Alister stepped out of Borgin and Burkes, the bell above the door giving a final, dismal jingle. He didn't linger. He pulled his collar up and slipped into the deepest shadows of Knockturn Alley.
He needed height.
He found a narrow, garbage-strewn dead end between a condemned apothecary and a dark warehouse. Looking up, the rooftops were a jagged line of soot-stained chimneys against the grey London sky.
No one was watching.
Alister crouched, then sprang upward. His Tier 2 leg strength launched him fifteen feet into the air. He caught the rusted gutter of the warehouse roof with one hand, the metal groaning under his grip, and hauled himself up and over the parapet in one fluid motion.
He stood on the sloped slate roof, looking down into the maze of the alley below. The air up here tasted slightly cleaner, mixed with the metallic tang of oncoming rain.
"Okay," Alister whispered to himself, his heart hammering a slow, powerful rhythm against his ribs. "Let's see what this body can do."
He knew he couldn't do a full transformation yet; his bones would snap under the density. But the Hybrid form... that was ready.
He unbuttoned his heavy wool coat and shrugged out of his shirt, dropping them onto the roof tiles. The cold April air bit at his bare skin.
He closed his eyes, focusing inward on the coiled, obsidian mass of the dragon spirit.
"Wings," he commanded.
Pain ripped across his upper back—hot, searing, and ecstatic.
With a wet, tearing sound, his skin split over his shoulder blades. Two massive appendages erupted from his back, unfurling like sails in a gale.
They were magnificent and terrifying. Leathery membranes as black as a starless night stretched between bones tough as steel. Along the leading edges, rows of razor-sharp, metallic silver quills glittered viciously, humming with latent energy.
The weight of them nearly threw him off balance on the slippery slates. They were heavy, shifting his center of gravity backward.
Alister gasped, rolling his shoulders, feeling the strange new muscles twitching nervously on his back. He flared the wings out to their full span—easily fifteen feet across—casting a massive shadow over the roof.
"Right," Alister muttered, staring over the edge of the roof at the cobblestones three stories down. "Time to try them out."
He crouched low, his claws digging into the slate.
Then, he launched himself into the open air.
For the first second, he just fell. Gravity grabbed him, dragging him down toward the alley floor.
Then, instinct took over.
He slammed his wings downward with all his might.
WHOOSH.
The force of the downbeat was immense. It didn't just stop his fall; it jerked him upward violently. He shot ten feet into the air, but he hadn't accounted for the torque.
He spun wildly out of control.
"Woah!"
He flapped again, unevenly. His left wing caught more air than his right. He careened sideways, crashing shoulder-first into a brick chimney stack.
CRUNCH.
Bricks exploded outward, tumbling down into the alley below.
Alister grunted, bouncing off the chimney. He was durable, but it still stung. He flapped again, desperately trying to stabilize, his legs kicking at empty air like a swimmer who had forgotten how to tread water.
He tumbled through the air above Knockturn Alley, dipping dangerously low over the rooftops, looking less like a majestic dragon and more like a very large, very drunk bat.
"Balance... find the balance," he grit his teeth, fighting the urge to just fold the wings and drop.
He extended his arms, using them as counterweights. He stopped thrashing and let the wind catch the membrane, gliding for a few precarious seconds before trying a gentler flap.
It worked. He rose steadily, clearing the chimney tops.
He was flying.
He beat his wings again, harder this time, gaining confidence. He climbed higher, leaving the smoke of the alley behind, rising toward the grey clouds over London.
Alister climbed higher, punching through the dreary grey cloud layer hanging over London until he burst into the dazzling, blinding sunlight of the upper atmosphere.
Below him, the city was just a sprawling grey patch. Above, the sky was an endless, piercing blue.
The wind up here was ferocious, tearing at his clothes and chilling his skin, but his internal dragon fire kept him warm. His wings beat with a steady, rhythmic thump-thump, driving him North.
"Too slow," Alister muttered, his voice snatched away by the gale.
He was fast—maybe sixty miles per hour—but at this rate, it would take him half the day to reach Scotland.
He raised his scaled hand—and pointed it at his own chest.
"Pondus Subtractum." (Weight Reduce).
Followed immediately by: "Aeris Scutum." (Air Shield).
The effect was instantaneous.
Gravity seemed to lose its grip on him. His body, which weighed nearly two hundred pounds of dense muscle and bone, suddenly felt lighter than a feather. The drag on his wings vanished as the air shield deflected the wind around him, creating a frictionless pocket of aerodynamic perfection.
He flapped his wings once.
BOOM.
He didn't just accelerate; he shot forward like he had been fired from a cannon.
The sonic boom rippled through the clouds below him. The landscape became a blur of green and brown. He was moving faster than a Firebolt. Faster than any biological creature had the right to move.
He tucked his wings slightly, turning his body into a living missile. He felt the thrill of it vibrate through his bones—the pure, unadulterated speed. He watched the English countryside vanish, replaced by the industrial smoke of the Midlands, then the rolling hills of the North, and finally, the rugged, snow-capped peaks of the Scottish Highlands.
What should have been a twelve-hour journey took him 2 hours.
He spotted the familiar silhouette of Hogwarts castle in the distance, perched beside the Black Lake. And below it, the tiny, thatched-roof village of Hogsmeade.
He canceled the weight-reduction charm to regain his mass. He flared his wings wide to act as an airbrake.
The wind roared as he decelerated, banking hard over the Shrieking Shack. He aimed for a secluded ridge overlooking the village, a spot hidden by tall pines and rocky outcrops.
He hit the ground running, his boots skidding through the dirt, his wings acting as a parachute until he came to a halt.
Steam rose from his skin. His chest heaved, not from exhaustion, but from the sheer rush of the flight.
"Not bad," Alister grinned, his fangs glinting. "Definitely faster than the train."
With a sickening squelch and the sound of cracking bone, the massive limbs folded inward, vanishing beneath his skin. He pulled his spare shirt and coat back on, buttoning them up to hide the shredded remains of his previous outfit.
He walked to the edge of the ridge and looked down at Hogsmeade.
The village was quiet. It was the holidays, so there were no students, only the locals going about their business. The Hog's Head Inn sat at the edge of the village, its sign creaking in the wind.
__________________________________________________
The sun dipped below the mountains, plunging Hogsmeade into a deep, purple twilight.
Inside the Hog's Head Inn, the atmosphere was tense. It smelled of sawdust, goats, and cheap gin.
Aberforth Dumbledore stood behind the bar, aggressively polishing a dirty glass with a dirty rag. He glared at the motley collection of witches and wizards who had crowded into his usually empty back room.
Mr. Borgin had done his job well.
There was Barnabas Cuffe, the editor of the Daily Prophet, looking uncomfortable on a sticky wooden stool. There was a reporter from the Wizarding Wireless Network, fiddling with a recording enchanted gramophone.
There was a representative from Transfiguration Today, looking bored. And, buzzing around the edges with a Quick-Quotes Quill poised like a dagger, was Rita Skeeter, her jeweled glasses glinting greedily.
"Who is this source, Borgin?" Cuffe demanded, checking his pocket watch. "I missed a dinner with the Minister for this. If it's another goblin coin scam..."
"Patience," Borgin hissed from the corner, though he looked sweaty. "You're not worthy of being scammed by him. He will be here."
____________________________________________________
Outside, in the alleyway behind the inn.
Alister stood in the shadows. 7:59 PM.
He needed to shed the skin of "Alister Potter, Student." He needed to become something else. Something the Wizarding World would fear and respect.
He drew his hand and tapped his chest. "Transmogrify."
His shirt and coat flowed like water. The fabric darkened, thickening and hardening until it resembled the matte-black scales of his Dragon form. It reshaped into a high-collared, militaristic trench coat made of something that looked like Dragon-hide, sweeping down to his ankles.
He tapped his throat. "Vocis Profundus."
His vocal cords tightened. When he tested a hum, it came out as a subsonic growl that vibrated in the chest of anyone nearby.
Finally, the face.
He pulled the hood of the coat up. It cast a deep shadow over his features, but that wasn't enough. He channeled his mana into the hood, weaving a Shadow-Veil Charm.
Inside the hood, his face became a void of absolute darkness. No nose, no mouth, no skin visible.
Only his eyes remained, which also transformed.
Two piercing, electric-blue vertical slits ignited within the darkness of the hood. They didn't just glow; they burned with cold, alien intelligence.
"System," Alister commanded mentally. "Control the Aura Output to intimidate anyone who stands near me."
The air around him dropped ten degrees. The puddles in the alleyway froze over with a crackling sound. A heavy, suffocating pressure—the feeling of being watched by a apex predator—radiated outward from him.
"Showtime."
_____________________________________________
Inside the Hog's Head.
"That's it," Cuffe stood up, grabbing his bowler hat. "I'm leaving. This is a waste of—"
BOOM.
The back door of the inn didn't open; it slammed against the wall as if hit by a battering ram.
The wind from the impact blew out every candle in the room.
Darkness swallowed the press. The only light came from the dying embers in the fireplace.
Then, two blue eyes ignited in the doorway.
Silence descended instantly. Not the polite silence of a library, but the terrified silence of a jungle when a tiger steps into the clearing.
Alister walked in.
His boots made heavy, rhythmic thuds on the floorboards Thump... Thump... Thump.
He was tall—too tall for a normal wizard. The dragon-hide trench coat swirled around him like smoke. The air in the room grew heavy, making it hard to breathe, as if gravity itself had increased.
Rita Skeeter's Quick-Quotes Quill stopped moving. It actually trembled and dropped to the floor.
Alister walked to the single empty chair at the head of the room. He didn't sit. He stood behind it, his gloved hands gripping the backrest.
He scanned the room. His blue, slit-pupiled eyes locked onto each reporter, one by one, weighing their souls.
When he spoke, his voice was a deep, distorted rasp that sounded like grinding stones.
"You are here because you are tired of the stagnant rot magic has become. You are here because you want to see it ignite the world once more—with passion."
He leaned forward, the blue eyes burning brighter in the void of his hood.
"I am the Architect. And I am here to sell you the future of magic."
(END OF CHAPTER)
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