The castle had long since settled into its nightly slumber, but the corridors of Hogwarts were never truly empty. If one were to stand near the portrait of the Fat Lady, they might hear the faint, rhythmic scuff of shoes against stone, though no bodies were visible to the eye.
Suddenly, a small, floating orb of light sparked into existence in the center of the dark hallway. It bobbed up and down like a restless spirit, casting long, eerie shadows that danced across the suits of armor. It looked like a ghost from the Void Realm, wandering the halls in search of a lost soul.
The light stopped directly in front of the Fat Lady's portrait. The woman in the painting, who had been mid-yawn and ready to retreat to the back of her canvas for a nap, jerked awake. Her eyes went wide as she stared at the floating light, but before she could even demand a password, the portrait swung forward from the inside.
"Perfect timing," Lee Jordan's head popped out from the darkened hole, his voice a hushed whisper.
The orb of light glided into the common room, and the portrait slammed shut behind it. The Fat Lady stood there, blinking rapidly, looking as though she'd just witnessed a spectral invasion.
In reality, the 'ghosts' were merely Fred and George Weasley. They had spent the last hour perfecting a Disillusionment Charm that made them blend into the stone walls like chameleons. The floating light was just a simple Lumos, held by an invisible hand. The three of them had coordinated this "midnight snack run" with the precision of a military operation—Lee would be the inside man, opening the door at the stroke of eleven so they wouldn't have to risk waking the whole tower by arguing with a grumpy painting.
"So? Did the mission succeed?" Lee asked, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
"Success is a relative term," Fred said, his voice shimmering as the charm wore off, revealing his ginger hair and a smug grin. He tossed a heavy, grease-stained parchment bag at Lee. "Butter biscuits. Fresh from the house-elves. Don't eat them all at once; you'll wake up with crumbs in your sheets."
"I assume you two already stuffed yourselves in the kitchens?" Lee remarked, catching the bag and inhaling the heavenly scent of melted sugar and flour.
"It would have been rude not to taste-test the product," George replied, smacking his lips with a wink.
The three boys crept up the stairs, their footsteps muffled by the thick Gryffindor carpets. They reached their dormitory and pushed the door open, expecting to find the room in darkness. Instead, they found Albert.
He was sitting in his high-backed chair, a single candle burning low on his desk. He didn't look up as they entered. He looked like a statue carved from shadow, his quill scratching rhythmically against a long roll of parchment.
"What's the damage for dinner?" Albert asked, his voice calm and steady, not even flinching at their sudden entrance.
"Biscuits," Fred said, startled that Albert had sensed them through their remaining concealment. "Want one?"
"Only if George didn't sneeze on them," Albert replied. He took a deep breath, his shoulders finally dropping an inch as he ended the focus required for his own protective charms. He set down his quill and rubbed his eyes, looking over the Transfiguration essay he had just finished. It was three feet of dense, complex theory—enough to make Professor McGonagall weep with joy or frustration.
"You look like a man who hasn't slept since the 1970s," Fred commented, sliding a freshly brewed cup of milk tea onto the edge of Albert's desk. "Why do you do this to yourself, mate? You're already top of the class. This isn't studying; it's self-flagellation."
"Thanks," Albert said, reaching for the tea but pausing before he took a sip. He looked at the cup, then up at Fred. "I'd be more touched by the gesture if you hadn't used your nose to check the temperature. I can literally see a smudge on the rim."
Fred froze, his face turning a bright shade of pink. George let out a muffled snort of laughter from his bed—he was the one who had dared Fred to do it.
Albert sighed and set the tea aside. He looked over at Lee Jordan, who was already elbow-deep in the biscuit bag. "Save me two, Lee. I know you're planning on hiding the last one under your pillow for a midnight snack, but I'm actually starving."
Lee stopped, a half-eaten biscuit hovering near his mouth. He looked at Albert with genuine shock. "How do you do that? It's like you're inside my head."
Albert didn't answer. He just reached for a biscuit.
Inside, Albert was silently calculating. He had recently poured a massive amount of his saved experience points into his mental stats. His Legilimency had hit Level 2, and his Occlumency was now sitting at a solid Level 3. The drain on his experience pool had been painful, like losing a limb, but it was a cold necessity.
For a reincarnated soul, a mind is the most dangerous place to leave unlocked. If Dumbledore or Voldemort ever got a wandering eye, Albert's "genius" would be revealed as something far more "otherworldly." He desperately wanted Level 4 Occlumency—the level where the mind doesn't just feel like a wall, but a completely different, fabricated reality—but he was tapped out.
He needed more points. And to get more points, he needed to solve the problems of the school. He thought about Ravenclaw's Diadem, currently rotting in the Room of Requirement. To hand that to Dumbledore, he needed a mind that couldn't be cracked. It was an investment; the experience he'd gain from the 'Horcrux Hunt' would pay back his current losses tenfold.
"How are the Wizard Cards coming along?" Albert asked, brushing crumbs off his essay. "The other houses are starting to get restless."
Lee swallowed hard and wiped his mouth. "Ravenclaw is all in. We've got over twenty confirmed members, all begging for their own portraits. Hufflepuff is slower—about eighteen—but they're steady. We even had two new first-years join today just because they heard we were the 'coolest club' in the tower."
"Good," Albert murmured. "Keep the momentum. The more cards we have, the more we control the social flow of the school."
"The duplication charms are getting easier, too," George added. "We've been practicing that multiplication spell you showed us. It's actually helping with my Charms homework."
Albert nodded. He had noticed his own Geminio (Duplication Charm) had ticked up to Level 2 just from the sheer volume of cards they were producing. It was the ultimate way to grind levels—practical application through mass production.
"By the way," Fred said, his eyes wandering toward Albert's bedside table. "I've been dying to ask. What's in the box? You've been tinkering with it for weeks."
Albert looked at the small, reinforced wooden chest. He wasn't one for secrets among his inner circle. "If you're curious, bring it over."
George didn't need to be told twice. He snatched the box and set it on the center of Albert's bed. When he flipped the latch, the first tray revealed three silver, cylindrical objects. They looked like oversized Muggle lighters, engraved with intricate, sun-burst patterns.
"Are these... jewelry?" George asked, picking one up.
"They're failures," Albert said, a note of genuine frustration in his voice. "Remnants of my attempt to create something truly useful."
"Failures? They look expensive," Lee said, leaning in.
"Open it," Albert challenged, his voice flat.
George pressed the small catch on the side. Click.
A blinding, violent sphere of white light erupted from the tip of the cylinder. It didn't just glow; it screamed with luminosity. It was like someone had captured a piece of the noon-day sun and forced it into the small room.
"BLOODY HELL!" Fred yelled, throwing his hands over his eyes. "I CAN'T SEE! MY RETINAS!" George scrambled backward, dropping the device onto the duvet.
Albert calmly reached over and flicked the cap shut, plunging the room back into the soft glow of the single candle. The three boys were left blinking, giant green spots dancing in their vision.
"I call it a flash-bang," Albert said, popping another biscuit into his mouth. "It was supposed to be a portable, permanent light source—a way to store a Lumos for months. But the enchantment is unstable. Instead of a steady glow, it releases the entire energy store in a tenth of a second. It's a one-time use item. Useless for reading, but great for blinding your enemies."
"Useless?" Fred gasped, his eyes still watering. "Albert, this is genius! If you threw this into a dark room during a duel, the other guy wouldn't know what hit him."
"It's a distraction, Fred. Not a solution," Albert countered. He was actually aiming to replicate Dumbledore's Deluminator, but the alchemy required for 'light-catching' was far more temperamental than he had anticipated.
"What about the second one?" Lee asked, pointing to a similar-looking device with a perforated top.
"Go ahead," Albert said.
Fred, being the bravest (or stupidest), flipped the switch on the second cylinder.
"GO TO HELL! EAT DRAGON DUNG! YOU'RE ALL USELESS! BLOODY USELESS!"
A voice, magnified ten times over, roared from the device. It was a cacophony of insults and screaming, so loud it vibrated the glass on Albert's desk. Fred nearly jumped out of his skin, frantically fumbling to turn it off.
"It stores sound," Albert explained as the silence returned. "I wanted to store a Mandrake's scream. Imagine throwing that into a crowd. But I haven't figured out if the Mandrake kills via magical curse or just pure decibel levels. If it's a curse, the recording won't work. If it's sound, this is a lethal weapon."
The twins looked at the little silver tube with a new sense of profound respect.
"And the third one?" George reached for the last cylinder.
"Don't," Albert warned, his voice sharp. "Unless you want the dormitory to smell like a troll's armpit for the next three weeks. It's a concentrated stench-gas. Another failure."
"Wait," Fred said, his mind finally catching up. "A blinding light, a deafening noise, and a paralyzing smell... Albert, if you put these three into one shell..."
"A stun grenade," Albert finished for him. "An alchemical tool to neutralize a room without casting a single spell. It's effective for a surprise attack, I suppose. But a well-placed Stupefy is more elegant."
The twins exchanged a look of pure, unadulterated mischief. To Albert, these were junk—byproducts of his failed experiments. To the future founders of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, this was a gold mine.
"You think they're failures," George whispered. "We think they're the best things you've ever made."
Albert ignored their excitement and opened the second layer of the box. This one was filled with wooden bracelets and amulets, carved from Rowan and Ash.
"The new line of protective gear?" Fred asked, picking up a finely polished band.
"Version 2.0," Albert corrected. "But I'm already on 3.0." He tapped a dark, unremarkable band on his own wrist. "Watch."
He moved his hand toward George's chest, slowly and deliberately. When his hand was still six inches away, an invisible, rubbery force pushed back. George leaned into it, but the more he pushed, the stronger the resistance became. It was like trying to shove a magnet against its matching pole.
"A Shield Charm," Fred breathed. "A permanent, passive Shield Charm? Albert, that's impossible. You'd need a constant power source."
"It's not permanent," Albert admitted. "It drains its charge with every hit. And it's not a full Protego; it only handles physical objects and low-level hexes. I wanted it to be a way to cast silently and wandlessly, but the feedback loop is messy. It doesn't even show up as a 'finished' item in my... records."
He stared at his wrist, frustrated. He was a perfectionist in a world of variables. He wanted a system-approved masterpiece, but all he had was a box of "garbage" that could blind a giant, deafen a dragon, and push a bully across a room.
"If this is what your failures look like," Lee Jordan said, finally finishing the biscuits, "I'm terrified to see what happens when you actually succeed."
Albert just looked out the window at the dark Forbidden Forest. Success, for him, wasn't just making a trinket. Success was surviving the storm he knew was coming. And if he had to blind the world with flash-bangs to do it, so be it.
"Go to bed," Albert said, finally blowing out the candle. "We have Herbology in the morning, and if you're too blind to see the Venomous Tentacula, don't expect me to save you."