While his roommates were still downstairs, noisily finishing off the leftovers from lunch and attempting to cast cleaning charms on their mud-stained robes, Albert was seated in a plush armchair in the common room, the quiet hum of concentration surrounding him.
He was composing a piece of correspondence that felt less like a friendly greeting and more like a detailed engineering proposal.
The recipient was Sera Harris, the enigmatic and ancient alchemist. Albert's letter, penned in a clear, economical script, began with polite expressions of gratitude for the promised texts and a reaffirmation of his desire for an ongoing intellectual exchange. The heart of the message, however, lay in a brief, precisely worded explanation of his newest pet project: the Magic Lamp.
Albert wasn't just thinking of a simple lumos charm encased in glass. His mind immediately went to problems of sustained energy and switch mechanics. He'd already performed rudimentary experiments, attempting to Transfigure a persistent globe of light—a Lumos Temporalis—and then placing it inside a mundane container.
The light orb, however, couldn't be sustained passively; without constant magical input, it would destabilize and simply disperse. The goal was self-sufficiency.
"The core challenge," Albert wrote, summarizing his theory, "is creating a lasting, internal reservoir of luminance. If we can develop the requisite charms to sustain a stable light source within an inert container—an act conceptually similar to certain light-extinguishing devices—then the creation of a perpetual Magic Lamp is merely a matter of finding the proper chassis."
He proposed a few solutions, moving from the purely theoretical to the functionally arcane. One route involved attempting to capture and sustain the light from an ancient, self-sustaining flame, perhaps an Aetheric Fire.
This structure would utilize the antique flame as the primary engine, sealed inside a specially formulated glass dome to ensure the resulting illumination was continuous, bright, and perfectly stable, emitting a clean, white light rather than the flickering orange of fire.
The switch mechanism was a separate, charming problem. How do you turn off a source of perpetual light without destroying the light itself? Albert's mind jumped, as it often did, to the practical genius of the Weasley twins' future endeavors—specifically, their invisible Smoke Bombs.
The key property of that invention was its absolute opacity when viewed from the outside, even while remaining translucent from within.
By replicating and modifying that opaque-yet-invisible property, they could create a kind of retractable, magically inert Opaque Shroud—a lampshade that, when deployed, would simply block all light emission without actually interfering with the perpetual flame or luminescent orb inside.
But Albert knew these were ideas, concepts dancing only on parchment. Translating the theory of persistent light containment and opaque shielding into a practical, marketable artifact was an entirely different matter—a matter that required the kind of specialized Transfiguration and Ancient Runes knowledge that only a mind like Sera Harris's could truly appreciate.
Tying the scroll closed with a simple sealing charm, Albert handed the letter to the waiting school owl, which hooted softly before launching itself through the common room window and streaking across the autumn sky. The moment he watched the owl disappear, Albert felt the familiar pull of the day's next agenda item.
He returned to the main table where Fred, George, and Lee Jordan were spread out, heads bowed over a large, leather-bound book—the evolving Master Grimoire of the Wizard Card Club.
The trio was diligently cross-referencing notes, adding new card effects, names, and numerical values to the ledger. Their animated lunch chatter had been replaced by the serious, focused energy of design work.
Opposite them, Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet had joined the group. Angelina was scrutinizing the four personalized "Primitive Cards" Albert had produced—the ones featuring the twins, Lee, and Albert himself.
"They look fantastic, Albert. Really, they do," Angelina admitted, tracing the crisp lines of Fred's dynamic Quidditch portrait. "But I have to ask: using the actual photographs directly on the cards… it feels a little odd, doesn't it? Almost… crude for a wizarding game."
Alicia nodded in agreement. "It's that Chocolate Frog card look. It's authentic, but maybe we should be aiming for something grander. A proper painting, perhaps?"
Albert pulled up a chair next to them, unbothered. "It's a functional constraint, ladies. We simply do not have the Galleons to commission a master portraitist right now. To replace all these photos with proper, animated oil portraits would take us years and cost a fortune. Besides," he added, leaning in conspiratorially, "the movement of the photo is the key to the Transfiguration link; it's easier to charm a photo than a painting."
George, ever the opportunist, immediately interrupted. "Hold on, Albert, you said earlier you could use portraits, though. Can you draw? Because if you can paint me looking suitably heroic, I'd pay you in advance."
"Absolutely not," Albert stated, perhaps too quickly. He did not need to add Muggle fine arts to his already bursting schedule.
"If we ever reach the stage where we need high-quality, professional portraits, we can simply engage a professional Muggle artist. They do incredible work. We then use a handful of Charms to imbue the finished product with magical motion and life. That way, we get the best of both worlds: Muggle quality and wizarding animation."
His suggestion stunned the group into silence. To willingly engage Muggle labor—especially artists, who were generally considered frivolous—to achieve a magical end was a foreign concept, bordering on revolutionary, to these purists.
"We can table the Muggle Art Integration discussion for now," Albert said, raising his hand to silence the inevitable debate. "It's a problem for year six or seven, not today. Right now, we focus on the core mechanics."
With the four of them focused, the card documentation proceeded quickly. New categories were defined: the four "Hogwarts Grandmasters"—Albert, the Twins, and Lee Jordan—each possessing a unique strategic effect; the health of all players was fixed at a reliable twenty points; and the initial card pool had already surpassed one hundred distinct types, spanning creatures, charms, and artifacts.
It was during a break in naming a particularly nasty Dark Arts card that Albert, eyes twinkling with mischief, tossed out a dangerous suggestion.
"You know, I'm genuinely considering a Mysterious Man card," he mused aloud, half-joking. "Imagine the sheer, horrifying power of a Dark Lord's presence in a deck. We'd have to classify him as an 'Unspeakable Artifact' or something."
The room temperature seemed to drop instantly. The pens stopped scratching. The easy, collaborative atmosphere evaporated, replaced by a sudden, palpable tension that only a taboo subject could create.
"Albert, are you serious?" Angelina whispered, her eyes wide with a genuine, unnerving fear that felt entirely disproportionate to a game. "You wouldn't actually… put You-Know-Who on a card, would you? That's… that's just bad luck."
Albert felt the awkwardness, the sheer difference in their worldviews. They, the children of the wizarding world, felt an instinctive, visceral dread attached to the name, the character, the very concept of the Dark Lord. They grew up on hushed tales of terror and loss, even if they hadn't personally lived through that era. The fear of the name was deeply ingrained.
He, however, was a Muggle-born who viewed the figure as a historical villain, a tragic Shakespearean figure who'd made the strategic error of trying to kill an infant. He was a strategic flaw, not a cosmic horror. He had no nose, for crying out loud.
"Wow," Fred breathed out, shaking off the momentary chill. "You're truly not scared of saying his name, are you?"
Albert shrugged, deliberately casual. "Why would I be? I'm from the Muggle world, remember? To me, 'The Mysterious Man' or 'Voldemort' is just a historical moniker, no different than any other infamous name from history. He's a character in a textbook, not a ghost haunting my childhood."
"But you are actually planning to put him on a card, eventually?" Lee Jordan asked, his voice still low but now filled with morbid curiosity. "And if you can't get a picture of him—since almost nobody saw him and lived—how do you plan to create the image?"
Albert winked, picking up his quill. "The image isn't the problem, Li. The key is to lean into the mystery and the terror. We take a generic, shadowy, high-collared wizard photo—easy enough to procure. Then, we douse it in shadow, make his form indistinct, and only allow two things to shine through: the stylized green light of the Killing Curse, and a pair of unnaturally vibrant red eyes."
"That infamous Black Devil, The Mysterious Man," Albert chuckled, tapping the ledger. "Very few people ever got a clear look at him anyway. The image needs to be an icon, not a portrait. It just needs to look mysterious and utterly terrifying."
"That… actually makes a lot of sense," George murmured, already thinking of the dramatic power level such a card would possess.
"I beg you, can we discuss literally anything else?" Alicia finally pleaded, holding her hands over her ears. "You're all going to jinx us into a bad Quidditch season."
"Relax, Alicia. It's far in the future," Albert reassured her, changing the subject back to the immediate task. They managed to finalize the statistics for the initial 100+ cards, cementing the foundational structure of the game.
It was then that Shanna, one of the upper-year Gryffindor prefects, approached the table, having observed the intense activity from the far corner of the common room. She looked down at the array of cards and the deeply engaged faces.
"Are these kinds of games really that compelling?" she asked, sounding genuinely mystified. "You all look like you're preparing for your Potions N.E.W.T."
"Yes, absolutely. The fun really accelerates when you have a large pool of cards and multiple players," Albert replied enthusiastically. "It's less about luck and more about reading the board, understanding the synergies, and knowing how to combine and apply the spell cards. It's a test of strategy, not just stacking high-star creatures, as George here often attempts."
George, predictably, bristled. "Hey, don't use my current strategy failure as your primary teaching example!"
"You are, however, the most prominent counter-example of a pure-power deck in our club," Lee Jordan noted dryly, earning a sharp elbow to the ribs from George.
The ensuing laughter broke the tension. Shanna then picked up one of the cards. "Wait, why does Fred's card look so professionally made, while all the other cards you're using look… well, like pieces of old parchment?"
"Ah, that's the 'Primitive Card'—the master copy," Fred explained, puffing out his chest and admiring his animated likeness. "Albert made this one specifically, and he'll slowly create the master copies for all the other cards. It takes him time. Once we reach his level of Transfiguration, the rest of us will help him in the creation of the other original cards."
Shanna pulled a Chocolate Frog card of Dumbledore from her pocket and compared it to Fred's Quidditch card. "It certainly has that same feel."
"That's where the inspiration came from," Albert confirmed. "The long-term goal is to evolve the game so that eventually, every single Chocolate Frog card in existence can be integrated into the system as a playing piece. But that scale is years away."
Shanna decided to stick around, watching a quick, friendly match between Fred and Alicia. Fred, relying on a balanced mix of defensive charms and offensive creatures, ultimately won a clear victory.
"Is that all there is to it? Just reducing the opponent's life?" Shanna asked, watching Alicia concede gracefully.
"Essentially, yes. Everyone starts with twenty health," Albert elaborated. "The core mechanic involves strategic trade-offs—sacrificing card power or position to deal maximum, sustained damage. But there are hundreds of variables—Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, and Creatures—each with different effects. The depth comes from the combinations."
Just then, Davis, a quiet fifth-year Ravenclaw, and Katrina, the famous Sixth-Year Riddle Master, approached the circle, having observed the game from a distance.
"They are mostly Gryffindor cards, I see," Davis commented, ever the meticulous observer.
"Since the game is still in its infancy, I've only finalized the Gryffindor house cards," Albert explained. "I started with our house for ease of testing."
Katrina picked up Albert's Primitive Card, the one depicting him with the book and wand. She glanced at the name and the effects listed at the bottom. "So this is the 'Wizard Card' game you mentioned in your correspondence," she stated, her eyebrow raised in intellectual curiosity.
Truman, one of the few Hufflepuffs to show up, chimed in. "Yes, Albert gave me his own card—the one with the 'Preemptive Attack' effect. It sounds fascinating."
"It is," Albert affirmed. "If you're interested, Truman, or any of you, Fred and George would be happy to teach you the fundamentals."
"But what if I want to play using my own house's strategy?" Truman asked, immediately displaying the loyalty typical of his house. "As a Hufflepuff, I'd want to rely on Herbology and Potions, not just Gryffindor's dueling charms."
"That's the beauty of it. The other house decks will be designed to reflect their core strengths, but that takes time," Albert acknowledged. "However, you don't need to worry about my personal biases. I must operate under a banner of absolute impartiality and rigorous balance when designing the cards. If any house is inherently superior, the game is meaningless."
Katrina, ever the challenger, put down Albert's card and offered her hand. "I'll play a round. Someone lend me a deck. Shanna, would you care for a match? Fred, may I borrow your Quidditch deck?"
Shanna eagerly accepted the challenge, borrowing Fred's deck. The two novice players quickly grasped the basics. However, Katrina, possessing a hyper-analytical mind but no feel for the flow of Albert's specific deck design, focused too heavily on large, powerful creatures. A few minutes later, she suffered an embarrassing defeat.
"Is there some kind of inherent flaw in your deck's balance?" Katrina asked Albert, her analytical confidence slightly shaken.
Albert shrugged dismissively. "No, there's a flaw in your application of the deck. You don't know its rhythms. Fred's deck is heavy on Quidditch and creature cards—raw force. Mine, however, is saturated with complex Spell cards, designed for rapid counter-attacks and status effects. You played it like a brute-force deck; it requires finesse."
Katrina pressed her lips into a thin line, instantly recognizing the tactical disparity.
Truman, meanwhile, was nodding thoughtfully. "The flexibility in deck construction is quite remarkable. It's a genuine strategic game, then."
"Precisely," Albert confirmed. "Every player can develop their own completely unique style. It's what keeps the game fresh."
He scanned the faces around the table—the Twins, Lee Jordan, Angelina, Alicia, the newly interested Shanna, Davis, Truman, and the competitive Katrina. "If any of you want to move past casual play and join the development phase, you're welcome. The game needs more minds for balance testing."
The truth was, the Wizard Card Game, with its intricate rules and need for long-term strategic commitment, didn't possess the immediate, visceral appeal of a simple, fast-paced game. It was a niche interest, a slow-burn intellectual pursuit.
But for the dedicated few, for those who loved strategy, complexity, and a challenge—like the people currently gathered around Albert's table—it was destined to become an obsession.