Chapter 50
The path wound ahead of us like a ribbon of dusk.
Each step away from Hogwarts felt like crossing some invisible threshold—not just physically, but magically. The wards behind us faded into silence, replaced by the hum of older enchantments clinging to the air like mist. Ancient protections woven into the land itself. Forgotten, but not gone.
Solara flew low above my head, wings barely stirring the air, her glow dimmed to a golden flicker. She didn’t speak—not in the way Eidolons could—but I could feel her watching. Listening. Waiting.
Beside me, Draco was quiet. But not in the way he used to be—sharp and cold, full of resentment and walls. No, this silence was careful. Intentional. As if he were listening to something I couldn’t hear.
Maybe he was.
We didn’t speak for a long while. The forest thinned into rolling hills, the moon rising behind clouds like a silver eye. Somewhere in the distance, a nightjar called, its low whistle echoing across the fields.
“How much further?” Draco asked at last, voice low.
I adjusted the strap of my bag. “A few miles. The Hollow’s on the far edge of the valley. Past the old stones.”
He nodded once, eyes flicking to the horizon. “We’re walking into a grave.”
I paused. “You mean the Hollow?”
He glanced at me, something unreadable in his expression. “No. I mean whatever that place is. Whatever your book wants us to find.”
I didn’t respond.
Because he was right.
Godric’s Hollow wasn’t just a village. Not anymore.
It was the site of legends, of bloodlines, of magic that had twisted and woven itself into history so deeply no one could see it anymore. But the book—Equilibrium—had known. It had whispered the path to me the moment I touched the page with the symbol of balance.
A source of light, it had said. Buried in the place where history began to unravel. A place where magic had once tried to heal itself.
The Hollow.
“I’m not afraid of graves,” I said quietly.
Draco looked ahead again. “I am.”
That startled me. Not the words—but the honesty.
His voice carried no sarcasm. No bitterness. Just truth.
“Why?”
He didn’t answer right away. His eyes tracked the movement of Tenebris in the distance—his shadow-Eidolon was no longer hiding, but neither was he fully seen. Just a shifting blur in the twilight.
“I don’t know what I’ll find there,” Draco said finally. “I don’t know what it’ll ask of me.”
I considered that, my own thoughts tugging in too many directions.
“I don’t either,” I admitted. “But I know it’s not asking you to be anything you’re not.”
He snorted. “You think you know what I am?”
“No,” I said. “But I know what you’re not.”
He glanced sideways.
“You’re not lost.”
We fell back into silence, but something between us changed after that. A tension eased. Like we had both acknowledged the edge of something we weren’t quite ready to look over—but we weren’t pretending it didn’t exist anymore.
The road dipped into a hollow.
And there it was.
Godric’s Hollow.
It appeared like a memory resurfacing from fog—weathered stone cottages, tangled hedgerows, and a clock tower long frozen in time. No lights burned in the windows. No voices drifted on the air. The village felt paused. Preserved.
A sleeping myth.
And at its center, where the ruins of the Potter house still stood like a wound in the earth—the air shimmered.
I stopped walking.
So did Draco.
Because we could feel it.
The pulse.
Not unlike the pull we’d felt in the library.
But stronger.
Brighter.
Older.
“This is it,” I whispered.
Draco didn’t speak. His hand flexed at his side, magic stirring beneath his skin.
Solara landed gently on my shoulder.
The ground beneath our feet hummed.
Whatever lay beneath that broken house—it wasn’t just light magic.
It was balance.
And it was waiting for us to find it.
The broken remains of the Potter house loomed in the stillness like a memory left to rot.
Time hadn’t erased the damage—only preserved it. The jagged wall still stood where the explosion had torn it open. Burned wood, blackened stone, the gaping wound of what had once been a home.
But magic lingered.
Not dark. Not cursed.
Something deeper.
Older.
I stood at the threshold, Solara trembling lightly on my shoulder. Her golden glow was brighter now, not erratic—but steady. Alert.
“Here?” Draco asked, voice low.
I nodded. “This is where the book pointed us.”
He shifted behind me, tension humming off him in quiet waves. Tenebris circled just beyond the ruins, not entering. His golden eyes were locked on the shattered doorway like he remembered something the rest of us had forgotten.
The magic here was layered—interwoven like threads in an ancient tapestry. I could feel it in the soles of my feet, in the air on my skin, in the pulse that throbbed beneath my ribs.
A convergence.
Magic drawn from both light and dark.
Magic that had once tried to hold something together—and failed.
I stepped forward.
The moment my foot crossed the broken threshold, the magic responded. A shiver raced down my spine. The air thickened, crackled. My magic flared instinctively, and Solara’s wings spread wide, casting golden light into the shadows.
Behind me, Draco followed.
The second he crossed the line, the energy in the space shifted.
Not violently.
But distinctly.
Balanced.
Together, our magic formed a ring—light curling outward from me, dark rippling from him. They didn’t clash. They didn’t resist. They circled one another, spiraling down through the broken floorboards, through stone and soil and history.
And something opened beneath us.
Not with a sound.
With a feeling.
The floor didn’t give way, but our perception did. My vision tilted—not spinning, not falling, just shifting—as if the house was no longer just a ruin, but a doorway.
Draco caught my elbow, steadying me. “What—what was that?”
“I think we’re standing on a seal.”
“A seal?”
“A magical lock,” I whispered. “One bound by balance. It wouldn’t open for just dark. Or just light.”
Draco looked down. “It opened for both.”
Before I could answer, Solara launched from my shoulder. She flew straight into the heart of the ruin, wings flaring bright. The moment her light hit the center beam—everything shifted.
The house around us blurred.
And the earth beneath us opened.
Not violently. Not like a trapdoor.
More like… a curtain being pulled back.
We were no longer standing in the ruins of a house.
We were standing in a chamber.
Beneath the Hollow.
Carved from the earth, lined with stone etched in runes that shimmered gold and onyx. Two colors—two forces. Spiraling inward, into a single point.
At the center, a pedestal.
And on it, a crystal.
Not large.
Not dramatic.
Just… impossibly still.
It pulsed faintly—once, twice—as if acknowledging us.
And I knew.
This was the Source.
The light half of the balance.
The match to what had awakened in Draco in the Chamber.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathed.
Draco didn’t move. His face was unreadable, his magic still coiled tightly around him.
Solara hovered in the center of the room now, above the crystal, her glow steady.
I stepped forward, only a single pace.
The moment I did, the crystal responded.
It pulsed—once for me.
And once for Draco.
I turned toward him, breath catching. “It’s calling to us.”
He looked at me, wary. “What happens if you take it?”
“I don’t think I’m supposed to take it.”
I looked down at my open hand.
Then held it over the pedestal.
Not touching.
Just offering.
The crystal rose on its own.
And split.
Light arced toward me—pure, humming with something radiant. It entered my palm like breath entering lungs, not burning, not biting—just settling.
And the other half?
It hovered before Draco.
Waiting.
He stared at it like it might kill him.
But it didn’t move.
Didn’t force itself.
Just waited.
And for the first time, Draco stepped forward without resistance.
He reached out.
The dark half of the crystal met his palm—
And balanced.
Magic surged between us.
But it wasn’t chaotic.
It was whole.
Solara flared gold above me. Tenebris solidified behind Draco, tall and still.
And the chamber breathed.
The runes lit up.
Every one.
Every line of magic inscribed on the stone glowed with unity.
Not dark.
Not light.
Just Equilibrium.
We weren’t two halves of a prophecy.
We weren’t weapons.
We were balance.
And the world had remembered what that felt like.