Hogwarts seemed to be boiling for those who could feel it; Pandora, Astreo, and Dumbledore saw all the magic of the institution begin to boil from the 29th day, for there is no better word to describe the way this power behaved.
Pandora saw many motes of light fluttering wildly above Lily Potter and Alicia Longbottom, while Dumbledore, with his wizarding sense developed almost to the extreme, felt as if he were in a pot. Astreo, on the other hand, could see the magic of the entire castle stirring wildly, something that prevented him from sleeping, and so he cried constantly, surpassing even Ron's weeping.
Aurora had done her best to calm her son down and get him to sleep, even Madame Pomfrey had to make him suck on one of her fingers that had been smeared with a soothing potion to get him to sleep, something that was usually done to magical children when their teeth were coming in.
"I don't understand, he's been like this all day and I don't know what to do," Aurora said desperately as she tried to calm her son, who was still sobbing, though quietly.
"Let me make a diagnosis with magic, may I?" the older woman asked, it was very rude to use magic against another person unless it was a duel or you were being rude with a joke.
When everyone was holding an object that could shatter walls with various gestures and words, well, it was understandable because, in a magical society, it was frowned upon for anyone to cast spells on another without permission. Aurora nodded in acceptance as she cradled her son, trying to comfort him, she was very nervous and didn't know what to do.
Madame Pomfrey cast several diagnostic spells on the baby, only noticing that the baby seemed to be stressed for some reason. Why would a baby be stressed? Well, she already knew what to do, so she got a bottle of Baby's Sleep Potion, whatever was bothering the child could be passed on after a good nap.
"Muggles have these, they call them bottles. Not that we wizard need them to feed our children, but they are very handy for giving potions to babies, they give potions to their children, they call it 'formula', I never understood why they did that," Madame Pomfrey said as she handed a warm bottle to a very distressed Aurora.
"Let's see, hold it like this, yes, now put the tip of the bottle in his mouth, they call it a pacifier, Muggles and their stuff," Aurora followed the nurse's advice, and as Astreo began to drink, he soon calmed down.
"Thank you," the mother sighed in relief, her son finally calming down, though she would like to know what was wrong with him, so she looked at Pomfrey for a few seconds before asking.
"What's wrong with my baby?" she wanted to know because although the little creature was already calm, she didn't know if this situation could be repeated.
"According to the diagnostic spell, stress. Yes, it's rare, because magical babies are rarely stressed due to the witch's breast milk, but in cases like this, the potion I gave you works. Maybe there is something that made him uncomfortable, luckily you are a witch, if you were a Muggle your son would have had a magical riot and you could have been hurt," the nurse said, making Aurora's face crumple with worry.
She then began to sing him a song, it was one her husband had dedicated to her when they first started dating. The song was by one Louis Armstrong and was called 'What a Wonderful World'.
As she sang the song, her son took the potion and slowly drifted off to sleep, although Astreo's thoughts were somewhat clouded, he was relaxed enough to think about what the hell was happening to him.
'Holy crap, magic is in a frenzy because it looks like it's the eve of Neville and Harry's birth. In Star Wars terms, the Force is being disrupted. My body is too young to support my magical sensitivity and it has irritated me,' Astreo thought about his situation.
For him, the situation was both good and bad. At times when magic was stirred up, he might suffer from irritation or mood swings, holidays like Samhain or Saturnalia would be terrible for him, as would his birthday, when magic would be uncomfortable for his being.
However, being as sensitive to magic as he was had its advantages. He had trained his magical sense in an environment devoid of magical power, and now, in a place as saturated with mana as this world was, he was able to sense subtleties much better.
This would give him a certain advantage in learning magic, and not only that. Since magic was a power that connected everyone, especially magical beings, he would be able to sense some characteristics of people he had become an aura reader, something not everyone could block. Even with Occlumency, Astreo would know if someone was trustworthy just by sensing their magical power.
It was confusing and chaotic now since he was a baby, but at least he could feel his mother's motherly love because of the connection he shared with her. Because of this, he was able to relax completely and sleep very well until he felt hungry.
Astreo was at the birth of Neville and Harry with a bottle. It was a spectacle for him, and also irritating. To feel the magic turn into a vortex to christen the two chosen children was interesting to him.
He couldn't see the magic, but with what he felt, even he had learned a few things. Pandora Lovegood was another person who had benefited from it, feeling a strong inspiration from literally watching magic help two children to be born.
In a way, Pandora was jealous of these children, because her daughter wouldn't have such a spectacular birth, but she could pass on what she had learned by organizing it and doing something with it.
Dumbledore was nervous, though he was happy that two lives were coming into the world, and he was also flooded with a sense of happiness because to him, all his students were his grandchildren, even those who had strayed into the dark path. His children would be his students in the future, so he felt like a grandfather.
But what he felt on the day these children were born was something he had never experienced before. These children were going to be strong, they were going to be powerful, and while you might think that he would be angry or upset about that, he was not. I was just nervous, very nervous because I didn't know what to do.
How do you raise two great potential figures in the magical world so that they don't fall into bad ways? It couldn't be like with poor Tom, and as he remembered what his pupil had become, a pang of guilt caused a living pain in his chest.
Dumbledore took one of his now classic lemon sherbets, people thought he was an avid sugar fiend, and he was, but he took so many sweets because they weren't just that. He was an old man, and he had old man problems, even though wizards could live 150 years or more, he was not just old, he was a veteran.
The fight against Grindelwald was not easy, and even though he won, and even though he was treated with potions and elixirs, the stress of war takes its toll on anyone. Now he was living through a war, albeit on a smaller scale, but no less traumatic. So each of his candies contained potions to help him with his problems in old age.
It was already the evening of the 1st of July and the magic in the school had eased, he even noticed that Mrs. Sinistra's excited son had calmed down and stopped crying. It seemed that the child showed promise if he somehow responded to the magical chaos that had befallen the institution.
"Perhaps I should keep an eye on little Astreo, he might surprise me," Dumbledore said as he looked up at the starry sky from the Astronomy Tower.
Fawkes, his trusty phoenix, leaned on his shoulder, enjoying the view with his human companion. As a magical being and mythical creature, of course, he could sense the magical upheaval Hogwarts was experiencing with the birth of two human children, so he had perched nearby to see what was so special about them.
As a bird whose song could inspire courage in people, he saw something special in these children, something unformed and empty, but he knew that with the right guidance, it would grow into a monstrous courage, one as fiery as the flames themselves. That's why he sang a song for both children when they were born.
Passing by, he found another baby in the nursery, a child who radiated a warmth similar to the one he felt at dawn, so he dedicated a song to him as well, causing the baby to wave his arms in excitement.
"Fawkes, I don't know what to do, even though the prophecy has given us a glimmer of light, it's dangerous. I know from Grindelwald that some things are unchangeable and... I don't want to send two children to fight Tom.
I have only heard and seen the results of the monstrosities of his followers, and it makes my blood run cold to think of one or both of them going up against such a person, nay, such a monster. So I have a favor to ask of you, my friend.
As you once came to my aid when I was in need, if either of these children is in trouble, go and help them, I ask this not as a wizard with a family connection to you, but as a grandfather worried about his grandchildren." Dumbledore was suffering, the prophecy was making him suffer.
Why would one of the world's greatest wizards suffer for a prophecy? Because if it were real if it were unchangeable, those children would not have a proper life unless the shadow that covered the English magical world was removed. Yes, even in his mercy, he knew that Tom Riddle, or as he now called himself, Lord Voldemort, had to be vanquished.
Not only that, but the magical world as a whole would have to be restructured from the ground up to solve the problem at its root, or there would be a Tim or a Dick following in Tom's footsteps in the future, for they would only be the symptoms of a rotten system.
Many cry out because Dumbledore banned rituals, yes he did, but not because they were dangerous, all magic was dangerous, and even a simple Enlightenment spell could be disastrous if you knew how to use it. No, what he wanted was to find those rituals that no longer had any real purpose or usefulness, leaving only those that were truly useful.
It was those useless rituals, like killing a virgin girl to bathe in her blood and supposedly become younger, eating the heart of a dragon to supposedly have more virility or even some rituals that were more of an excuse for orgies, that had to go. However, the situation had become so hectic, and the civil war had intensified, that he could only take such a drastic measure.
He had done rituals himself, the really useful ones, like the familiar one or the one that sharpened his mind. Hell, there were even some forms of prophecy like pyromancy that were rituals, and it wasn't as dangerous as learning the flame spell in the first year.
Fawkes let out a squeak that Dumbledore took as an affirmation, making the headmaster feel a little more comfortable. He just hoped it would all be over and he could retire, Minerva would make an excellent Headmistress of Hogwarts, and he, well, he was looking forward to going to one of those Caribbean beaches to hang out.
"Come on Fawkes, we have a civil war to fight, we have to cut the losses, we have to keep watching over a better future for our grandchildren," Dumbledore walked towards his office, a little less nervous and full of determination.
Meanwhile, Astreo watched Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom sleeping next to him, he wanted to pat their faces, but they had just been born.
'Being a baby is the best time, I'll be able to beat the Chosen Ones without anyone scolding me, hahahahahahahaha,' he thought as he hugged his stuffed dragon.
The living future child and the Gryffindor swordsman didn't know that their futures were literally in the hands of an astrologer with a broken sense of humor.
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