On Saturday evening, the sky over Little Whinging, Surrey, was painted in a deep shade of bluish-purple. From every household window spilled a warm orange glow, and the Scotts' living room was no exception.
A sudden series of light but urgent taps struck the sitting room window.
The sound wasn't loud, yet it cut through the newscaster's voice on the television with surgical precision.
"What on earth is that?" Robert Scott lowered his newspaper and frowned toward the window.
"It's an owl!"
Lilia's shriek was full of delight. She leapt off the sofa first, darting barefoot to the glass. A tawny barn owl perched quietly on the sill, its obsidian-like eyes catching the lamplight of the living room in the dimness. Tied to its leg was a small, square, hard box.
Carla Scott went over, smoothly unlatched the window, and removed the parcel. The owl gave a courteous hoot before flapping off into the thickening night.
"It's a letter from Alan!"
Lilia's voice trembled with excitement. She accepted the seemingly ordinary little box from her mother's hands, cradling it as though it were a crown.
At once, the family gathered round, and the air of the living room thickened with a mix of curiosity and expectation. Robert set aside his newspaper. Carla wiped her hands clean. All eyes locked onto the tiny parcel sitting in the middle of the coffee table.
Lilia opened the box.
Inside, there was no magical device as she had imagined.
No hopping Chocolate Frog, no brightly colored sweets.
Only a fist-sized, grayish stone.
A film of dark green moss clung to it, carrying with it a damp, earthy smell. Other than that, there was nothing else.
"What… is this?" Robert was the first to break the silence. He poked the stone with a finger, the solid hardness only deepening his confusion. "Alan sent a rock home from Hogwarts?"
His voice was filled with the mock-serious doubt of a father.
"There should be instructions in the letter." Carla's voice was as steady as ever. She picked up the parchment tucked inside the box and unfolded it.
The handwriting was Alan's—clean, crisp strokes with a quiet strength to them.
"Dear Dad, Mom, and my dearest little Lilia:"
Carla read softly. Lilia instantly pressed close, her small head nearly buried in the parchment.
"…What I've sent you is a little gift. Please note, for safe passage through the Muggle postal system (though this time it came via Owl Express), I placed a Muggle-friendly disguise charm on it. To see its true form, you'll need to activate it with a secret phrase."
At that, Lilia's eyes lit up like lanterns.
A secret phrase!
It sounded straight out of a fairy tale.
"What's the secret phrase?" she asked eagerly.
Carla's eyes dropped lower on the page, and a chuckle tugged at her lips. Clearing her throat, she read the next line aloud in a playful tone:
"[The activation phrase is the name of the smartest member of our family.]"
The living room fell quiet for a second.
The smartest member?
Lilia tilted her head, tapping her chin thoughtfully. In this family, Dad was an engineer, Mom was a teacher, and her brother Alan was an undisputed genius.
"Is it Alan himself?"
She had reached the most logical conclusion.
Stretching out a finger, she tapped the plain little box, then leaned in and whispered in what she thought was a mysterious tone:
"Alan?"
The moss didn't stir.
The stone remained a cold, lifeless stone.
"I knew it."
Robert let out a triumphant grunt. Straightening his back and adjusting his collar, he wore the confident expression of a man reclaiming authority.
"This kind of riddle is clearly a test of the head of the household's wisdom."
He jabbed the box with a thick finger and declared, in a loud, meeting-room kind of voice:
"Robert!"
As expected, nothing happened.
The air sagged with embarrassment.
Robert coughed twice to save face. "Hmm… looks like Alan's spell isn't very sensitive."
"No, Dad."
A voice tinged with amusement solved the puzzle.
It was Carla.
She laid the letter down, her gaze warm as it swept over her husband and daughter, before finally settling on the border collie sprawled on the hearth rug, lazily wagging its tail.
"The letter says the smartest member. That can only mean Buck."
Buck.
The black-and-white-coated border collie's ears twitched at the sound of its name. It raised its head, those clear, intelligent eyes gleaming as it looked over.
Lilia's mouth formed a wide "O."
She understood.
This was Alan's humor.
Buck might often seem silly—chasing his tail in endless circles—but among all dog breeds, border collies ranked first in intelligence. From that perspective, it truly was the "smartest" member of the Scott family.
A mixture of playful annoyance and the delight of finally getting the joke rose in her heart.
She imitated the half-joking, half-serious tone of her brother's letter, straightened her small body, and tensed her face with solemn focus.
She extended her delicate little finger and, with a sense of ceremony, gently tapped three times on the moss-covered stone.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Then she took a deep breath, summoned all her strength, and loudly declared:
"Buck!"
The moment her voice fell, a miracle happened.
The stone in the box seemed to awaken as if it had been a slumbering creature for a thousand years. A faint point of light shone from the moss, shimmering across its dark green surface.
Then another, a third, and then… countless points of light appeared, connecting into a dazzling network of luminescence. Soft radiance seeped from every crevice of the moss, not harsh or electric, but alive, warm, and breathing.
The living room, dim from the evening, was instantly bathed in this glow.
Shadows dissolved within the light.
Walls, furniture, and the faces of her family were coated in a dreamlike, soft silver-green. Floating dust motes glimmered like tiny flying diamonds under the glow.
"Wow!"
Lilia let out a long exclamation of awe.
Her eyes widened, reflecting the incredible sea of light. She felt as though her heart might leap out of her chest.
Robert's mouth hung open in astonishment. Carla's hands rose unconsciously to cover her lips, her eyes filled with wonder.
This sight surpassed all their imaginings of magic.
It was neither wild nor terrifying, yet it possessed a serene, overwhelming beauty that struck straight to the heart.
Trembling, Lilia extended both hands and carefully held the stone, now transformed into a "glowing gem."
The coldness of the stone had vanished, replaced by a warm, living pulse of energy. Light shone through her fingers, illuminating her palms with a translucent glow.
She felt as if she now held the treasure of an entire fairy tale world.
"There's an explanation on the other page of the letter," Carla's voice brought everyone back to attention.
She turned the parchment and continued reading.
Alan, using a completely different tone—calm and precise—explained the essence of the gift.
"…Please don't worry, Mom and Dad. This isn't some complicated, difficult magic. At its core, it's closer to a special bioluminescent phenomenon.
This moss is a variant I discovered on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. It can absorb ambient free magical energy and store it."
"I've included a personally drawn diagram of the internal structure of this 'magical moss.' You can think of it as a highly efficient miniature biological generator that converts magical energy into light energy. The activation phrase is merely a voice-controlled switch to release that energy."
Next to the letter lay a meticulously drawn schematic in black ink.
Its style was peculiar: precise, like a Muggle biology textbook, labeled with familiar scientific terms such as cell wall, chloroplast, and mitochondria.
But alongside these, in a different color ink, were terms beyond normal comprehension: magical conduction fibers, energy conversion core, psychic wave sensing structures.
This gift, along with the uniquely scientific explanation, completely overturned the Scott family's understanding of magic.
Magic was no longer a distant, ethereal force to be feared.
Under Alan's guidance, it became tangible, logical… something that could be understood and touched.
Robert picked up the diagram, donned his reading glasses, and marveled at the ingenuity, muttering over and over, "biological generator… energy conversion efficiency," as if studying a groundbreaking patent.
Lilia was utterly immersed in the beautiful glow.
She held the glowing moss, turning it in her hands on the soft sofa, sometimes bringing it close to her eyes to watch the flowing light veins, sometimes pressing it to her cheek to feel its warm pulse. She could not put it down.
The family's chatter, the forgotten television news, and the luminous silence merged into a perfect harmony in the living room.
Lilia looked up.
Her gaze passed through the radiance and landed on a framed photo on the wall.
It was Alan in his Hogwarts uniform, wearing a confident smile, eyes bright.
That smile seemed to say that in his world, such miracles were simply everyday occurrences.
Lilia hugged the glowing stone tightly to her chest, the light illuminating the deepest, purest longing in her eyes.
Once again, in a voice full of wonder and yearning, she whispered:
"I… I really want to go to Hogwarts too."
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