Chapter 48
The Fat Lady was unusually quiet when I gave her the password. She didn’t comment on my bedraggled state or ask why I was out so late. She just stared at me with eyes far too perceptive for a painting and swung open without a word.
I stepped inside the Gryffindor common room and immediately felt the difference.
It was always warm in here. Always bright. Comforting.
But tonight… it felt off.
Not wrong. Not dangerous. But like I didn’t belong in quite the same way anymore.
I stood in the center of the room for a long moment, letting Solara flutter from my shoulder and settle on the windowsill. Her golden light cast shadows across the floor, soft and searching.
The balance had shifted. Not just in the world—but in me.
I could feel it now. Magic wasn’t just energy—it had intent, awareness. And it was watching us. Waiting for us. For what came next.
For what we would choose.
I sat by the fire and opened the book again—Equilibrium: The Forgotten Balance—the old leather cover warm beneath my fingertips. The runes didn’t glow anymore, but the hum of magic inside it remained.
It wasn’t like any magic I’d studied. It didn’t come with incantations or wand movements. It was deeper. Rooted in choice. Intention. Connection.
I traced the edges of a page, where the symbol—the yin-yang—had appeared before. The book hadn’t flipped again. It hadn’t spoken. But I could feel something stirring beneath the surface of the parchment. Like it was waiting for the right question.
“Where do I go?” I whispered. “Where do I find the source?”
The pages didn’t move.
But Solara did.
She let out a soft trill, her wings flaring just slightly, and in the flickering firelight, her feathers caught a reflection I hadn’t noticed before—etched into the metalwork of the fireplace grate.
A rune.
The same one that had burned beneath our feet in the library.
I stood slowly, my eyes scanning the room, heart pounding as I looked past the familiar. Past the worn rugs and cushioned chairs and battered chess sets.
Another symbol—this one etched faintly into the frame of the portrait above the mantel.
They were everywhere.
Hidden in plain sight.
Layered into the bones of Hogwarts.
And suddenly I knew.
The light source wasn’t outside the castle.
It had been here all along.
“Hogwarts,” I breathed, a thread of awe in my voice. “It’s not just reacting to the balance—it’s part of it.”
The castle wasn’t just alive with magic.
It was built for it.
To house it. To protect it. Maybe even to restore it.
And that meant…
If Draco’s darkness had been awakened in the Chamber—then the source of light had to be buried somewhere just as deep. Somewhere forgotten. Sealed.
A place the founders themselves had hidden away.
I turned back to Solara, who looked at me with steady, bright eyes.
“You knew,” I whispered. “Didn’t you?”
She didn’t respond with sound. She didn’t have to.
She pulsed once—bright as a star.
And I knew where we had to go.
Not the library.
Not the Forbidden Forest.
Not even the Room of Requirement.
Beneath the castle.
Below the Chamber.
Deeper than any student had gone in centuries.
The Founders’ Vault.
A place only mentioned in the margins of the oldest texts. Not a room. Not a tomb. A convergence point. A resting place of their combined power.
Of balance.
Where dark and light had once met.
And where they would meet again.
I stood slowly, my heart pounding with purpose.
Tomorrow, I’d have to face Draco again. Tell him what I’d discovered. Convince him that going back down into the depths of the castle wasn’t madness. That what we were doing mattered.
But tonight…
Tonight, I let the weight of what we’d begun settle over me like a cloak.
I curled into the chair by the fire, the book resting on my lap, Solara at my side.
Magic thrummed in the walls. The fire hissed low.
And somewhere beneath the castle, the other half of the balance stirred.
Waiting.
I found him on the Astronomy Tower.
It was always the last place I checked. The last place anyone thought to look. Which was probably why he was there in the first place.
The wind whipped around me as I stepped onto the platform. The moon was low, casting pale silver light over the stones. Solara clung close to my shoulder, her wings tucked tight, her glow steady and soft.
Draco didn’t turn when I approached. He stood near the edge, his arms braced against the stone railing, his head tilted toward the sky. His magic swirled in the air around him, subtle but ever-present—cool, shadowed, alive in a way it hadn’t been days ago.
“I figured you’d come,” he said, voice carried by the wind. “You’re not very good at pretending to leave things alone.”
“I’ve never pretended,” I said, stepping up beside him.
He glanced sideways at me, his expression unreadable. “You look like you haven’t slept.”
“I haven’t.”
A faint smirk twitched at his mouth. “Neither have I.”
We stood in silence for a moment. The moon reflected in his eyes like twin shards of silver. Tenebris lurked in the corner behind him, barely a shadow now—his form more solid than I’d ever seen. Watching me. Watching us.
“I found something,” I said finally. “Last night. In the Gryffindor common room.”
That got his attention.
“Go on,” he said, tone wary.
“There are runes—everywhere. Old ones. Hidden in the walls. In the fireplace. In the architecture.” I took a breath. “I think Hogwarts was designed not just to house magic, but to guard the balance between it. Between dark and light.”
He didn’t speak, but I felt the shift in him—his magic stilling just slightly.
“I think the founders knew,” I continued. “Not just about the darkness you woke in the Chamber—but about the light. And I think they sealed it somewhere.”
He turned to face me fully. “Where?”
I met his gaze.
“Beneath the Chamber. Deeper than the school itself. A place where their magic converged. I think it’s called the Founders’ Vault.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“Neither had I,” I admitted. “But the book—we only saw the surface of it. It doesn’t tell us how to restore the balance. It only tells us that it can be done.”
“And you think this Vault is the key.”
“I think it’s the beginning.”
He didn’t answer right away. His fingers flexed against the stone, his jaw tight. I could feel the question he wasn’t asking.
Why him? Why us?
“Draco,” I said gently. “You didn’t ask for this. Neither did I. But that doesn’t mean we weren’t chosen.”
“Chosen,” he repeated bitterly.
I nodded. “Yes. But not to carry a curse. To carry a connection.”
A pause.
Then, quietly: “And if I lose control down there?”
I reached out, placing my hand over his.
“You won’t.”
He stared at me.
I meant it.
Because I could feel it—his magic wasn’t threatening mine. It wasn’t consuming or corrupting. It was holding its breath, waiting for mine to meet it.
Together, we weren’t just stronger.
We were steadier.
“Alright,” he said at last. The word came out like surrender and resistance wrapped into one. “So how do we get there?”
I pulled a folded page from the book from my pocket—the map that had burned itself into the parchment the moment I asked where to begin.
“We follow the path the founders left,” I said. “And we go deeper than anyone has ever dared.”
Draco looked at the map, then at me.
Then he nodded.
And in that moment, beneath the stars, I felt it again—that quiet pull in my chest. The balance shifting.
The light rising to meet the dark.
We had fourteen steps ahead of us. Fourteen truths to uncover. Fourteen gates of magic to cross before we reached the Vault.
But tonight was the first.
And we weren’t alone anymore.