Anakin found Filius Flitwick in the Charms classroom, the tiny professor standing on a stack of books and meticulously levitating a series of silver bells. The air was filled with a delicate, rhythmic chiming.
"Professor Skywalker," Flitwick squeaked, though his eyes remained sharp. He didn't flinch as Anakin approached. "I've been thinking about your... redirection of our spells. In our theory, wandless magic is notoriously volatile—a lack of a focal point usually results in a dispersion of intent. How do you maintain such density?"
Anakin watched a bell float past his face. He didn't use a wand; he simply reached out and caught the bell in the air with a thought. It stopped dead, the silver vibrating under the pressure of his grip.
"You use a focal point because you view yourself as separate from the energy," Anakin said, releasing the bell. "You treat the Force as a guest you are inviting into the room. For me, the energy is the room. I don't 'cast' a spell, Flitwick. I simply decide that the reality of the object is different."
"But the incantation," Flitwick pressed. "The phonetic resonance of Wingardium Leviosa—it provides the mathematical structure for the lift!"
"The structure is in the mind," Anakin countered. He looked at the stack of books Flitwick stood on. With a subtle flick of his fingers, he didn't just lift the books; he made them weightless. The books drifted apart, and Flitwick began to float, his arms flailing in surprise. "I don't need a word to tell the universe that gravity is an option. I see the threads of the energy holding the matter together. I just... pull."
Flitwick, floating three feet off the ground, looked less terrified and more profoundly fascinated. "Remarkable... it's as if you're bypassing the interface entirely and speaking directly to the source code."
Minerva McGonagall was far more guarded. Anakin visited her in the Transfiguration courtyard, where she was demonstrated the transformation of a stone birdbath into a living peacock.
"Magic is about the 'What,'" she explained, her voice crisp. "Transfiguration is the art of changing the essential identity of an object through precise mental mapping and wandwork. It is a logic of being."
Anakin watched the peacock preen. He could feel the Force woven through the bird, but it felt... artificial. A temporary mask placed over the stone.
"You change its shape," Anakin observed. "But underneath, the molecular structure is straining to return to its original state. I can feel the 'stone' wanting to be stone again."
McGonagall blinked. "The molecular... I beg your pardon?"
"Everything is made of the same fundamental particles," Anakin said, picking up a fallen leaf. He didn't turn it into a bird. Instead, he closed his fist. When he opened it, the leaf was gone, replaced by a tiny, shimmering diamond that reflected the afternoon sun.
He hadn't "transfigured" it in the magical sense; he had used the Force to exert such immense, localized pressure that he had forced the carbon atoms to rearrange into a different crystalline lattice.
"I don't change what it 'is' in your sense, Minerva," Anakin said, handing her the diamond. "I change the state of its matter. I don't need a map of a bird. I just need to understand the pressure and the heat required to change the structure of the world."
McGonagall took the diamond, her fingers trembling slightly. "This... this is permanent. There is no magical residue. You've simply... forced the world to obey your physics."
"Power doesn't negotiate with identity," Anakin said flatly. "It dictates it."
Anakin's interactions with the others were brief, yet telling of his perspective.
Aurora Sinistra: He encountered her on the Astronomy Tower. She began to explain the "mystical alignment of Mars and Jupiter." Anakin interrupted her, detailing the atmospheric composition of the gas giants and the exact orbital mechanics of a star system. Sinistra left the conversation feeling as though the heavens had been stripped of their mystery and replaced with a terrifying, cold clockwork.Pomona Sprout: She showed him the Mandrakes. Anakin viewed the screaming plants as a biological curiosity—a weaponized flora. He suggested that if she could stabilize the sonic frequency of their cries, they could be used as an effective non-lethal deterrent for perimeter defense. Sprout was horrified; Anakin was merely being practical.
Finally, he wandered down to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, where a massive man was skinning a brace of oversized polecats.
"Yer the new one, then," Rubeus Hagrid boomed, wiping his bloody hands on a hideously stained apron. "The one who gave Snape a fright. Name's Hagrid. Groundskeeper."
Anakin looked up at the half-giant. He felt no complex mental shields, no oily layers of deceit. Hagrid was a mountain of earth and honest emotion.
"Skywalker," Anakin replied. He looked at the Forbidden Forest—the darkness within it felt thick, pulsing with a primitive, untamed version of the Force. "There are creatures in there that do not belong to your 'precise' world."
"Aye," Hagrid grinned, missing the warning in Anakin's tone. "Dangerous beauties, they are. Don't listen to the others—they just don't understand 'em."
Anakin nodded slowly. He respected Hagrid's raw strength and his lack of pretense. "In my experience, the things people 'don't understand' are usually the only ones that tell the truth."
Hagrid laughed, a sound like falling boulders. "I think you'll do alright here, Professor. Just don't let the gargoyles bite."
If the others were curious or wary, Severus Snape was a ghost of pure resentment.
Every time Anakin entered the Staff Room, the temperature seemed to drop, but the reaction from Snape was instantaneous. He would rise without a word, his black robes billowing behind him as he exited the room, his face a mask of icy hatred. He wouldn't even look in Anakin's direction; he simply refused to breathe the same air.
"He views your existence as a personal affront, Anakin," Dumbledore noted one afternoon in the Headmaster's office. They were discussing the structure of the Practical Defense classes. "Severus values the tradition of the craft. You represent its annihilation."
"I represent its reality," Anakin countered. "You asked me to teach. I will not give them the 'smoke' of your charms. I will teach them to see energy as a weapon and a shield. I will not hide what I am, what I can do or what I expect of them."
"I expected no less," Dumbledore sighed. "But remember, these are children, not soldiers."
"You would do well to remember that yourself, you asked me to train them to protect themselves and defend them within the school. Understand that if I do things my way they will be much more capable than soldiers. ," Anakin said darkly.
_________________________________________________________________________
It happened in a narrow corridor near the library.
Anakin was walking toward the Great Hall when he sensed it—a sudden, sharp vacuum in the Force. It wasn't just darkness; it was rot. A necrotic, parasitic presence that felt like a shattered soul clinging to life through pure, desperate malice.
He turned the corner and saw Professor Quirrell. The man was stuttering, clutching his purple turban, his eyes darting nervously. But the Force didn't see the man. It saw the shadow behind his head.
Anakin's presence expanded until the torches in the hallway flickered and died.
"Dumbledore," Anakin growled, entering the Headmaster's office minutes later without knocking. "There is a parasite in your school. Quirrell is not alone in his own skin. He carries a shadow that smells of the Dark Side—a broken, hungry thing."
Dumbledore didn't look surprised. He sat behind his desk, his fingers steepled. "I am aware that Professor Quirrell has returned from his travels... changed, Anakin. I am monitoring the situation."
"Monitoring?" Anakin's voice was a low roar. "You have a host for an enemy in your halls. You don't 'monitor' a thermal detonator, Albus. You disarm it."
Dumbledore remained behind his desk, his expression weary but unshakable. "There are nuances to the return of Voldemort that require patience, Anakin. If we strike too early—"
"I was a General, Albus!" Anakin slammed his hand onto the desk, the wood groaning under the Force-enhanced impact. "I have led thousands into battles orchestrated by men who thought they were 'monitoring' the enemy. You are using these children as bait in a trap you haven't even finished building. It is a dereliction of command. It is cowardice."
Anakin leaned in, his eyes burning with a cold, blue fire. "I will not have it. You have twenty-four hours to remove the rot from this school. If Quirrell is still drawing breath within these walls by tomorrow's sunset, I will take matters into my own hands. And I will not be subtle."
Dumbledore met his gaze, his blue eyes stripped of any warmth. "I cannot allow you to jeopardize the greater good, Professor Skywalker."
"The 'greater good' is a lie told by people who are afraid to do what is necessary," Anakin spat. He turned on his heel, his robes snapping like a whip. "Clock's ticking, Albus."
Twenty-four hours passed with the agonizing weight of a funeral procession. As the sun dipped below the horizon the following evening, Anakin did not go to the Great Hall for dinner. He went to the third-floor corridor.
He found Quirrell twitching near the entrance to the forbidden wing. The Force screamed in Anakin's ears—a discordant, screeching note of pure necrotic filth.
"Enough," Anakin said, his voice echoing like a death sentence.
He raised his hand. Quirrell was slammed against the stone wall by an invisible hammer, his feet dangling inches off the floor.
"P-p-p-please!" Quirrell shrieked, his eyes bulging. "Help! Murder! Skywalker has gone m-m-mad!"
"Skywalker, cease this at once!" Minerva McGonagall rounded the corner, her wand already drawn and glowing. Beside her, Filius Flitwick looked horrified, his own wand trembling as he leveled it at Anakin.
"Move aside, Minerva," Anakin commanded, not even turning to look at them. "This thing is a threat to every soul in this castle."
"He is a colleague!" Flitwick squeaked. 'Expelliarmus'
Anakin didn't even use the Force to deflect it; he simply caught the spell in the palm of his hand and crushed the energy into nothingness. "I told you. I am done with your 'poetry'."
Suddenly, the air grew heavy. Albus Dumbledore appeared behind the professors, his Elder Wand raised. "I warned you, Anakin. I cannot let you do this."
"Then you are choosing the shadow over your own people!" Anakin roared.
The hall exploded into a chaotic brilliance of light. McGonagall and Flitwick unleashed a combined torrent of Transfiguration and Charms—the stone floor turned into grasping hands while a cyclone of wind tried to pin Anakin down. Dumbledore added a layer of complex, golden binding magic that moved with the speed of thought.
Anakin moved with a speed that defied the laws of the world they knew. He leaped, twisting in mid-air, a blur of black robes. He landed on the ceiling, held there by the Force, and swept his arm downward. The stone hands were pulverized. The wind was silenced.
"Is this your plan, Albus?" Anakin shouted, dropping back to the floor with a heavy thud. "To hide the monster behind the loyalty of good people? To let them defend a killer because you're too 'patient' to tell them the truth?"
He surged forward, ignoring the spells splashing against his Force-shield. He reached through the magical barrage and seized Quirrell's purple turban with a telekinetic grip so violent it cracked the stone behind the man's head.
"Look at what you are protecting!"
With a brutal wrench of his will, Anakin didn't just pull the cloth away; he projected a burst of pure, revealing light from the Force—a frequency of energy that stripped away illusions.
Quirrell was spun around, forced onto his knees. The turban fell away.
McGonagall gasped, her wand dropping an inch. Flitwick let out a strangled cry.
Protruding from the back of Quirrell's bald head was a face—horrific, chalk-white, with slit-like nostrils and gleaming, red eyes. It was a face of pure, distilled malice, caught in a silent, agonizing snarl as Anakin's light burned into it.
"A-Albus?" McGonagall's voice was a shattered whisper. She looked from the face of Voldemort to the Headmaster, who stood silent, his wand still raised but his face a mask of grim resignation. "You knew? You knew this was here... and you said nothing?"
"He wanted to 'monitor' it," Anakin said, his voice dripping with icy contempt as he kept Quirrell pinned to the floor with a crushing weight. "He was willing to let this thing sit at your table, sleep near your students, and wait for his 'perfect moment' to strike. He chose a game of chess over the lives of his students."
Anakin looked at the two stunned professors. "If I hadn't acted, how long before one of the children paid the price for his 'Greater Good'?"
The silence in the corridor was absolute, broken only by the whimpering of the possessed Quirrell and the heavy, rhythmic breathing of the man who had seen too many masters play the same god-complex game.