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Cyra

The Samhain Sovereigns

The fjords of the Cradle were a mirror of liquid sapphire, and today, they were a playground. High above the churning water, three figures on broomsticks carved jagged lines into the sky. Tom, Draco, and Bellatrix were no longer the gaunt survivors of a hollow war; they were athletes of the air, their laughter echoing off the quartz cliffs.

Behind them, the massive Occamy soared with a rhythmic beat of its iridescent wings. Luna sat perched behind Tom on the lead broom, her hair streaming like a golden banner, while Cyra—the girl who had once been a ghost of the ice—chose a different path entirely.

Cyra was not flying, not in the traditional sense. She was sprinting through the open air. With every leap, the moisture in the atmosphere crystallized beneath her boots, forming temporary platforms of shimmering ice. As soon as her weight left them, the platforms dissolved back into mist, leaving her to dance across the sky like a falling star.

"Tag, Tom!" Cyra yelled, her voice bright and clear. She leaped from a frozen ledge, performed a mid-air tuck, and tapped the tail of Tom’s broom before spiraling toward the lake.

"Cheater!" Tom shouted back, a genuine grin splitting his face. He banked his broom hard, diving after her. "You’re using elven physics!"

"If you can't catch the ice, you can't catch the girl!" Cyra laughed, her silver braid whipping behind her.

Below them, on the pebble-strewn shore of the lake, a figure watched with ancient, twinkling eyes. Lady Cassiopeia raised a hand, her silhouette dark against the glowing grass. Beside her stood a man who seemed to be composed of shifting sand and starlight. He carried a staff of weathered oak, and his presence made the very air feel heavy with the weight of uncounted centuries.

The five of them descended, landing in a flurry of robes and feathers. Cyra glided to a halt on a final bridge of frost, her amethyst eyes landing on the stranger.

"My children," Cassiopeia said, her voice warm but solemn. "You have reached a plateau. Your souls are mended, but your history remains a jagged wound. You have a choice to make."

She gestured to the man beside her. "This is my brother, Lord Time. I have spoken with him at length about the threads Albus Dumbledore wove into your lives."

Lord Time stepped forward. His voice was not a sound, but a resonance that vibrated in their marrow. "I offer you a chance to cut the strings before they are ever tied. I can send the five of you back. Back to the era of the Marauders—the sixth year of their schooling."

The group went still. Tom’s hand tightened on the handle of his broom.

"You would return to your sixteen-year-old bodies," Time continued. "But you would retain every memory, every lesson, and every ounce of the power you have reclaimed here. You would go as a pack—siblings, homeschooled transfers from the North. You would infiltrate the lion's den when it was at its most arrogant."

Cassiopeia stepped closer, her gaze lingering on each of them. "You could destroy the legend of Dumbledore before it ever becomes a religion. You could save the families that were ruined and the lives that were wasted. But," she paused, "it is a path of war, even if it is a secret one. You do not have to go. You could stay here, in the peace of the Cradle, forever."

Tom looked at Cyra. He saw the girl who had saved him from a snakelike madness. He looked at Bellatrix, whose sanity was a fragile, beautiful thing she had fought to regain. He looked at Draco and Luna, the future that had been stolen.

"Of course we're going," Tom said, his voice ringing with a cold, sharp clarity.

"Now and forever," Bellatrix added, her eyes flashing with a predatory light that was no longer insane, but focused. "We have a debt to settle with the Headmaster."

"The Nargles in that decade are particularly loud," Luna mused, a small, knowing smile on her lips. "They’ll need someone to quiet them."

Cyra stepped forward, her ice runes pulsing a deep, royal violet. "We are the pack. If one of us goes, we all go. We’ll take the offer, Lord Time."

Lord Time nodded once, the movement causing the stars in the sky to flicker. "Very well. You must understand the landscape. You will arrive on the night of the Samhain feast. In that time, the Marauders—James Potter and his circle—are the kings of the castle. They are fueled by a righteousness that justifies any cruelty. To them, anyone who follows the Old Ways, anyone who calls the feast Samhain instead of Halloween, is a mark for destruction. Dumbledore has spent years cultivating this divide."

"Let them try," Draco muttered, his jaw set.

"I shall send the letters," Lord Time said. "The paperwork will be infallible. You will be the Winterschild quintet. Go now, and weave a better tapestry."

Cassiopeia stepped forward, hugging each of them in turn. When she reached Cyra, she whispered, "Be the storm they never saw coming, my dragon princess."

A thick, silver mist began to roll in from the fjord, smelling of ozone and ancient parchment. It swallowed the meadow, the lake, and the quartz castle. The five of them reached out, locking hands in a circle, their magic intertwining into a single, unbreakable cord.

The world vanished in a roar of white noise.

***

The Great Hall of Hogwarts in 1976 was a riot of gold and scarlet. The Halloween feast—as the Gryffindors insistently called it—was in full swing. At the center of the Gryffindor table, James Potter was standing on a bench, reenacting a particularly humiliating prank played on a second-year Slytherin earlier that day.

"And then," James bellowed, his messy hair wilder than usual, "the little snake realized his robes were made of actual snakes! You should have seen his face, Lily! Pure comedy!"

Lily Evans rolled her eyes, though a small smile played on her lips. "James, sit down. You’re making a scene."

"That’s the point, Evans!" Sirius Black barked, leaning back with an air of practiced nonchalance. "If we don't show these slimy gits who runs the school, they might start thinking they’re human."

At the Slytherin table, the atmosphere was a stark contrast of suppressed fury and weary defense. Lucius Malfoy sat at the head, his expression a mask of aristocratic boredom that hid a simmering rage. Beside him, Regulus Black kept his head down, his fingers tracing the grain of the wood. The hierarchy was clear: the prefects and the 'Old Blood' sat at the top, while the lower years and the outcasts drifted toward the bottom.

Suddenly, the heavy oak doors of the Great Hall groaned. Three massive knocks resounded through the room, so powerful they caused the floating candles to flicker and die for a heartbeat.

Silence fell like a guillotine.

The doors swung open. Five figures stood framed against the darkness of the entrance hall. They wore traveling cloaks of midnight blue and crimson, their boots clicking rhythmically against the stone as they marched into the light. They didn't look like students; they looked like a conquering vanguard.

Albus Dumbledore rose from his golden chair, his blue eyes losing their twinkle as he surveyed the newcomers. "Who are you?" he asked, his voice projecting to the rafters.

In the center of the group, a girl with silver-white hair and striking amethyst eyes paused. She looked at her companions with a puzzled expression, then turned back to the High Table. She pointed a gloved finger at herself. "Us?"

Bellatrix, looking hauntingly beautiful and sharp-featured, nodded. "I think he means us, Cyra."

Cyra turned back to Dumbledore, a polite, mocking smile touching her lips. "Yes, of course. We’re the new transfer students."

Dumbledore’s brow furrowed. "Transfers? I was not informed of any—"

"The letter," Draco interrupted, stepping forward with a confidence that made the young Lucius Malfoy sit up straight. "The one you sent back to our estate after receiving our application. It stated quite clearly that we were to arrive on Samhain night. It is Samhain night. Here we are."

"It is the Halloween feast," James Potter shouted from the Gryffindor table. "Get the name right, you lot!"

Luna Lovegood tilted her head, her large eyes fixing on James with a terrifying intensity. "It is Samhain. The veil is thin. We arrived when the gates were open. Is punctuality considered a Dark Art in this century? Or is it just the manners that have decayed?"

A ripple of muffled snickers broke out from the Slytherin table.

"I... I see," Dumbledore said, sputtering slightly as he reached for a stack of parchments that hadn't been there a moment ago. "Ah, yes. The Winterschild quintet. Homeschooled in the Northern Enclaves. I admit, the timing is... unconventional."

"You didn't specify a time, Headmaster," Tom said. He stood at the back, his presence like a shadow that refused to be ignored. Even at sixteen, he carried an aura of such effortless command that the teachers shifted uncomfortably. "We assumed a magical feast began at the peak of the magic."

Dumbledore cleared his throat, gesturing toward Professor McGonagall. "Very well. Since you are here, we must sort you. Minerva, if you please."

The Deputy Headmistress brought forward the four-legged stool and the tattered Sorting Hat. The hall held its breath.

Cyra walked forward first. She sat on the stool, and the moment the brim touched her silver hair, the hat did something it had not done in a thousand years. It shrieked.

"No, no, no!" the hat yelled, its fabric face twisting in what looked like genuine panic. "Not again! This is impossible!"

The students gasped. The hat never spoke out of turn.

Cyra leaned back, looking up at the brim. "Yes? I’m the new transfer. Don't be a baby about it."

"How?" the hat sputtered, its voice muffled. "How are you here?"

"Cassiopeia said yes," Cyra replied, her voice low but carrying in the silent hall.

The hat went rigid. It seemed to tilt, looking past Cyra toward the four people standing in the aisle. "Cassiopeia... she really said yes?"

"She said yes," Bellatrix confirmed with a sharp, dangerous smirk.

"Solemnly," Tom added.

The hat let out a long, weary sigh that sounded like rustling parchment. "I am going to have a very long, very loud talk with that woman. But fine. If the Lady of the Stream says the gates are open, who am I to bar the door?"

The hat didn't even pause. "SLYTHERIN!"

Cyra stood up, tossing her hair. She didn't head for the top of the table where Lucius and the others sat. Instead, she marched straight to the very bottom, to the "Outcast" seats that had been empty for a decade.

Tom approached the stool next, but the hat started shouting before he even sat down. "No! Don't even bother! The lot of you—Slytherin! Just go before I decide to retire and turn into a tea cozy!"

The Great Hall erupted in whispers. The Marauders were on their feet, James and Sirius looking outraged.

"They didn't even get sorted!" Sirius yelled. "That’s favoritism! They’re obviously Dumbledore’s pets or something!"

Bellatrix, without breaking her stride toward the Slytherin table, raised a hand and flipped the Sorting Hat off the stool with a flick of her fingers. "Cassiopeia said yes, you moth-eaten rag!" she called out.

The five of them sat in a row at the very end of the Slytherin table. They ignored the stares of the prefects. They ignored the gaping mouths of the younger years. They were a world unto themselves.

"Look at them," Lily Evans whispered to Remus Lupin. "They called it Samhain. They’re wearing custom silks. They’re obviously blood supremacists. Look where they sat—they didn't even acknowledge the prefects."

Remus frowned, his eyes fixed on Tom. "They don't look like supremacists, Lily. They look like... survivors. There’s something in their eyes that doesn't belong in a school."

At the head of the Slytherin table, Lucius Malfoy leaned toward Regulus. "Who are they? No one has sat in the Outcast seats since my grandfather’s time. They’ve just insulted the entire hierarchy of the house without saying a word."

"The hat called them by name," Regulus whispered back, his eyes wide. "And it seemed... afraid. Lucius, I don't think they're here to play politics."

Cyra reached for a goblet of pumpkin juice, her movements fluid and lethal. She looked across the table at her pack. Tom was already scanning the room, his mind clearly mapping the exits and the power structures. Bellatrix was watching the Marauders with the look of a cat watching particularly stupid mice.

"So," Cyra said, her voice cutting through the tension at their end of the table. "This is Hogwarts in the seventies. Smells like damp stone and arrogance."

"I think I like it," Draco said, catching his younger father’s eye and offering a wink that left Lucius looking utterly baffled. "It’s going to be so much fun breaking it."

Luna hummed a soft tune, her fingers dancing on the table. "The Headmaster is looking at us, Cyra. He’s trying to read our threads."

Cyra didn't look up. She felt the familiar, invasive brush of Dumbledore’s Legilimency against her mind. Instead of a shield, she gave him a mirror. She projected the image of a single, frozen hibiscus flower shattering into a thousand pieces.

At the High Table, Dumbledore flinched, his hand trembling as he reached for his water.

"Let him look," Cyra whispered, her amethyst eyes glowing in the candlelight. "By the time he realizes the game has changed, we’ll have already burned the board."

The Samhain feast continued, but the air in the Great Hall had shifted. The quintet sat in the shadows of the outcasts, five ghosts from a future that would now never happen, ready to dismantle the past one legend at a time.