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The Ritual Begins
Midnight. The full moon carved silver across the high windows of the Room of Requirement.
Eric stood at the center of the Aeon Bridge circle, dressed in plain robes etched with chalky runes. Each cardinal point was lit with a faint, pulsing glow: the preserved blood of Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor shimmered in their vials.
The mirror stood before him like a gate. His "focus object"—the enchanted USB stick—rested in his palm, humming faintly. His wand pulsed in his grip.
He took a deep breath and whispered the opening line.
"Verum ego sum. Corpus, animus, memoria. Aperite portas."
(Truth, I am. Body, soul, memory. Open the gates.)
The runes flared.
The air trembled.
He stepped forward.
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Fusion
The mirror ignited.
It showed him thousands of versions of himself. Eric Dillan from different timelines. Severus Snape in twisted possibilities. A confident, handsome man with fire in his eyes. A scarred recluse hunched over books. A war hero. A villain.
He raised the USB crystal and pressed it to his chest. It melted into his body like light into skin.
The magic reacted.
The blood in the vials evaporated into color—red, gold, blue—and circled him in rings of flame.
His muscles spasmed.
Memories poured in—not just Snape's, but refined versions of Eric's: his parents laughing, the YouTube tutorials he recorded, the forums he used to visit for coding advice, the hours he spent designing virtual characters. All of it layered with new meaning.
He understood now. Spell logic could be mapped like programming. Charms could be "debugged." Magical objects could be engineered.
But pain followed.
White-hot.
Like his soul was being boiled and remolded.
He screamed—but it was silent, muffled by the storm of light.
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Reconstruction
Bones cracked and reformed. Not broken—refined. Height adjusted. Jawline sharpened. Skin smoothed. Hair thickened, deep black with a slight wave. His body reshaped, balanced by a kind of idealized symmetry.
But this wasn't just vanity.
He felt different. His