The thrilling duel of spells with Penelope finally ended in a technical draw — one that felt almost humiliating.
Alan's spell system, that grand edifice of logic he had so carefully constructed, collapsed spectacularly under the eyes of everyone present.
Although the systematic creativity he displayed had earned him everyone's respect, the bitterness of failure still left a clear crack deep within the foundations of his mental palace.
This setback made Alan temporarily halt his obsessive research into "spell programming." He realized that no matter how refined the software was, it could never run stably on fragile hardware.
So, he turned his focus toward a deeper field — the theoretical exploration of new magical materials and casting media.
It was at that moment that an unexpected discovery — brought to him by the two most unexpected people — appeared before him.
"Alan! Quick! Come look at this!"
Late at night, when the fire in the common room had nearly burned out, Fred and George appeared like a pair of sneaky shadows, one on each side, dragging him away from his pile of parchment.
They pulled him into the darkest corner of the dormitory, where almost no light reached.
"We've been studying the Know-It-All," George whispered, his voice trembling with the excitement of a successful prank. He carefully spread open the magical, talking diary.
"We found something strange. Really strange. No matter what passage or hidden corridor we ask it about in the castle, it gives us the route instantly — even marks places where Peeves might show up."
"But…"
Fred picked up the sentence, his face twisted into a strange mix of confusion and excitement. With the tip of his wand, he pointed at a line on the diary's page.
"Whenever we ask anything about the forbidden corridor on the fourth floor, the writing turns into… this mess."
Alan looked down.
Where clear, elegant handwriting should have appeared, the page was now swirling with a mass of inky blackness, writhing as if alive.
The ink twisted and crawled before solidifying into a jumble of completely incomprehensible symbols — chaos in its purest form.
It wasn't any known language.
It was a tangled patchwork of broken fragments of ancient runes, violently distorted alchemical symbols, and illogical geometric shapes — crudely stitched together into a pile of gibberish.
They were so disordered and intertwined that merely looking at them made one's mind reel, as if something were tearing at the soul. From the page seeped a sinister, ancient chill.
"We tried every related word," Fred added, frustration in his tone.
"'Three-headed dog,' 'trapdoor,' even the name 'Nicolas Flamel' we overheard — the moment we mention them, it goes mad."
"Is this blasted diary broken?" George couldn't help but ask.
Alan didn't answer.
His gaze was fixed — as if magnetized — on those "symbols."
At that moment, his entire world was drawn away; sound, light, and even the Weasley twins faded into a blur.
Inside his mental palace, the instant those symbols touched his consciousness, the core computational region ignited — like a top-tier decoder encountering an encryption system more complex than anything it had ever processed.
Countless streams of data surged through his mind, attempting to compare, analyze, and decipher.
"No," Alan finally said, his voice carrying a heat of excitement even he hadn't noticed.
"On the contrary… it's working perfectly."
"What do you mean?"
The twins exchanged a bewildered look.
"The creator of this diary… is a far more brilliant wizard than we ever imagined."
Alan extended a finger, but didn't touch the page. Instead, he let it hover just a few millimeters above those strange symbols. His analysis was calm and sharp, each word cutting cleanly like a scalpel.
"He knew that one day, this diary would fall into someone else's hands. So, for the most core and dangerous secrets within it, he set up an incredibly sophisticated information encryption protocol."
"Information… en-what?"
To the Weasley twins, that phrase sounded more incomprehensible than a house-elf's reasoning.
"In simpler terms — a protective barrier," Alan said, switching to a metaphor they could grasp.
"When your questions try to touch on the secret protected by the highest level of authorization, this barrier activates instantly. It converts the original information into these unreadable 'symbols' in real time."
He paused, giving them a moment to digest the idea.
"This means those seemingly meaningless symbols aren't truly random."
In the depths of his pupils, countless stars seemed to spin and calculate — the brilliance of reason nearly overflowing from his eyes. A thunderous revelation took shape in his mind.
"It's not a wall," he said softly. "It's a locked door. And these symbols — this 'gibberish' — are the unique key that can open it."
His voice wasn't loud, but in the quiet dormitory, it seemed to echo and resonate.
"The creator designed it this way to ensure one thing:
only someone possessing the right knowledge system and decoding ability would be allowed to see what lies beyond that door."
"What's behind the door, then?" Fred asked, breathing rapidly, eyes gleaming with greedy excitement. "A treasure map leading to the Philosopher's Stone?"
"No."
Alan shook his head. His thoughts had already ascended far beyond the notion of any physical treasure.
"I don't think so."
His gaze returned to the chaotic symbols, and his tone grew firm — absolute.
"To use such an intricate, precise encryption method just to protect a simple location… that would be a massive waste. It doesn't make sense."
He lifted his head and looked at the expectant twins, as if revealing a truth far greater than they could imagine.
"My deduction is that what these symbols point to isn't a treasure at all. It points to something far older — and far greater — a repository of knowledge."
"This diary," he said slowly, his words carrying weight, "might not just be a guide…"
"It could be an entry point — a gateway to an unknown realm of magic and knowledge."
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