Night once again shrouded Wool's Orphanage. The daytime clamor and malice settled into a deeper silence, with only the occasional muffled sound of cars from distant streets proving that a completely different world still existed outside.
In the dormitory, the other children were already asleep, snores and teeth-grinding rising and falling around him. Ares lay on the hard bedboards, wide awake. After completing the "Silent Alliance" mission, his body did feel lighter, but the new mission, [Cornerstone of Trust], weighed on his heart like an even heavier stone. Getting Tom Riddle to voluntarily share a secret? That was like asking a hedgehog to expose its soft belly on its own.
He turned his head and, by the faint light from outside the window, looked toward the bed opposite him. Tom was awake too, lying on his back with his eyes fixed on the mottled shadows on the ceiling, lost in thought. One hand rested beneath his pillow. Ares knew he was tightly gripping the pendant he had recovered.
The daytime "Pendant Incident" had become an invisible thread, binding them closer together—and in a far more complicated way. They were now "accomplices," but their relationship was as fragile as a spiderweb and needed to be handled with the utmost care.
[Host, the atmosphere is a little heavy (′?_?`). Want the system to tell you a joke to lighten things up?]
"Thanks, no." Ares silently declined in his mind. What he needed was an opening, a chance to make Tom lower his guard, even just a little.
He remembered Tom's obsession with those "strange things"—magic—and his reaction when he saw the Hogwarts graffiti. Knowledge might be the only bridge between them.
He took a deep breath and made a decision. He slowly sat up, making almost no sound, then looked toward Tom and gave him a tiny wave.
In the darkness, Tom immediately caught the movement. He turned his head, his black eyes gleaming with wariness and confusion in the night.
Ares pointed outside the window, then at himself, and silently mouthed, "Outside."
Tom frowned, clearly unable to understand what Ares was trying to do.
Ares offered no further explanation. He slipped quietly out of bed and padded to the door like a cat. He glanced back at Tom, then slipped out of the dormitory.
He leaned against the cold corridor wall and waited, uncertain. Would Tom follow?
A few seconds later, the dormitory door was gently pushed open, and Tom appeared in the doorway. He was still wearing that worn coat, his sharp gaze sweeping the empty corridor before settling on Ares.
"What do you want?" he asked in a lowered voice, his usual caution evident.
Ares did not answer. He simply turned and gestured for him to follow. Relying on his memories from the day and the system's faint guidance, he led Tom through the dark corridors, carefully avoiding the night watchman's possible route. Eventually, they reached the end of a narrow, abandoned stairway leading to the rooftop. There was a rusty iron door there, usually locked, but its lock had long been broken and could be opened by the children with a little clever effort.
Ares laboriously pushed open a gap, and the two of them squeezed through one after the other.
The wind on the rooftop carried the chill of the night, blowing away the stale air trapped within the orphanage. London's night sky was not clear, dyed a hazy dark red by the city lights. Only a few of the brightest stars stubbornly glimmered overhead.
"Why did you bring me here?" Tom looked around, his tone still cold, though his tense body showed that he was not entirely unmoved. Standing here felt like temporarily escaping that suffocating cage.
Ares walked to the edge of the rooftop, braced himself against the low railing, and looked up at the limited patch of stars. Then he turned to face Tom, pointing at the sky again before pointing at himself and Tom.
He took a deep breath and began communicating with the system in his mind. "System, help me tell him something about the world of 'people like us' in the simplest way possible, without involving any core secrets."
[Understood! (??????)?? The little knowledge lesson is now in session! Host, follow my prompts and speak!]
Ares looked at Tom and began his clumsy, dangerous "sermon," using extremely slow, clear mouth movements and simple gestures.
"Those... strange things." He pointed at Tom, then at himself. "Not demons... gifts."
Tom's pupils contracted almost imperceptibly, but he did not interrupt. He merely watched Ares in silence, more intently than before.
"There is a place..." Ares continued, using both hands to outline a vague, magnificent shape. "A castle... very big, lots of towers... like in dreams." He meant the graffiti from earlier that day. "There... are people like us."
Tom's breathing seemed to stop for a moment. He took a small step forward, his voice carrying a trace of urgency he did not seem to notice himself. "What place? What is it called?"
Ares shook his head, indicating that he did not know the full name—or could not say it. He then tapped his temple with a finger. "Power... is here. Need to... learn. Control." He made a gesture of gathering scattered things together. "Otherwise... it hurts yourself, and others."
This was an extremely simplified explanation based on the most basic knowledge the system had provided about young wizards' magic surges, combined with his own understanding.
Tom stared at him intently, his black eyes astonishingly bright in the night. Ares's words were like a key inserted into a lock long sealed within Tom's heart, a lock filled with confusion and anger. Those uncontrollable powers, those strange dreams, the fear of being excluded... none of it was a curse. It was a... "gift"? And there was a place filled entirely with others like him?
"How do you know these things?" Tom's voice was low and taut. "Who are you, really?"
This was the crucial question. Ares fell silent for a moment. He raised a hand and lightly brushed the golden chain-shaped mark beneath his left eye. Then he pointed toward the stars before spreading his palm over his chest, feeling the light and dark magic there pulse faintly like tides.
He could not explain the blood pact, the system, or his transmigration. He could only imply it this way: his origins were as mysterious as the starry sky, and his essence existed alongside this power.
It was an answer full of holes, but at this moment, beneath the stars and after the secret they had guarded together, that symbolic gesture carried more impact than any elaborate lie.
Tom did not receive a definite answer. Yet as he looked into Ares's mismatched eyes, which seemed even deeper and more unfathomable in the darkness, and saw the nearly compassionate calm on his face—a calm no orphanage child should possess—suspicion and longing clashed fiercely within him.
In the end, longing overcame everything else.
He no longer pressed Ares about his origins. Instead, he asked the question that had plagued him for so long. "How do I... 'control' it?" For the first time, he used "it" to refer to the ability that had once frightened him while also giving him power.
Ares saw the burning flame in Tom's eyes, the hunger for knowledge and power, and knew the first step of his gamble had succeeded. Drawing from the shallowest parts of the Basic Magic Stabilization Technique transmitted by the system, he began demonstrating, through exceedingly slow movements, mouth shapes, and simple mental guidance, how to sense the flow of magic within one's body and how to try to steady it when emotions surged.
Tom watched with absolute focus, missing no detail. He even began copying Ares's breathing rhythm.
On the rooftop, two children abandoned by the world stood together. One taught awkwardly but sincerely; the other learned with focus and greed. The starlight was dim, the city's noise faded below, and they seemed to be in a lonely, secret classroom meant only for beginners in magic.
[Host! (?ω?) The target has actively sought knowledge! This is an important sign of trust being established! We're still far from him sharing secrets, but we've already taken a huge step forward!]
After an unknown amount of time, the faint sound of the night watchman coughing drifted from afar. Both boys became alert at once.
Tom immediately stopped imitating him and resumed his usual cold expression, though the flame in his eyes had not gone out. He gave Ares a long look. That gaze no longer held only scrutiny; there was now something difficult to describe within it, something akin to acknowledgment.
"We should go back," he said quietly, taking the lead toward the iron door.
Ares followed behind him, watching Tom's back. Though still straight, it no longer seemed quite so solitary. He quietly let out a breath of relief.
Tonight, he had pushed open a tiny window in Tom's sealed-off world, letting him glimpse a sliver of starlight. But would that starlight ultimately illuminate Tom's path into darkness, or would he use it to seize even deeper shadows?
Ares did not know. But he did know that from this moment onward, the bond between them had become stronger—and more dangerous—because of their shared secret: magic.
The system's starry sky and the starry sky Tom longed for had begun to intertwine.
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