In the days that followed, Hogwarts was buried deeper and deeper beneath heavy layers of snow.
The near-fatal probe on the pitch had sunk without trace; the volatile world-will had not yet descended with further punishment.
But this deceptive calm provided Lucian with the perfect cover. On countless late nights in the Room of Requirement, by the flickering light of the hearth, he finally completed the forging of the silver key capable of deceiving the flow of time.
Time slipped forward to Christmas Eve.
Most young witches and wizards had dragged their trunks toward the waiting Hogwarts Express. The ancient castle, stripped of their clamor, revealed its true face—cold, vast, and austere.
Deep night, top floor of Ravenclaw Tower.
Lucian stood alone before the white marble statue of Rowena Ravenclaw. Outside the window, the blizzard battered the glass with dull, rhythmic thuds.
"Mankind sees wisdom as a gift. I see it as plunder."
Under heart-phase vision,
the surface reality peeled away. The cold, unyielding marble dissolved, replaced by countless interwoven threads of magical meridians.
These luminous flows were impossibly intricate—like pulsing veins, or the orbits of stars—constructing within the statue a cycle of breathtaking precision. It was the unique rhythm of ancient magic, a breathing pattern long lost to the modern age.
More crucially, golden threads converged here, almost tangible—
except at one point of rupture.
At the crown atop the statue's head, where the stone diadem should have rested, yawned a stark black void. Thousands of magical filaments ended abruptly there, waiting for the key that would restart the entire mechanism.
"Found it."
Lucian drew from his robe pocket a silver replica diadem.
This was the product of half a semester's labor in the Room of Requirement's alchemical workshop—forged with goblin craftsmanship and ancient transfiguration. It lacked the true diadem's divine power of enlightenment, but its circuit alignment was perfect enough to serve as the opening key.
He rose onto his toes, movements gentle, and placed the silver circlet upon the empty space—as though crowning a sleeping queen.
Perfect fit.
Blue magical circuits flared to life. A massive pulse of power surged downward through the statue.
The marble figure began to rotate. The base sank slowly, revealing a deep passageway behind it, walls inscribed with ancient runes.
Footsteps—Filch's—echoed from outside. Lucian did not wait. He stepped through.
…
As he entered, the entrance sealed itself once more.
A long corridor stretched ahead.
At its end stood a massive bronze door.
No handle. No keyhole. Only two lifelike bronze eagle heads. Their eyes—set with the purest sapphires—gleamed in the darkness with the cold, soul-piercing scrutiny that belonged to Ravenclaw alone.
When Lucian drew near, both eagle heads came alive.
They opened their beaks in unison. A stream of azure light poured forth, weaving in midair into flowing mercury script:
"Where does time begin, and where does it end?"
A classic philosophical riddle. Answering "at the dawn of creation" or "at the end of time" would fall into the trap of linear thinking.
Lucian did not rush to reply.
Under heart-phase vision, the riddle revealed its true magical structure.
Behind the door lay a perfect, closed magical loop.
Not merely magic—time itself cycled within it. This was a small, self-contained world.
Light surged through the ring with no beginning and no end—only eternal, infinite recirculation.
He raised his head and met the sapphire gaze of both eagles. His voice was calm:
"Now is the end of the past, and the beginning of the future."
The ring trembled at his words.
"Time is a circle—without start or finish. It exists only in the perception of the observer."
As the final syllable fell, the flawless Möbius structure blazed with light.
With the groan of an ancient beast exhaling, the heavy bronze doors slid apart.
Lucian stepped through.
The instant his foot crossed the threshold, an irresistible force seized him from behind—yanking at his navel.
The world collapsed.
Bones compressed. Skin pressed tight against an invisible torrent of magic.
All around was only the shrieking friction of power against power—thousands of whispering ghosts screaming inside his eardrums.
Then reality slammed back.
Gravity reasserted itself. The fall was sickeningly fast; most wizards would have struck the ground, rolled, and vomited their dinner.
But in the final heartbeat before impact, Lucian reversed his magic, bled off all momentum, bent his knees—and landed lightly, perfectly balanced.
The world stopped spinning.
He had fallen into a vast, gray-white void.
Here there was no up or down.
Enormous stone staircases extended in impossible directions—some overhead, some vertical on the walls, others floating like broken piano keys leading into nothingness.
Lucian took one step upward.
The sensation was profoundly wrong.
He was clearly ascending—yet his body insisted he was descending. When he finished the flight and looked up, he stood exactly where he had begun.
Worse: an invisible pressure began to gnaw at his mind.
His thoughts grew sluggish.
"So this is the so-called Ravenclaw trial realm?"
Lucian stood still. Closed his eyes. Activated Occlumency at full strength.
When he opened them again, the world had changed.
Under the absolute rationality of heart-phase vision, the grand, labyrinthine staircases shed their gray-white skin—revealing themselves as countless tangled magical filaments.
Most were chaotic knots—dead ends.
Only one thread—though visually plunging into the abyss—flowed in perfect alignment toward the exit.
The trap of this space was simple:
The path the eyes saw was illusion.
The direction of magical flow was truth.
It tested whether the challenger dared defy primal survival instinct and embrace a truth existing beyond visual perception.
Lucian walked to the edge of a broken platform.
To mortal eyes, the drop ahead was a bottomless chasm—step forward and be pulverized.
Every gene screamed in primal terror, trying to lock his leg muscles.
But in his vision, it was a straight road to heaven.
"Eyes lie."
Expressionless, hands clasped behind his back, Lucian stepped off the edge into the void.
Weightlessness struck.
He did not fall.
The moment his foot left the platform, the world inverted.
What had been abyss became ascent. What had been sky became ground.
Lucian landed solidly on firm stone.
Behind him, the Penrose-stair maze that had trapped countless brilliant minds now hung on the wall like a crude painting.
A door of light slowly formed before him.
Lucian bowed once toward the entrance statue of Rowena Ravenclaw, voice quiet and certain:
"Truth is often hidden in the blind spot of instinct."
He stepped through.