The stars do not predict the future. They merely record the past with such precision that the future becomes malleable." — Celestial Magister, Ngwabe Idoyabe in Introduction to Celestial Mechanics
September 4, 1969, 11:00 PM
The castle at midnight was a different beast.
During the day, Hogwarts was a bustle of noise and movement. At night, it felt like the inside of a held breath. The portraits slept, or pretended to. The torches burned low. The air grew colder, and the stone walls seemed to seep a heavy, ancient silence.
Vega stood in the Slytherin Common Room, adjusting his telescope strap. The room was bathed in the eerie green glow of the lake, which was currently pitch black save for the occasional bioluminescent drift of a grindylow.
"I don't see why we can't learn stars from a book," Barty Crouch Jr. yawned, rubbing his eyes. "It's freezing outside."
"Books are flat, Crouch," Cyrus Greengrass said, checking his pocket watch. "The sky is three-dimensional. And besides, the Black family would have a fit if their heir learned astronomy from a diagram."
Vega checked his cuffs. "Let's go. Narcissa is waiting."
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They met Narcissa at the entrance to the spiral staircase leading out of the dungeons.
"Astronomy," Narcissa announced, her voice a hushed whisper that carried authority. "The only subject that requires us to leave the safety of the castle and expose ourselves to the void."
She turned and began the climb.
"We go to the highest point of the castle. The Astronomy Tower. It is a long climb. Do not lag behind. The staircases are temperamental at this hour; they like to disconnect if they sense weakness."
They climbed. And climbed.
They passed the ground floor, the first floor, the library. They kept going until the air grew thin and cold.
"Narcissa," Vega asked quietly as they reached the seventh-floor landing. "Why midnight? The stars are visible at nine."
Narcissa paused, looking back at him.
"Because of the interference, Vega. During the waking hours, the castle leaks magic. Thousands of spells, hundreds of students, the ghosts, the wards... it creates a 'noise' that distorts the delicate starlight. At midnight, the castle sleeps. The ambient magic settles. The atmosphere becomes... transparent."
She gestured to a narrow, spiraling wooden staircase that seemed to go on forever.
"Up we go."
The Tower
Narcissa stopped at the archway leading to the open ramparts. She didn't step out into the biting wind. She remained in the shelter of the stairwell, a gatekeeper in pristine silver and black.
"This is the threshold," she murmured, her voice barely carrying over the whistle of the gale. "Beyond this point, the castle's wards thin out to allow for celestial observation. You are exposed. Do not lean over the edge, and do not drop your equipment.
She gave Vega a sharp, significant look, a reminder of the Ring, the duty, and the name, and then turned, descending into the dark throat of the staircase.
Vega stepped out.
The wind hit them instantly, a biting, icy gale straight from the Highlands . The wind whipped at his robes, but Vega planted his feet, letting the Hum in his blood adjust his internal temperature.
The sky was a riot of diamonds. Without the light pollution of London, the Milky Way looked like a spilled river of milk. The constellations weren't just dots; they were burning, vibrant signatures
The tower was a circular platform of pale stone, ringed by crenellations. In the center stood a massive, brass orrery that clicked and whirred, tracking moons that Vega didn't recognize.
But it was the woman standing by the parapet who commanded the space.
Aurora Sinistra was young, perhaps only a few years out of her own mastery. Her skin was the color of dark obsidian, creating a stark contrast against robes of midnight blue silk that seemed to shimmer with a liquid, internal starlight.
When she turned, her movements were fluid, like ink dropped in water. Her eyes were dark, lined with kohl in the ancient style of the Nile Delta.
"Welcome," she said. Her voice was rich, carrying the distinct, rhythmic lilt of Coptic Arabic—a sound that spoke of desert nights and library scrolls older than Hogwarts itself. "To the roof of the world."
Vega unpacked his telescope. It was a heavy, goblin-wrought instrument Arcturus had commissioned. As he screwed the lens into place, he felt the heavy thrum of the tower.
"Set up," she ordered, her voice crisp. "Telescopes to the south. We are tracking the retrograde of Mars."
Vega set up his brass telescope. The metal was freezing. He adjusted the lenses, feeling the Hum in his blood react to the altitude. The Quetzalcoatl feather in his sleeve was ecstatic, vibrating with the proximity to the open sky.
"Why are we here?" Sinistra asked, walking among them. "Why do wizards study the stars? Is it for horoscopes? For fortune telling?"
She stopped by a Ravenclaw girl.
"Miss Claret. Do you read your horoscope?"
"Sometimes, Professor."
"Garbage," Sinistra scoffed. "Astrology is a parlor trick for Muggles. Astronomy is magic."
She pointed her wand at the sky. A beam of white light shot out, connecting three stars in a perfect triangle.
"Magic," Sinistra said, "is energy. Energy comes from the earth, yes. From the ley lines. But where do the ley lines come from?"
She traced a line from the triangle down to the horizon.
"The earth is a magnet. The stars are the current. The alignment of the planets dictates the flow of magical radiation hitting our atmosphere. When Mars is bright, combat magic is 12% more volatile. When Venus is in retrograde, love potions bind with greater strength, We study the stars not to predict the future, but to know the why."
Mr. Crouch," Sinistra's voice cut through the wind. "You are squinting. Why?"
"It's dark, Professor," Barty muttered, struggling with his tripod.
"It is night," Sinistra corrected, walking toward him. "Darkness is not an obstacle; it is a canvas. Muggles fear the dark because they cannot see what hunts them. We embrace the dark because it allows us to see the light that traveled a million years to reach us."
She waved her wand, a long, slender piece of ebony.
"Sphaera Caelestis."
The world fell away.
Vega gasped. He couldn't help it.
The stone floor of the tower dissolved. The parapets vanished. The wind stopped.
They were no longer standing on a tower in Scotland. They were floating in the dead center of the Milky Way.
It wasn't a projection. It was a total sensory immersion. Stars burned above, below, and around them—millions of them, ranging from angry red giants to piercing blue dwarfs. Nebulae swirled like clouds of bruised neon gas.
"Muggles," Sinistra said, her voice echoing in the infinite space, "landed on the moon two months ago. They put a man in a tin can, shot him through the vacuum, and planted a flag. They called it a giant leap."
She walked on the air, stepping casually over the Rings of Saturn.
"It was a hop. A toddler's first step."
She stopped in front of Vega, the starlight reflecting in her dark eyes.
"Wizards have been mapping Alpha Centauri since the Pharaohs. We do not need rockets, Mr. Black. We need only glass, geometry, and magic."
She looked at him. In the starlight, Vega felt exposed. The Heir Ring felt heavy, reacting to the sheer density of the cosmic magic around them.
"Vega," she said, testing the name. Her accent wrapped around the vowels, making it sound ancient. "Wega. The Falling Eagle. The harp star."
"The fifth brightest in the sky," Vega replied, keeping his voice steady despite the fact that he was floating in a void.
"And once the North Star," Sinistra added. "Twelve thousand years ago, the world turned around you. And in twelve thousand years, it will again."
She gestured to a brilliant blue-white star burning above his head.
"The House of Black has always tied itself to the heavens. Sirius. Regulus. Bellatrix. Andromeda. You do not just name your children; you bind them to celestial bodies. It is an arrogant magic."
She smiled, and it was a terrifyingly beautiful expression.
"But effective. You carry the resonance. When Mars is angry, does your blood boil, Mr. Black?"
Vega thought of the rage he sometimes felt—the Black Madness that simmered in Bellatrix.
"Sometimes," Vega admitted. "But I prefer the cold."
"Then look," Sinistra ordered. She pointed to his telescope, which was floating beside him in the illusion. "The lens is enchanted with a runic array derived from the High Elves. It does not just magnify light; it magnifies intent."
Vega leaned into the eyepiece.
He didn't look at the moon. He didn't look at Mars.
He looked at Vega. The star.
Through the magical lens, the star wasn't just a dot of light. It was a roaring, spinning sphere of blue fire. He could see the solar flares whipping off the surface, arcs of plasma larger than the Earth. He could hear it—a low, humming drone that vibrated in his teeth.
It's alive, Vega realized. Thorne talked about the Void-Callers. The stars aren't rocks. They're engines.
"We are made of this," Sinistra whispered, her voice right beside his ear, though she stood feet away. "Iron in your blood? Forged in a star's death. The gold in your ring? Smelted in a supernova. We are not observing the universe, Vega. We are the universe observing itself."
The illusion faded.
The stone floor rushed back. The wind howled again. The stars retreated to their distant pinpricks.
The first years stood blinking, disoriented, clutching their telescopes.
"That," Sinistra said, "is Astronomy. It is the study of scale. It is the realization that your petty squabbles, your house points, and your blood statuses are mathematically insignificant against the rotation of a galaxy."
"You have seen the scale," Sinistra said, her voice cutting through the wind with that distinct, rhythmic cadence of the Nile Delta. "You have seen that you are dust. Now, we discuss why dust matters."
She stopped at the massive brass orrery in the center of the platform. It was a complex beast of gears, floating spheres, and concentric rings, humming with a low-grade magical resonance.
"Harmonics," she announced.
She tapped the sphere representing Mars with her ebony wand.
HUMMM.
A low, aggressive vibration rippled through the air. It wasn't a sound; it was a feeling. It rattled Vega's teeth. It made the Hum in his blood spike with a sudden, hot aggression.
"Planets are not silent," Sinistra lectured, walking around the machine. "They are massive bodies of mass and magical density spinning in a vacuum. They create a wake. A resonance."
She tapped Venus.
Thrummm.
This sound was higher, sweeter, cloying. It made the air feel thick and heavy, like perfume.
"When Mars aligns with Jupiter," Sinistra explained, tapping a third sphere, "the frequencies intersect. They create an interference pattern. A chord."
She waved her wand, and the orrery spun faster. The sounds layered over each other—the aggression of Mars, the weight of Jupiter, the song of Venus—creating a complex, discordant symphony.
"This is Celestial Harmonics."
Sinistra killed the movement with a sharp gesture. The orrery froze.
"Magic is intent," she said, facing the class. "But intent must travel through a medium. The background radiation of the universe is that medium. And the planets? They are the weather."
She looked at Vega.
"If you cast a Fire Charm when Mars is in the ascendant, Mr. Black, the harmonic resonance of the planet amplifies the thermal output of your spell by a factor of three."
Vega nodded slowly, his mind racing. It's not just astrology. It's an amplifier. It's gain control.
"But how do we know?" Cyrus Greengrass asked, shivering in his scarf. "How do we know which chord is playing?"
Sinistra smiled. It was the smile of a predator who had just spotted prey.
"You calculate it."
She waved her wand at the air, and glowing numerals appeared, hanging in the void like constellations.
"Arithmancy," she declared. "The sister of Astronomy. You will not take this subject until your third year, but you must understand the link now."
She pointed to the glowing diagram of nested geometric shapes.
"The universe is geometry. The distance between Earth and Mars is not just miles; it is a variable in an equation. Arithmancy is the math we use to predict the music. If you can calculate the angle of the planetary alignment, you can predict the exact second your potion will become stable, or the exact degree of power your wand will output."
She walked over to Vega, leaning against the parapet, unbothered by the three-hundred-foot drop.
"A hedge wizard casts a spell and hopes it works," she whispered, her dark eyes reflecting the starlight. "A Master calculates the variables, waits for the harmonic window, and casts a spell that breaks reality because he knows exactly where the cracks are."
"Mr. Black," Sinistra said. "Step forward."
Vega stepped up to the parapet. The wind buffeted him, but the Ring on his finger felt heavy and warm, a grounding anchor.
"Your blood invited change. That makes you a sensitive receiver."
She pointed at the red eye of Mars hanging low in the southern sky.
"Close your eyes. Don't look at it. Listen to it."
Vega closed his eyes.
He clamped down on his conscious thoughts. He dropped the shields of the Ring just a fraction, opening the aperture of his senses.
At first, he felt only the cold and the wind.
Then, he felt it.
It was a dull, rhythmic throbbing at the base of his skull. It felt like distant war drums. Boom. Boom. Boom. It was angry. It was jagged.
His Metamorphmagus blood reacted. His skin pricked with heat. His muscles tightened, flooding with adrenaline. The Quetzalcoatl feather in his sleeve vibrated, agitated, wanting to strike something.
"I feel it," Vega whispered. "It's... aggressive. It feels like iron."
"Good," Sinistra's voice cut through the trance. "Now find Venus."
Vega shifted his focus. He searched the blackness behind his eyelids.
He found it. A high, steady whine. It felt soft, slippery. It made his skin want to smooth out, to become flawless.
"I have it," he murmured.
"Open."
Vega opened his eyes. The world rushed back.
"That is the difference between a student and an adept," Sinistra addressed the class. "A student reads a star chart. An adept feels the tide coming in."
She gestured to the telescopes.
"For your homework, you will not just map the stars. You will calculate the harmonic interference of the Mars retrograde on the spell stability of the castle. Use the charts on page 42. If your calculations are off by even a decimal point, you will fail. There is no 'close enough' in orbital mechanics."
The lesson ended with the tolling of the midnight hour from the clock tower below.
"Go," Sinistra dismissed them, turning back to her orrery. "The void is cold, and you are fragile."
They packed up in silence, the weight of the lesson pressing down on them.
Narcissa was waiting at the door to the stairwell. She looked at Vega as he approached, noting the tightness around his eyes.
"She pushes hard," Narcissa noted quietly as they began the long descent down the spiral stairs.
"She doesn't teach magic," Vega murmured, his hand trailing on the stone wall. "She teaches physics. Weaponized physics."
"That is why she is dangerous," Narcissa agreed. "Most witches look at a cauldron and see soup. Sinistra looks at the sky and sees a firing solution."
Cyrus Greengrass was walking behind them, rubbing his temples.
"Math," he groaned. "I came here to turn things into frogs, not to do trigonometry."
"It's not trigonometry, Cyrus," Vega said, his mind still buzzing with the feeling of the war drums in the sky. "It's the sheet music for the opera."
He touched the wand in his sleeve. The feather was still humming, energized by the Martian light.