The stone walls of Hogwarts looked colder at night.
Moonlight streamed through the high windows, stretching long, distorted shadows across the floor. Suits of armor stood silently in the dark.
The trio crept along the wall toward the third floor.
"Filch is over there!" Ron whispered, pointing shakily toward a shadow near the stairs.
Mrs. Norris's eyes gleamed in the darkness as she prowled.
They held their breath and slipped around a corner.
Then Harry stopped abruptly.
The feeling returned... Stronger than ever. It rose from deep within his soul, a violent rejection that made his chest tighten.
Something ahead does not belong in our world.
"What is it?" Hermione whispered.
Harry couldn't answer. He raised a trembling hand and pointed. At the end of the corridor, beneath an unused staircase, stood a lone figure.
Lucian Ashford.
Moonlight illuminated him perfectly.
He faced a cracked stone wall, wand in hand. Thin gray threads of magic slid into the crevices between stones.
The moment Harry's eyes focused on him, dizziness struck.
At the same time, Lucian's vision blurred.
Reality shifted.
The quiet corridor dissolved into something warped and drained of color, like a painting washed by rain.
Ash fell from a blackened sky.
The warm torchlight vanished, replaced by sickly green flames.
The portraits on the walls no longer moved. Within the frames were skeletons and desiccated corpses.
Outside the windows, gallows rose over the Quidditch pitch. A massive Dark Mark twisted above the Astronomy Tower.
The house banners were no longer four colors. Only silver and green remained.
No laughter.
Only blood and silence.
Hogwarts was dead. In its place stood a fortress.
It lasted less than a second.
The distortion snapped away. Moonlight returned. The corridor was normal again.
Lucian blinked once, thoughtful.
A hallucination? Or a glimpse of something real? He calmed the slight turbulence within his magic and turned slowly.
Harry felt like he was suffocating.
"What's he doing?" Ron whispered, voice shaking. "Is he cursing the castle?"
"No..." Hermione stared, eyes wide as she traced the flow of magic. "He's not damaging it. The flow is restorative. He's reinforcing a magical node."
If an apparition expert had been present, they would have noticed that this spot was no longer a minor gap in the castle's anti-apparition defenses.
"Your breathing is too loud, Potter."
Lucian's voice drifted back evenly.
"If you're heading to play duel with Malfoy, take the passage on the right. Filch is waiting at the left stairwell."
The three froze.
"And one more thing." Lucian turned fully.
Harry's heart skipped.
Lucian's gaze paused briefly on Harry's scar. There was something almost pitying in his expression.
"The thing inside your soul is very noisy."
He flicked his wand and dissolved into faint distortion, vanishing.
Harry sagged against the wall, drenched in cold sweat.
"What did he mean?" Ron stammered. "Something inside your soul?"
"He's just trying to scare us," Hermione said, though her voice trembled. "He's dramatic. That's all. Come on, we'll miss Malfoy."
Harry didn't move at first.
His scar burned faintly beneath his hand.
Now he understood. The revulsion he felt wasn't ordinary dislike. It was his soul screaming.
And something else.
Something that felt almost like... envy.
Lucian Ashford.
The name echoed in his mind. That boy might be more dangerous than anything else in this castle.
A shrill yowl shattered the silence.
Mrs. Norris had spotted them.
"Students! Out of bed!" Filch's harsh voice echoed up the stairs.
"Run!" Harry shouted.
They fled blindly.
Lucian's warning had been accurate. There was no duel. Only Filch's lantern swinging wildly in the dark.
In their panic, they forgot to take the right passage and instead sprinted through twisting corridors and shifting staircases.
"This way!" Harry yelled.
They reached a dead end.
No—there was a door. A heavy oak door, locked.
"It's locked!" Harry pushed desperately.
"Move!" Hermione shoved him aside and tapped the lock. °Alohomora°
Click.
The mechanism gave way.
They stumbled inside and slammed the door shut, pressing their ears against it as Filch's footsteps passed outside.
"He's gone..." Harry whispered, sliding down to the floor.
"I don't think so," Ron said weakly. "Turn around."
A hot, foul breath washed over Harry's face.
Under the pale moonlight, they saw where they stood. The forbidden corridor on the third floor.
The room was small, but nearly filled by a massive creature.
Three enormous heads. Six rolling yellow eyes. Three sets of jaws dripping saliva.
The monster lowered its heads and growled at the tiny intruders.
The scream nearly shook the ceiling.
Harry didn't know how he did it. He flung the door open, dragged Ron and Hermione out, and they tumbled down the corridor and stairs in blind terror.
Only when they were far gone did the door swing slowly shut— And just before it closed completely, a pale hand caught it silently.
Lucian stepped inside, emerging from the shadows as he lifted a disillusionment charm.
He had been tracking Filch's patrol routes.
His attention had always been on this room.
He had detected the anomaly days ago. A living creature weighing over three tons stationed above wooden flooring was a structural hazard.
Unlike Harry, Lucian did not panic.
He cast a Bubble-Head Charm.
"Unhygienic."
The three-headed dog snarled, furious at the returning presence. The middle head roared. The left lunged for his shoulder. The right blocked retreat.
Lucian did not move backward.
In his perception, the beast disassembled instantly—skin, muscle, bone, crude magical circuitry.
"Cerberus subspecies. Artificial hybridization prioritizing aggression."
He identified flaws immediately.
"Three brains sharing one body. Excess cardiac strain. Overcrowded cervical nerve bundles causing signal interference. Divergent cognition reduces reaction speed."
A massive paw slammed down.
Lucian stepped half a pace aside.
Boom!
The floor splintered where he had stood.
"Too slow. Muscle contraction signals telegraph intent." He stood beside the creature's paw, small yet composed.
The three heads snapped at each other, fighting for dominance in their attack.
"A failed magical construct. Tripled firepower, tripled internal conflict."
The dog roared and prepared to bite with all three heads at once.
Lucian did not raise his wand.
He hummed.
The melody was soft.
The beast froze.
Its six eyes dulled. The snarling turned into low whimpers. One by one, the heads drooped.
The massive body collapsed.
Within seconds, thunderous snores filled the room.
"Hyperdeveloped auditory sensitivity. No defensive filtering." Lucian noted the weakness in his notebook.
He stepped over the creature and approached the trapdoor at the center of the floor.
Beneath it lay a deep passage layered with defensive enchantments. Devil's Snare. Winged keys. A giant chessboard.
And at the bottom—
Nothing.
He did not open the door. Not yet.
He crouched and tapped the wood lightly. "This is the greatest protection? A pet dog guarding a door that first-years can unlock with Alohomora?"
He straightened.
"Headmaster, this is not security. It's a game. A hero's trial designed for a chosen boy."
He glanced once more at the sleeping dog and turned away. Before leaving, he reinforced the weakened floorboards silently.
"I have no interest in your hero's adventure. But if this floor collapses, repairs will be tedious."
The lock clicked shut behind him.
The corridor returned to silence... As if no one had ever been there.
__________
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