The first weekend of the new term found the Gryffindor Common Room alive with warmth and noise. The fire in the great hearth burned high and bright, painting the circular room in deep amber tones. The air was rich with the scents of butterbeer, parchment, and freshly baked scones, a mingling of sweetness and nostalgia unique to Hogwarts weekends.
Laughter, clattering wizard chess pieces, and the hum of dozens of conversations wove together into a bright, harmonious chaos.
Then, suddenly, that harmony was torn apart by a streak of white lightning that shot cleanly through the open window.
A snowy owl.
But not one of Hogwarts' own. Its plumage was so pure and perfectly ordered that it seemed combed feather by feather. There was a precision to its flight, an austere, almost militaristic grace, a reflection of that particular, meticulous German temperament. Its eyes held none of the affable glint of the school's usual post owls. They were cold, haughty, and indifferent.
Without acknowledging the gasps or the dozens of heads turning upward, the owl swept in a flawless arc through the air, then descended in a single smooth motion, landing directly before Alan Scott, who sat reading in his favorite chair by the fire.
Thud.
A thick, beautifully crafted envelope dropped neatly onto the open pages of his book. The wax seal gleamed a dark crimson, stamped with a sigil of a double-headed eagle,
the official insignia of the German Ministry of Magic.
A hush rippled across the room.
Every eye turned toward Alan and the letter, curiosity and awe mingling in the charged silence.
Alan didn't flinch. His hands, steady and immaculate, broke the wax seal with the precision of a surgeon. Inside were two documents, differing in texture and tone.
He drew out the first.
The parchment was cold to the touch, stiff, immaculate, every letter spaced with the exactitude of a ruler. The tone was formal to the point of hostility.
Across the top, embossed in ink as dry as frost, were the words:
To the Office of Improper Use of Magic, British Ministry of Magic.
And at the bottom,
a signature that caught Alan's attention at once.
The handwriting was grotesquely decorative, drowning in curlicues and frills, as if sugar icing were trying to mask rot beneath.
Dolores Jane Umbridge, Undersecretary.
That name unlocked, with an audible click in his mind, a long-sealed drawer within his mental archive, one labeled Dangerous / Dark / Future Memory.
And with that click, a flood of recollection rose like a tide.
The woman draped head to toe in nauseating pink.
The woman who turned Hogwarts into a prison under the banner of "educational reform."
The woman who dared torture students and challenge Albus Dumbledore himself.
So it was her.
Alan's pupils constricted sharply, though his face remained perfectly still, serene, detached.
Now he understood why Helmut Volk, the proud old German spellmaster, had shown such naked contempt whenever her name came up. Some things, he realized, transcended borders,
like bureaucratic arrogance.
And stupidity beyond redemption.
This letter, he saw immediately, was the British Ministry's reluctant legal apology, forced upon them as the tenth clause of the German Ministry's final settlement.
Alan's eyes scanned the contents swiftly.
Umbridge's prose was the purest form of official evasion: long-winded, saccharine, and meaningless. She acknowledged a "minor, negligible technical irregularity" in the Ministry's cross-border charm-tracing protocols and expressed her "profound regret for any slight inconvenience" this might have caused Mr. Scott.
Regret.
What a perfect word,
so conveniently devoid of "error," so wonderfully innocent of "apology." It wrapped culpability in velvet, transforming wrongdoing into misfortune.
Alan's lips curved faintly, but the smile was thin and cold.
Without another glance, he set the parchment aside as one might discard a used napkin.
Then he drew out the second letter.
At once, the texture changed, softer parchment, still fine, but carrying warmth instead of stiffness. The handwriting slashed across the page in dark, forceful strokes, each word brimming with energy, the script of someone whose quill obeyed no etiquette but his own.
It was Helmut Volk's personal letter.
Gone was his usual condescension. His tone was sharp, exact, almost mathematical,
the kind of logic that could only be German.
First, Volk confirmed, in meticulous phrasing, that the magical copy of the Ancient Knowledge Repository he had promised was now safely dispatched via Top Security Owl Post, with delivery confirmed in Britain.
Then, he wrote of Alan himself,
of the "precision, clarity, and elegance of reasoning" the boy had displayed during their confrontation.
And in closing, Volk wrote words that gleamed like forged metal:
"I maintain my opinion, you are a cunning little creature, sly as a goblin.
But I must also confess this: I respect your logic.
And that, young man, is the highest tribute an old spellmaster can offer a future logician."
Alan read the final line twice, then carefully folded the letter and slipped it back into its envelope.
The long, exhausting saga of the cross-national debacle, the so-called "black cauldron" that had shadowed his name, was finally, and neatly, resolved. More than resolved, it had become a victory.
His mood lifted, light and untroubled for the first time in weeks.
But his peace lasted only a minute before the door burst open, and two identical whirlwinds of energy tumbled in,
Fred and George Weasley, straight from Quidditch practice, sweaty and breathless.
"Alan! You'd better watch your back!" Fred panted, collapsing onto the rug opposite him, wiping his brow with his sleeve. His usual grin was gone, replaced by a rare seriousness.
Alan looked up calmly. "What's happened?"
"It's that thick-headed Slytherin captain, Marcus Flint," George answered, his face equally grave. "He's still sore about last year."
"Last year…" Alan's mind clicked briefly through his archives before landing on the memory.
The Hogwarts Express.
A game of wizard chess.
A simple logical trap that had left Flint humiliated in front of half the train.
"Yes," Fred said, eyes widening with relish, "that 'mathematical ambush.' He's been ranting about it for weeks in the Slytherin common room, swearing that he'll show you up at the Dueling Club this year."
George dropped his voice into a gravelly imitation of Flint's:
"'We'll see if he's a wizard who fights with his mind or with his wand!'"
The twins exchanged a look, half amused, half anxious.
Marcus Flint might not have been the brightest, but as the Slytherin team's Captain and Chaser, he was strong, aggressive, and dangerously skilled with curses. Not an opponent to underestimate.
Alan listened quietly, his expression unchanged.
When they finished, he simply glanced toward the window, where the autumn sky was darkening into a vast, tranquil blue.
Then he shrugged, slow and indifferent.
"Let him try," he said softly.
And that was all.
~~----------------------
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