The prolonged presence of Ministry Aurors at Hogwarts was, to Orion Malfoy, a masterclass in bureaucratic theater.
March had melted into a surprisingly mild April, the snow retreating to the peaks of the surrounding mountains, yet the navy-blue robes of the DMLE still dotted the corridors. Cornelius Fudge, apparently terrified of looking soft on 'Dark Magic' after the sensationalized Prophet articles, had insisted on maintaining a visible security force to 'hunt the remnants of the Heir's influence'.
It was entirely performative. The Heir was currently a small, inert black diary sitting at the bottom of Orion's sub-space inventory, sandwiched between a bucket of popcorn and a Deathly Hallow copy.
"I still don't understand why they are here," Draco complained one afternoon, lounging on a stone bench in the courtyard while Crabbe and Goyle engaged in a slow, brutal game of Exploding Snap. "The monster is dead. The pipes are sealed. What exactly is that pink menace hoping to find in the tapestry galleries? A rogue poltergeist?"
Orion, seated beside him with a heavy, ancient text on Spell Architecture and Matrix balanced on his knee, didn't look up. He merely turned a brittle, yellowing page.
"Optics, Draco," Orion murmured smoothly. "The Minister is projecting an illusion of safety and competence. As long as Aurors are visible, the parents feel secure sending their children back next year. And Tonks..."
He glanced across the courtyard, where Nymphadora Tonks was currently trying to untangle her bootlaces from a rogue patch of Devil's Snare that Sprout had seemingly left unattended near a column. She tripped, hopped on one foot, and managed to turn her hair a vibrant, embarrassed shade of orange before finally casting a clumsy Relashio.
Orion let out a soft, dry chuckle. "Tonks provides a certain... entertainment value to the otherwise dull patrols. She's harmless."
The rest of the school year was settling into a predictable, incredibly satisfying rhythm. The novelty of the Chamber had worn off, replaced by the crushing reality of impending final exams. The Easter Holidays were a backdrop in the excitement of the year. For Orion, this meant his schedule was devoted almost entirely to bleeding the Restricted Section dry of its knowledge before Lockhart's golden ticket expired at the end of the term. He was aiming for forty percent completion of the useful material.
The only other notable shift in the castle's dynamic was the sudden, incredibly jarring normalization of Luna Lovegood.
To say Draco Malfoy was horrified by Orion's casual acceptance of the "Loony" Ravenclaw was a profound understatement.
It happened first in the Great Hall during breakfast. Luna had drifted past the Slytherin table, wearing a necklace made of butterbeer corks, her silvery eyes wide and serene. She spotted Orion, stopped, and offered a bright, unbothered smile.
"Good morning, Orion," Luna sang, her voice airy and completely oblivious to the sudden, icy silence that fell over the surrounding snakes.
Draco's face contorted in a mixture of aristocratic disgust and sheer, unadulterated outrage. He opened his mouth, drawing breath to deliver a scathing, incredibly venomous insult regarding her cork necklace and her general grip on reality.
Orion didn't even look at his brother. His hand lashed out with the speed of a striking adder.
THWACK.
Orion smacked Draco squarely on the back of his gelled head, the sound ringing sharply over the clinking of cutlery.
Draco yelped, choking on his own insult and nearly upending his pumpkin juice. He spun around, furious, clutching his skull. "What is your problem?!"
"Your posture was slipping, Draco," Orion said mildly, picking up his teacup and turning to Luna with a polite, shallow nod. "Good morning, Luna. I trust the Nargles remain quiet?"
"Very quiet, thank you," she beamed, turning and skipping away toward the Ravenclaw table.
Draco stared at Orion, absolutely bewildered. Pansy Parkinson, sitting across from them, had opened her mouth to echo Draco's intended insult, but seeing the casual, brutal correction Orion had just administered, she snapped her jaw shut so fast her teeth clicked.
If Orion Malfoy—the undisputed academic king of the Second Years, the boy who had out-dueled Harry Potter, the only student besides Draco to walk the floor of the Chamber of Secrets—decided that Luna Lovegood was off-limits for mockery, then she was off-limits.
Orion had a reputation. It wasn't the loud, boastful reputation of his brother. It was a cold, quiet, terrifyingly competent reputation. The older Slytherins gave him a wide berth, and the younger ones followed his lead implicitly.
After the second time Orion smacked Draco for attempting to sneer at Luna in the corridors, the message was universally received. The Slytherins simply ignored her. It was a bizarre, fragile peace, but it held.
"You're basically her bodyguard now," Sparkle had teased him later that night.
"I am establishing a perimeter of acceptable behavior," Orion had countered internally. "Cruelty without purpose is inefficient. And Draco's vocabulary needs constant, physical correction."
It was supposed to be a quiet, studious end to the year. Orion had his books, his pool waiting at the Manor, and his plans for the Vanishing Cabinet.
But the Protagonist Halo, Orion was about to discover, was not a passive buff. It was an aggressive, localized distortion of reality that actively hunted for conflict.
It hit him like a brick on a dreary, rain-swept Thursday afternoon in late April.
Orion was packing his bag in the Charms classroom, preparing to head down to the dungeons, when Daphne Greengrass suddenly appeared beside his desk.
This was highly unusual.
Daphne was a known quantity. She was an acquaintance, a fellow pureblood, and a member of their extended social circle, she was gossipy, but she was not a close confidante. She maintained her "Ice Queen" persona flawlessly, rarely seeking out interaction unless it involved academic collaboration or necessary house politics.
Today, however, the ice was fractured.
Her beautiful, usually impassive face was tight with suppressed fury. Her ice-blue eyes were blazing, and her knuckles were white where she gripped the strap of her leather bookbag.
"Orion," Daphne said, her voice dropping into a harsh, urgent whisper that commanded absolute attention. "I need you to come with me. Now. I want your help with something."
Orion paused, his hand hovering over his inkwell. He looked at her, his analytical mind instantly spinning. This wasn't a request for homework help. This was a tactical summons.
"Lead the way," Orion nodded, his face smoothing into a mask of polite neutrality.
They exited the classroom, ignoring the curious glances of Tracey Davis and Millicent Bulstrode. Daphne didn't speak. She walked with a rigid, furious stride, leading him away from the main thoroughfares and into a deserted, dusty corridor on the fifth floor, hidden behind a tapestry of a sleeping dragon.
She stopped, ensuring the corridor was completely empty, and turned to face him. The fury in her eyes hadn't dimmed; it had crystallized into something cold and lethal.
"With the exams growing closer," Daphne began, her voice vibrating with a barely contained, aristocratic rage, "I decided to review the Defense Against the Dark Arts curriculum. Since we have limited options for study, I thought I would attempt to extract some actual, practical knowledge from the utter rubbish that Gilderoy Lockhart has assigned us."
Orion leaned against the stone wall, crossing his arms. He already hated where this was going.
"A grueling endeavor," Orion murmured sympathetically. "The man writes in circles of self-aggrandizement."
"It's worse than that," Daphne spat, her composure cracking further. She reached into her bag and pulled out a pristine, heavily embossed copy of Gadding with Ghouls. She practically shoved it into Orion's chest.
"I was reading Chapter Four," Daphne hissed, jabbing a manicured finger at the cover. "The one where he details his miraculous, single-handed banishment of the Bandon Banshee and the subsequent containment of a localized ghoul infestation in a small village."
"I recall the passage," Orion nodded, handing the book back without opening it. "He claims to have used a complex, harmonic counter-curse that he invented on the spot."
"It's a lie," Daphne stated, her voice dropping to a deadly, shaking whisper. "It's a complete, fabricated lie."
Orion raised an eyebrow. "Most of his exploits are highly exaggerated, Daphne. That isn't exactly groundbreaking news."
"No, Orion," Daphne stepped closer, her blue eyes boring into his. "It's not just exaggerated. It's stolen."
She took a shaky breath, forcing herself to calm down, though her hands still trembled slightly around the book.
"When I read that specific story... the harmonic counter-curse, the layout of the village, the exact sequence of events... I knew it. I recognized the phrasing. It wasn't just a familiar tale; it was a specific, family legend."
Daphne's jaw tightened.
"I contacted my mother immediately. I asked her to send me the journals of my great-uncle on her side of the family. He was an adventurer, Orion. A real one. He traveled the world researching dark creatures."
She pulled a small, worn, leather-bound diary from her bag. It looked incredibly old and fragile compared to Lockhart's glossy publication.
"My mother sent me his notes," Daphne whispered, opening the diary to a marked page. "He was the one who banished the Banshee. He was the one who contained the ghouls in that village. He wrote about the harmonic counter-curse thirty years ago. The details in Lockhart's book are lifted almost word-for-word from my uncle's private journals."
Orion stared at the old diary, then looked up at the furious, trembling girl before him.
Lockhart is a fraud, Orion thought, the canonical truth known to him. He steals achievements, erases memories, and writes books about them. Wonder why he never expects anyone to find out about this. Must have obliviated them as well.
"I asked my mother about him," Daphne continued, her voice breaking slightly. "I asked her to speak to my uncle. To see if he had published the journals under a pseudonym, or if he had shared them with Lockhart."
She snapped the old diary shut, the sound echoing sharply in the empty corridor.
"My mother told me that she visited him a few days ago," Daphne said, her eyes flashing with a raw, terrifying hatred. "She asked him about the village. She asked him about the Banshee."
Daphne looked directly at Orion, the full weight of the betrayal and the crime hanging in the air between them.
"He told her he doesn't remember," Daphne whispered, a tear of pure rage finally spilling over her eyelashes. "He has absolutely no recollection of ever writing this diary. He doesn't remember the travels, the creatures, or the magic. His mind is full of holes, Orion."
She gripped the glossy copy of Gadding with Ghouls so tightly her knuckles popped.
"That bastard," Daphne snarled, her aristocratic mask completely gone, replaced by a pure, unadulterated desire for vengeance. "He stole my uncle's life's work, claimed it as his own, and wiped his memories to cover his tracks."