"There is no such thing as safe power. There is only power you control, and power that controls you. The difference is not in the spell, but in the stillness of the mind that casts it."
— From the personal journals of Phineas Nigellus Black.
September 1960 - Grimmauld Place, London, England
The library of Number 12 Grimmauld Place was a cathedral of silence, smelling of dust, beeswax, and dead magic.
Vega Black, aged three, stood at the foot of the mahogany bookshelf. He was trembling.
He wasn't trembling from fear. He was trembling from a frustration so pure, so hot and blinding, that it felt like magma bubbling in his small chest.
He wanted the book.
It was a simple text—Basic Runes for the Young Noble—but it was on the fourth shelf.
Deep in the back of his mind, Vega knew he should be able to reach it. He had a ghost-memory of being tall, of having limbs that obeyed him, of a world where he wasn't trapped in this clumsy, small vessel. The dissonance between who he felt he was—capable, large, intelligent-and who he was, small, weak, ignored, was maddening.
"Want," Vega whispered, his voice cracking.
He stood on his tiptoes. His fingers brushed the empty air a foot below the shelf.
Reach, his mind urged. Just reach.
The magic in his blood heard him. It didn't wait for a spell or a wand. It simply reacted to the desperate, childish need to be longer.
Vega felt a sudden, sickening heat in his shoulder. It wasn't pain, exactly; it was the nausea of his own biology liquefying.
He reached up.
With a wet, sliding sound, his right arm didn't just lift; it spilled. The humerus bone softened like hot wax, the skin thinned, and the muscle fibers tore and re-knit in a horrific instant. His arm shot up two feet, unnaturally long, greyish and spindly, like a spider's limb dragging through the air.
His fingers brushed the spine of the book.
But the sensation wasn't victory. It was horror.
The feeling of his own body disregarding the laws of nature was terrifying. He felt unconnected. He felt like he was leaking out of his own skin. The "gift" wasn't a tool; it was a monster, and it was eating his arm.
"No," Vega whimpered, shrinking back. He tried to pull his arm down.
It didn't retract. It hung there, limp and alien, a heavy, dead weight attached to his toddler body.
Real, primal panic set in.
He wasn't an ancient soul or a prodigy in that moment. He was a little boy who had broken himself.
I'm melting, he thought, the tears spilling hot and fast down his cheeks. I can't stop it.
He opened his mouth and screamed. It was a high, terrified wail that shattered the glass inkwell on the desk across the room.
The heavy oak doors slammed open.
Arcturus Black didn't run—Blacks did not run—but he moved with a speed that belied his age. He took in the scene instantly: the shattered glass, the sobbing boy, and the grotesque, elongated arm dragging on the floor like a dead snake.
Arcturus didn't recoil. He didn't look disgusted.
He looked... sorrowful.
He crossed the room and knelt on one knee, ignoring the loud crack of his joints. He didn't touch the deformed arm. He grabbed Vega's other shoulder and his waist, his large, callous hands grounding the boy.
"Vega," Arcturus said. His voice wasn't a boom; it was a low rumble, like distant earth. "Look at me."
Vega was hyperventilating, his chest hitching with sobs. "Can't... can't fix..."
"Breathe," Arcturus commanded gently. He pulled the boy into his chest, blocking the view of the monstrous limb. "You are not your body, Vega. You are the mind inside it."
Vega sobbed into his grandfather's heavy robes, smelling the tobacco and old wool. He felt small. He didn't feel like an heir. He felt like a mistake.
"It hurts," Vega whispered.
"I know," Arcturus murmured, his hand stroking the back of Vega's head with surprising tenderness. "Magic is heavy, little star. And your vessel is still small. You tried to pour the ocean into a tea cup. The cup cracked."
Arcturus pulled back slightly, forcing Vega to look him in the eye. The old man's grey eyes were hard, but not unkind. They were anchors.
"Close your eyes," the Patriarch instructed. "Don't think about the arm. Think about the bone. Rigid. Hard. Unchanging."
Vega sniffed, closing his swollen eyes. He tried to find the feeling. Bone. White. Hard.
"Imagine it," Arcturus guided, his voice deep and steady. "Pull yourself back together. Will it to be solid."
Vega focused. He felt the sickening slide of flesh again, but this time it was retreating. The heat in his shoulder cooled. The horrible dragging weight vanished.
When he opened his eyes, his arm was normal. Small. Chubby. Bruised, but normal.
Vega slumped against the bookshelf, exhausted. The burst of accidental magic had drained him completely.
Arcturus remained kneeling. He reached out and picked up the book—Basic Runes—that had fallen to the floor. He held it out.
"You wanted this?"
Vega nodded mutely, shame burning his cheeks.
"Next time," Arcturus said, placing the book in Vega's lap, "ask for a stool."
It was a dry comment, but Vega saw the corner of his grandfather's mouth twitch.
Vega looked up, wiping his nose on his sleeve. "You aren't mad?"
"Mad?" Arcturus sighed, shifting his weight to stand up, using his cane heavily. "Why would I be mad at a bird for falling before it learns to fly?"
He offered a hand to the boy.
"But we must teach you to land, Vega. Before you break your neck."
Later that evening, the house was quiet.
Vega sat in his nursery, clutching a stuffed dragon. He was afraid to sleep. He was afraid that if he relaxed, if he let go of his focus, he would turn into a puddle of flesh on the sheets. The memory of the stretch made his stomach turn.
The door creaked.
Arcturus stood in the doorway, his silhouette framed by the gaslight of the hall.
"Grandfather?" Vega whispered.
Arcturus walked into the room. He sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. He looked tired.
"You are afraid," Arcturus stated. Not a question.
"I'm dangerous," Vega said, staring at his hands.
"You are," Arcturus agreed softly. "You are a hurricane trapped in a jar. That does not make you evil, Vega. It makes you full."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, silver object. It was a ring, simple and unadorned, made of goblin-wrought silver. It looked dull in the dim light.
"Give me your hand."
Vega held out his hand. Arcturus placed the ring in his palm. It was cold, heavy for its size.
"This is a Focus," Arcturus explained. "It is not a wand. It does not cast spells. It simply... holds on. When you feel the change coming, when you feel you are going to spill over, you squeeze this. It will ground you. It will remind your body of its shape."
Vega closed his fingers around the cold metal. He felt a hum—not a magical surge, but a dampener. A quiet, steady pressure that silenced the static in his blood.
"Why?" Vega asked, looking up at the old man.
Arcturus looked at the wall, at the shadows dancing there. His expression softened into something that looked like grief.
"Because I had a brother once," Arcturus said, his voice sounding very far away. "He had too much magic, and not enough skin to keep it in. I will not lose another."
He stood up, the moment of vulnerability vanishing as quickly as it had come. He was the Lord of House Black again.
"Sleep, Vega. Tomorrow, we do not practice magic."
"No?"
"No," Arcturus said, pausing at the door. "Tomorrow, we practice meditation. You must learn to be a stone before you can be the water."
The door clicked shut.
Vega lay back in the dark, clutching the silver ring. The fear was still there, but it was manageable now. He wasn't melting. He had the ring. He had the stone.
A stone, he thought, drifting off, his thumb rubbing the cold silver. I can be a stone.
And for the first time, he slept without dreaming.