The cobblestone streets of Hogsmeade glowed warmly beneath the afternoon sun, while the lingering sweetness of butterbeer still clung to their lips. As the four of them threaded through the bustling crowd, a crooked sign painted in vivid red came into view—Zonko's Joke Shop.
The sign itself was a prank: its letters jumped about at random, swapping places every so often.
"We're here!"
Fred and George cheered almost in unison, Lee Jordan right on their heels. The three of them shot through the creaking shop door like arrows loosed from a bowstring.
Inside was a riot of noise and color.
The acrid tang of sulfur mixed with the cloying sweetness of cheap candy, fermenting in the air. On the shelves, biting teacups snapped their jaws, screaming yo-yos hurled themselves up and down as if tossed by invisible hands, leaving shrill streaks in the air. In one corner sat crates of dungbombs, their pungent stench so thick it almost became a physical wall.
Fred snatched up a whoopee cushion and gave it a hearty squeeze. A loud, realistic fart resounded through the shop, provoking roars of laughter. George was enamored with a pile of trick wands, waving one about while muttering fake incantations.
They abandoned all restraint, reveling in this wonderland designed for prankster geniuses, every cell of their being leaping with joy.
Alan did not join them.
He stood in the doorway, calmly surveying the chaos. His gaze carried no ripple of excitement—cool and detached, like an engineer inspecting a noisy factory floor. He stepped forward at an unhurried pace, weaving past overexcited students as he drifted among the shelves.
His presence clashed starkly with the feverish energy of the shop.
Alan picked up a brightly wrapped Belching Sweet.
The candy was bright green, its surface dusted with a sparkling layer of sugar crystals.
He didn't eat it.
Instead, he closed his eyes.
In an instant, the outer world's din vanished. Inside his mental sanctuary—the vast "Mind Palace"—a chamber dedicated to magical analysis lit up.
Through his perception, the tiny sweet expanded, broken down into its essence. Pale green threads of magic wove within it, forming a crude, simple circuit.
[Item: Belching Sweet]
[Magical Circuit: Basic type, single-trigger]
[Core Spell Model: Miniature, unstable variant of a "Stomach-Stimulus Charm"]
[Trigger Mechanism: Activated upon dissolution in saliva]
[Effect: Induces uncontrollable diaphragmatic spasms (belching)]
[Duration: Approx. 3 minutes]
[Side Effects: No long-term physiological harm]
A few seconds later, Alan opened his eyes again.
What sent Hogwarts students into fits of laughter now existed before him as nothing more than a clear, simplified schematic of magical engineering.
He placed the Belching Sweet into his basket, then selected several other classic prank items:
– a box of dungbombs,
– a few different styles of trick wands,
– and a set of insect specimens enchanted with minor harassment charms, buzzing irritably inside their boxes.
But his purpose was unlike the twins'.
Not to use them—
but to dismantle and study them.
"Take a look at this."
Alan's voice wasn't loud, yet it carried cleanly through the noise, reaching Fred and George as they toyed with whoopee cushions.
They turned and saw him holding a black trick wand.
Alan handed it over.
"This wand, when the user attempts a spell, turns into a squawking rubber chicken."
He stated the fact plainly, without flourish.
"The idea is clever. But the execution is crude."
"Oh? Then how would you do it?"
Fred raised an eyebrow, folding his arms with a trace of defiance, as if daring him to prove it.
Alan ignored the challenge in his tone.
"True artistry in pranking is not mere transformation."
His voice deepened, steady and commanding, carrying the weight of a mentor instructing his dull-witted pupils.
"You should be thinking about how to use the underlying logic of spells to create a result that looks reasonable—yet is utterly absurd."
He paused, giving the words enough time to ferment in their minds.
"For example, design a composite spell and attach it to the doorknob of Filch's office. The effect wouldn't be to make him trip or break out in boils. Instead, it would cause his cat, Mrs. Norris, to uncontrollably sing the Hogwarts school song in a meowing tone every time she saw him."
The smiles vanished from Fred and George's faces.
They looked at each other, and for the first time, there was a flicker of bewilderment in their eyes.
Alan didn't stop.
"Or, invent an entirely new kind of ink. To the eye, everything written with it looks normal, but within it lies a delayed spell, one capable of recognizing specific magical fields. So when Professor Snape writes his notes on the blackboard with this ink, ten minutes after the class ends, the writing will automatically decompose and reform into line after line praising the Gryffindor Quidditch team."
His gaze swept over the twins. Within his black eyes shimmered a brilliance known as wisdom—cold, sharp, and dazzling.
"Your pranks lack imagination," Alan delivered his verdict.
"You're only making use of existing props. You're not creating rules."
"True art is the creation of an entirely new joke—one that fits perfectly within the logic of the magical world. A joke so finely crafted that even the professors can't immediately undo it, and may even find themselves admiring its exquisite magical structure."
Every word struck Fred and George like a heavy hammer, pounding into their hearts.
The chaotic world inside their minds, always brimming with silly, wild ideas, was suddenly split open by a bolt of lightning.
Looking down at the joke items in their hands—those noisy, transforming toys—they felt, for the first time, how… shallow they were.
So pranks could be this "technical."
So the true pinnacle wasn't simply making others look foolish, but using one's intelligence to toy with the very rules of the world.
A fierce, unprecedented desire to create flared inside them, like fire fueled with accelerant. Their breathing grew rapid, their eyes burning with fervor.
Alan, seeing them lost in thought, said no more.
He turned, letting his gaze drift across the dazzling array of magical props—but his mind had already moved to another dimension.
Within his Mind Palace, a brand-new chamber lit up.
[Project: Business Blueprint – First Draft]
On the screen, the magical structure of the "Belching Sweets" appeared.
Next to it floated a diagram of a Muggle industrial assembly line.
[Analysis: Joke Item 'Belching Sweets,' core spell—'Stomach Stimulation Charm.' Simple structure, low energy requirement, can be fixed onto a medium.]
[Feasibility Projection: Produce candy bases via Muggle industrial lines, then imprint simplified spell models through standardized enchantment processes.]
[Cost Estimate: Extremely low.]
[Efficiency Estimate: Extremely high.]
Then he pulled up the structure of the "Fake Wand."
[Analysis: Contains a miniature Transfiguration Charm, triggered by sensing the wielder's magical pulse.]
[Tech Integration Plan: Can be fused with basic electronic components. For instance, add voice-activated or light-sensor modules to improve accuracy and novelty. Expand the transfiguration target beyond a single 'rubber chicken' to a database of random items.]
Using magical thinking to revolutionize the Muggle world.
Using Muggle technology to mass-produce magical creativity.
For the first time, a vast yet sharply defined business blueprint took shape within his Mind Palace—clear, logical, and immense.
The future magical product line of his technology company had just found its first cornerstone.
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