Rowena's Diadem rested against Thaddues' fingers like it had always belonged there, as though the artifact recognized him more than he understood it. Its surface was cold, but not lifeless. There was something attentive about it—an awareness that did not belong to metal or enchantment alone.
He studied it for a moment longer than necessary.
One of the four founders of Hogwarts, or its equivalent in this world of Planetos. A relic tied not only to history, but to the shaping of magic itself.
He frowned slightly before answering the system.
"Not now."
Without further hesitation, he placed the diadem onto his head.
Instantly, the world shifted.
It was not dramatic at first. There was no flash of light, no rupture in space. Instead, it was a subtle reordering of perception. Thoughts that once required effort began forming with unnatural clarity. His mind arts, already refined through the master card, expanded beyond their usual boundary as though something inside him had been loosened.
Then he felt it.
The familiar wall. The invisible threshold he had once approached but never crossed. It was the same wall who stopped him from seeing the original owners memories.
And now, under the diadem's influence, that wall fractured.
Thaddues narrowed his eyes. He could also feel another wave of magic beyond the wall, seeping through the fracture.
He then realized that the artifact was not granting him strength. It was exposing the structure of his own limitations, forcing him to perceive the shape of what came after mastery. The realization carried a weight heavier than enhancement. It suggested that everything he had achieved so far existed only on the surface of something far deeper.
"The system had said it before." But feeling it is different from knowing it.
He took a slow step forward reaching the fractured wall. The instant his hand touched it, the mind palace around him dissolved.
He stood within a memory, but it was not from his own perspective. He was watching himself from a distance, as though occupying a presence outside time. A year younger version of him stood in a dim room, his fragile frame trembling as tears streamed down his face.
Before him stood an old man.
The man's face carried exhaustion shaped by years of decisions no one else could bear. His voice, however, was steady—forced into firmness by necessity rather than conviction.
"You will act like you do not care," the old man said. "That you want to leave this place. That you are not my son."
The young him shook his head immediately, broken by confusion and grief.
"Father… I don't want to leave you…"
The words came out thin, fragile, unprotected.
The old man's expression tightened. Something in him cracked, but he refused to let it show.
"That is the only way for you to survive," he said. "That is your mother's wish."
Silence fell between them like a closing door.
The young man's breathing turned uneven, as though he understood the weight of something he was too young to carry.
Footsteps echoed from the corridor outside, their steady rhythm drawing closer.
The old man's expression tightened. The calm authority in his voice disappeared, replaced by a quiet desperation.
"Remember what I told you," he said sharply. "No matter what happens—remember."
The door opened.
Figures in dark robes entered the room with deliberate purpose. Embroidered over the left breast of each robe was the same symbol—an intricate pattern of entwined roots woven in pale thread, twisting into one another like the veins of an ancient tree.
Before Thaddues could see what happened next, the memory shattered.
A violent force seized him and tore him away from the scene.
Air rushed back into his lungs as though he had been drowning. His body staggered forward, instinctively catching balance. The sensation of displacement lingered, like his soul had been stretched and snapped back into place.
He was no longer in the memory.
He stood in a tower.
Stone walls surrounded him, unfamiliar yet ancient in construction. A large arched window opened beside him, revealing a vast lake stretching into the distance. The water was still, reflecting a sky that felt too distant to belong to any familiar horizon.
The air carried a quiet pressure. Not one of hostility, but of awareness. It was as if the place itself had recognized his presence and now observed him in silence, waiting for something unseen.
Then he noticed her.
A woman stood not far from him, dressed in medieval attire that contrasted sharply with the refined architecture around them. Her gaze was calm, but it carried depth—like she was looking at something layered beneath his existence rather than his physical form.
"If you had stayed there," she said softly, "your soul would have been consumed by a power beyond mortal understanding."
Thaddues turned toward her fully.
His instincts sharpened.
"Who are you?"
The woman did not answer immediately.
Instead, she raised her hand slightly.
A force moved.
It was neither violent nor sudden, but impossibly precise. Something invisible swept through Thaddues, and for a fleeting instant, he felt a fragment of himself being pulled loose.
A silent scream rippled across his consciousness.
His jaw tightened.
Soul arts surged instinctively, reacting to the intrusion, but the woman did not appear threatened in the slightest. Instead, she examined what she had extracted, holding it in her palm like a fragment of condensed existence.
"Interesting," she said quietly, thoughtful rather than impressed. "There are beings in this world who have gone beyond what most would consider possible."
Her eyes returned to him with careful assessment.
"And you are closer to that condition than you appear to understand. Closer still than is safe to ignore."
Thaddues exhaled slowly, forcing control over the irritation rising in his chest.
"Who are you?" he repeated, sharper this time.
This time, she answered.
"I am the creator of the artifact in your head."
A brief pause followed, as though she allowed the statement to settle into reality itself.
"Rowena Ravenclaw."
The name landed heavily.
Not as shock, but as recognition of scale. Even if he had never been a Potterhead the name carried weight he could not ignore. Not just a founder of Hogwarts, but a scholar whose contributions to magical theory had become foundational—so deeply embedded in the discipline that later generations no longer traced them back to a single mind.
He did not speak immediately.
Instead, he studied her carefully.
Then he inclined his head slightly.
"Thank you," he said at last.
The words carried no emotion—only a statement of what already was. Whatever she had done was an acknowledgment of something undeniable, something embedded within his soul and now removed.
Now, in its absence, he could feel the difference.
Something foreign had been removed-something that should not have been there at all.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
Old gods.
The realization settled coldly.
They had touched him in a way even the system had failed to detect. A silent insertion, hidden beneath his own perception. The thought did not frighten him—it angered him.
Rowena seemed to notice.
"Anger will not solve what you carry within you," she said, turning away toward the window. "Little wizard."
Thaddues' expression hardened.
"So I was pulled here for advice?"
She did not answer immediately. Instead, she lifted a nearby book with a casual motion of her hand. It rose effortlessly, as though gravity had simply agreed to step aside.
"So I am the first?" she asked, as though testing the logic of the claim rather than reacting to it.
That question made him pause.
"What do you mean?"
Rowena glanced at him over her shoulder.
"See how my magic works," she said calmly, "as you have been chosen."
The air shifted the moment she finished speaking, not violently, but in perfect alignment.
Something deeper than mana stirred—closer to origin than power itself. Thaddues felt it resonate with his soul arts, as though both drew from the same hidden foundation.
The connection lasted only an instant before reality folded inward and everything collapsed.
Thaddues woke inside his chamber.
His breath was steady, but his mind was not.
The stone room of Ghost Hill felt heavier than before, as though reality had reasserted its weight after being briefly absent. For a moment, he remained seated, unmoving, allowing the lingering echoes of the experience to settle.
Then the system spoke.
--
"Detected: Host has undergone advanced soul arts refinement under Helena's influence."
--
A pause followed.
--
"Reward granted: Resurrection Card."
--
Thaddues blinked once.
"Resurrection Card?"
The words echoed in his mind longer than expected.
A single-use item.
A return from death.
His first thought was immediate.
Lily.
Could this mean he can use this instead the book of death?
The system responded coldly.
--
"Applicable only to the host. One-time use. Non-transferable."
--
Silence followed.
Thaddues leaned back slightly, staring at the ceiling.
So it is not salvation for others.
It is insurance for me.
That realization carried a strange discomfort. Not fear, but implication. The system was not merely empowering him—it was ensuring he remained functional through even death itself.
Which raised a question he did not like.
At what point would he be expected to die?
He rose from his seat.
The thought lingered as he walked out of his chamber. The hall was quiet, but it no longer felt empty. Something about him had changed, even if only slightly.
At the entrance, the Cranogman remained kneeling where he had been left.
Patient. Certain. Devout in his own way.
When he lifted his head and saw Thaddues, a faint smile formed.
"How is it meeting the Old Gods, my lord?"
Thaddues stopped in front of him.
"Fine," he said.
The Cranogman's smile widened, misinterpreting it completely.
He believed.
He had no doubt.
But Thaddues' gaze did not share that interpretation.
"And since you believe your so-called Old Gods are powerful," Thaddues continued calmly, "I hope they can save you."
Confusion flickered across the man's face.
"My lord?"
Thaddues did not raise his voice.
He did not need to.
"Crucio."
The curse left his lips without hesitation.
But what followed was not ordinary magic, it was amplified by his soul arts.
The air in the hall tightened violently as the spell took hold. The Cranogman's body locked in place as though every nerve had been seized at once. The scream that followed was not just pain—it was rupture, echoing through the castle with a force that made the stone itself feel complicit.
Thaddues watched without movement.
Not with pleasure.
Not with hesitation.
He was simply thinking.
If the Old Gods had left their mark on him unseen, then every believer who carried their name would eventually become a question he intended to answer.
TBC
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