founders' structure?"
"No." Harry's voice dropped. "Older."
She stared. "Older than the Founders' charmwork? Harry, that would make it-"
"Prehistoric," he said. "Primeval. Something like the stuff in that book you showed me during seventh year - the bit about proto-wards in ancient wizard civilizations."
Hermione paced, the blanket trailing behind her. "But most of those accounts are considered myth. Symbolic. Metaphorical. No one has actual proof that early magic-users could manipulate time or space beyond crude elemental spellcraft."
Harry didn't blink. "I saw proof."
Hermione stopped pacing. "You went inside it?"
Harry nodded.
She briefly closed her eyes, as if she were trying not to scream.
"Of course you did," she muttered. "Of course you couldn't just find a sealed door and walk away."
Harry gave a tired grin. "When have I ever walked away?"
Hermione opened her eyes and her fear was plain.
"Harry," she whispered, "if this is what I think it is… the consequences are catastrophic. Any surviving artifact from proto-magic civilization would be unstable. It could warp the wards. It could cause time fractures. It could-"
She froze.
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"It could pull things to itself."
Harry stiffened.
It's exactly what he feared.
He didn't have to say it aloud. Hermione's face went pale.
".Harry," she said slowly, "what did it show you?"
He swallowed. "Flashbacks. Or memories. Not mine. Someone else's. Someone…old. Too powerful."
Hermione sank into the chair. "Oh God."
She knew what that implied.
Legacy magic.
Ancestral imprinting.
Bloodline resonance.
Sometimes a magical structure wasn't just old; it was personal.
Harry forced his voice steady. "There's something else. Malfoy was there tonight."
Hermione's head snapped up. "What?"
"He had a coin," Harry said. "With the same symbol as the room. A Tower coin."
Hermione stared at him as if he'd just said he'd seen Voldemort again.
"That's not possible," she whispered. "Artifacts like that if they even existed would have been lost in the Temporal Collapse. They wouldn't survive millennia. And even if one did… Malfoy wouldn't have it."
"He does," said Harry flatly.
Hermione wrapped the blanket tighter around herself.
"Harry," she said carefully, "Draco being involved means this is no longer an academic danger. It means someone out there knows what you found. Someone gave him that coin or he stole it from someone who had it."
"Or," Harry said slowly, "he was told to bring it here."
Hermione's lips pressed into a thin line. "A plant."
Harry nodded.
Hermione rubbed her forehead. "We need to be smart. If Draco is connected with any of these new factions the Keepers, the Temporal Circle then he isn't working alone. And if they know where the anomaly is-"
"They'll come for it," Harry finished.
Hermione looked at him sharply. "They'll come for you."
Harry didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
Hermione's expression softened, fear mixing with something else. "Harry… you're not alone in this. You don't have to carry another secret war by yourself."
He wished that were true.
But the truth he hadn't told her the vision of Azelar burned behind his ribs like a mark.
He stood, took the parchment with the sigil on it, folded it carefully, and slipped it into his pocket.
He said, "I'll take Malfoy.
Hermione frowned. "Harry-"
"I'm not going to hex him," Harry said. "I just need to know what he knows. And who gave him that coin."
Hermione looked torn. "Then I'm coming with you."
Harry shook his head. "Not yet."
"Why not?"
Because the Tower didn't like other people.
Because it had told him they'd break.
Because he wasn't sure he could protect Hermione from something older than language.
"Because I need to figure out what this thing wants from me first," Harry said instead.
Hermione stepped closer. "This isn't like the Deathly Hallows, is it?"
Harry looked at her.
"No," he said softly. "This is worse."
Hermione drew in a sudden breath, eyes flicking to his scar as if checking if it was reacting. It wasn't. The danger wasn't Voldemort-level. It was deeper.
Ancient.
Hermione nodded finally. "Then promise me something."
"What?"
"That if this thing starts affecting your mind if it tries to manipulate you, you tell me."
Harry's heartbeat stumbled.
She'd drag him to Kingsley that second if she knew how much of Azelar had already seeped into him.
He forced a nod.
Hermione watched his face for a long moment before exhaling and wrapping the blanket around herself like armor.
"I'm going to look into every instance of early Tower magic," she said. "Old journals, prophetic fragments, anything that mentions proto-timecraft. If Malfoy's using something from that period, it'll turn up somewhere."
Harry nodded. "Be careful."
Hermione gave a small, humourless smile. "You too." Upon leaving, the door clicked shut softly. Harry stood alone in the dim room, pulse still unsteady. He walked to the window, staring down at the dark grounds.
Somewhere out there, Draco Malfoy had a coin that shouldn't exist. An ancient room, hidden and silent, somewhere beneath the castle, waited for Harry to return. And somewhere in Harry's own mind, a king who had tried to break eternity stretched and whispered. Harry's hand closed over the folded parchment in his pocket.
This wasn't just magic. This was inheritance. And someone out there wanted it back.