It began with silence.
Not the silence of night or snowfall.A deeper one — the kind that drops over the world like a shroud, pressing every creature, every spell, every ley-line into stillness.
Then—
The pulse.
A vibration rippled outward from Hogwartssoundless, shapeless, but vast enough that the earth itself seemed to exhale.
The ground under the Scottish Highlands shivered, as though something ancient had been touched for the first time in a thousand years.
The sky responded first.
Above the Andes, the air cracked open in a streak of gold.Phoenixes erupted from volcanic nests — dozens of them — singing in wild, radiant harmony. Their fire lit the clouds like dawn burning through midnight.
Across the oceans, Thunderbirds rose from desert mesas, wings summoning spirals of lightning that did not strike — instead arcing upward toward the source of the pulse as if bowing.
In the Forbidden Forest, the Thestrals reared, their wings glowing faintly silver, shadows parting respectfully around them. Unicorns thundered through the glade, horns bright as fallen stars.
Even the Lethifolds rose — not to feed, but to celebrate, drifting through the treetops like banners of living shadow.
Far north, ravens spiraled into perfect wheels across the sky.Swans took flight from frozen lakes.Every bird turned toward Scotland, wings beating in a single, ancient rhythm.
Light and shadow bowed together.A balance older than the Founders, older than Rome, older than written spellwork.
In Azkaban's frigid tunnels, the Dementors froze.
Warmth — true warmth — seeped into the walls, making their formless bodies hiss and recoil. One fled into the sea. Another collapsed into mist.
For the first time in centuries, they felt fear.
And in the Department of Mysteries…
Every prophecy orb flickered.
Two in the center blazed bright white — cracked — and reformed into a single spiral of light and dark.
Unspeakables ran.One fainted.The Hall of Prophecy trembled.
Across the world, seers jolted awake.Onmyōji in Kyoto gasped as their ofuda burst into flame, forming a sun and a crescent moon before drifting to ash.
In a hidden monastery in the Pyrenees, a crystal sphere shattered in an elder's hand.
And in a shadowed forest in Albania, a piece of Voldemort shrieked — thrashed — and curled in on itself, terrified of something holy.
The stars themselves moved.
Centaur astronomers stumbled back, clutching their heads in agony as the cosmos rewrote patterns they were forbidden to read.
"The heavens have chosen new keepers," Firenze whispered, trembling.
And somewhere in the cold tower of Nurmengard, Grindelwald opened his eyes.
He leaned toward the window, pale hair catching the candlelight.
"So," he murmured with a quiet, dangerous softness,"the twins have awakened."
His candle flickered sideways as though bowing.
He smiled.
"Let the new age begin."
Cassian had stopped feeling his fingers.
Not because they were cold — the hospital wing was warm, almost stifling — but because he had been clutching Shya's hand for so long his knuckles had gone numb.
She didn't move.
She didn't twitch, or stir, or shift the blanket.
Her chest rose and fell slowly, too slowly, as if the air had to remember its way into her lungs.
Talora lay beside her, equally still.
Their hands were joined between the beds, palms touching, faint sigils glowing sometimes bright, sometimes soft, like the embers of two dying stars trying to reignite.
Cassian couldn't look away.
He kept waiting for one of them to open their eyes.
To laugh.
To insult him.
To complain about the pillows.
To say "Cass, stop staring like a weirdo."
Anything.
But nothing came.
Roman sat in the chair on Talora's other side, elbows on his knees, face buried in his palms. Pandora lay half-curled beneath the bed, breathing faintly, her glow flickering like a dying candle. Haneera was at Shya's feet, completely unconscious, chest rising only every few seconds in deep, shaking breaths.
The door clicked shut as Madame Pomfrey stepped out to fetch more potions.
Dumbledore stood beside Shya's bed in rumpled midnight-blue robes, looking older than Cassian had ever seen him. Fawkes perched on the bedpost near Talora, head bowed, feathers puffed as if bracing against invisible wind.
Snape hovered a bit farther away, arms crossed tight, eyes flickering between the girls and the familiars with an expression Cassian had no name for — something between fear and recognition and disbelief.
The silence stretched.
Cassian's voice finally broke it.
"What's wrong with them?"
His words cracked in the middle.
He hated how young he sounded.
Snape answered first, voice a low drawl sharpened by tension.
"There is nothing technically wrong."
He flicked his wand; a wisp of magic skimmed the girls' skin, dissipating in sparks.
"No curse. No poison. No hex. No magical exhaustion. Their cores are—" Snape's jaw tightened. "—active. Overactive. But stable."
"Stable?" Cassian snapped. "Stable people don't look like they're dead."
Roman's head lifted at that, eyes red, face blank in a way Cassian had never seen.
Dumbledore stepped closer, staff tapping lightly against the stone.
"They are not dead," he said softly. "Nor dying."
Cassian swallowed hard. "Then why won't they wake up?"
Dumbledore's gaze drifted to their joined hands — to the faint sigils glowing beneath the skin.
"Because something very old has touched them," he murmured. "And something even older has claimed a price."
Cassian's stomach dropped.
"What does that mean?" he demanded. "Stop speaking in riddles — what does it mean?"
Snape moved before Dumbledore could answer. His eyes narrowed on the sigils, the pulsing light beneath their palms.
"These markings…" His voice dipped lower, cautious. "They are not contemporary magic."
Dumbledore didn't look away from the girls.
"They are older than this castle."
Snape shot him a look. "You know what they are."
"I recognize the shape," Dumbledore said, "but not the source. My memory… refuses to give me more."
Cassian could hear the lie.
Even Roman could.
But the boys didn't argue.
They couldn't.
All their energy was spent holding themselves together.
Snape continued scanning the room, wand gliding through another diagnostic arc over the familiars. Pandora twitched once, tail glowing faintly. Haneera didn't move at all.
"Why did the familiars collapse?" Roman asked quietly.
"A bond," Snape said. "Whatever the girls invoked… extended through them."
Cassian gripped Shya's hand tighter.
"She wasn't supposed to—" He broke off. His throat burned. "She didn't mean for this to happen."
"No," Dumbledore agreed gently. "But intention and effect are often strangers in old magic."
The room fell silent again.
Until—
Fawkes lifted his head.
The phoenix released a tremulous note — not loud, not bright, but recognizing.
Reverent.
He stepped closer to Talora's pillow, extending his neck, as if drawn by an invisible tether. His feathers shimmered between gold and pure white.
Cassian's breath hitched.
"I've never seen him do that."
Snape's lips thinned.
"Phoenixes respond only to a very specific type of magic."
Dumbledore gave him a sharp look.
But Snape continued anyway.
"Something has changed in them," he said. "Something profound."
Cassian let out a sharp, broken breath.
"Just—tell me if they'll wake up."
Dumbledore turned to him slowly, gaze unexpectedly soft.
"They will."
"When?" Cassian pressed. "Tonight? Tomorrow?"
Roman stood, moving closer to Talora's bedside.
Dumbledore hesitated.
"A few days," he said.
Then, more quietly—
"Perhaps weeks."
Cassian's stomach dropped.
Roman went pale.
Snape passed a hand over his face, muttering something under his breath — frustration, fear, Cassian couldn't tell.
Then Dumbledore finally told the truth.
"It may be months."
The word hit like a physical blow.
Cassian's knees almost buckled.
Roman swore under his breath, stepping closer to Talora as if shielding her from the world.
Cassian leaned forward until his forehead touched Shya's knuckles.
"Please," he whispered. "Just come back."
Neither girl stirred.
But for one moment — one heartbeat — the sigils on their joined palms pulsed in perfect sync.
Gold.
Silver.
Sun.
Moon.
And in the rafters above them, dust shook loose from the stone — as if something enormous, ancient, and unseen had stretched its arms after a thousand years of sleep.
The castle felt wrong without the girls awake.
Too quiet.
Too hollow.
Too… paused, like someone had set a charm over Hogwarts telling it not to breathe too loudly.
Roman followed Snape out of the hospital wing, Cassian trailing beside him like a shadow he didn't quite recognize — pale, stiff-jawed, vibrating with a contained panic that made Roman's stomach twist.
Snape dismissed them with a short, clipped order.
Not reassurance.
Not kindness.
Just:
"Go. I will fetch you if anything changes."
They obeyed — until Snape turned a corner.
Then Roman grabbed Cassian's forearm.
"Cass. Something's happening."
Cassian didn't look at him. He just whispered:
"He's calling a meeting."
"How do you—"
"I don't know. I just… feel it."
Roman didn't argue.
They moved.
Silent. Fast. Instinctive.
Slytherin heirs navigating staff corridors like they'd been trained to since birth.
They slipped into one of the castle's forgotten listening alcoves — carved by students centuries ago — and pressed into the stone as voices murmured behind the heavy oak staffroom door.
McGonagall's voice cut first — sharp, furious, brittle.
"You cannot keep this contained, Albus! Two students are unconscious under unexplained magical conditions—"
"They are not unconscious," Dumbledore corrected gently. "Their minds and magic are active. Merely… elsewhere."
"Elsewhere?" Flitwick squeaked. "Doing what?"
Dumbledore did not answer immediately.
The pause was heavy.
"They have touched something ancient," he said at last. "Something deep."
A murmur rippled through the room.
Cassian went rigid beside Roman.
Snape spoke next, voice low and tight:
"The familiars collapsed as well. Their magical signatures are tangled with the girls' own. I have never seen such a reaction."
"And the marks?" McGonagall pushed. "Those sigils burned into their palms?"
Another pause.
Roman could hear Dumbledore's frown.
"I recognize them," he admitted softly. "But I cannot place the memory."
Snape hissed.
McGonagall gasped.
Flitwick whispered, "Heavens…"
Dumbledore continued:
"They are old. Much older than Hogwarts. Perhaps older than wands themselves."
Roman felt his pulse spike.
Cassian's fingers dug into his wrist.
Snape's voice dropped into something dangerous:
"Headmaster… what do they mean?"
"I do not know," Dumbledore answered.
A truth this time.
"But whatever occurred… it was no spell. When the basilisk vanished, something answered in its place."
Roman's breath froze.
Cassian whispered, "Shya…"
Inside, Poppy Pomfrey's voice cracked:
"Albus — will they wake?"
"They will," Dumbledore said.
"But not soon. And not unchanged."
Silence hit like a blow.
Snape's chair scraped.
"What does that mean?"
"It means we must be cautious."
"And what of the Ministry?" McGonagall demanded.
"They must not know."
Four professors spoke at once.
"Albus—!"
"Cornelius will—"
"They're children—"
"You cannot hide—"
Dumbledore cut them off, voice steady and cold.
"This stays within these walls. I will not have these girls turned into an experiment, a prophecy, or a political instrument."
The room fell still.
Poppy spoke quietly.
"And the world outside, Albus? That… pulse? The phoenix song in the early dawn?"
Roman's breath hitched.
Cassian whispered, "Phoenix song?"
Dumbledore inhaled slowly.
"It means the world felt it."
Snape growled, low.
"Should we prepare defenses?"
"Yes."
Flitwick squeaked. "Against what?"
"I do not yet know," Dumbledore said. "But magic this old does not stir without consequence."
He drew a breath.
"No one outside this room must learn what happened tonight.
Not the Ministry.
Not the Board.
Not the guardians."
McGonagall leaned forward.
"Not even those with… old ties?"
Dumbledore's voice clipped sharply.
"No."
Roman couldn't see him — but he could imagine how tightly Dumbledore's hand wrapped around his wand.
"There will be time for counsel," Dumbledore said quietly.
"When I decide it."
Snape exhaled — rough, disbelieving.
"You're afraid."
Dumbledore didn't deny it.
"I am," he said. "Because I have seen magic like this only once before."
A chill went through the room.
"And I hoped never to see it again."
The meeting ended abruptly, chairs scraping, robes sweeping, whispers rising.
Roman and Cassian waited until footsteps faded.
Then they bolted.
Cassian stopped hard, bracing a hand to the wall.
Roman stood beside him, heart pounding.
"They're not lost," Roman said quietly.
"They're still Shya and Talora."
Cassian swallowed — hard.
"No. They're not."
His voice cracked.
"But they're ours. And we're not leaving them."
Roman nodded.
"Never."
Cassian's eyes burned.
"We keep them safe until they wake."
Roman exhaled shakily.
"And after."
The boys didn't move until the castle fell silent again.
Two thirteen-year-olds.
Terrified.
Determined.
Ready to protect girls who had just touched something older than the world.