The Tenth Weasley - CH - 101

The corridors of Durmstrang were silent in the pale blue light of dawn. Snow clung to the iron-rimmed windows, and the stone floor was slick with frost. But Harry Weasley walked with purpose, his footsteps soundless beneath his enchanted dragon-hide boots. A thick cloak wrapped around his shoulders, his breath visible in the cold air as he made his way to the chamber only a few knew existed—the one they had once called the Necromancer’s Room.

The bones were long gone. So were the glyphs and sigils scorched into the floor, erased carefully with cleansing rituals weeks ago. But the magic that once lived here still pulsed—silent, watching, waiting. It was a room shielded from time and from prying eyes. A room built for secrecy, for power.

Harry placed his wand on a small pedestal near the entrance and whispered, “Runatus Claudere.”

The door sealed itself behind him with a grinding sound of stone locking against stone. No sound would leave this place now. Not even if the earth trembled.

He knelt down slowly, drawing the ritual circle in thick lines of powdered silver. Inside that, he added finer details with crimson ink mixed from crushed runespoor fangs, bloodroot, and phoenix ash. The lines glowed softly in the dim torchlight.

He opened a small pouch made of basilisk skin and withdrew the first component: a long black hair from a Thestral, brittle but humming with life energy unseen. He laid it carefully into the southern point of the circle.

Next came a scale from the dragon he and his friends had helped save—a gift from Marek, who found it left behind in the dragon’s nesting ground. It glinted with iridescent red and gold, and when Harry touched it, it gave off a faint vibration. That went to the west.

A phoenix feather, golden-red and still warm to the touch. This one had been plucked from Fawkes himself—stolen by Grindelwald from Dumbledore, according to the journal. Harry placed it at the east.

Then came the thunderbird feather, one of the rarest magical items in the world, bartered from a private collector Harry had met in Oslo. It shivered with static charge, and when he set it down, sparks danced around the runes beneath it.

Finally, with the most care, he withdrew a thin, curved fragment: the bone of a Nundu's spine. It had taken weeks of negotiation and trade to acquire it through Durmstrang's black scroll network. One of the most dangerous beasts alive. Its presence radiated menace. He laid it in the northern point of the circle, his fingers trembling slightly.

The ritual was nearly ready.

Harry stepped to the center of the circle, holding a silver blade shaped like a crescent moon.

In Latin, from Grindelwald’s journal, he chanted the opening lines:

“Corpus meum, anima mea, sanguis meus—fiat nexum cum magica antiqua. Fiat transformatio. Fiat ascensio.”

(“My body, my soul, my blood—let it bind with ancient magic. Let there be transformation. Let there be ascension.”)

He slit the palm of his hand, letting the blood drip down into the exact middle of the circle. The silver lines flashed crimson. The entire room dimmed as if the torches themselves bent away in fear.

Harry dropped the knife and raised his arms.

“Fiat voluntas mea!”

(“Let my will be done!”)

The moment the last word left his lips, the ritual circle exploded with light.

A dome of translucent magic surged upward, then collapsed inward violently.

He screamed, his voice drowned in the roar of elemental forces tearing through the room. The air turned molten. Runes blazed like suns. His heart felt like it had stopped, then restarted with the force of a thunderclap.

His body levitated, limbs rigid, mouth open as blood streamed from his nose and eyes. Every part of him burned—from his bones to his soul.

The phoenix feather ignited. The Thestral hair dissolved into shadow. The dragon scale shattered into shards of flame. The Nundu bone turned to dust with a deafening crack. And the thunderbird feather burst into an orb of lightning that wrapped around Harry like a cocoon.

And then—silence.

Harry’s body dropped to the floor, limp.

The torches flared and died.

The circle dimmed.

Ash and bone and power hung in the air like mist.



When Harry finally stirred, the world felt like it was made of stone and fire.

His bones ached. His muscles throbbed with sharp, unrelenting pain, as if a stampede of hippogriffs had trampled across his body in full flight. Every breath he drew burned his lungs, and his stomach growled with a hunger so deep it bordered on desperation. His throat was dry, his robes scorched at the sleeves, and he could still smell the residue of ancient magic on his skin.

The ritual room—now dark and quiet—seemed like a dream. He forced himself up with trembling hands, bracing against the cold wall of the necromancer’s chamber. Everything inside him screamed for rest, but something deeper… something more primal… pushed him forward.

He stumbled to the heavy stone door, which creaked open under the force of his shaking arm. The corridor outside was empty, dimly lit by enchanted wall sconces flickering with pale blue flames. As he stepped into the corridor, a wave of dizziness washed over him.

And then—darkness.


When Harry awoke again, the harsh scent of antiseptic potions and clean linens filled his nose. He was in a bed—soft, warm, with thick woolen blankets drawn up to his chest. The soft clinking of glass vials and the hushed tone of whispered spells told him he was in the Durmstrang hospital wing.

He blinked.

A blurry shape leaned over him—and then he heard her voice.

“Where have you been, Harry?” Sonja said, her voice thick with a mix of relief and fury. “You vanished for five days. Five days, Harry. You were found in the dungeon corridor like a corpse.”

Harry tried to sit up, but his head throbbed and he groaned, falling back against the pillows. “Five… days?” he whispered, throat dry.

Sonja narrowed her eyes. “Yes. We searched everywhere. Eryk and Marek thought you went home. Professor Navarro thought you had a private project. It was only when you appeared unconscious outside that hallway that we even realized you hadn’t left the castle. You looked like you’d been... well, through hell.”

Harry frowned. His memory returned slowly—Grindelwald’s ritual, the circle, the pain, the light.

He felt… different.

“I didn’t think it would take that long,” he muttered. “It was a ritual. Old… and dangerous.”

Sonja raised an eyebrow, folding her arms. “Dangerous is an understatement. You scared the life out of us.” Then, her expression changed, curiosity replacing frustration. “But there’s something else. Your eyes, Harry.”

He blinked. “What about them?”

She conjured a mirror with a flick of her wand and held it in front of his face.

Harry’s breath caught in his throat.

His right eye still gleamed hazel, just like always—but the left had changed. In place of the usual brown-gold hue was a halo of silver, a perfect glowing ring embedded in the iris like a magical brand.

“It’s...”

“Grindelwald,” Sonja finished softly. “I’ve seen pictures of him. He had the same ring. Not at first—only after he started experimenting on himself.”

Harry couldn’t tear his gaze away from the reflection.

It wasn’t just a change in color—it was a mark. A transformation. A sign that the ritual had worked.

He reached a trembling hand to his face but stopped short of touching the eye. “It’s permanent?”

“I don’t know,” Sonja said. “But you should see how it glows when the light hits it. I thought it was a trick at first. But now...” She sat down beside him. “What did you do, Harry?”

Before he could answer, the hospital door creaked open, and Eryk and Ingrid stepped inside, followed by Marek and Luis. Behind them came Antonin, arms crossed, an unreadable look on his face.

“You’re awake,” Eryk said with a grin. “About time.”

“You gave us a proper fright,” Ingrid added.

“What happened?” Marek asked, sitting at the foot of the bed. “Some said you were trapped.”

Harry gave them all the same practiced lie. “I found one of the hidden rooms. One we hadn’t explored. I went in alone to examine it… and the wards locked me inside. I didn’t have the strength to break out. Not until a few days later.”

“You should’ve told us where you were going,” Antonin said flatly. “We’ve all agreed to work together.”

“I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time. I thought it would take an hour at most,” Harry lied again, his voice even.

The others nodded, accepting his words, though Antonin lingered with his gaze, as if suspecting more.

“But,” Marek said suddenly, “what’s with the eye?”

Everyone turned.

Harry shrugged, managing a weak smile. “Residual magic, maybe. The room was full of old enchantments.”

“You look like you’ve stared into a storm and it stared back,” Luis said with a laugh. “Creepy, but cool.”

They shared a chuckle, and Harry was grateful they didn’t press further. The truth—about the ritual, about the transformation—was too heavy to explain. Not yet.

After some more concerned chatter, they filtered out one by one, leaving only Sonja behind.

She looked at him once more, serious now.

“Whatever you’re doing, Harry… just don’t lose yourself to it,” she whispered. “You’re not Grindelwald. Don’t forget that.”

Harry gave her a tired look, but nodded. “I know.”

But as she left and the door shut quietly behind her, Harry’s hand went up again to his altered eye.

“I’m not him,” he whispered into the stillness.

But I could be something more.



In the days that followed Harry's dramatic awakening in the hospital wing, a quiet buzz began to stir through the stone corridors of Durmstrang. Professors came to visit him, one by one—some out of concern, others out of curiosity. Harry recited the same practiced explanation each time: he had found a hidden, ancient room within the castle, gotten trapped inside by a long-forgotten enchantment, and had finally broken free after days of effort and magical strain.

None of them questioned him outright. After all, there was no rule broken they could point to—no clear transgression. Just a student who had wandered too far into the mysteries of the ancient castle, and returned changed.

But what truly startled them—what none of them could ignore—was his eyes.

Even those professors who had been silent during the war years exchanged looks behind his back, memories of another powerful wizard resurfaced. One who once walked the same halls, brimming with ambition and vision. For those who had been there in Grindelwald’s rise to power, the silver ring in Harry's eye was not merely a curiosity. It was a warning.

The headmaster, Igor Karkaroff, said nothing during his brief visit, only studied Harry silently, then gave a small nod before leaving. But Harry could feel it—the way their gazes lingered, not in suspicion, but in remembrance.


By the end of the week, Harry was discharged from the hospital wing and returned to the Dragon Tower. But he wasn’t the same. Not anymore.

The first signs of change were subtle—then astonishing.

He could see.

Not just clearer, but impossibly sharp. Like a hawk swooping from the sky, Harry could now stand at the edge of Durmstrang’s southern courtyard and see the tiniest flecks of frost resting on the mountaintops hundreds of meters away. He could read books from across the room, see magical auras clinging faintly to people, walls, even old staircases.

In his reflection, he noticed faint veins of glowing silver in his fingertips when magic stirred beneath his skin.

And then there was the scent—his sense of smell had grown eerily precise. He could distinguish the ingredients in potions just by passing someone who had handled them. He could smell the type of ink Sonja used on her parchment. Even now, he could track Eryk through the dormitory by the trace of his enchanted cologne.

But it wasn’t just perception. It was power.

One evening, when he was walking alone through the empty training chamber, he flicked his wand at a dueling dummy—and the spell, a mere Stupefy, hit like a battering ram, slamming the dummy into the stone wall with a thunderous crack. Dust rained from the ceiling. His heart pounded.

His muscles had changed too.

He didn’t realize how much until he tried to crack an old chunk of ice outside the Tower with his boot. Instead, the entire stone it rested on splintered. Another day, he lifted an entire desk one-handed with barely any effort.

During sparring, it became undeniable.

“You're moving differently,” Sonja said, panting, sweat trailing down her temple after their third bout of the evening. Her dueling robes were scorched at the sleeve. “It's like… you see what I’m about to do before I do it.”

Harry remained silent for a moment, then gave a quiet nod.

He did.

He could see the twitch of her fingers before her wand even flicked. The shift in her stance told him the spell before it was cast. The moment her shoulder dipped, he had already cast a counterspell and sidestepped.

“You’ve gotten stronger. Not just stronger—” She broke off, breathing hard. “You’re inhuman.”

“I’m still me,” Harry said softly, though even as he said it, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

She looked into his mismatched eyes—the hazel and the silver ring—and shook her head. “No. You're becoming something else, Harry. Something... greater.”

He said nothing. There was nothing to say.

Because she was right.


That night, alone in his room, Harry opened Grindelwald’s journal once more. The pages—aged, faded, still warm with the imprint of dark knowledge—held a mirror to his soul. Words written in a confident hand stared back at him:

"The power hidden in blood and fire is not evil. It is simply misunderstood by the weak. Power must be mastered, not feared."

Harry closed the journal slowly and walked to the window.

Below, Durmstrang's frozen lake shimmered under the moonlight. In the sky, the stars blinked like ancient sentinels.

He flexed his fingers, feeling the magic swirl beneath his skin like liquid fire.

The ritual had worked.

And Harry Weasley was no longer just a student.

He was something far more powerful.