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Third POV:
The night wrapped the grounds of Hogwarts in a quiet, almost sacred stillness.
The sky above was deep and dark, scattered with stars that blinked slowly like old eyes watching over the world below. The moon hung near the horizon, fat and silver, casting soft light across the grass, the trees, the distant towers of the castle. There were no clouds tonightnothing to hide the stars, nothing to dim their glow. Just endless black velvet studded with tiny pinpricks of white and gold.
Adam walked alone, hands in his pockets, the distant echo of voices from the Great Hall fading behind him with every step.
The sounds of dinne ,the clatter of plates, the murmur of conversation, the occasional burst of laughter grew quieter and quieter as he moved away from the castle. Students heading back to their common rooms passed him in small groups, their voices cheerful, their steps quick, their breath fogging in the cold air. None of them looked at him. None of them spoke to him. He was just another figure in the darkness, moving in the opposite direction.
The stone path curved gently, leading him toward the dark shimmer of the Black Lake. The stones were uneven beneath his feet, worn smooth by centuries of students walking the same route, heading to the same water, thinking the same thoughts. Moss grew between the cracks, soft and green, damp from the evening dew.
The wind was cold—sharp enough to wake the senses, yet calm enough to feel… peaceful.
It pressed against his face, his hands, his chest, carrying the scent of water and earth and something green from the forest in the distance. It didn't howl or scream. It just breathed, slow and steady, like the world itself was taking a deep breath after a long day.
For once, no quests.
No system notifications.
No voices.
Just him.
And silence.
He let himself sink into it. Let the quiet fill the spaces inside him that had been empty for so long. Let his shoulders drop, his jaw relax, his breathing slow.
---
When he finally arrived, he stopped.
The path ended at the edge of the lake, the stones giving way to grass and then to water. A small wooden dock jutted out into the lake, old and weathered, its surface silvered by moonlight. A single rowboat was tied to one of its posts, rocking gently with the movement of the water.
The lake stretched endlessly before him, its surface reflecting the night sky like a broken mirror of stars.
The water was dark ,not black, but deep, the kind of deep that made you wonder what was hiding beneath the surface. The moonlight caught the ripples, turning them into lines of silver that spread and faded and spread again. The reflection of the stars flickered on the water, distorted by the gentle movement, looking less like stars and more like tiny flames dancing on the surface.
The moon hung low, casting a silver glow over the water, making it seem almost unreal....As if one step forward would drop him into another world entirely.
Adam let out a slow breath.
"…Damn."
The word came out soft, almost reverent, carried away by the wind before it could reach anyone else's ears.
Not sarcastic.
Not mocking.
Just… genuine.
For the first time in a long while, he admired something without questioning it.
He didn't analyze the way the light hit the water. Didn't calculate the distance to the far shore. Didn't think about how this place could be used, exploited, turned into something useful. He just looked at it. And let himself look.
---
He moved closer, stepping onto the damp grass near the edge.
The ground was soft beneath his shoes, the grass wet with evening dew. His footprints left dark impressions behind him, filling slowly with water as he walked. The smell of the lake grew stronger here, fresh and clean, with a hint of something older, something that had been sleeping in the mud at the bottom for a very long time.
The faint sound of water brushing against the shore created a rhythmic whisper like the lake itself was breathing.
The waves were small, barely more than ripples, but they made a sound that was almost musical , ....soft, repeated shush that rose and fell with the movement of the water. It was the kind of sound that could lull you to sleep if you listened too long, the kind of sound that made time feel slower, softer, less important.
Without thinking much, Adam slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out the folded map.
The same map he took from the library earlier.
He opened it slowly.
The paper was old ancient even ,The edges were rough, slightly torn, and the ink had faded in places, yet the markings were still clear enough to read. The folds had creased the paper so many times that some of the ink had worn away along the lines, leaving thin white scars across the surface. But the names ...
the names were still there.
His eyes scanned it carefully.
And then...
He froze.
His whole body went still. His hands stopped moving. His breath caught in his chest. His eyes locked onto the paper, onto the marks, onto the words written there in faded ink.
---
"…What the hell is this world?"
The words came out quiet, almost a whisper, but they carried a weight that surprised even him.
His gaze moved across the map.
He had seen it before, of course. Had studied it in the dim light of his dormitory, had traced the lines and names with his fingertips, had memorized the layout of lands he had never heard of. But every time he looked at it, something new caught his attention. Something he had missed before. Something that didn't make sense.
First....
Narnia.
The name was written in a flowing script, the letters slightly larger than the others, as if the person who had written it wanted it to stand out. It sat in the upper corner of the map, surrounded by drawings of trees and mountains and what looked like a lamppost.
Adam blinked.
"…Narnia?"
A faint smirk formed on his face.
"So now we have talking lions and magical wardrobes too?"
The words were light, almost joking, but there was something underneath them..something that sounded almost like disbelief. He had grown up with those stories, had read them as a child, had imagined walking through that wardrobe and finding snow and trees and creatures that talked.
But the smirk faded quickly.
Because it was written clearly. Precisely. Not as a fairy tale ,but as a real land.
A place.
The ink was the same as everywhere else on the map. The lines connecting it to other lands were solid, deliberate. There was no question mark next to it, no indication that it might not exist. Just the name, written in the same hand as everything else, as if the mapmaker had been there, had seen it, had marked it down like any other destination.
---
Next...
Wonderland.
His brows furrowed.
The name was written in a tighter script, the letters pressed close together, almost cramped. The ink was darker here, as if whoever had written it had pressed harder, had wanted to make sure it didn't fade.
"…You're kidding me."
He let out a quiet breath, shaking his head slightly.
"A world of madness… logic twisted… reality broken…"
His fingers tightened slightly on the map.
"…And no one talks about this?"
The question hung in the air, unanswered, swallowed by the wind and the water and the silence of the night. How could places like this exist...places from stories, from fairy tales, from childhood dreams,and no one mention them? No one discuss them? No one try to find them?
---
Then his eyes shifted to smaller markings.
Scattered islands across the sea.
Tiny dots on the map, some with names written beside them, some without. They clustered together in small groups, separated by vast stretches of ocean, each one marked with a name that sounded like something from a dream.
Land of the Lost.
Utopia.
"…Utopia?" he whispered.
A place of perfection?
Adam chuckled quietly.
"Yeah… right. Nothing is perfect."
The sound was dry, humorless, the laugh of someone who had learned that lesson the hard way. Perfect places didn't exist. Perfect people didn't exist. The idea of a utopia was a lie, a story people told themselves to feel better about the world they actually lived in.
But still the name was there. Written in ink. Marked on the map.
---
But then...
His eyes stopped.
Locked.
On something much bigger.
---
Westeros.
The name alone felt heavy.
It sat in the center of the map, taking up more space than any of the others. The letters were large, bold, written in a script that seemed almost aggressive. Lines radiated outward from it like veins, connecting it to other lands, other cities, other names that Adam didn't recognize.
Different.
Important.
Adam stared at it longer than the others.
"…Why does this one feel… real?"
The question came out before he could stop it, soft and confused, like he was asking the map itself for an answer.
Not like a fantasy.
Not like a story.
But like a place filled with blood, war, power… and something deeper.
Something dangerous.
He couldn't explain it. There was nothing about the name that should have stood out just a word, written in ink, like all the others. But something about it made his chest tighten, made his pulse quicken, made his mind race with questions he couldn't answer.
---
His eyes slowly moved across the map again—
And then he saw it.
---
Across the sea.
A familiar name.
Hogwarts.
Marked clearly.
Small… compared to everything else.
The name sat in the corner of the map, tiny and unassuming, surrounded by drawings of trees and hills and what looked like a castle. It was almost lost among the larger names, overshadowed by the vastness of the lands around it.
And beside it...
Another name.
---
Middle-earth.
---
Adam's expression changed.
Completely.
The smirk disappeared.
The curiosity remained,but now it was deeper.
Sharper.
More serious.
His face went still, his eyes fixed on the name, his breathing slowing as if his body was trying to prepare itself for something important. The word sat on the map like a promise, like a destination, like a final answer to a question he hadn't fully asked yet.
---
"So this is it…"
His voice was quiet.
Almost thoughtful.
"My destination."
The words felt strange in his mouth.....heavy and light at the same time. He had known about Middle-earth since the beginning, had seen the name in his quest log, had read the words "reach Middle-earth" more times than he could count. But seeing it here, on the map, written among other names that should have been fiction but apparently weren't…
It made it real.
---
He looked at the map again.
At the distance between them.
The space between Hogwarts and Middle-earth was vast oceans and mountains and forests and deserts, all marked with names he didn't recognize. The journey stretched across the map like a wound, long and jagged, with no straight path, no easy route.
At the oceans.
Wide stretches of blue ink, dotted with tiny islands and sea monsters and compass roses. The waves were drawn in careful detail, curling and crashing, suggesting movement and danger.
At the unknown lands in between.
Places without names. Places marked only with question marks or drawings of trees or mountains. Places that the mapmaker hadn't been able to identify, or hadn't wanted to.
---
"…How the hell did no one try to go there?"
His mind started racing.
Wizards. Magic. Power.
And yet—
No one talks about these places.
No records.
No voyages.
No explorers.
The more he thought about it, the stranger it seemed. Wizards could apparate, could fly, could travel faster than any Muggle ever dreamed. And yet, as far as he knew, no one had ever tried to reach these places. No one had ever come back with stories of talking lions or mad tea parties or iron thrones.
"…Or maybe they did."
A pause.
His eyes narrowed slightly, his gaze drifting to the edge of the map, to the dark ink that bordered the paper like a warning.
"…And never came back."
The words hung in the air, cold and final, like a door closing.
---
The wind picked up slightly, causing the edge of the map to flutter.
The paper moved in his hands, the corners lifting, the folds creaking. The sound was soft, almost like a whisper, almost like the map itself was trying to tell him something.
Adam didn't move.
Didn't blink.
His eyes stayed fixed on the map, on the names, on the distance between where he was and where he needed to go.
---
"…This world…"
He let out a slow breath.
The air left his lungs in a long, controlled stream, carrying with it the last of his disbelief.
"…is way bigger than I thought."
The words were simple, almost obvious, but they carried a weight that surprised him. He had known, in some abstract way, that this world was larger than Hogwarts. Had known that there were other places, other people, other kinds of magic. But seeing it laid out like this—seeing the names, the distances, the vast emptiness between destinations—
It changed something.
---
And yet—
As he stood there, completely absorbed in the map…
He didn't notice.
---
The soft sound behind him.
A step.
Then another.
The grass crunched softly, barely audible beneath the whisper of the wind. The footsteps were light, careful, placed with the precision of someone who didn't want to be heard.
Careful.
Quiet.
Watching.
The presence behind him was close now—close enough that Adam should have felt it, should have sensed it, should have turned around. But his attention was fixed on the map, on the names, on the impossible places that shouldn't exist but did.
---
Something…
Or someone…
Was approaching.
The figure moved slowly, deliberately, closing the distance between them step by step. The moonlight caught the edge of a robe, the glint of an eye, the curve of a smile that Adam couldn't see.
And Adam...
___
[ End of Chapter 48].
To Be Continued...
__
If you want to read more about my works or just to support me then here is my patreon:
Patreon.com/Doflamingo4 .
___
If you liked this one. Cheek also my other stories:
[ Shadow Monarch in One Piece]
Patreon.com/Doflamingo4 .
__
Thank you all for reading...