The silence of the skeletal train didn't reach Alister's compartment. While the rest of the Express felt like a funeral procession, compartment C-4 was vibrating with noise, heat, and the smell of gunpowder.
"I'm telling you, it's brilliant marketing!" Fred Weasley yelled, waving a crumpled copy of the Prophet. "This 'Architect' bloke? Genius. Evil, probably, but a genius."
"Mum's absolutely terrified," George added, kicking his feet up on the empty seat opposite him. "She caught Dad trying the 'breathing cycle' in the shed. He didn't blow anything up, but he did manage to make the garden gnomes levitate by accident. Mum went spare."
Alister sat by the window, a faint, amused smile playing on his lips as he listened to the twins dissect his own work. Beside him, Cho Chang was sitting beside him holding his hand. She was one of the few who seemed to find comfort in the chaos.
"It's not funny," Cho murmured, though she didn't sound truly angry. "My parents almost didn't let me come back. They said it's unstable."
"Everything is unstable," Alister said smoothly, squeezing her hand. "That's why we have to enjoy the ride."
"Exactly!" Fred pointed a liquorice wand at Alister. "Alister gets it. If the world's ending, you might as well buy a Skiving Snackbox."
The journey passed in a blur of warmth and chaotic energy.
________________________________________________
The train hissed to a halt at Hogsmeade Station. The platform was slick with rain and unusually quiet. There was no fighting for luggage carts, no shouting matches. Just a subdued, hurried shuffle toward the exit.
"Firs' years! Firs' years... er, anyone?" Hagrid's voice boomed over the empty platform, sounding a bit forlorn as he rounded up a tiny group of terrified eleven-year-olds and guided them to carriages.
Alister walked with Cho and the Twins followed everyone toward the line of horseless carriages waiting in the mud.
"Always found these things creepy, even after meeting them in forbitten forest" George muttered as they climbed into one.
Alister paused, his hand on the cold metal door. He looked toward the front of the carriage.
To George, to Cho, and to most of the students, there was nothing there but empty harnesses floating in the mist.
But Alister saw them.
Great, skeletal beasts with leathery wings folded tight against their emaciated bodies. Their white, pupil-less eyes stared into the void, and their dragon-ish heads bobbed as they snorted into the cold air.
Thestrals that he had seen in forbitten forest too. Creatures visible only to those who had seen death.
One of the beasts turned its head, looking directly at Alister. It didn't shy away. It snorted signaling Alister to hop on.
"They aren't creepy," Alister whispered, patting the invisible flank of the creature before climbing in. "Let's go."
The arrival at the castle was usually a spectacle of noise—hundreds of students scraping benches, shouting greetings, the roar of conversation bouncing off the enchanted ceiling.
Tonight, the Great Hall was muffled.
Alister walked through the double doors, and the reality of his actions hit him.
The four long house tables were riddled with gaps. It looked like a smile with missing teeth.
"Bloody hell," Fred whispered, the humor finally draining from his face.
The Slytherin table had taken the heaviest hit. The Pureblood families, paranoid and protective, had pulled their heirs out en masse. Almost half the table was empty. Even his roommate was missing.
Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were patchy, missing about a third of their students.
Even Gryffindor, usually the bravest (or most reckless), had significant gaps.
"Forty percent," Alister calculated silently, his eyes sweeping the room.
He looked up at the High Table.
The staff looked tired. McGonagall's lips were a thin, white line. Snape looked more sour than usual, his eyes scanning the students with suspicion.
And in the center, sat Albus Dumbledore.
The Headmaster didn't hold his usual twinkle. He was staring out at the empty seats, at the decimated student body, with an expression of profound, weary sadness. The "peace" he had maintained for so long had been shattered not by a war, but by a pamphlet.
Alister sat down at the Slytherin table, the wood cool under his hands. He felt the heavy atmosphere pressing down on the hall, the fear and uncertainty radiating from the students who had returned.
'If they get terrified by this small spark I created, then it will only mean they aren't worthy of seeing what I am about to do with this World' he thought.
Before the golden platters could fill with food, the scraping of a heavy chair against stone cut through the murmurs.
Albus Dumbledore stood up.
This rarely happened at the start of a term. Usually, he waited until everyone was fed and sleepy. But tonight, the Headmaster stood tall, his robes somber grey instead of his usual bright colors.
Silence descended instantly. This time, Dumbledore didn't even need to use the Sonorus charm to amplify his voice. The Hall was so empty, and the air so thin with tension, that his natural voice echoed clearly across the stone walls.
"Welcome back," Dumbledore began, his voice grave. "I look out at this Hall and I see empty seats. I see fear. And I see questions."
He paused, letting his gaze drift over the four tables, resting for a fraction of a second on Alister before moving on.
"By this time, everyone should know about the 'Mana Circulation Method' spread by the individual or group calling themselves 'The Architect.'"
A ripple of nervous whispering broke out. McGonagall stiffened in her chair. Snape's eyes narrowed into black slits. The Ministry is already declaring the document illegal. Possession of it was grounds for expulsion in some countries.
Dumbledore raised a hand, and the whispers died.
"The Ministry has called it dark. The International Confederation has called it a heresy. They have demanded I confiscate any copies found within these walls."
Dumbledore smiled—a small, tired, but undeniably sharp smile.
"But I have always believed that ignorance is more dangerous than knowledge."
He clasped his hands behind his back and walked around the podium.
"Truth be told," Dumbledore said, his voice dropping to a conversational volume that had every student leaning forward, "even I myself tried it. And I must say... it is a masterpiece."
The Great Hall gasped. A collective intake of breath that sucked the air out of the room. McGonagall dropped her fork. It clattered loudly onto her plate.
"It works perfectly fine," Dumbledore continued, ignoring the shock of his staff. "It is efficient. It is potent. And it is, fundamentally, a leap forward in magical theory."
He looked out at them, his blue eyes piercing.
"I will not be a jailer of knowledge. I will not stop my students from seeking potential just because it is defined as dangerous and evil by a majority of high-ranking wizards who are too afraid to change."
He spread his arms wide.
"Therefore, effective immediately, the Mana Circulation Method will be added to the Hogwarts curriculum."
"Albus!" McGonagall hissed, half-rising from her seat.
"It will be taught in Defense Against the Dark Arts and Charms," Dumbledore overrode her, his voice booming with sudden authority. "It will be supervised by the Professors to ensure you do not burn yourselves out in process. We will not hide from this power. We will master it."
He sat back down.
"Tuck in."
For a solid ten seconds, nobody moved. The students stared at the teachers. The teachers stared at Dumbledore.
But the person most surprised... was Alister.
Alister sat frozen, his cup halfway to his mouth. For the first time since he had awakened in this world, his calculation had been off.
He had expected Dumbledore to ban it. He had expected the Headmaster to preach about the "dangers of unearned power," driving the students further into dwelling on it in secrets.
But Dumbledore had just flipped the board.
By legalizing it, by adopting it, Dumbledore had removed the "taboo." He had taken the weapon Alister threw at the world and decided to teach the students how to hold it properly.
'You crafty old man,' Alister thought, his grip tightening on the goblet until the silver warped slightly.
A slow, sharp grin spread across Alister's face. The boredom he had felt earlier evaporated.
'Good,' he thought, watching Dumbledore calmly begin to eat his soup. 'If you had just rolled over and followed my plan, this would have been too easy. Whatever, I won't have to spend my time on this now.'
__________________________________
The Great Hall dissolved into chaos the moment Dumbledore finished his pumpkin juice and dismissed the feast.
Usually, the first night back was filled with chatter about summer holidays, Quidditch scores, and chocolate frog cards. Tonight, the common rooms were turned into impromptu war rooms. Students huddled around fireplaces, pulling out crumpled, contraband copies of the Lesser Orbit manual—now suddenly "course material"—and arguing over diagrams.
Alister sat in a quiet corner of the Slytherin common room, a book open on his lap, but his eyes were scanning the room.
He watched that even students usually terrifyingly clumsy with magic, sitting with their eyes closed, their chest rising and falling in the 4-4-4 rhythm of the Cycle. A faint, blue shimmer was already visible around someone's fingertips.
"It's brilliant," A seventh year was saying loudly to a group by the fire. "It's not 'dark' magic; it's just bio-arcane efficiency! It maximizes the yield of the magical core by reducing the friction in the somatic channels. I can't believe I didn't see it before!"
Alister suppressed a smirk. Dumbledore, he thought, you genius.
By legalizing it, the Headmaster had stripped the "Architect" of his allure as a forbidden savior. He had turned everyone's attention to Architect's work instead of Architect himself.
"But," Alister whispered to himself, turning a page of his book without reading it, "you forget one thing, Headmaster. I built the machine. You're just reading the user manual."
____________________________________
The next morning, the reality of the "New Curriculum" hit.
Alister walked into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom which has been closed since start of the year. The atmosphere was grim. The shutters were drawn, casting the room in shadow.
Severus Snape stood at the front of the room.
Snape didn't look happy. He looked like he had swallowed a lemon whole.
"Books away," Snape drawled, his black eyes sweeping over the class of Gryffindors and Slytherins. "Wands away."
He stepped off the dais, pacing the aisle like a vulture.
"The Headmaster," Snape began, curling his lip around the word as if it were a curse, "has instructed that we waste valuable time indulging in the latest fad of the magical world. The so-called... 'Circulation Method'."
He stopped in front of Alister, sneering down at him.
"You doubtless think this makes you powerful, Potter. You think that because you can pump mana through your veins like a rampant troll, you are a wizard."
Snape whipped around, his cape billowing.
"It is crude. It is blunt. It is a sledgehammer where a scalpel is required. However..."
Snape raised his own wand. He didn't speak. He didn't move.
But the air in the room suddenly grew heavy. A low, thrumming vibration—the signature sound of the Lesser Orbit—emanated from him. But unlike Sallow's explosive display at the Hog's Head, Snape's circulation was terrifyingly controlled. It was a tight, compressed coil of venomous power.
"If you are going to use it," Snape whispered, the sound carrying to the back of the room, "you will do so with discipline."
He pointed his wand at the dummy at the back of the room.
Expelliarmus.
It wasn't a beam of red light. It was a shockwave.
CRACK.
The dummy didn't just lose its wand. It exploded. Wood splinters rained down on the screaming students in the back row. The stone wall behind the dummy cracked.
Silence.
(END OF CHAPTER)
"Can't wait to see what Alister does next?
You don't have to wait! I am currently 10 chapters ahead on Patreon.
Link: patreon.com/xxSUPxx
Or you can buy me a coffee at:
buymeacoffee.com/xxSUPxx
special thanks to all my EPIC members and,
MYTH: Asaf Montgomery
MYTH: Dutchviking
MYTH: Robert Hernandez
MYTH: Kevin Boutte jr.
MYTH: Philip Sl*tz