"We have to take it back!"
Fred's voice carried the desperation of someone driven to the edge of a cliff. He paced restlessly in the cramped Gryffindor dormitory, the worn floorboards creaking underfoot as if groaning in protest. Each step seemed to measure out the length of their future detention sentences.
"That diary! Merlin's beard, do you realize what's written in there? From the bare-bottom tracking curse for Filch, to the improved Confundus Charm that makes Peeves' singing sound like a serenade… who knows how many of our pranks are recorded in it!"
His fists clenched so tight that his knuckles turned white.
"If Snape flips through that thing page by page, we'll be signing our lives away before long!"
"But how do we get it back?"
George sat slumped at the edge of the bed, arms hanging uselessly by his sides, his face a picture of pure despair. He looked up at his anxious brother, his voice heavy with defeat.
"That thing is one hundred percent in Snape's office by now. Breaking in? Fred, that's about as smart as walking naked into a Hungarian Horntail's nest with a bucket of honey."
"Breaking in would be suicide."
A calm voice cut through the twins' frantic duet.
Alan sat at the desk, back straight, his fingers tapping a steady rhythm against the wood. His unfocused gaze seemed to pierce through the dormitory walls, staring directly at that forbidden space deep within the dungeons.
"Snape's office, without a doubt, is riddled with his custom-tailored, most vicious defensive and alarm wards. Any physical attempt to get in—even with an Invisibility Cloak, even with Polyjuice Potion—would have a success rate approaching zero."
His analysis was cold and precise, like a scalpel stripping away every last shred of unrealistic fantasy, leaving the twins' hopes laid bare.
"So what do we do then?"
Fred and George turned their heads in unison, both pairs of eyes locked on Alan. His calm profile was the only beacon of hope left to them.
"If direct contact is impossible," the faintest hint of a smile tugged at Alan's lips, "then we'll have to use a non-contact retrieval method."
Inside his Mind Palace, streams of data and runes surged past in a blur. A plan—based on his core theory of "magical automation," and bordering on sheer madness—was rapidly assembling and refining itself at the speed of thought.
He stood, crossed to his experimental chest, and picked out a brightly colored little item from a pile of parts and half-finished projects.
A "Screaming Yo-Yo" from Zonko's Joke Shop.
"Remember this?"
He held the yo-yo out in his palm.
The twins nodded blankly. To them, it was just a silly toy that screamed when pulled.
Alan offered no further explanation. He drew his wand, pressing its tip against the yo-yo's center. Magic seeped in like the finest of probes, carefully threading through the toy's core.
His movements were nothing like the crude stirring motions of Potions class. This was closer to microsurgery—meticulous, exact. Like disarming a delicate explosive, he silently stripped away the crude magical circuit that powered the toy's silly shriek.
Then, he began constructing a new circuit.
Magic gathered at his wandtip, weaving a rune chain finer and more intricate than spider silk. It was derived from his invention of the "Sorting Quill," but magnitudes more complex.
An advanced Directional Voice-Activation Charm.
Minutes later, as the final strand of magic locked seamlessly into place within the yo-yo's framework, Alan withdrew his wand.
"Done."
He tossed the modified yo-yo to Fred.
The weight in his hands was completely different now. It was no longer some flimsy plastic trinket, but carried a dangerous heaviness, thrumming with unstable energy inside.
"This isn't a toy anymore." Alan's eyes gleamed with the pride of an engineer admiring his masterpiece. "It's now a remote-triggered sonic bomb."
The twins' faces remained puzzled, so Alan leaned in close, lowering his voice. He spelled out every detail of the plan—the steps, the timings, the contingencies—etching it firmly into their minds.
Monday afternoon. The dungeon air was as cold and damp as ever, laced with the pungent scents of herbs and strange reagents, seeping into every student's lungs.
Potions class was about to begin.
George lingered by the classroom door, feigning exaggerated curiosity, perfectly playing the part of a first-year awed by the dungeon surroundings. Yet his gaze swept like radar, scanning every corner of the corridor.
Meanwhile, Fred used the brief cover to slip away like a weightless cat, darting to a small, inconspicuous air vent beside the Potions classroom—one blocked only by a rusty iron grate.
He crouched down, holding the altered "Screaming Yo-yo" in his mouth.
Carefully, gently, he pushed it through the widest gap in the grille of the ventilation shaft.
The yo-yo gave a muffled thud, barely audible, before dropping into the darkness of the pipe.
That very vent, by sheer precision, connected directly to Snape's private office.
Potions class was proceeding in a suffocating atmosphere.
Snape, hands clasped behind his back, drifted through the classroom like a ghost. He stopped in front of Neville Longbottom's cauldron, his lips curling into an oily, disdainful sneer.
"Longbottom, must I remind you that today's assignment is to brew a Shrinking Solution, not some swamp sludge potent enough to kill a troll?"
His voice wasn't loud, but it carried an icy contempt sharp enough to pierce bone.
Neville's face instantly flushed a deep shade of liver-purple as he stared helplessly at his cauldron, where thick green smoke was bubbling higher and higher.
At that very moment—
Far away, in the Gryffindor common room on the eighth floor, Alan sat alone in a window-side armchair. He wasn't reading; he was simply gazing quietly out the window.
He raised his wand.
No incantation. No flourish.
He simply vibrated his vocal cords with magic, producing an extremely high-frequency sound wave—inaudible to human ears, yet capable of resonating with specific enchanted objects.
The next second—
In the deepest part of the dungeons, inside Snape's private office—
A shriek, piercing enough to rupture eardrums, erupted without warning!
The sound was shrill, manic, and maddeningly sharp, like a hundred banshees scraping their nails across glass all at once.
The yo-yo had been activated, transformed into a runaway magical bullet, layered with countless Locomotor charms.
Inside Snape's office, crammed with rare ingredients and precious tomes, it ricocheted wildly at breakneck speed, leaving devastation in its wake.
Bang!
A priceless bottle of dragon-blood ink from the East exploded, splattering dark crimson fluid across an ancient parchment map.
Crash!
A shelf of glass jars, each containing bizarre preserved specimens, shattered on impact. Formaldehyde, slimy tentacles, and dislodged eyeballs spilled across the floor.
The yo-yo's unearthly screech, mixed with breaking glass and falling books, turned the office into a nightmarish disaster zone.
"What is happening?!"
In the dungeon classroom, every student jolted in terror at the hellish noise. Several timid Hufflepuff girls even screamed aloud.
Snape's face shifted in a heartbeat—from pale white to livid iron-blue.
He knew the source of that sound.
His office.
In his obsidian-black eyes, fury ignited—a fire hot enough to incinerate the entire dungeon. His gaze slashed through the class like a blade, searing every student's face.
Then, with his robes billowing into an ominous black gale, he stormed out of the classroom and tore down the corridor toward his office.
And at the very instant his figure vanished through the doorway—
Fred and George moved.
This was the moment they had been waiting for.
Like two well-trained ferrets, they slid low from their seats, swift and silent, while every eye remained fixed on the lingering cacophony.
They darted into the temporarily empty area around Snape's lectern.
Time seemed to slow.
Their eyes, sharp as hawks, scanned the surface in seconds.
In less than ten—
They spotted their target beneath a stack of graded parchments.
A black-covered diary, left carelessly there by Snape himself.
Fred snatched it up and slipped it into his robe's inner pocket.
With the same noiseless swiftness, the twins slinked back to their seats.
When Snape finally returned—his face twisted with venom, having just silenced the rampaging yo-yo with a forceful Finite Incantatem—the classroom was calm once more.
He saw only the Weasley twins, wearing expressions of pure innocence, diligently stirring their cauldron with wooden spoons.
Their faces were so focused, so serious, it was as if the earth-shaking chaos from moments ago had nothing whatsoever to do with them.
~~----------------------
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