Arc 1: The Awakening
Chapter 2: The First Word
Year: 1954 – Blacktorn Manor, Wiltshire, England
POV: Cassius Arcturus Blacktorn
---
Silence is power.
I have known that since birth. I let them believe I am slow. Quiet. Weak. They think my silence is innocence.
But every day, I listen.
I hear the whispers beyond my crib. The tension in my parents' voices. The way the house-elf flinches before entering the nursery. The way the walls hum with wards and blood-inked scripts meant to keep things in—or keep things out.
This manor remembers power. And it fears what is coming.
What I am becoming.
---
I am ten months old.
A normal child would crawl, giggle, babble.
I walk in silence when no one watches. I reach the ancient tapestries and trace my lineage in silence. I stare into enchanted mirrors and see flickers of who I was—who I will be again.
Today, I decide to speak. One word. One truth. Not for affection. Not to make them smile. But to begin.
To remind the bloodline that I have returned.
---
My mother leans over my crib. Her face is pale, as always. Beautiful in the cold, aristocratic way most pure-blood women are. Blonde hair tucked into a silken net, dark circles under her eyes. I have heard her cry twice. Once on the day I was born. Once when she thought I was asleep.
She fears me, though she hides it well.
"Cassius," she whispers, voice trembling slightly. "Are you ready to say something for Mother? Say 'Mama,' dearest…"
I stare into her eyes.
My voice is soft, but cold. Controlled. Measured.
"Legacy."
She gasps. Stumbles back. Knocks over a crystal decanter of sleeping draught.
The elf screams. My father storms in. The noise doesn't matter.
Because the word hovers between us like a curse.
Legacy.
Not "Mama."
Not "Dada."
I have no time for sentiment.
---
They summon a Healer the next day. Old man. Silver spectacles. Shaking hands. He runs his wand over my head. Over my chest. His magic flickers and fades like a match dying in a storm.
"He's… powerful," he mutters. "But… strange. There is something unnatural in the way his magic coils inside him."
Unnatural?
No.
Perfect.
I am not some explosive child bursting with accidental magic. Mine is tamed. Tied to will. Shaped like a weapon in its scabbard.
I do not levitate things. I command silence.
I do not throw tantrums. I observe. I learn.
---
By age one, I speak four words.
Legacy. Magic. Blood. Obey.
Each one is a stone placed in the foundation I am building.
---
One night, I sneak from my crib. My magic folds around me like a whisper. I have no wand, but I do not need one. I am Blacktorn.
I walk barefoot across the cold marble of the West Wing, to a door locked by time and blood. My father never enters. My mother glances at it with guilt and fear.
I place my hand on the wood.
It hums. Then opens.
Inside is a library, but not the kind seen in Hogwarts or the Ministry. This one breathes.
The books whisper. They bleed ink. They twitch when I pass them.
Dark magic. Real magic.
I find a name carved in obsidian.
Valerius Blacktorn. My ancestor. Vanished. Murdered. Or so they say.
His diary opens for me.
Its first line: "Only the worthy may awaken the eyes."
---
I read for hours, absorbing every rune, every enchantment, every cruel ritual dressed in velvet words. The diary doesn't just teach—it tests. It lashes at me. Pages try to close on my fingers. Sentences try to erase themselves if I do not read them fast enough.
But I endure. I always endure.
By the time dawn breaks, I know what I am.
Not a child.
Not a prodigy.
But a weapon. A resurrection.
---
My father finds me asleep at the foot of the obsidian pedestal.
He doesn't punish me.
He doesn't speak.
He just stares into my glowing eyes and knows—the Blacktorns have returned.
---
I'm given my own chamber at age two. No longer a nursery. No more lullabies. My room is lined with runes, not toys. Tapestries of my ancestors, enchanted to whisper advice—or curses—in the dark. A small wooden wand is placed in a velvet case beside my bed. Uncored, unfinished. But it is a symbol.
My first tool.
My first promise.
---
That night, the elf speaks when the candles dim.
"Young master must not walk the path of ruin," she whispers, voice cracked by age and memory. "Your blood sings too loud already…"
I look her in the eye.
"Then let the world hear it."
She cries.
I smile.
---