Midnight bells rang through the empty corridors of Hogwarts.
The sound echoed like a dull funeral toll.
On the eighth floor, the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy being beaten by trolls hung silently on the wall.
No one was there.
Hermione stood in front of the cold stone wall, gripping her wand tightly. Her breathing was uneven.
She wore a loose morning robe that looked thin and fragile in the silent corridor.
Three full minutes had passed since the agreed time.
"Was I tricked?"
The thought spread through her mind. Shame mixed with anger as she imagined herself being fooled.
She had broken school rules like an idiot. She had used the limited spells she knew to sneak past Filch's horrible cat.
She had even prepared herself mentally to face forbidden dark magic.
And what had she found? Just the stupid Barnabas in the tapestry trying to teach trolls ballet.
There was no door.
And no Lucian with his mysterious smile.
"I shouldn't have come."
"Honestly, Hermione, you're an idiot."
She clenched her teeth. Her bushy hair looked even messier as frustration built inside her.
"You actually believed a first-year would kindly reveal the true secrets of magical law and Transfiguration."
She began pacing the corridor restlessly.
"I'm going back. Right now. And I'll throw that ridiculous coin straight into the Black Lake—"
At that exact moment, a strange sensation crept up her spine.
It felt like someone was watching her.
Not the malicious kind of spying she associated with Filch.
This felt different.
Calm. Observing. Almost… inviting.
Hermione turned back once.
What if this was a test?
"If he only wanted to mock me, he could have used a curse. There would be no need to arrange a meeting like this."
"But I need to know that formula… the one that could overturn Gamp's Law…"
She turned back again.
Her mind raced.
She remembered Lucian in Charms class, casually adjusting the trajectory of a Levitation Charm.
She remembered him defeating the troll without effort.
He always appeared calm, mysterious, and strangely capable of forcing others to think more clearly.
"I shouldn't leave."
She walked past the wall for the third time.
And suddenly—
The stone bricks shifted.
Dust fell softly from the wall.
The surface twisted inward, forming a deep curve. Then, slowly, a wooden door appeared where nothing had existed before.
The handle was shaped like an ouroboros.
The copper-green serpent's eyes glimmered faintly, as though it had been waiting for this moment all along.
"There really is one…"
Hermione's hand trembled.
But her desire to discover the unknown overwhelmed her fear.
She pushed the door open.
.....
The room behind the door was far larger than expected.
It was a circular library chamber with a high domed ceiling. Bookshelves stretched upward so far they seemed to vanish into clouds.
Countless books filled the shelves.
In the center of the room stood a black walnut desk illuminated by a bronze lamp casting warm yellow light.
Lucian sat behind the desk.
He was flipping through a thick book bound in strange material. "If you had taken one more step away, the door would have closed forever."
Lucian did not look up.
"Patience is the rarest trait among wizards. Rarer than unicorn blood."
Hermione approached the desk.
Her eyes wandered uncontrollably across the titles on nearby shelves.
[Secrets of Advanced Dark Magic]
[Blood Oaths and Soul Contracts]
[Forgotten Ancient Alchemy]
"Were you testing me?" Hermione asked.
She stopped in front of the desk and tried to make her voice sound firm, though the excitement at the end betrayed her.
"Or is this just some typical Ravenclaw excuse for being late?"
"If you interpret it as being late, you should probably return to bed," Lucian replied calmly.
"This is the Room of Requirement."
He closed the book in his hands.
The candlelight reflected in his eyes.
"It responds only to strong desire. If you came here simply to gather evidence against me or to watch a show, you would have found nothing but a broom closet."
Hermione pressed her lips together.
The suggestion that only intelligent people could enter the room greatly satisfied her pride.
It also made her forgive the waiting almost immediately.
"Fine," she said quickly as she pulled out a chair and sat down.
"You said you could explain why the standard Transfiguration spell has flaws when it comes to transforming living beings. And you said Gamp's Law is... a censored version?"
That was exactly what Lucian expected.
For Hermione, the temptation of truth was stronger than the restrictions of rules.
Offer her enough knowledge, and she would create her own justification.
Lucian did not answer immediately.
Instead he pushed aside the thick book he had been reading.
Beneath it lay a sheet of parchment covered with complex alchemical diagrams and calculations so intricate that merely looking at them made the mind spin.
"That's the book?" Hermione's gaze fell greedily on the spine.
Alchemy and the Reconstruction of Origin.
"Books teach you safe magic," Lucian said calmly.
"They teach you the boundaries the Ministry wants you to know."
"Muggle schools teach children that fire is dangerous so they won't play with it. But they rarely mention that fire is also the origin of civilization."
"Gamp's Law states that something cannot be created from nothing, and that inanimate objects cannot truly become living beings."
Hermione responded immediately.
She knew this rule by heart.
"Because a soul cannot be given by a spell. Animals created by Transfiguration are just magical imitations. They have no real consciousness and cannot reproduce."
"A perfect answer," Lucian said calmly.
"Professor McGonagall would give you ten points."
He pointed to the parchment.
"But have you ever considered something? What if you or I were created by a kind of fire?"
Hermione froze.
This question had moved into philosophical territory.
"Look here," Lucian continued before she could process it.
His eyes began to rotate faintly with star-like patterns.
For a moment, Hermione felt as if the entire room collapsed inward toward the point he indicated.
Hidden beneath Lucian's sleeve, the Philosopher's Stone released a nearly invisible red glow.
The faint light flowed across the parchment like liquid.
This was the limit of what Lucian could do under Ravenclaw's protection.
A forced miracle.
The parchment trembled suddenly.
Its edges curled and tore. The fibers stretched and dissolved as the black ink reorganized itself into brilliant, flowing veins.
The structure of the parchment broke apart and reshaped at astonishing speed.
Then something crawled slowly up from the surface of the desk.
Hermione stared in horror.
It was a butterfly.
A black-bordered blue butterfly.
It looked impossibly real.
Its wings shimmered with delicate scales that reflected deep blue and violet under the candlelight. Its body radiated faint warmth. Its antennae trembled nervously in the air.
When Hermione stared into its compound eyes, she could feel something inside them.
Fear.
Confusion.
The fragile awareness of a newborn life.
It was no longer parchment. It was breathing.
"This…"
Hermione stepped backward and bumped into her chair.
The textbooks said that creatures created by Transfiguration had no warmth, no heartbeat, and empty eyes.
But the butterfly scratched lightly against the desk with its tiny legs, producing faint sounds.
Hermione reached out hesitantly.
The butterfly fluttered clumsily into the air. Then it landed gently on her finger.
Its delicate antenna brushed her skin.
The sensation was unmistakable. It was the touch of life.
°Finite Incantatem°
Almost instinctively Hermione raised her wand and cast the counter-spell. She needed to confirm whether this was real.
The butterfly remained completely unaffected.
Startled by the sudden movement, it fluttered to her shoulder and rested there calmly.
The spell had done nothing.
"It won't revert," Lucian said calmly.
He leaned back in his chair while quietly stabilizing the fading strain in his body.
"Because it is now a butterfly."
"I didn't change it... I defined it."
Hermione stood frozen.
Her wand hung loosely in her hand.
But just as Lucian expected, the shock in her eyes quickly transformed into something else.
A blazing hunger for knowledge.
She rushed toward the desk, leaning forward with both hands pressed against the surface.
"That isn't normal Transfiguration! It's related to alchemical transformation, isn't it?"
"What was that red light? Is it explained in the book?"
There was no fear in her voice.
Only excitement. The thrill of discovering something unknown.
She would have made an excellent Ravenclaw.
Unfortunately she belonged to Gryffindor, destined to remain a supporting character in someone else's story.
Lucian looked at the girl who had nearly pressed her face against his.
"Calm down, Granger."
He leaned back and gently flicked the blue butterfly resting on her shoulder.
Then he pushed the book Alchemy and the Reconstruction of Origin toward her.
"The first lesson is over."
"You can borrow the book. What you understand from it... or whether it drives you mad... is your responsibility."
Hermione looked up suddenly.
Her reason finally pulled her away from the butterfly.
She had a thousand questions.
About the formula. About how he performed that miracle. About the nature of this room.
But Lucian's distant expression told her she would receive no more answers tonight. And honestly, she needed time to process everything.
"I'll prove I can understand it," Hermione said firmly.
She hugged the heavy book against her chest. It was both evidence of her crime and her greatest prize.
"Even if it's just to prove you're wrong, Lucian."
"Good."
Lucian waved his hand dismissively. "Now go. Before Mrs. Norris catches you."
Hermione looked at the boy one last time.
He sat surrounded by towering shelves and deep shadows. Even many years later, this image would remain engraved in her memory.
"Good night, Lucian."
She opened the heavy wooden door.
The moment she stepped outside, the door behind her twisted and faded silently into a solid stone wall.
Only the heavy book in her arms and the blue butterfly resting on her shoulder proved that the encounter had truly happened.
....
Inside the Room of Requirement, silence returned.
The Lucian sitting in the high-backed chair remained perfectly still.
One second passed.
Two seconds.
Then the light inside his eyes faded. A faint cracking sound echoed.
His body suddenly collapsed. His face shriveled and yellowed as thin cracks spread across the surface of his skin.
The proud figure disintegrated into the soft tearing sound of paper.
The black robes slid to the floor.
Beneath them lay nothing but scattered parchment sheets covered with alchemical diagrams and several quills that had formed the framework.
A disposable alchemical construct.
A perfect deception.
...
Meanwhile, inside the hidden chamber within the Ravenclaw statue.
Lucian's consciousness snapped back into his body.
His floating form above the cosmic chessboard trembled violently before he opened his eyes and doubled over coughing.
He gasped for breath.
The dizziness from projecting his mind into another body made him nauseous. His skull throbbed as if repeatedly pierced by the stinger of a Billywig.
Lucian slowly steadied himself in the air.
He lifted his right hand.
The sleeve slid back, revealing a ring of dark red alchemical markings around his wrist. The marks gradually cooled and faded into his skin.
This technique was based on the Horcrux principles described in Secrets of Advanced Dark Magic, combined with Professor McGonagall's advanced Transfiguration.
Mental projection and living puppet creation.
Lucian had never intended to appear on the eighth floor himself. The omnipresent pressure of fate made him feel safe only in this chamber.
So he had sent a nearly perfect duplicate to deal with Hermione.
It was both a precaution and an experiment.
If Hermione, standing that close, could not detect that his body was made of nothing more than paper and quills, then his alchemical skills had reached an extraordinary level.
And if she had discovered the truth, she would have been even more impressed by the power he displayed.
"Good... she took the book."
Lucian whispered quietly.
He turned his head.
A small two-way mirror floated nearby, reflecting the scene inside the Room of Requirement.
The collapsed pile of parchment that had once been him.
Once he confirmed that everything had disintegrated completely, he raised his wand and pointed it at the mirror.
°Evanesco°
The image vanished.
Now the mirror reflected only his tired but satisfied eyes.
"The highest form of deception," Lucian murmured as he pulled a piece of chocolate from his pocket and ate it, letting the bitterness ease the headache in his mind,
"is when the truth itself appears to be a lie..."
"...and the lie becomes the only salvation."
Hermione would never betray him.
An accomplice was often more loyal than a friend.
And the moment she chose to walk away with that forbidden book in the middle of the night, she had already signed her name beneath the conspiracy of seeking truth.
Lucian leaned back slowly.
He needed rest.
But the chessboard had only just begun to reveal its first corner.
__________
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