The silence that followed was heavy, pressing against the eardrums like deep water.
Barnabas Cuffe was the first to find his voice. The Editor of the Daily Prophet straightened his bowler hat, though his hands were trembling slightly. He looked at the imposing, shadowed figure, then at the frozen puddle on the floor, and finally managed a scoff. A weak, wet sound.
"The future?" Cuffe repeated, trying to inject authority into his voice but failing. "You storm in here, destroy the door, freeze the room, and speak in riddles? Who are you? A dark wizard? A revolutionary?"
"I am selling evolution," The Architect replied. His voice was synthetic, a grinding rasp that seemed to vibrate in the teeth of everyone present.
Architect stepped forward. The reporters shrank back against the bar. He ignored them, focusing his burning blue eyes on the room at large.
"For a thousand years, wizard kind has been stagnant," Architect declared, pacing slowly. "You believe power is a lottery. You think it comes from 'Pure Blood' or 'talent.' You wave your sticks and mutter Latin like children playing with matches."
He stopped in front of the representative from Transfiguration Today, the young wizard named Sallow.
"You, boy. Cast a Lumos."
Sallow blinked, terrified. "I... what?"
"Do it."
Sallow fumbled for his wand, his hand shaking. " Lumos."
A small, polite ball of white light flickered at the tip of his wand. It was standard. Adequate. Boring.
Architect laughed—a harsh, distorted sound. "Pathetic. Your mana is a stagnant pond. It sits in your core, sluggish and heavy, waiting to be scooped out by a wand."
Architect reached out. His gloved hand moved faster than Sallow could react, gripping the young wizard's wrist.
"Let me show you what happens when you turn that pond into a river."
Architect's blue eyes flared. He didn't cast a spell. Instead, he pumped his own mana—violent, predatory, and highly compressed—into Sallow's wrist.
Sallow screamed, but it wasn't from pain. It was shock.
He could feel it. Everyone in the room could hear it—a low, thrumming sound like a high-tension wire. Under Architect's guidance, the magic inside Sallow's body was being forced to move. It wasn't just sitting in his chest anymore; it was rushing through his veins, spiraling through his arms, legs, and spine in a complex, geometric pattern.
"Breathe," Architect ordered. "Feel the cycle. Sternum, shoulder, elbow, wrist. Don't push the magic. Spin it."
Sallow's eyes rolled back. Veins bulged on his neck, glowing faintly blue beneath his skin. The air around him began to distort from the heat radiating off his body.
"Now," Architect whispered, releasing his wrist but keeping the pressure of his aura heavy. "Cast it again."
Sallow gasped, his lungs heaving. He looked at his wand. He felt... full. He felt like he had just drunk ten Pepperup Potions. The magic was screaming to be let out.
"Lumos!" Sallow roared.
FLASH.
It wasn't a wand-light. It was a supernova.
A blinding explosion of pure white brilliance erupted from the wand. It didn't just light the room; it bleached it. The reporters shielded their eyes, crying out as the sheer intensity of the light seared their retinas. The heat from the tip of the wand instantly singed the eyebrows of the man standing next to Sallow.
The light held for three agonizing seconds before flickering out, leaving spots dancing in everyone's vision.
Sallow dropped to his knees, panting, staring at his hands in disbelief. "I... I've never... that wasn't me. I'm not that strong."
"You are," Architect said, his voice cutting through the stunned silence. "You always were. You were just doing everything wrong like others your entire life."
Architect turned back to Cuffe and Skeeter. He reached into his heavy dragon-hide coat and pulled out not a weapon, but a book.
It was thin, bound in black leather, with a single blue geometric diagram etched on the cover.
"Today's magic schools teaches you to memorize spells," Architect said, tossing the book onto the sticky table in front of Cuffe. "I am teaching you how to cultivate power."
The book landed with a heavy thud.
"This is the Mana Circulation Manual: Vol 1," Architect announced. "It teaches the 'Lesser Orbit.' Even a Squib without a drop of magic can use this to gather magic in their bodies in a month. A trained wizard? They become a war machine."
Rita Skeeter's Quick-Quotes Quill was trembling, hovering over her notepad. "You... you intend to sell this? To everyone?"
"Sell? I want everything about this book to be known globally and even used by every wizard ," Alister corrected coldly. "Think of the Purebloods realizing that their 'superior breeding' means nothing against superior technique."
He leaned in, the blue flames in his hood narrowing.
"These pure bloods are the biggest contributors to stagnation of wizard's strength, and I am gonna end their blood hierarchy."
"Wait!" Cuffe stammered, looking at the book as if it were a bomb. "If the Ministry finds out—"
"The Ministry cannot ban breathing," Architect interrupted smoothly. "And that is all my method is. A way to breathe... with your soul."
He turned to leave, his heavy coat swirling around his ankles, the terrified silence of the reporters hanging in the air.
"Boy."
The voice was rough, like gravel grinding against stone. It cut through the tension instantly.
Architect paused. He didn't turn around immediately.
Aberforth Dumbledore had stopped polishing the glass. He slammed it down on the bar counter—hard. The old barman leaned forward, his blue eyes piercing through the gloom, locking onto the burning blue slits of the Architect's mask.
"Do you know what you are doing?" Aberforth growled, his voice low but carrying a dangerous weight. "Do you have any idea how much chaos this will cause to this... peaceful magic society?"
Architect slowly turned his head. The flames in his hood flared, but he didn't attack. Instead, a low, distorted chuckle vibrated from the darkness of his cowl.
"Peace?" Alister repeated, the word dripping with venom.
He fully turned, facing the old man. The temperature in the room plummeted another five degrees.
"It is this 'peace' that I wish to end."
Barnabas Cuffe gasped, clutching his notepad, but Architect ignored him. He walked back toward the bar, each step a heavy thud of military boots against wood.
"Look at you," Architect rasped, gesturing to the room, to the reporters, to the world outside. "You think this is peace? This is decay. You are rotting in a gilded cage."
He slammed his gloved hand onto the bar, right in front of Aberforth.
"Don't you think wizards and magic are going to be extinct in a few decades if we keep living in this so-called peace? Squib births are rising. The average wizard today struggles to cast a Shield Charm that could stop a snowball."
Architect leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial, terrifying whisper that the reporters strained to hear.
"And while you rot... you sleep peacefully. You sleep soundly, foolishly handing your entire economic lifeline to the Goblins."
Aberforth's eyes narrowed.
"You give your gold, your heirlooms, your very power to a race that has tried to exterminate and rule over wizards multiple times in history," Architect hissed, the logic cruel and undeniable. "You let the wolves guard the sheep pen because you are too lazy to guard it yourselves."
He straightened up, addressing the entire room now, his voice booming.
"I am not here to bring chaos, Aberforth. I am here to put a weapon in the hand of every wizard and give them a chance to rise in magic society ruled by old decaying families. I am giving everyone a fair chance to rise."
"From now on, the place where you stand will depend on hard work instead of relying entirely on opportunities and luck. I am here to remind everyone that magic is not a convenience. It is dominion."
He looked directly at Barnabas Cuffe, the Editor of the Prophet, who was clutching the black book to his chest.
"And if I don't see this being circulated tomorrow, I don't think you would like to listen to what will happen."
Then, Architect stopped holding back.
The Dragon Aura mixed with tier 3 magic pressure exploded outward from his body. It wasn't just magical pressure; it was a primal, biological frequency of terror that hit every human in the room at the genetic level.
It was the feeling of being a prey animal in the presence of an Apex Predator.
The room instantly froze.
Rita Skeeter's mouth was open to scream, but no sound came out. Her lungs refused to expand. Barnabas Cuffe tried to step back, but his legs were locked in rigid paralysis.
Even Aberforth, a wizard of immense power, found his hand gripping the bar so hard his knuckles turned white, his body refusing to obey his command to draw his wand.
Their brains were screaming Run! Move! Fight! but their bodies were stone. They were statues of flesh, pinned by the sheer weight of the Architect's presence.
Architect began to walk across the room toward the exit.
Thump... Thump... Thump.
His boots were the only sound in the dead silence. He walked past Sallow, who was staring straight ahead, tears streaming down his face from unblinking eyes. He walked past Skeeter, who was trembling microscopically, trapped in her own body.
Alister reached the shattered doorway. He didn't look back. He simply stepped out into the night.
Only when his presence vanished—only when the monster was truly gone—did the spell break.
"GASSSSP!"
It happened all at once. Every person in the room sucked in air desperately, as if they had been drowning.
Sallow collapsed onto his side, retching. Cuffe fell back into his chair, clutching his heart, his face grey. Rita Skeeter dropped her quill, her hands shaking so violently she couldn't pick it up.
The room was filled with the sound of frantic, heavy breathing. They weren't just scared; they were traumatized.
Aberforth remained standing, but he was leaning heavily on the bar. He looked at his shaking hands, then at the empty doorway.
"That..." Aberforth wheezed, wiping sweat from his brow. "That wasn't a wizard."
____________________________________________________
Alister stood on the snowy ridge, looking down at the Hogsmeade. He took a deep breath of the cold air, calming his raging blood.
"Let them Sleep peacefully for now," he whispered. "Tomorrow, the world changes."
Alister stood on the snowy ridge, looking down at Hogsmeade. The village lights twinkled innocently below, unaware of the monster that had just walked among them. He took a deep breath of the cold air, letting the biting chill calm his raging blood.
"Let them sleep peacefully for now," he whispered, his voice carried away by the wind. "Tomorrow, the world changes."
Alister stopped there for a moment, the silence of the mountains wrapping around him.
Then, with a sickening wet tear, his massive dragon wings erupted from his back, casting a long shadow over the snow.
WHOOSH.
A single powerful beat of the leathery wings kicked up a cloud of snow, and in the blink of an eye, he vanished into the dark sky, leaving nothing but the howling wind behind.
(END OF CHAPTER)
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