Felix, cradling the small, warm weight of Himari, sat half-reclined on his surprisingly soft four-poster bed. The rich, dark blue flannel curtains were drawn back, allowing the faint moonlight filtering through the tall dormitory window to cast long, dancing shadows across the circular room. He held a book open in his lap, one of the many he'd acquired from Diagon Alley, but his eyes weren't truly following the lines of text. His mind was a whirlwind of thoughts, a vibrant tapestry woven from past, present, and the beckoning future.
Eleven years. It had been eleven years since he'd blinked into existence in this new world, a disoriented infant with the memories of an adult. He had transitioned from an ordinary mortal in one life to a fledgling wizard on the cusp of delving into true magic in this one. The grand, mysterious doors of a new reality were about to formally swing open for him, and the prospect was both exhilarating and daunting.
From tomorrow onwards, within the ancient, stone walls of this very castle, he would begin to unravel the profound secrets of magic, to explore the fundamental truths of this enchanting, and sometimes perilous, world.
Even with the soul of a man who had lived a full life before, a restless excitement thrummed beneath his calm exterior, making sleep an elusive prospect. The day's events, the journey, the Sorting, the sheer reality of Hogwarts – it was all a potent cocktail that kept his mind racing.
He waited, listening to the rhythmic breathing of his three roommates, until the deep, even sounds indicated they were all soundly asleep. Only then did Felix carefully, silently, slip out from under his covers. The stone floor was cool beneath his bare feet.
Himari, ever attuned to her master's movements and intentions, uncurled from the foot of the bed, her eyes gleaming in the dim light. She padded silently after him, a small, white shadow. She, too, seemed to remember: it was time for her master's once-a-month "summoning."
This was an ability Felix had awakened within himself at the tender age of six. As his innate sensitivity to the currents of time and space had steadily grown, he would often feel a peculiar thrumming, a deep-seated palpitation from within his very core, as if something was calling out to him from beyond the veil.
Then, in his sixth year, his spiritual energy—or perhaps his magical core, he wasn't yet sure of the precise terminology in this new world—had finally become strong enough to follow that inner throb, to consciously reach out and bridge the gap to other worlds, to summon.
However, the process was far from reliable. Most often, his attempts yielded nothing at all, the connection failing to properly form or stabilize. On the rare occasions he did manage to pull something through, it was usually a mundane, common item with no special properties: a piece of fruit from an unknown tree, a handful of unfamiliar sand, a peculiar-looking household utensil.
Fortunately, his luck wasn't always so pedestrian. Occasionally, he would manage to acquire "specialty items" from these other worlds, some of which even pulsed with unique, inherent powers. The Doran's Ring, the Konoha forehead protector – these were the prized results of such fortunate summons. But even these "specialties" were usually just inert objects. Summoning Himari, a living, breathing (albeit magical) creature, had been an instance of truly extraordinary, almost unbelievable, luck.
And tonight, it seemed his good fortune had decided to visit him once more.
A silent, almost imperceptible tear appeared in the fabric of reality before the cold fireplace, a shimmering distortion in the air, darker than the surrounding shadows. There was no sound, no dramatic flourish, just a quiet parting of the veil. Then, not disappointing his heightened expectations, it spat out something rather large.
It was a metallic sphere, roughly a meter in diameter, crafted in an intricate, mechanical steampunk style. Gears and rivets were visible on its burnished surface. It landed on the stone floor with a dull, heavy thud that vibrated through Felix's feet, indicating considerable weight.
Felix reached out a curious hand, intending to touch its cool, metal surface. But before he could make contact, before he could even fully process its sudden appearance, the sphere began to open on its own.
Like a lotus flower unfurling its petals from a tight bud, the outer shell of the sphere split into precisely engineered segments, which then smoothly, silently, retracted, revealing the precious treasure held within.
Curled up inside the sphere was a girl, or rather, the exquisitely crafted form of one. Her entire body, from what he could see, seemed to be constructed from intricate clockwork and gleaming gears. She had lustrous golden hair, meticulously arranged, and her outer casing—or was it skin?—was a polished, silvery-white.
A large, ornate wind-up key protruded from her back.
Even without deciphering the rush of information that always accompanied a successful summoning, a flood of intuitive knowledge about the summoned entity, Felix knew her identity from her appearance alone.
Valoran. The Clockwork Windup. Orianna.
Regarding the origin of Orianna, the Clockwork Windup, Riot Games had provided two distinct narratives.
In the first, Orianna's creator, a brilliant inventor, crafted this automaton in the likeness of his deceased daughter, naming the mechanical marvel after her.
In the second, more tragic tale, Orianna was once a girl of flesh and blood. An accident in the undercity of Zaun led to a severe illness, and her progressively failing body had to be replaced, piece by piece, with sophisticated artificial organs, until no trace of her original human form remained.
Orianna herself was a master of precision mechanics; her own clockwork heart and the spherical "Ball" she commanded were her own creations. And knowing the proclivities of Valoran's so-called "scientists," their "science" was often not the same as the science of his previous world; it was a unique form of magitech, a fusion of mechanics and magical principles.
This meant that Orianna's mastery of "precision mechanics" likely also encompassed a significant understanding of Valoran's magical lore.
The magic of Valoran clashing or perhaps synergizing with the magic of the Harry Potter world? An intriguing thought. But the immediate priority was to ascertain the Clockwork Windup's current condition.
But how to "awaken"—or rather, activate—the mechanical girl before him?
Felix studied her for a good while, his mind racing through possibilities. Finally, the most obvious solution presented itself—the key.
That conspicuous, enormous wind-up key in Orianna's back... what was its purpose if not to bring her to life?
Perhaps, it served as Orianna's starter, her very ignition.
He moved carefully to stand behind the still, curled form of the Clockwork Windup and tentatively reached for the key.
Turning the wind-up key was surprisingly easier than he had anticipated. With only a slight exertion of force, Felix was able to rotate it. The spindle turned with an initial chorus of clicks and whirs from springs and gears, a sound that quickly quieted, as if a long-disused machine, once nudged back into motion, had shaken off its initial stiffness and was now running smoothly. Only the tactile resistance of the winding mechanism continuously reminded Felix that he was interacting with a mechanical creation.
Felix turned the key counter-clockwise about three and a half times before it reached its limit. When he released his grip, the key began to rotate clockwise at a steady, slow pace. With this rhythmic turning, Felix felt a profound thrumming in his own soul—a distinct awareness of another soul awakening within the mechanical chassis before him. Simultaneously, a contractual bond, ethereal yet undeniable, formed between his soul and this newly awakened one. He had experienced a similar sensation when he had first summoned Himari.
This, he surmised, was an inherent part of his summoning ability: when a living (or sentient, in this case) being was summoned, a contract was automatically forged between summoner and summoned.
He could feel himself as the dominant party in this contract; the souls of Orianna and Himari lay open to his perception, their essences unveiled to him, though not their thoughts.
As the key continued its unhurried rotation, intricate patterns etched onto the surface of Orianna's mechanical shell began to glow with a soft, magical luminescence.
Felix glanced quickly at his three roommates; their steady breathing confirmed they had not been disturbed.
The ethereal glow persisted for several dozen seconds before gradually fading. Then, with a sudden, smooth movement, Orianna's eyes snapped open. Her pupils, like perfectly cut crystals—no, they were crafted from crystal—emitted a soft, golden light.
She remained curled on the floor, her delicate face partially hidden behind her knees, only those luminous crystal eyes visible as she gazed up at Felix. And in that gaze, there was a spark of intelligence, a depth of spirit, that no mere machine could ever possess.