Knock, knock, knock...
A small knocking sound roused Harry from his sleep. His eyes snapped open as they took everything in.
He was sleeping just now, right?
At first Harry believed that he was experiencing another one of those strange dreams, those about Voldemort.
He ruled that out right away.
Why?
One, because he had full control of his body.
And two, because he fully recognized where he was, a place he had lived in for all his life.
It was the house of 4 Privet Drive.
Harry got to his feet, finding that he was placed at the bottom of the steps, just before the front door. He made his way to the front and peered out the window on the side of it, only to see a blackness that disallowed any attempt to see through.
"So only everything in this house is visible," Harry mumbled to himself as he looked around.
Knock, knock, knock.
The sounds that woke him up started again, in that same rhythm and beat. Harry turned, his eyes focusing on a single spot, one that he had known nearly all his life.
The cupboard under the staircase, his old room so to speak.
Claustrophobia, loneliness, panic, confusion... rage...
Harry clutched at his chest as a torrent of feelings flooded him.
"Why am I feeling this now?" Harry groaned as he struggled to remain standing.
Amidst the intense emotions, he was puzzled. After leaving the cupboard he had long since gotten used to the sight of it these past few years. Sure, there remained some feeling of uncomfortableness and sadness whenever he so much as glanced at it, but it was never like this.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Who's in there?!" Harry called out as he edged nearer, all the while clutching his chest, his heart pounding like gunfire.
He reached the cupboard' door, coming face to face with the small opening that he used to peer out off when he used to be in the cupboard.
Suddenly, a hand smashed through the thin wood, causing Harry to leap back in freight as it retreated back into the darkness.
And then he saw a pair of eyes, glowing a faint green as it peered back at him.
Silence, that's what followed as Harry stared blankly at the eyes, unable to see the face due to a darkness that cloaked the figure's features.
"Who... who are you?" Harry asked hesitantly.
His heart which was beating like gunfire before had gone oddly silent.
"Who am I?" A familiar, but almost gleeful voice sounded, creating chills down Harry's spine.
A set of teeth split, one that seemed illuminate despite the darkness. It was at this point Harry noticed an odd green glow above the figures head, trickling down and through the figures right eye. It almost look like a scar, in the shape off...
"I'm Harry Potter."
...
"Hogwarts, fifty points."
"Durmstrang, thirty points."
"And Beauxbatons, twenty points."
"Well done, champions, for getting through the first task," Bagman clapped enthusiastically as he faced the line of students. "Such a heart-pounding, intense start to the Tournament. Truly, you all deserve a pat on the back for what was shown yesterday."
His praise largely went unheard.
Most of the champions—bar Eloise, who stared vaguely at the ceiling—were far more interested in the Muggle boy off to the side. Vincent Wong sat stiffly in a wheelchair, both arms wrapped thickly in bandages, held straight as boards along the armrests. Harry stood behind him, hands on the handles.
'Couldn't wait until I was healed, could you?' Vincent thought as he carefully shifted his arms. 'At least Madam Pomfrey says only one more day.'
A wry grin crossed his face as he remembered her fretting.
"Can you not go even one year without coming here?" she'd scolded. "If there was a record for hospital visits, you and Potter would be fighting for first."
'Can't be that bad,' Vincent sighed as he looked around the room. 'I wonder where Dumbledore is?'
Bagman's voice pulled him back from his search as he started to explain the upcoming schedule.
"—the second task will be held in early February, hosted by none other than our lovely Madam Maxime," Bagman gestured grandly. "As before, you'll learn the task the day before... unless Madam Maxime decides otherwise."
Madam Maxime smiled thinly.
"Oh, and one more thing," Bagman added, glancing awkwardly at Nicholas Nott. "There's been a general agreement that we should... ah... avoid spells of such destructive scale. The centaurs were rather unhappy about the recent deforestation, so we've had to compensate them. Just something to keep in mind."
All eyes slid toward Nicholas.
He shrugged. "Fair."
"Right then! Enjoy your break, enjoy the upcoming ball, and do recover."
"That gives us just over two months," Harry muttered as they exited, pushing Vincent. "What's this about a ball?"
"If you haven't found out by now, you'll do so eventually," Nicholas responded nonchalantly.
"What's that supposed to mean—?"
"Hiya, boyz!"
They turned to see Eloise hurrying over, the rest of the Beauxbatons champions behind her. Sylvie, in particular, was glaring openly at Vincent.
'Is she holding a grudge from yesterday?' Vincent thought, offering what he hoped was a calming smile.
It did not help.
"...Bernard, you need something?" Nicholas asked, tilting his head.
"For ze dance, vould you—"
"Sorry," Nicholas cut in, scratching at where the zipper was attached to his cheek. "Already promised someone."
"Oho, rejected so fast," Eloise sighed dramatically. Then she perked up. "Ah vell! I just vanting say—yesterday vas a very good game! You too, Potter! Ze magic, it vas incredible. Ve saw everything on ze big screens!"
"Huh? Oh—thanks," Harry said, a little flustered.
Eloise turned to Vincent, eyes closed. "And you, Wong, yes? For a Muggle, zat was very impressive. You are ze reason Sylvie here got out, hm?"
"...I dropped my guard," Sylvie muttered, cheeks puffed as Eloise poked her face.
"Look, look," Eloise laughed, "she is very cute vhen she's sulking!"
"Stop," Sylvie snapped, swatting her hand away.
"In any case," Fleur said coolly, stepping forward, "we will not lose so easily next task. Nor ze one after."
"Anyvay!" Eloise declared, already dragging the others along. "Zat is all! See you guyz later!"
She waved enthusiastically as they disappeared down the corridor.
"They're as... lively as ever?" Harry noted before seeing Vincent's thoughtful expression. "What's up?"
"Hm? Well, nothing," Vincent responded before staring at where the Beauxbaton's had just been. "Just that Bernard hasn't looked directly at me for a while now, not since the selection anyway. It's probably nothing."
Harry, although curious decided not to push as he turned to Nicholas.
"What, you have something to say, Potter?" Nicholas folded his arms as he looked at the boy.
"I just wanted to say... thanks," Harry shifted his feet awkwardly. "You know, for teaching me this past month."
Nicholas raised a brow at the small show of gratitude.
"Don't mention it," Nicholas said after a brief bout of silence. "Besides, we're far from done."
"...Far from done?" Harry's repeated with some confusion.
"Of course, we only really brushed the tip of what you can achieve," Nicholas said as he started walking away. "That is, unless you're satisfied with just that. In which case, let me know in advance, it'll be less work for me."
Vincent and Harry both watched as the Slytherin turned the corner.
"Can he say anything without making it sound like an insult," Harry grumbled as he started to wheel Vincent back towards the Hospital wing.
"Hard to say," Vincent shrugged. "I'm more interested in the so-called ball dance thing. Let me know if you hear anything about it."
"Will do," Harry looked out the window, and for a split second, a shadow crossed his expression, one that Vincent would have seen had he been looking back. "Hey Vince?"
"Yeah?"
"What if I... no, forget it," Harry felt a lapse in confidence as he looked at Vincent trying to turn his head as best he could.
"...Dreams?"
Harry's silence was more than telling.
"...If you need me, let me know."
Harry chuckled. "You've said that before."
"And I'll keep saying it just to hammer it in that thick skull of yours."
"Says the one who has a head that can crack concrete."
...
Nicholas' offhand remark proved true—the two boys did eventually discover what the Ball was about.
The Yule Ball: a formal dance to be held between all three schools on Christmas Day. As Professor McGonagall had so delicately phrased it, it was "an opportunity to let one's hair down."
That very sentiment was precisely what filled Vincent's friends with dread.
Both the bespectacled boy and the redhead now sat hunched over their books, whispering frantically about the far more pressing matter at hand—finding dates. They were currently in the Great Hall studying during what should have been the Defense Against the Dark Arts class.
"Come on, Harry," Ron muttered. "You're a Triwizard Champion. If anyone can get a date, it's you—the bloke who launched a dragon. Honestly, those two girls who asked you earlier were both brilliant. Why didn't you just say yes?"
"...It happened too fast," Harry groaned, dragging his hands down his face. "I rejected them before I even thought about it."
"Well, you've got to get someone. In case you've forgotten, you're meant to lead the dance."
"Don't remind me," Harry muttered darkly.
To his increasing horror, tradition dictated that the champions open the Ball, initiating the first dance of the evening.
"I'm going to look like an idiot," Harry sighed, glancing around the room. "Speaking of, where's Vince?"
"Dunno," Ron shrugged. "Reckon he's already got a date?"
"He's with Ollivander right now... and he has an idea of who he wants to take..."
The voice was muffled but unmistakable.
Both boys turned to Hermione, whose face had been buried in a book since the moment they sat down.
"Ollivander's still here?" Harry asked, surprised.
"From what I've heard, he's rented a room somewhere in Hogsmeade," Hermione replied, finally lifting her head. "It's probably about that Arc-Wand of Vince's. Making sure it doesn't explode in his face."
"I... see." Harry exchanged a cautious look with Ron.
A silent debate passed between them—who was brave enough to ask what was wrong?
Ron slumped in defeat.
"...Fine. I'll bite. What's gotten into you, Hermione?"
"Oh, nothing's gotten into me," Hermione replied tightly. "It's not as though I'm upset about anything. I'm certainly not jealous. Definitely not."
Her quill scratched viciously across her parchment, nearly tearing through it. A palpable aura radiated from her—sharp enough that the surrounding students subtly edged their chairs away.
Harry and Ron shared another look.
Best not to pursue that.
"So," Ron said quickly, scrambling for safer ground, "you're going to send a letter to Sirius later, right?"
"Yeah, yeah I am," Harry responded, eager to focus on another topic.
...
"How do you feel Vincent?" Ollivander asked as he examined the Arc-Wand, the SEEDS separate on the tabletop between them.
Vincent and Ollivander were using the empty Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom to examine the Arc-wand, which rested open on the table between them.
"Honestly, it was less draining than I thought," Vincent replied as he examined a gemstone idly in his hands. "The response was rather quick, and the output was a whole lot more than I expected."
"I am glad it is serving you well," Ollivander said, his words soft as he continued to work on the wand.
He adjusted his spectacles and lifted a magnifying lens to the wand's inner golden layer. After a long moment, he lowered the wand and beckoned Vincent closer.
"Come. Look here."
Vincent stepped forward. Ollivander placed the tools in his hands and guided the lens to a thin seam running along the inner channel where the gold cradled the SEEDS.
At first glance it was flawless. Then Vincent saw it.
A dullness. Not rust, not quite. A faint bruising in the metal. The gold there had lost its luster, as though something inside it had breathed too close for too long.
"It is not isolated," Ollivander murmured. "The entire inner casing shows similar fatigue. Subtle. Progressive. Pure gold does not tarnish. It does not corrode. Yet this..." His finger traced the interior. "This behaves as though it has been alloyed. Altered."
Vincent frowned. "By the SEEDS?"
"Not directly." Ollivander's eyes flicked toward the embedded gems. "They are not consuming the gold. If they were, we would see pitting. Fractures. Structural collapse. Instead, the metal appears... displaced. Its integrity rewritten on a microscopic level."
Ollivander's eyes turned to Vincent.
"And yet, I don't see any signs of that on you despite your claims of it favoring your energy over the gold, how curious indeed," Ollivander said.
He reached for the Red SEED, and with careful precision, he channeled magic into it.
A tiny flame sputtered at the tip. It flickered weakly before vanishing.
Ollivander tried again, this time with the Blue SEED. A small ice crystal formed, no larger than a coin, then cracked and fell to dust.
"Hm."
After reinserting the SEEDS into the wand, Ollivander handed it off to Vincent.
The boy took it, fingers wrapping naturally around the grip. With a simple thought and intent, fire bloomed clean and bright.
Ollivander watched the flame with sharp interest.
"They respond," he said quietly, "but only faintly to me. As if I am speaking through a wall."
Vincent extinguished the fire.
"You have been using them longer than anyone," Ollivander continued. "Longer than even Professor Dumbledore did during their initial creation if what you described to me was correct. Repeated exposure appears to have... impressed something of you upon them."
Vincent's grip tightened slightly.
Imprinted.
He remembered the first day they were created. Dumbledore had wielded them without issue then.
Would he still be able to now?
Ollivander tapped the gold again.
"The Arc Wand was constructed as a conduit. A stabilizer. It isolates the strain, channels the output, protects the wielder. However, the SEEDS are adapting. While the gold is being drained, it is also being sidelined. As though the SEEDS seek something more than the wand, something that only you can offer."
The words hung in the air.
Vincent did not look away from the faint dulling within the gold.
"How long will it last?" he asked.
"For your remaining tasks? Certainly." Ollivander's tone was firm. "And some time beyond that. The degradation is gradual. It will not fail suddenly. And if you do overdo it, it's not something that can't be fixed."
A pause.
"But that is not my greater concern."
Vincent looked up.
Ollivander met his eyes, the usual warmth replaced by something far more clinical.
"You are a Muggle. There is no magical trait within you to anchor such forces. If the SEEDS continue adjusting to your presence, and if they are indeed shifting away from the wand as mediator..." He folded his hands. "There is a nonzero possibility that they may begin integrating more directly."
Vincent said nothing.
"Change of this nature does not vanish. It finds equilibrium. If it cannot reside in the gold, it will seek the next most compatible structure." Ollivander's gaze sharpened slightly. "You must consider the possibility that continued use may alter you. Not merely your capabilities. Your... state of being."
"So do you want me to stop using them?" Vincent asked.
"I suggest nothing," Ollivander replied. "I merely present a possibility, one that might change you literally from the inside out. Whether it'll turn into something good or bad is yet to be seen."
Silence stretched between them.
"They are well named," Ollivander added after a moment, voice softer now. "SEEDS implies growth. Potential. Transformation. They are not finished things, Mr. Wong. They are in the midst of becoming."
Vincent stared at the dulling gold again.
If the wand was being sidelined, then eventually it would no longer be needed.
And if that happened, what then?
"Well, as long as it lasts," Vincent said. "That's all I need."
Ollivander studied him carefully, then inclined his head.
"It will endure," he said. "The question, I suspect, is what you will become when it is no longer required."
Ollivander's words followed him long after he left the workshop.
Vincent walked the quiet corridor with his head lowered, the torchlight glinting faintly off the Arc-Wand in his hand. His fingers turned it idly, the metal rod spinning with practiced ease.
"Change me... just like I thought," he murmured.
He had always known it was a possibility. From the moment he first used the SEEDS. How it responded, and how it adapted. The possibility in using the gems to make himself into something more was not a new thought to him.
So why had he never pursued it?
Was it because he might become something beyond human?
No. He had never placed much value on remaining ordinary.
Was it because it would draw the wrong kind of attention?
No. Attention could be managed.
His steps slowed.
Maybe... it was because there had never been a suitable test subject.
Without controlled variables, without long-term observation, any conclusion would remain theoretical. A hypothesis stretching across decades, perhaps lifetimes.
'Without anyone to test on,' he thought calmly, 'I'd only ever have probabilities. Outcomes that might take several lives to verify.'
Vincent flicked the wand upward.
It spun into the air, rotating once, twice, torchlight catching along its length. For a brief moment, it seemed to hang there, suspended.
'Or just one...'
His hand rose smoothly and caught it.
'My own.'
He came to a stop.
Something shifted at the edge of his vision.
Vincent glanced sideways.
An illusory figure stood a short distance away—a man with thin-framed glasses and a composed posture. His smile was cold, measured, calculating.
Vincent regarded him without surprise.
"How ironic," he said quietly, "that I'm walking a path not so different from yours."
The figure's smile deepened.
"And just like me," it replied, voice smooth and clinical, "you've chosen yourself as the test subject."
Its gaze drifted to the wand.
"I wonder what the result will be this time."
A beat of silence.
"...and whether you'll finally abandon that delusion."
Vincent's eyes narrowed slightly.
He blinked.
The corridor was empty.
Only stone walls and flickering torchlight remained.
"...Is this because Crouch mentioned him?" Vincent exhaled softly as he resumed walking.
The name had stirred old memories. Ones that he couldn't forget if he tried.
One single step, and for a moment, his hands turned bloody.
A body passed by his feet, small, fragile... it appeared at the corner of his eye, yet, it remained completely clear in his mind.
It was vivid.
Too vivid.
He knew the exact angle of the neck. The stillness. The way the fingers had curled inward, as if grasping for something that never came.
One step later, it was gone, and the boy continued to walk without so much as a flinch.
"Delusion..." he muttered.
His grip tightened almost imperceptibly around the Arc-Wand.
"I suppose it is."
Behind him, several paces away, a girl followed in complete silence. Her wheelchair made no sound against the stone floor.
Her red eyes remained fixed on Vincent's back.
She had heard every word.
Watched every hesitation in his steps. The subtle tightening of his grip. The momentary pause when the illusion had stood at his side.
And so, the observer watches.
...
The next day...
"Hey, Luna. Want to go to the Ball with me?"
Vincent dropped into the seat across from her in the library as if he were asking about the weather.
Ginny, who had been in the midst of homework froze.
Several nearby students also froze.
Luna looked up from her book slowly. She blinked once.
"Me?" she asked lightly, pointing to herself.
"Yeah. You." Vincent pointed back without hesitation.
"With you?" she tilted her head, pale hair sliding over her shoulder.
"Yep. With me." He mirrored her gesture, tapping his own chest.
A small silence settled over the table.
Ginny's mouth fell open.
Luna studied him for a moment, putting a finger to her chin with a thoughtful expression, as if pondering the invite. Then her lips curved upward.
"Alright," she said, smiling brightly. "I'd love to go with you."
"Great." Vincent grinned.
Ginny's head snapped between Luna throughout that exchange, continuing to do so even as Vincent exited the library.
Only after the doors closed behind Vincent did the surrounding students collectively return to life.
"'Just like that?!'"
Whispers erupted almost instantly.
Luna, however, seemed entirely unaffected. She adjusted her grip on her book and resumed reading, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
All the while wearing a quiet, beautiful smile.