Perhaps.
It was already nearing dawn.
Morning in the Forbidden Forest always arrived later than anywhere else. The dense canopy above blocked out every trace of moonlight, leaving behind only unfathomable darkness.
This place had once been a battlefield; the lingering aftermath of magic had scorched the earth black, leaving not even a blade of grass alive. But now, those marks of destruction were being quietly covered once more by the tender green of new growth from the new students' magic.
Yes, the plants destroyed in the earlier battle had regrown under the eerie influence of this domain. Fresh green vines coiled around the trunks of ancient trees as though newly born.
And yet, it all still felt distorted and quite unreal.
The air carried a faint burnt scent, a lingering reminder that something unnatural had occurred here, even by magic standards. Before them, Hermione appeared cold, and Dumbledore conjured a campfire with a flick of his wand.
It was perhaps the most real thing in this place, the handiwork of Albus Dumbledore, the greatest white wizard of the century, whose magic always held a certain kind of wonder.
In the distance, the wind stirred the leaves, whispering softly as though murmuring a secret on the verge of being unveiled. At the center of a pale halo of light stood a bronze door. The weathered runes on its surface flickered faintly in the twilight, like the scales of a slumbering giant beast.
"This is… rather peculiar."
Albus Dumbledore's long silver-white hair and beard shimmered faintly in the darkness. The tip of his wand touched a complex rune upon the door, as if confirming something.
The rune flickered under his touch, glowing and dimming like a star struggling not to fade.
Watching this, Hermione and Snape both felt the same disorienting sense of reaching beyond the limits of their knowledge. Of course, compared to Hermione, Snape was slightly more learned; he could more or less guess what kind of difficulty Dumbledore had encountered.
And that was indeed the case.
Dumbledore's brows furrowed deeply.
He was using his magical power to probe for the correct operational sequence of the bronze door.
However…
As the tip of the old man's wand hovered above the rune, threads of silver-white magic spread like spiderwebs, only to suddenly dissipate the instant they touched a certain symbol.
Clearly…
He had failed.
The complexity here allowed for billions, even tens of billions of possible combinations. This was not something that could be solved by simple elimination. Moreover, the magical texts on the door could produce a wide variety of effects when combined differently.
In Dumbledore's view, this design might have been a safeguard, as a way to prevent anyone from reverse-engineering it.
Because of that, even the slightest misstep could trigger unpredictable consequences. No one could tell what sort of disaster might unfold.
Even Dumbledore himself felt a hint of apprehension, proceeding with utmost caution. Still, it wasn't as if he hadn't learned anything; his understanding was clearer than before, though still not clear enough.
"Still no good," Dumbledore sighed, startling a night owl perched above. He pushed his half-moon spectacles up his nose, his blue eyes reflecting the faintly dying glow of the runes.
"The arrangement of these alchemic arrays… it's older than I thought. And this door, it's more unusual, and more dangerous, than we imagined."
He had discerned something, but confusion still lingered around him. It couldn't be helped, seeing as the jumble of magical texts on the door was immense, and his vast collection of books contained only fragments of relevant information.
"Er…"
Hermione Granger stood quietly nearby. Ever since Snape's harsh warning the last time, she hadn't dared approach those ancient tomes again, though her gaze kept drifting toward Dumbledore's bent figure.
Her fingers nervously twisted the edge of her robe. She tried to suppress her curiosity toward forbidden knowledge, but worry clutched her heart all the same, like an invisible hand tightening around it.
Ian seemed to have truly gone through that door.
There were no message or any sign of him.
How could she not fear for his life?
"You're unsettlingly quiet, Miss Granger." Severus Snape's voice broke the silence, less biting than usual, tinged instead with something thoughtful.
"You usually have enough questions to give a troll a headache."
Of course, he couldn't resist adding a jab at a student from the House he disliked most.
"I…"
Hermione lifted her head, meeting Snape's ink-black eyes. To her surprise, there was no trace of the usual mockery there, only an emotion she couldn't quite read.
"I was just thinking… whether Ian might need help." Her voice was soft, yet in the silence of the Forbidden Forest, it carried clearly.
Snape's lips twisted into something that could almost be called a smile. "Is caring for one's friends a Gryffindor virtue… or a Gryffindor stupidity? I can never tell the difference when it comes to you."
The words were sharp, but his tone had unconsciously softened.
And then…
Dumbledore suddenly let out a sigh, so weary that both of them turned toward him at once. The old wizard slowly rose to his feet. His robes were smeared with dirt and fallen leaves, but he didn't seem to care.
"This alchemical artifact was crafted far too long ago… it doesn't belong to any magical system we know. Even with all the knowledge I've gathered over the years, I can scarcely glimpse its true nature."
Dumbledore lifted his head, and a trace of helplessness flickered in his eyes. Indeed, wisdom did not mean omniscience; no matter how many books one collected, they could never encompass all the knowledge that ever existed.
What stood before them was a creation built from the collision of multiple magical systems… chaotic, almost haphazard, yet eerily stable instead of collapsing. Even with Albus Dumbledore's vast understanding, it was beyond comprehension.
"That's impossible!" Snape frowned as sharply as a Niffler catching a dangerous scent. "If even you can't make sense of it, who possibly could? Nicolas Flamel?"
There was worry and disbelief flickering in his eyes. Truthfully, from the very start, Dumbledore's lack of confidence had already shaken the usually composed Potions Master.
He had thought that after some effort, Albus Dumbledore would surely solve the riddle but even after all this time, the problem remained unresolved.
The greatest white wizard of the century appeared truly stumped. Snape had never imagined there would come a day when he would see Dumbledore powerless before something.
It felt like a dream, yet it was unmistakably real.
Snape had even pinched himself to confirm it, though, of course, in the magical world, there were potions capable of inducing dreams indistinguishable from reality. And precisely because he had brewed such potions himself, he knew for certain, this was no dream.
A true dilemma had arisen, one even Dumbledore could not easily overcome.
"I doubt even he could," Dumbledore said, shaking his head. The blue eyes behind his half-moon spectacles shimmered with resignation. "Nicolas's mastery of alchemy is indeed unmatched in our time, but…" He paused, running his fingers across a groove on the bronze door. "Even my old friend would be helpless before a system of knowledge that has been lost to time."
"Some forms of magic," He said softly, "Disappeared forever with their creators, washed away in the long river of history."
It was clear he was referring to the magic carved into the bronze door.
"This…" Snape's expression shifted.
A gust of wind swept through the Forbidden Forest, rustling the leaves, as if the forest itself were responding to the old wizard's words.
"Then what should we do?"
A chill ran up Hermione's spine. If even Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel couldn't understand the door, did that mean Ian was truly lost to them?
"I didn't say I found nothing," Dumbledore said gently, sensing the young witch's growing fear.
"What do you mean, Headmaster? What did you discover?"
"This door is not a simple spatial gateway, Hermione. It contains a filtering mechanism. Only those who truly possess the right can awaken its full power." The old Headmaster sighed softly, patient as ever in answering her questions.
"A filter? What does it filter?" Hermione pressed on.
"The soul." Dumbledore's brows drew together, a complex emotion flashing in his eyes as he uttered the word. "Only certain souls can cause it to function as intended."
"And those without the proper qualification," He continued, his voice heavy, "may be trapped within, becoming one of the countless discarded possibilities."
Indeed, from the fragmented knowledge he had pieced together, this was what Dumbledore had discerned: the door possessed multiple activation mechanisms, and what he had just described was one of them.
"Like that evil Dumbledore we encountered before?" Snape couldn't help but ask.
"No," Dumbledore shook his head. "Those are the ones abandoned by fate itself. The people who try to enter, however, are different; they walk from what is right into what is wrong by their own choice."
He answered calmly, without the slightest irritation at Snape's use of the word evil to describe him.
"Like Ian, then?" Hermione murmured, a wave of helplessness washing over her. She turned again toward the bronze door, her mind replaying the moment it had been active earlier.
It was as if those twisted faces within the door had been screaming at her, yet she could hear no sound. A terrible image took shape in her mind: Ian, trapped in some dark void.
His soul being torn apart by invisible forces… pitiful, terrifying.
It had to be said that Hermione's imagination was vivid; perhaps that was why she was destined to become such an exceptional witch in the future.
For wizards, imagination was indeed essential, at least, according to the theories Ian himself had once proposed.
The air grew heavy.
Dumbledore did not immediately respond.
After a moment, Snape broke the silence. "So it all depends on Ian's luck now, doesn't it? I knew that brat would get himself killed one of these days."
Though his tone was irritated, there was something beneath it, a quiet, concealed sorrow and worry.
"Ian simply made his choice," Dumbledore sighed softly. "Or perhaps, it was fate that guided him to it, just as all of us must take responsibility for our own choices."
"In truth," he continued, "we can't yet conclude that Ian has fallen into some doomed destiny." Dumbledore turned toward the bronze door; in the faint wandlight, the wrinkles on his face seemed deeper than ever. "I don't fully understand its workings, but I do have some idea."
He lifted his old wand and traced a complex arc through the air. "I think I know how to activate it now. Perhaps… I can go in and try to find Ian."
"If luck is on our side, we may both return."
Clearly, Dumbledore intended to attempt a rescue. To him, Ian's importance was beyond question.
Snape, however, looked doubtful. He had never seen the old Headmaster value anyone this much.
Not even Harry Potter.
Snape knew all too well, if it ever came to it, Dumbledore would sacrifice the boy without hesitation. But with Ian, it was different. Something about the way Dumbledore spoke and acted around him was not the same as the man Snape thought he knew.
Snape's black eyes darted between Dumbledore and the bronze door, his brows furrowed tightly. He couldn't help wondering, could those rumors circulating in the House actually be true?
While the Potions Master's mind ran wild, Hermione's heart skipped a beat.
"But what if we're not lucky?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly.
"Not lucky?"
Dumbledore turned toward her, his blue eyes gleaming with a mysterious light behind the spectacles. "Ian will return. I believe in him. He has the strength and the courage to face whatever lies ahead."
The answer left Hermione momentarily speechless. She couldn't quite grasp the meaning behind Dumbledore's words. She frowned, wanting to press further, but the question died on her lips.
In the end, she merely opened her mouth, unable to say anything. There was something in the old Headmaster's tone, not hope, not prophecy, but something closer to an absolute certainty.
And that… she could not understand.
Snape, meanwhile, grew even more uneasy.
Even so, he felt Dumbledore should think of the bigger picture. The world needed him; he was like a lighthouse, guiding others through the storm.
Voldemort's shadow still loomed over the wizarding world like a storm cloud.
At least, that was what most wizards believed. In truth, only a few people in the world knew what Voldemort had truly become.
"You know, Albus… you need to live. You must stay in this world. You know that…" Snape began, his voice low. With the young witch nearby, he couldn't bring himself to speak plainly.
Dumbledore only smiled gently and said nothing. He adjusted his robes with calm, unhurried movements, as if preparing for afternoon tea, not an unknown journey.
"This world has never needed anyone," he said softly. "Each of us has our own purpose and worth. And I, too, will not act recklessly. Of course, I'm not one to seek death, I have some confidence in this. So… wish me luck."
His warm tone was unyielding, his eyes glinting with unmistakable resolve.
The old Headmaster's authority still lingered — and so, though his face shifted through doubt and anger, Snape ultimately fell silent.
After a long inner struggle, he finally spoke.
"…Good luck."
He exhaled heavily.
Truthfully, part of it was personal, after all, Ian was his nephew. Saving the boy was something he wanted just as much.
He could only hope that everything would turn out for the best.
(End of Chapter)
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