The final stop of their Hogsmeade trip was fixed upon the ever-open doors of Honeydukes, the candy shop beloved by every student.
The air was thick with a sweetness so rich it felt almost solid—the ultimate blend of boiling caramel, melting chocolate, and countless fruit essences fermented together. Light filtered through jars brimming with colorful candies, scattering prismatic patches on the floor that dazzled the eyes.
"This way! Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans!"
"Chocolate Frogs! I still need Dumbledore's card!"
Fred, George, and Lee Jordan shouted with glee, vanishing into the crowd like three fish darting toward their chosen shelves.
Alan did not move.
His gaze didn't linger for even a second on the noisy sections. His eyes worked like the finest scanner, filtering out familiar, fully-documented candy varieties, until finally locking on the counter's centerpiece display—an intentionally cleared space.
There sat a tray of crystalline hard candies, each one embedded with spiraling rainbow-colored stripes.
The tag, written in ornate cursive, read: Rainbow Candy (New Experience Product).
The note beneath was simple: After consumption, your hair will shift through rainbow colors for ten minutes.
Alan's steady steps carried him forward, the crowd parting instinctively before the aura that warned strangers to keep their distance.
He picked one up; the cool, solid hardness pressed against his fingertips.
[Target Locked: Rainbow Candy.]
[Begin Analysis…]
Within his Mind Palace, torrents of data cascaded like waterfalls.
[Ingredient Analysis: Sucrose base, trace magical residue from Transfiguration spells, core enchantment—a composite chromatic charm.]
[Spell Structure Scan: Seven independent chromatic units detected, arranged in linear sequence.]
[Energy Model Construction… Construction Failed. Warning: Energy output model highly unstable. Random fluctuation threshold exceeds 15.7%.]
[Projection Result: During execution, the spell is prone to sequence disorder or energy overflow due to single-source power. Expected outcome: Alongside the standard seven-color cycle, random appearances of brown, murky gray, or blotchy mixed colors. Conclusion: Failed magical product.]
The entire analysis lasted less than three seconds.
Just then, Alan's eyes lifted past the counter to a familiar, round face. It was the very same trolley witch from the Hogwarts Express who had once been startled by his "academic research."
So that was it.
The corner of Alan's lips curved in the faintest of smiles. Everything connected at last.
Clutching the Rainbow Candy, he deliberately walked to the counter.
"Good afternoon, Ma'am. We meet again."
His voice was calm and precise, threading clearly through the noisy shop straight into her ears.
The shopkeeper, busy wrapping sweets for a student, looked up at the sound. The professional smile on her face instantly lit with familiarity.
"Oh! It's you, little genius!"
She clearly remembered this odd boy who had analyzed Cauldron Cakes with magic back on the train.
"Would you like something? Cauldron Cakes? Or perhaps a Chocolate Frog?"
"I'm very interested in your new 'Rainbow Candy.'"
Alan placed the sweet on the counter, straight to the point.
"It's a very creative product."
He began with praise, but immediately shifted.
"However, if my analysis isn't mistaken, its color-changing effect has a serious stability flaw."
Alan's tone was measured and unhurried—every word dropping like a perfectly placed stone.
"For instance, the user expects a cycle of red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, violet. But in reality, occasionally—or even frequently—it produces uncontrollable results. Muddy brown, lifeless gray, or even… blotchy mixtures of multiple colors?"
The Witch's smile froze, inch by inch.
Her eyes widened, her mouth fell open unconsciously. The cheerful expression collapsed into pure, unfiltered shock. She stared at Alan as though seeing a ghost risen from her nightmares.
"You… you… how could you possibly know that?"
Her voice was dry, stripped of its earlier vigor.
This very problem—this cursed technical flaw—had been a barrier for three whole months, draining her of galleons and energy. It prevented the "Rainbow Candy" from moving beyond a small-scale trial release, barring any hopes of mass distribution.
And now, this secret had been laid bare by a first-year student in a single sentence.
Alan didn't answer her question. He only returned a confident smile—one that said everything was already within his grasp.
From the inner pocket of his robes, Alan drew out a roll of parchment he had long since prepared. His movements were unhurried, as though this meeting had always been part of his plan.
He pushed the parchment across the counter.
"Here is a revised recipe I've written."
The Witch's eyes were irresistibly drawn to it. On the parchment, in exceptionally neat handwriting, were complex diagrams and potion symbols she had never seen before.
"In your original recipe, the magical supply path for the chromatic charm was too singular," Alan began to explain, his voice carrying an authority far beyond his years. "That caused massive fluctuations between peaks and troughs in energy output, resulting in unstable colors. My solution borrows from the theory of magical neutralizers in Advanced Potion-Making."
"I've added a very common material you'd never think to use here—powdered unicorn horn."
"Unicorn horn?" The Witch gasped. That was a precious ingredient usually reserved for advanced antidotes.
"Yes." Alan nodded. "Here it doesn't serve as an antidote, but as a magical stabilizing medium. The powder perfectly encases each chromatic core of the spell, forming a buffer layer. When the enchantment is triggered, it smooths the energy output curve precisely, ensuring every color charm releases in the correct order and intensity, stably."
"The final result," Alan concluded, "is a one hundred percent stable color shift with no unintended hues. And since the energy dissipation rate drops from 15.7% to below 1.2%, the effect duration extends by at least five minutes."
The Witch's hands trembled.
She reached out with shaking fingers and practically snatched the parchment away. A mere glance was enough for her eyes to lock onto the crisp, engineering-like flowchart. Every step, every material ratio, every magical flow direction—so precise it was almost terrifying.
It was a way of thinking she had never encountered before—alchemy bound by rigorous mathematical logic.
This wasn't a modification.
This was dimensionality reduction.
Not just genius—monstrous genius.
It didn't merely solve the problem that had plagued her for months; it elevated the entire product to an entirely new standard.
She snapped her head up, staring at Alan as though he were some alien creature.
"Child… who… who are you?"
Her voice carried a trace of fear.
A first-year student, casually breaking through a technical barrier that had confounded professional potion-makers? This was beyond "prodigy." It defied the common sense of the magical world.
The final proof came in Honeydukes' backroom workshop.
When The Witch personally witnessed the Rainbow Candy crafted with the new recipe produce a flawless, stable, and silky seven-color gradient on a gnome test subject's head, her eyes toward Alan burned with outright worship.
She made a decision that left Fred and George so jealous their eyes nearly turned red.
Not only did she personally order her staff to pack every variety and every flavor of candy in the shop into an enormous gift bundle for Alan, she also solemnly presented him with a gilded Lifetime VIP Card.
"Mr. Alan Scott," she said, using the most respectful form of address, "I, promise you this: for the next seven years while you attend Hogwarts, all of this shop's products will be completely free for you."
When the four boys finally prepared to return to the castle via the secret passage behind the one-eyed witch statue, a new problem arose.
The massive burlap sack stuffed with sweets stood nearly half as tall as Alan himself and weighed far too much to squeeze through the narrow tunnel.
Fred and George were frowning, debating whether they would need to haul it in batches.
Alan, however, merely stepped calmly into the open space, raised his head, and placed two fingers to his lips.
A sharp, piercing whistle sliced through the evening air of Hogsmeade.
Moments later, a shadow streaked across the distant sky.
It was his raven, Corvus.
Like a bolt of condensed black lightning, it descended in silence before them. Larger than any ordinary raven, its feathers gleamed with a metallic sheen beneath the sunset.
Corvus's powerful talons, gleaming coldly, clamped firmly around the massive bundle. With a single flick of Alan's hand, the bird beat its wings, stirring a gust of wind as it lifted the heavy package with ease and shot off toward Hogwarts.
The entire sequence was fluid, efficient, and disciplined—like a perfectly trained operation.
And it just so happened that Percy Weasley, stepping out of the Three Broomsticks, witnessed it all.
He adjusted his Prefect's badge, his brows knitting tight.
His mind struggled to process what he had just seen.
Why would the owner of Honeydukes treat a nameless, unheard-of first-year with such extraordinary warmth and generosity?
That package alone was worth nearly half a year's income for an average wizarding family.
And that raven… trained, disciplined, unnatural.
Percy's eyes darkened with suspicion and doubt.
This Alan Scott—
was absolutely hiding something.
~~----------------------
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