Chapter 8: The Cellar's Clear Spring, The First Redeemed Eye of True Sight (Patreon)

The damp, chilly stone steps spiraled downward, and with every flight the warmth in the air peeled away a little more.

Deep beneath Hogwarts, before a patch of wet stone wall that looked entirely ordinary, fifth-year prefect Marcus Flint came to a halt.

He instinctively avoided looking at Raven, who walked in the middle of the group. He only cleared his throat and growled a low word at the blank wall: "Pure-blood."

With a deep rumble, the heavy stone door slid aside, revealing a concealed arched doorway.

The Slytherin first-years filed in.

What met their eyes was a long, spacious underground hall.

Round green magic-crystal lamps hung from the rough stone walls, their dim, cold glow casting mottled shadows across the rock.

The ceiling was low. Beyond several enormous arched floor-to-ceiling windows lay the dark, fathomless bottom of the Black Lake.

Shoals of luminous jellyfish and long-tailed silver fish drifted past the thick pressure-proof glass. Now and then, far off in the black water, one could catch the blurred shadow of the Giant Squid slowly swaying its great tentacles.

In the carved fireplace, logs crackled with pale green flames, baking the air with a distinctive scorched-pine scent.

"Boys' dormitories are down the left corridor, girls' down the right. Your luggage has already been delivered by the house-elves."

Flint rattled off a few routine reminders. His gaze swept over the first-years and slowed slightly when it settled on Draconia. "Miss Malfoy, your private room is at the end of the right corridor. It's the best suite, set aside especially on the Head of House's orders."

Draconia lifted her snow-white, graceful chin a fraction and gave a prim little hum.

She turned away on purpose and raised her crisp voice at her two tower-like lackeys. "Crabbe, Goyle, take my ferret-fur muff and the white rose incense to the door. The lime smell down here is awful. If it ruins my formal cloak, I'm writing to Father the moment I get home."

The affected display naturally drew envious stares from plenty of the other first-years.

Her gaze drifted backward once more, searching Raven's face for even a flicker of awkwardness or envy.

But Flint, leafing through the parchment list in his hands, suddenly knotted his brows. He looked up at the black-haired boy, who was calmly studying the carvings on the fireplace, and said stiffly, "Raven Capet."

Raven glanced over at him.

"Your room is… the Goshawk Pavilion, in the second left gallery." Flint ground his teeth, the heavy flesh of his face twitching. "It's the private suite the Capet family kept three hundred years ago, when it donated the underground waterproofing works to the school."

The whole hall went quiet.

Daphne Greengrass's eyes flickered, and Pansy Parkinson gaped blankly.

Draconia's proudly lifted little face froze, and a flash of shock and resentment crossed her water-gray-blue eyes.

She had assumed that Raven, a pure-blood fallen on hard times, would be wedged into a four-person dorm with a few coarse commoners, sleeping in a bunk bed. Instead, the legacy the Capets had left centuries ago had handed him a private suite!

"Thanks for the directions, Prefect Flint."

Raven smiled faintly, not even interested enough to spare Miss Malfoy a glance. He picked up the calfskin suitcase at his feet and, robes swirling, strode unhurriedly into the left corridor.

"Insufferable boy…" Draconia clenched her hands tight beneath her cloak, stamped a small leather boot hard against the floor, and ducked into the girls' corridor.

…

Click.

Raven pushed open the heavy black oak door and locked the brass bolt behind him.

The Goshawk Pavilion was even roomier than he had imagined.

A thick dark-green shag carpet covered the center of the floor. A four-poster bed hung with deep silver velvet drapes stood against one wall, and by the window sat a broad agarwood desk. In the stone wall beside it, a small private fireplace was even set into the rock.

Raven dragged over a high-backed leather chair and sat, loosened the Windsor knot at his collar, and let out a long breath.

The clamor of the day finally fell away.

He let his mind sink inward, and a pale gold, translucent System panel surfaced in the depths of his thoughts:

[Current Causality Reversal Points: 2030.]

[Core traits bound: Charms Mastery Intuition (exceptional comprehension), Pure-blood Elegant Bearing (innate poise), Abyss of Magic (magical capacity doubled).]

[System Shop (Stage One: Basic Cognitive Exploration) unlocked.]

Looking at the balance of just over two thousand points, Raven tapped his fingertips lightly on the armrest.

Points sitting in storage earn no interest. Only by converting them into power and knowledge he could command absolutely would he build a lasting foothold.

In this school year of the original story, Hogwarts looked calm but ran with dangerous undercurrents: Voldemort on the back of Quirrell's head, the Philosopher's Stone beneath the trapdoor on the fourth floor, and Snape and Dumbledore… None of them was an easy mark.

His eyes moved to several glowing golden options on the shop list:

[Complete Ancient Runes (Introductory Volume)] — Price: 800 points.

[Magic Circuit Analysis Sight (Eye of True Sight)] — Price: 1200 points.

[Primer on Ancient Alchemy Arrays] — Price: 1500 points.

Raven hardly hesitated. His gaze settled firmly on the second option.

For a wizard who pursued the essence of magic, blindly chasing high-powered offensive spells was the stupidest shortcut. A spell's strength depended on the wizard's own magic and will, and the [Magic Circuit Analysis Sight] would let him see how magic flowed and how spell structures were built, even the fundamental flaws in the defensive arrays of an ancient castle.

"Redeem [Magic Circuit Analysis Sight]."

[Command confirmed. Consuming 1200 Causality Reversal Points.] [Remaining points: 830.] [Loading ability…]

Boom!

In an instant, a cool energy like mint dew poured down through the crown of his head and into Raven's eyes!

A fine, faint stinging bloomed deep in his eyeballs, followed by an indescribable clarity and chill. When Raven opened his eyes again, the world had shed its ordinary colors entirely!

The rough, cold stone walls became a translucent gray-white lattice in his vision.

Countless ancient threads of magic, some thick and some thin and glimmering pale gold and deep blue, ran like capillaries through a living body. They were rooted deep in the castle's foundations and pillars and wound along the ceiling!

These were the protective wards and magical circulation that the Four Founders had inscribed with their own hands in the depths of the castle, a thousand years ago when Hogwarts was built!

"So that's how it is…"

Raven drew a deep breath, awe and fascination flickering in the depths of his eyes. "Conventional spellcasting has a wizard wave a wand and recite standard syllables. In truth that's just using preset motions and sounds to force a crude resonance out of the magic particles in the world."

"But what if I can see the nodes of magical flow itself?"

Raven drew the thirteen-and-three-quarter-inch ebony wand from his sleeve.

He spoke no Latin incantation. He didn't even move his wrist half an inch. He simply willed it, guiding the vast magic in his body down his arm to the wand tip and precisely plucking a few stray white motes of light from the air.

"Hmm…"

The wand tip lit without a sound. It wasn't a crude, glaring flash, but a sphere of silver-white light as pure as quicksilver and no bigger than a longan fruit. It drifted quietly free of the tip and hovered three inches above Raven's fingertips.

A silent, gestureless Lumos, as natural as instinct.

Raven flicked a finger upward, and the orb floated over the desk at his command, shedding a soft glow like moonlight that lit the entire study down to the finest detail.

[Ding. Host has grasped the underlying logic of spell resonance and completed an adaptive refinement of the basic spell structure.]

[Charm mastery advanced: basic everyday charms have evolved into "nonverbal/wandless fine-tuning mode."]

He felt his magic circulating smoothly in his body without the slightest hindrance. Raven closed his eyes, and a satisfied smile touched his lips.

Those 1200 points were worth far more than he'd paid.

With these eyes, whether it was Snape's exacting potion ratios or the hex-breaking in Defense Against the Dark Arts, he would hold the high ground, with a crushing advantage over his classmates.

…

Across the dark corridor from the Goshawk Pavilion, in the suite at the end of the girls' dormitories,

costly hand-woven brocade curtains hung low, and the air carried a faint, cool scent of white roses and cedar.

Draconia had changed into a long-sleeved silk nightgown of pale silver, its gold-piped edges tracing the slender, newly forming line of her shoulders. She sat at the carved dressing table, absently running an ivory comb through her softly curled platinum hair.

Partway down a strand, the young lady's hand suddenly stopped.

The mirror showed a face as delicate as porcelain. In her water-gray-blue eyes lingered a restless, tangled irritation she couldn't shake.

"Arrogant… detestable boy!" Draconia bit her lower lip with small white teeth, slapped the comb down on the table, and yanked open the drawer under the dressing table. She took out a fine kidskin diary fastened with a brass clasp.

On the first page, in dark green ink, a few large characters were written in neat, upright letters: Memorandum of Never Forgiving Raven Capet.

"Entry one: the night of September first, he actually dared to talk back to Prefect Flint to his face at the table, and lectured an upperclassman in that condescending tone. Utterly insolent."

"Entry two: his room gets better light than my suite. That's not fair!"

Her quill scratched along, but as she wrote, the nib slowly hovered in midair, and the ink bled into a small, pale blot on the parchment.

Out of nowhere, a scene from the feast surfaced in her mind: the black-haired boy standing before the long table, straight as a pine, whose single calm, fathomless look had left the fierce fifth-year prefect rigid and too afraid to draw his wand.

When he tore up the engagement… did he really think I was willful and ill-bred?

The thought pricked the young lady's proud heart like a tiny poisoned thorn, and a strange sourness and tightness welled up.

"Hmph! Who cares what you think!"

Draconia snapped the diary shut and locked the brass clasp with a click, muttering to the empty air as if sulking at it. "Tomorrow, in Potions and History of Magic… I'll make you see just how brilliant the Malfoy heir really is!"

She snuffed the candle at her bedside, pulled the velvet quilt over her head,

and yet, in the cool night wind off the lake bed beneath Hogwarts, the haughty Malfoy heiress tossed and turned for a long while before she finally sank into sleep, her heart in a hopeless tangle.