Alan's newly upgraded conceptual firewall did not have to wait long for its first real test.
And fate, with its usual irony, sent him the most exacting tester in all of Hogwarts.
It began just after a Potions class.
The corridor leading out of the dungeons was dim and damp, the chill seeping through the stone walls like something alive. The air was thick with the mingled scents of crushed herbs, metallic minerals, and centuries-old mildew.
Clusters of students streamed out of the classroom, their pent-up chatter bursting forth and reverberating along the narrow passage in a wave of warmth and noise.
"I think the next prototype could include an auto-targeting charm, something that can track movement, "
Alan was walking with his friends, calmly discussing the technical refinements of his latest "shield-linked magical device," when the atmosphere ahead of them changed.
The lively noise faltered, then froze altogether.
It was as if the cheerful tide of voices had struck an invisible glacier. The air grew heavy, cold, and silent.
From the darkness at the far end of the corridor, a figure emerged, moving against the flow of students.
He wore tight-fitting black robes that brushed noiselessly over the stones, every fold absorbing light. The very air around him seemed to grow brittle with cold.
Severus Snape.
Silence fell like a curtain.
Every student pressed instinctively back against the walls, their bodies moving faster than their minds, opening a wide path before him.
A path that led straight to Alan Scott.
Alan stopped.
So did his friends, anxious and tense, but Alan merely stood still, neither retreating nor bowing his head.
He knew this encounter was no coincidence.
Snape's measured steps echoed like a metronome, perfectly even. He passed between the rows of frozen students until he came to a halt directly before Alan, less than a meter away.
The Potions Master's black eyes narrowed slightly.
Those eyes, cold, depthless, and razor-keen, locked with Alan's calm gaze in mid-air. The collision was noiseless, invisible, and instantaneous.
A fraction of a second.
Half a breath.
And then it came,
a thread of mental force so subtle and sharp that it sliced through the air like a needle of ice, striking straight for Alan's consciousness.
Legilimency.
Snape's silent incantation slid through the ether, invisible to all but those attuned to its touch.
He had not forgotten the Boggart from the Dueling Club, the inexplicable void that had defied every magical theory he knew. That memory was a thorn in his intellect, a question he could not leave unanswered.
He needed to know what lay inside this unnervingly composed boy's mind, this first-year who thought in riddles and spoke in proofs.
But the instant Snape's mental probe brushed against the perimeter of Alan's thoughts, his composure fractured.
For the first time in years, a muscle twitched in his face. It was minuscule, gone in a heartbeat, but it existed.
He saw, nothing.
No memories, no images, no emotions.
Not emptiness.
Something worse.
His probe, usually unstoppable, plunged headlong into an abyss of perfect, impossible logic.
A wall,
infinite, multifaceted, built of countless interlocking mirrors that twisted and devoured each other.
Each mirror whispered in the purest reasoning:
To see me, you must first prove that I exist.
But my existence itself is a paradox.
Therefore, what you see is nonexistence.
Snape's mind convulsed.
A backlash struck like a red-hot needle shooting back through his own probe, stabbing into the core of his awareness.
His normally fluid stride faltered, just slightly, imperceptibly to all but him.
A tenth of a second's pause.
A stumble.
He forced his body upright through sheer will, but nausea twisted in his gut. His face went gray, almost ashen, colder than the dungeon stones themselves.
He said nothing.
Not even his habitual contemptuous snort escaped him.
Only his eyes moved, dark, unreadable, fixed once more upon Alan.
But this time, within that darkness, something flickered.
Doubt.
Curiosity.
And a trace of shock so deep that even Snape, master of control, refused to name it.
Without a word, he turned. His robes swept past Alan in a surge of cold air, and he strode away into the shadows.
The confrontation, silent, unseen, fought entirely in the realm of thought, was over.
Alan remained standing, calm as ever, as though nothing had happened.
Yet inwardly he noted, with quiet precision:
Firewall integrity: stable.
System performance: nominal.
His first defense, the conceptual firewall born of logic itself, had withstood an assault from one of the finest Legilimens alive.
And in the far corner of the corridor, two red-haired figures who had been preparing to drop a Dungbomb froze mid-motion.
Fred and George Weasley.
They had seen no magic, felt no psychic clash. All they had witnessed was something that defied everything they knew about the world:
Professor Snape, the spectral, gliding menace of the dungeons, had stumbled.
For the first time in memory.
The twins stared, wide-eyed, their usual mischief extinguished. Slowly, they turned to look at Alan again, the boy who now smiled with quiet innocence, as if nothing had occurred.
And in that moment, for the first time, they felt a chill far deeper than the one Snape ever inspired.
Not fear of their teacher.
But of their friend.
Alan Scott.
~~----------------------
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