HP: Fairy Tale Wizard - 171

Chapter 171: Laying It All Bare (2)

“The entire world will align with me. If that is true, I should not meet real resistance. Yet right now I am lost in a maze with no direction.”

Sterling meant Andrew.

Rather than “the world aligning with him,” it felt like “the world turning against him.” Every time a breakthrough was near these past few days, something cut it off, as if an invisible hand wiped away the clues Andrew left behind.

The tavern interrogation was interrupted.

The “threads” are contaminated.

“Amnesia, whose mechanism he still doesn’t understand.”

Sterling had tried to straighten everything about Andrew, but the more he tried, the more tangled it became, a knot with no beginning and no end.

If the world was meant to align with him…

“Then what you are doing now is contrary to Destiny.”

Maleficent spoke the thought lodged in his heart.

“Destiny does not care about trivialities. But you cannot sprint in the opposite direction. Just as Merlin cannot form the desire to free Avalon completely. There is give for every take. In magical terms, call it equivalent exchange.”

Sterling clenched his fist. For once, Maleficent saw sorrow on his face.

“I do not understand. I am only looking for Andrew. You know this. My family in the living world, my only family. I only want to find him, to rescue him.”

“Why would that run counter to Destiny? Is my Destiny to be ‘forever sundered in life and death’ from Andrew? Did the world give me the talent to cross between realms, and the identity of a pure‑blood incubus, only to take my father from my side?”

“I keep forgetting everything about Andrew, and I am the only one who forgets. I have to use Scholar Magic to engrave him into my magic so I do not forget that he even exists.”

His eyes reddened, but he forced back tears. Andrew and Vivian had both told him that a man, even a boy, should not vent his feelings by crying.

He still had not remembered everything about Andrew.

The Star Observer kept storing memory within the ceaseless flow of his magic. Without it, he forgot.

Now the memories his magic could bear had reached their limit.

He could not hold any more. Each recollection of Andrew vanished with frightening speed, leaving only emptiness, a feeling without an anchor.

He had endured, telling himself that once he solved this, it would be alright.

But now Maleficent told him that looking for Andrew should not be done in the first place.

In this one thing, the world had truly abandoned him.

Maleficent watched him, a flicker of pain crossing her face before sinking beneath ice-hard resolve.

“Sterling, Destiny fixes its gaze on larger things—nations, continents, the world. It does not hinge upon one person.”

“Andrew—yes, I know how good he is to you. Every time you spoke to me of the living world before, your smile was genuine. He raised you well.”

“And he managed to integrate you into human society in less than two years. I do not know how clearly you remember what you were like when you first came to Avalon.”

She drifted into memory. Five years ago. Vivian had brought Sterling back. He sat alone in the pumpkin carriage, still and silent. The blue of his eyes revealed nothing at all.

Like a whirlpool.

That was the form Avalon’s folk would have wished for. For Vivian, it was the worst possible state.

For Maleficent—she shook her head. No use dredging that up.

“Was I… different then?”

So he had forgotten. That is how an incubus’s memory works, erasing what brings pain. Unless…

Maleficent blinked. If so, was someone using the power to invert, to alter, to deceive?

There were not many of the Thirteen Magics that could do this.

And Sterling could not reach them yet.

“It is not important, Sterling.”

She steered away. He likely did not yet fully know his body’s traits, and she would not risk it.

“I know how deeply you feel. But you must understand—if in searching for him you are thwarted at every turn, if seeking him truly runs counter to Destiny—”

“Then pressing on will be futile.”

“I also do not wholly understand why the matter of your father would rise to the level of opposing Destiny. Perhaps it is the bond between you, or his future.”

“But in any case, you cannot push through the entire world to find him. No one defies the world.”

“Rather than waste your strength—”

“No. I can.”

Sterling raised his hand. The Author’s Witness fell into it.

“I can alter reality. I can reverse time. I—”

“You cannot.”

Maleficent’s tone hardened. She had to cut off this dangerous thought here.

“Reverse time? How much time have you turned back? If the Hour‑Reversal Curse still existed in the living world, do you really think no one tried long-range time travel? How did he or she end? You would not have missed such a magical anecdote.”

“Alter reality—have you altered realities that affect the entire world? If he can obstruct Destiny, then altering realities about him is altering the world. The world does not care about trifles, but if you plan to use this to contend with the world—”

“Sterling, do you want to die?”

“If you insist on it, death will be your only end. And if you truly step into the Underworld, Destiny will begin to run on its own. What happens then, no one knows.”

Sterling fell silent.

He truly could not write directly to change anything about Andrew. The pen would not move. So it was because of his weight upon the world.

And time travel—he knew the end of that story. Popert Arlancis, an Unspeakable. He used a Time‑Turner for a year. When he returned to the proper timeline, all that remained in the Department of Mysteries was a skeleton.

The day after he “returned,” the world lost one hour. The Ministry’s tally alone counted over seventy witches and wizards who became “never born.” Cases of people de-aging or going grey in an instant appeared everywhere.

The world’s Ministries joined with Muggle governments to suppress the fallout. Fortunately, the lost hour came back a month later. Otherwise, it would not have been Grindelwald who toppled the Statute of Secrecy.

If he wanted to solve this by turning time, it would take roughly a year.

He did not dare wager that his Original Magic and the Hour‑Reversal Curse would not produce the same catastrophe.

That would put countless lives upon an unpredictable scale. If it tipped, he would become the thing he despised—one who trampled life.

“Then—you want me to give up on finding Andrew.”

His voice turned suddenly calm. Forced, Maleficent knew, but she did not call him on it.

“Yes. Wasted effort brings no good. Better to align with Destiny and enjoy the world’s favor.”

“I do not even know what my Destiny is.”

“As before—become stronger.”

“Whatever Destiny is, without peerless magic, it cannot be achieved. Therefore, growing stronger is the path toward Destiny.”

“You have already learned three of the Thirteen Magics. I can find more sigils. You can try to learn all of them. That will let you reach—no, surpass—your limits.”

She said it with conviction. If Sterling truly meant to gather the Thirteen Magics, the archmages of Avalon would not refuse him.

She suspected the thought already tempted him.

The impulse to collect rare things was an instinct a student of Dragon Magic could not discard. If she had the power, she would have seized the other twelve herself.

“Lady Maleficent, you are very keen to make me stronger. Is the thing you want me to do so deep a magic that it might surpass you?”

She was not surprised. Sterling was sensitive. She had implied as much.

“Yes. You may already have surpassed most people. But those are not your measure. Nor even ordinary geniuses. Look toward the few atop the pyramid.”

“Today you tasted a portion of my power.”

“My white dragon form—so it really was you.”

“No, let me be precise. The white dragon is your own power. The part that ignored nearly all magic after you fully assumed the white dragon came from me, and that was only a small portion.”

She would not let him mistake his strength.

“My own? But Dragonshift is achieved from Animagus by evolving Dragon Magic, isn't it?”

“So it is,” Maleficent nodded.

She had told many lies, but never about magic.

“Perhaps you forgot the second power of Mourning Dragon—gain strength from negative emotions.”

“You were angry. Anger is an excellent negative emotion for Dragon Magic, second only to greed, equal to lust.”

“Your anger became power. It manifested along the magic you believed most powerful in your heart.”

“Yes. You believe Dragonshift is the strongest magic. Correct, and good. A wise choice.”

She barely kept a smile from cracking her serious mask. She had meant to guide Dragon Magic toward Dragonshift so she could act upon Sterling directly.

But it needed no guidance. Sterling himself believed Dragonshift supreme.

Of course, she was pleased. Ursula’s beast form, the Queen’s Black Mirror realm, that special queen’s icebound might—each had visual splendour. But Sterling chose Dragonshift.

As for Vivian’s shapeshifting—Vivian had shown him little of her magic, and it left no strong impression. That did not surprise Maleficent.

Vivian’s state was too poor. Unless needed, she kept to low power.

“Do you feel it? The power of Dragonshift.”

“A body that fears neither magic nor physical blows, that wards off most assaults of mind and even soul.”

“Spellcasting with no loss, and on the contrary, magical reserves and output at true dragon levels. You know what that means. Even a basic fire‑making charm, if you wish, becomes a sea of flame.”

“The wizard’s greatest weakness has always been the body. When the body’s flaw is mended, the wizard is a god.”

“This path is the right path.”

Sterling nodded. He thought so, too.

Dragonshift fit his understanding best. It mended the wizard’s bodily frailty—relative to magical destruction, of course. To Muggles, they were still superhuman.

Ursula’s beast form was too large, and its defence was not truly excellent. Its strength lay in regeneration, and without hard training, the pain of regeneration interfered with casting.

There was also the matter of appearance.

Dragon or beast—there was no contest.

“So afterwards, my body was under your control.”

“No. I only confined your conscious thought and separated it from your body, making it act by instinct.”

“For that, I must apologise, but Sterling—”

“No need, Lady Maleficent.”

He cut her off.

“To me, you are family in Avalon. Even if I now know you had designs and treated me well for your aims, there is a saying in the East: judge deeds, not hearts.”

“I still think of you as family.”

Her expression nearly slipped. She nodded stiffly. Her wand-hand tightened.

“But Lady Maleficent—I have one last question.”

“In the memories that surfaced, why am I so small, and—why do you call me ‘Andersen’?”