Finding a specific book in the Hogwarts library was usually painless.
The history texts Elias needed at the start of term, for instance, had been slotted into their own neat section like obedient soldiers.
When your only search term was “emotion,” and the book had no title, it became a scavenger hunt across a few hundred volumes.
Six days.
Six days of dragging his fingertips along dusty spines before a passage in Wizards and Magic finally hooked his attention.
‘Every wizard, I believe, has asked the same question: how was magic born?’
‘The answer, perhaps, lies with the children — young wizards who have never received a shred of formal training.’
‘Apart from Squibs, nearly every magic-capable child displays some flicker of talent before their first lesson.
Hair that grows a foot overnight.
A window that blinks out of existence.
Finding oneself on the roof.
A cup that never runs dry.’
‘Why?
My research suggests it stems from craving — intense, immediate wanting.
The child with the cup was half-dead of thirst, unconsciously casting the Water-Making Spell.’
‘Craving is an emotion.
A wizard’s birthright.’
‘I propose a hypothesis: magic is the union of power and emotion.’
‘Consider the Patronus Charm.
It requires joy — not the word, not the idea, but the lived, remembered feeling.
And Dark wizards?
Their malice seems to feed their spells, making them stronger than any decent person’s.
The evidence sits before us, though it still fails to explain why Galleons don’t rain from the sky every time we ache for coin.’
The article didn’t prove anything.
But it sparked something.
A door cracked open.
If a Patronus fed on joy, what would happen if you replaced joy with something else?
Lust, for instance.
Would the charm warp?
Strengthen?
Elias penciled Patronus practice into his mental calendar and made his reluctant way to the front lawns, where the first flying lesson of the semester waited.
Hermione walked beside him, already reciting mounting techniques from Quidditch Through the Ages.
Elias listened, grateful for anything that might keep him alive.
He was far more nervous than her — not because he lacked talent, but because heights made his stomach lurch and his palms cold.
A childhood fear he’d never outgrown.
By the time they reached the field, the lesson was moments from starting.
Two long rows of broomsticks lay on the grass, spaced like fallen fence posts.
Madam Hooch descended on her own broom with the slow, deliberate grace of a falcon coming to roost.
Short grey hair, yellow eyes that missed nothing.
“Well? What are you waiting for?” she barked.
“Everyone stand beside a broomstick.”
Elias sorted through the pile.
He selected the least ancient one, which still had more splinters than smooth handle.
He hoped it would at least stay level.
At this point, stability was more important than speed.
“Extend your right hand over the broom and say, Up!”
The command echoed in a chorus.
Hermione’s broom flipped into her palm on the first try.
Elias’s didn’t twitch.
He felt a hot flicker of annoyance — then, while Madam Hooch corrected a flailing student nearby, he murmured the Summoning Charm under his breath.
The broom glided into his grip before she turned back around.
No one noticed.
Once everyone held a broom, Madam Hooch demonstrated the proper grip and posture, walking the rows to adjust their hands.
Elias straddled the handle; it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared, something like a bicycle seat, if the bicycle might hurl you into the sky.
“On my whistle, kick off hard from the ground,” she instructed.
“Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, then lean forward slightly and descend. Three… two… one!”
The whistle pierced.
Elias pushed off, legs clamped, and managed a brief, ungainly hop before thumping back onto the grass.
Hermione doubled over, laughter spilling out in bright bursts.
She mimicked his awkward bounce with a little hop of her own, then straightened, wiping her eyes.
Elias gave her a flat stare and was mentally preparing to redeem himself when Madam Hooch’s shout cut the air.
“Child! Come back here!”
Every head turned.
A figure was already climbing the sky, too fast, too high.
“Neville! Oh, no—” Hermione’s hand flew to her mouth.
Neville Longbottom’s face was bleached of color.
His hands clawed at the broom as it dragged him upward, his grip slipping in slow-motion increments.
He was going to fall.
Everyone looked to Madam Hooch.
She stood frozen, pale, shouting useless instructions, her wand still tucked away.
Elias gave up on her.
He supposed flying instructors were like gym teachers — expecting them to intervene was optimistic.
At Hogwarts, the only real safety net came from the four heads of house, and none of them were here.
His wand was already in his hand.
“Flying broomstick, come here!”
The out-of-control broom wrenched around, tearing Neville back toward the ground.
The closer it came, the more certain Elias felt — he could catch him.
He could—
Neville’s fingers gave out.
He slid from the broom, plummeting.
For an eternal half-second, his face was a mask of pure, empty terror.
He could almost see his grandmother holding out her arms.
“Arresto Momentum!”
Elias had only read the spell twice, but focus sharpened when need was absolute.
He drew on every split-second calculation he’d ever used to track sniper arcs in games, positioning himself to catch the boy with the cushioning charm at the final possible instant.
Neville stopped with his nose an inch above the grass.
A collective gasp.
Madam Hooch rushed over, her voice trembling as she checked Neville for injuries.
“Merlin’s trousers. Just scratches on his arm. You’ll be fine, child — come, come, hospital wing. You’ll be right as rain.”
She turned to Elias, and her sharp face softened with approval.
“Excellent Summoning Charm, and that Arresto Momentum was textbook. You saved your classmate in the nick of time. I think Slytherin earns twenty points.”
Applause broke out, even from the Gryffindors — because Neville was one of theirs, and Elias had just stopped him from breaking his neck.
“So cool,” Parvati Patil whispered.
“Yeah, even if he is a Slytherin,” Lavender Brown agreed quietly.
Hermione glanced at her two roommates, saying nothing.
Madam Hooch addressed the rest of the class.
“I’m taking this child to the hospital.
Put the brooms back neatly — and no one so much as touches them while I’m gone.
You,” she nodded at Elias, “keep an eye on things.”
Elias inclined his head.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Draco Malfoy paused, hesitated, then bent to pick up Neville’s fallen Remembrall.
He slipped it into his pocket without a word.
When Madam Hooch returned, she resumed the lesson briskly.
Elias, spurred on by Hermione’s slight but insufferable smirk, finally managed to coax his broom into a wobbly three-foot hover.
And then he locked up, exactly like he’d done the first time he sat on a bike and couldn’t trust the pedals.
Motionless.
Breathing too carefully.
Later — for reasons Elias found wholly absurd — Malfoy used Neville’s Remembrall to challenge Harry to a mid-air scuffle.
Both of them flaunted their flying skills like young princes of the sky, and by the end, Malfoy somehow cost Slytherin five points, while Harry was pulled off the field by Professor McGonagall, his expression that of a boy walking to his own execution.
[Lust +1]
The rush of wind, the altitude, the reckless grace of it — Elias crushed the warm tingle before it could root, telling himself it had nothing to do with anyone in particular.
That afternoon, restless but too drained to be productive, he found himself in the library, staring through a stained-glass window instead of at the open book in front of him.
[Sloth +1]