Arc 1: The Awakening
Chapter 5: The Vault Beneath the Dead
Year: 1956 – Age 3, Blacktorn Manor, Wiltshire, England
POV: Cassius Arcturus Blacktorn
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The dead are not silent.
Not in this manor. Not in my family.
They whisper beneath the stone. Behind the walls. Beneath the floorboards soaked in old blood.
Most fear them. I listen.
Because they are mine.
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The key my father gave me is older than the Ministry itself. Black iron laced with veins of basilisk bone, warm to the touch, like it remembers being alive. I wear it on a silver chain under my robes—close to the heart.
The vault lies beneath the crypt. I go alone.
No torches. No wands. Just instinct. Magic hums through my veins like wildfire as I descend, step by step, through the passage hidden beneath the statue of our founder.
Cassian Blacktorn. The first.
The man who cursed a mountain range into ash to win a duel.
He watches me from stone eyes.
I nod in respect. His lips curl into a smile that wasn't there before.
The first test begins.
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It's not a door.
It's a coffin.
A black marble sarcophagus lies at the base of the stairwell. Floating slightly above the ground, chained by runes older than Gobbledegook or Latin. The key fits into the chest of the statue carved onto its lid.
The second it clicks—
Pain.
Unimaginable.
Magic floods my body, ancient and cruel. It's judging my blood. Testing it. Demanding proof that I am a Blacktorn not just by name, but by essence.
My blood answers with pride.
My veins burn, but I do not scream.
I laugh.
The coffin cracks open.
Inside lies a stairway spiraling downward into a void that should not exist beneath a home. It descends deeper than natural earth. This isn't just underground.
It's beneath magic itself.
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The true Vault of Blacktorn is carved from black stone that shimmers like obsidian, but colder—hungrier. The walls pulse with enchantments designed to kill thieves, curse traitors, and punish mediocrity.
I walk through it like I own it.
Because I do.
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Gold is here, yes. But it is meaningless to me. I will never need money like the fools who beg goblins for loans.
What matters is the power sealed in relics older than Merlin.
The Staff of Myrkan: said to command storms without incantations.
The Mirror of Nethra: it shows not what is, but what will be—for those who dare gaze.
I touch neither.
Not yet.
My eyes are drawn to a dark pedestal in the center.
Floating above it: a book.
Not bound in leather.
Bound in skin.
Human.
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I approach.
A whisper calls to me in the voice of a thousand ancestors, each one drowned in cruelty and glory.
"Child of shadow… take what is yours…"
I lift the book.
A surge of black fire races up my arm, tattooing my skin in runes only I can read.
I see the first spell.
"Rite of Soul Dominion."
I smile.
It's not just dark magic.
It's forbidden even in Knockturn Alley.
Perfect.
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But the book is not the prize.
The true treasure is below it.
A sealed stone circle—the blood altar.
Each heir, when ready, must carve their magic into it, sacrificing blood, soul, and memory to bind themselves to the ancestral well.
I prick my palm.
Let the blood drip.
Speak the words etched in my dreams:
"By will, by right, by blood divine—Blacktorn rise anew through me."
The altar glows.
A rush of magic like a hurricane tears through me.
I see my ancestors.
Men and women who murdered kings, tamed dragons, defied the Unspeakables. They reach toward me—not with love, but recognition.
I am not a child to them.
I am the one they waited for.
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When I open my eyes, my magic feels different.
Sharper.
Darker.
More alive.
The vault no longer resists me. It welcomes me.
It belongs to me.
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Back in my chamber, I stare at the reflection in the mirror.
My irises have changed again.
The silver swirl around my pupils now glows faintly in the dark. Like moonlight over still water.
A sign of awakening power.
I whisper:
"Cassius Arcturus Blacktorn… heir of storm and shadow…"
And the mirror whispers back:
"…king of the forgotten blood."
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I'm only three years old.
But I've already begun to shape the world.
And no one—not Dumbledore, not Voldemort, not fate—will ever control me.
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