The faint scent of lemon drops and old parchment still lingered at the edge of Alan's senses, the last trace of Dumbledore's office.
And the task the Headmaster had set him, what he had called the ultimate technical test, now pressed upon Alan's mind like a mountain carved of unknown runes.
Tom Riddle's diary.
That small, harmless-looking black notebook was, in truth, a fragment of Riddle's soul, sealed inside paper and ink, a malicious program written in the logic of paradox.
Direct attack?
No.
Alan's Thinking Palace dismissed that idea instantly. Striking such a construct head-on would be like throwing one's body against a wall studded with blades. He would only end up bleeding for his recklessness.
Before he could dismantle an enemy program, he needed to understand its firewall.
And Hogwarts itself, this thousand-year-old citadel of layered enchantments, was the greatest living archive of magical defenses in existence.
If he wanted to build a countermeasure against a Horcrux, he needed a perfect reference system: something powerful enough to study, close enough to reach, yet stable enough to take apart without consequence.
His mind's eye ranged outward, through Gryffindor Tower, past crowded corridors, until it fixed precisely on one forbidden location.
The fourth-floor corridor, patrolled night and day by Filch and his cat.
There, behind that door, lay the Philosopher's Stone.
There lay the defensive enchantments personally approved, and, most likely, designed, by Dumbledore himself.
The ideal target.
The perfect test case.
The First Phase: Information Warfare
Alan would not sneak through shadows.
Stealth was inefficient and prone to chance. His nature demanded the optimal route.
In any conflict, magical or digital, the battle for information must precede the battle of force.
His first target, therefore, was not a door, but a man.
Hogwarts' living database of magical creatures: Rubeus Hagrid.
A man of great heart, deep knowledge, and… exploitable emotional logic.
Hagrid's hut stood at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, smoke curling from its crooked chimney.
When Alan pushed open the heavy oak door, a wave of warmth rolled over him, wood smoke, dog hair, and something that might once have been baking.
"Ah, Alan! Come in, come in!" boomed Hagrid.
His enormous frame nearly filled the hut; his voice rattled the rafters.
Alan sidestepped the sleeping boarhound Fang and took a seat on a chair that looked ready to collapse.
Hagrid pressed a tray of his infamous rock cakes upon him.
Alan accepted one politely, weighing it in his hand. Judging by its density, he thought, it might serve better as a thrown weapon than as food. He set it down, untouched, and lifted his eyes with deliberate earnestness.
"Hagrid," he began, voice low and respectful, "I've been studying a topic and ran into some trouble. I hoped to ask your opinion."
"Eh? Go on, then!" Hagrid leaned forward, interest lighting up his beetle-black eyes.
"In an old treatise on the behavior of large magical beasts," Alan said, weaving his academic trap with the calm precision of a chess move, "I read that aggression in some enormous or ferocious creatures often doesn't come from malice at all."
He paused, just long enough for the idea to sink in.
"Instead," he continued, "it's the result of… let's call it spiritual disharmony. Two souls arguing inside one body, restless and unbalanced. You, as the expert, what do you think?"
The question struck squarely at the softest, and proudest, part of Hagrid's heart.
"Spiritual disharmony!" he cried, slapping his thigh so hard the teacups jumped.
"Merlin's beard, Alan, that's right on the nose! Where'd yeh read that? I've said that meself for years!"
His round face split into a grin of pure, grateful excitement, the joy of a man who had found someone who finally understood.
"They're just misunderstood, that's all! Lonely, nervous creatures. Most folks don't get 'em!"
He spoke faster, more animated. Alan merely nodded, letting the half-giant's enthusiasm carry him.
"The best way t'handle them," Hagrid declared, waving a hand like a great fan, "ain't with whips or spells, but with music! Remember that, Alan, music!"
He nodded so vigorously that his beard trembled.
"Nothin' soothes a big fellow's soul better than a bit of soft, pretty tune!"
To prove his point, Hagrid leaned closer, lowering his voice conspiratorially, completely unaware that in his excitement, he was leaking a secret of enormous consequence.
"Why, take Professor Dumbledore, for example!" he said proudly.
"Greatest heart in the world, he has. Last year he borrowed my old enchanted harp, you know, the one that plays lullabies on its own."
He smiled, chest swelling with pride.
"Said it was for helpin' his new big dog get a bit o' shut-eye, poor thing's got a nasty temper, yeh see."
The instant the words left Hagrid's mouth, Alan's Thinking Palace detonated in alarm.
Four fragments of information, previously isolated in separate vaults, were ripped free and suspended, glowing, in the air of his mind.
[Big Dog]
[Lullaby]
[Fourth-Floor Forbidden Corridor]
[Philosopher's Stone]
A cascade of logical filaments, threads of light formed from pure deduction, snapped between them, linking, twisting, refining, collapsing into a single coherent structure.
"Big dog" , Hagrid's affectionate term for massive, dangerous beasts; never literal.
"Lullaby" , a calming charm, designed to induce sleep.
"Fourth floor" and "Philosopher's Stone" , location and protected object.
The reasoning chain closed, neat and perfect.
The answer gleamed, crystalline and undeniable.
Alan's pupils dilated as he saw, in the mirrored depths of his own mind, the form of the first guardian beneath the trapdoor.
A creature from Greek myth, three-headed, colossal, the sentinel of the underworld itself.
Fluffy, the three-headed dog, keeper of the first gate.
And with that revelation came the corollary, a system flaw of devastating simplicity.
The fatal vulnerability not of the beast's strength, but of its design principle.
Its firewall, written in instincts.
Its weakness, written in song.
Music.
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