On Professor Babbling's face, the one long steeped in the dust and smell of ancient runes, there appeared a crack for the first time.
The teacher, known for her rigor and strictness, did not use her authority to suppress the commotion that Alan Scott had sparked with his audacious proposal.
Instead, something deep within the eyes hidden behind her thick lenses ignited.
It was a long-dormant scholarly fervor.
Nothing stirred her ancient academic spirit like a public duel, fought with knowledge as sword and truth as armor.
"A very fine proposal, Mr. Scott."
Her tone remained dry, like a voice drifting from a dust-covered bookshelf,
but each word ended with a subtle, almost imperceptible quiver of excitement.
Her gaze, sharp as twin searchlights, immediately fixed on the immobile figure of Marcus Flint.
" Flint, do you accept this challenge?"
This was not a question, it was the final ultimatum.
At this point, Marcus Flint had no escape.
He could feel every eye in the exam hall, especially those of the Slytherins behind him, filled with anticipation and pressure, converging like an invisible mountain pressing down on him.
If he refused, both he and the Slytherin House would instantly become synonymous with cowardice.
His throat went dry. His lips moved a few times but no sound came out.
Finally, the pride belonging to a Slytherin, forced its way past every fear and uncertainty.
One word broke free from his clenched teeth:
"…Of course."
Professor Babbling's efficiency was astonishing.
Almost the instant Flint spoke, she moved.
Her seemingly ordinary satchel was opened, and her arm reached straight in, disappearing deep inside.
Moments later, she drew out a massive scroll, tightly sealed with magical runes.
The moment the scroll appeared, the air filled with the dry, timeless scent of a distant desert, dust and age intertwined.
"This is a rubbings scroll of inscriptions from the Tomb of the Scribe,
newly authenticated last month through the highest academic channels of the Egyptian Ministry of Magic."
Her voice carried an unmistakable pride and authority.
"I swear by the wisdom of Ravenclaw, apart from myself, no one in the entire British magical world has seen its complete contents."
With a swift motion, she unfurled the enormous scroll on the lectern at the front of the classroom.
"Shhhhhh…"
The sound was like the ancient stone door of a tomb being opened.
Every student held their breath.
The rubbings revealed symbols none had ever seen before.
Dense, exotic, and primitive, they bore no resemblance to any known rune system studied in textbooks.
They were older, more cryptic, more esoteric, pictographs and ritual symbols, each like a tiny, ominous totem, twisted and intertwined, as if ready to come alive from the parchment at any moment.
"You have fifteen minutes."
Professor Babbling glanced at her watch.
"Begin."
A sudden academic duel had officially begun, on the rarest of stages: a Hogwarts final exam.
Yet, from the very first second, this duel, which should have been a fierce battle of wits, revealed a disturbing imbalance.
The fifth-year Slytherin, Marcus Flint, looked at the rubbings… and his face drained of all color, as if every drop of blood had been instantaneously pulled away.
He went pale as stone.
He froze in place like a statue.
The hand gripping his quill began to tremble uncontrollably.
His knuckles whitened from the force of his grip.
Cold sweat seeped from his temples, sliding down his rigid facial features, one bead at a time.
His mind… went completely blank.
Those symbols, every single one of them, were completely unrecognizable to him.
Together, they formed an impassable black wall, mocking his ignorance.
The knowledge he had painstakingly memorized from textbooks, enough just to pass his O.W.L.s, was as fragile as paper soaked in water when confronted by these truly ancient, living "letters."
Fifteen minutes ticked by, second by second.
On his parchment, there remained only a hopeless blank, except for a single ugly ink blot made by his trembling hand.
Meanwhile, just a few steps away, Alan Scott's performance was an entirely different scene.
It wasn't just solving a puzzle, it was a graceful work of art.
He didn't pause for long thought.
From the moment his quill touched the parchment, it never halted for even a millisecond.
The tip glided over the surface, producing a smooth, continuous "shhh-shhh" sound with a strange rhythm, filling the dead silence of the exam hall as the only audible noise.
His translation flowed like water, effortless, as if he weren't deciphering inscriptions from thousands of years ago, but simply transcribing a fairy tale he had already memorized.
Ten minutes.
Only ten minutes had passed.
While Flint still struggled against panic and blankness in his mind, Alan laid down his quill.
A crisp "tap" cut through the frozen air of the hall.
"Professor, I'm finished."
Professor Babbling's body jolted. She stepped forward quickly, almost snatching the translation from Alan's hands.
She compared it at lightning speed with her own copy of the unique original annotations.
Her expression went through a violent transformation.
At first, it was routine academic scrutiny.
Then, disbelief.
Then, sheer shock.
Finally, the shock settled into something like awe, a feeling of witnessing a miracle, a profoundly complex excitement.
"Perfect…"
She muttered unconsciously, her voice so soft only she could hear it.
"Unimaginably… beautiful…"
Her gaze fixed on Alan's translation, ignoring even the places where he had chosen more elegant and precise words than her own preliminary translation.
"No… it's even… even more accurate than my own!"
She abruptly lifted her head and looked at Alan with a completely new, awe-filled perspective.
After a moment, she cleared her throat, the motion slightly strained.
She held Alan's translation high and, with an unprecedentedly dramatic, measured, and tension-filled tone, read aloud to every student in the exam hall the solemn words:
"…In the name of Ra, Sun God, I hereby declare this warning:
Whoever steals another's wisdom, claiming knowledge that does not belong to them…
…their tongue shall become more parched than the sands of the Sahara.
…their mind shall become muddier than the floodwaters of the Nile.
…the curse of knowledge shall become a vulture, forever pecking at their soul, until their name is utterly forgotten by the world."
Every word struck like a heavy, pointed blow.
This translation, dripping with ultimate irony and seemingly custom-made for this moment, hit the hearts of every Slytherin student.
Their expressions shifted from anticipation, to doubt, to a steel-like pallor.
Poor Flint, hearing the translation publicly read aloud, saw the last remnants of his fragile psychological defense shatter completely.
His pride lay in ruins.
He didn't even wait for the bell to end the exam.
He violently shoved back his chair and, under a dead-silent gaze, fled in humiliation, almost as if escaping for his life.
Slytherin House, thanks to their own foolish provocation, became the laughingstock of the entire Hogwarts at the semester's end.
Alan Scott, through this exhilarating and overwhelming public academic duel, had thoroughly cemented his legendary status in the ancient and profound field of Arithmancy.
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