Allen didn't waste another moment worrying about the metaphysical fate of the soul fragments currently being processed by his mysterious system. He was a man of action, and all that mattered was the immediate, tangible objective: continuing his exploration of the Rowena Ravenclaw statue.
He slipped out of the Room of Requirement with practiced stealth. It was an excellent thing he'd reinforced the Disillusionment Charm before stepping out; he had barely closed the magically concealed entrance when he saw a figure sprinting down the corridor in utter panic. It was none other than Professor Quirrell, his face ashen, his turban bobbing madly.
The seemingly timid Professor, Allen surmised, must have been the one to douse the troll with that peculiar, almost mummifying protective potion—the one that had left the troll a perfectly preserved specimen in the hidden wardrobe.
Allen mentally pictured the villainous Dark Lord lurking beneath Quirrell's garlic-scented turban. He noted that the mysterious man's facial features must not have fully recovered, otherwise the pungent smell of garlic would be a permanent fixture around Quirrell. It seemed the poor, possessed professor still required a functional nose, which meant he couldn't smell the garlic himself.
Lost in these tactical thoughts, Allen quickly returned to Ravenclaw Tower.
The vast common room remained deserted; his classmates were still enjoying the spectacular Halloween Masquerade by the Black Lake. Time was running out. Allen swiftly retrieved the now purified crown—the diadem that the system had scrubbed of its dark taint—from his inventory.
He pulled a comfortable armchair from a corner, stepped onto it, and carefully lifted the heirloom toward the head of the founder's statue.
The crown, stripped of its evil shine, looked ancient and regal. Allen gently settled it onto Rowena Ravenclaw's intricately carved hair. The shape and the arc matched perfectly, interlocking like two halves of a key.
But nothing happened.
A moment later, with a soft, dismissive thwack, the crown was violently flung away. It tumbled off the smooth, unyielding marble head, clattered loudly against the wooden chair Allen was standing on, and then finally landed with a muffled thud onto the plush carpet.
So, what went wrong?
Allen hopped down, scooping up the crown. The item in his hand was undeniably the Diadem of Ravenclaw, but it was inert, completely lifeless. It had been scrubbed of its Horcrux status, yes, but it retained the dusty, worn appearance he'd found it in.
Allen pointed his wand at the tarnished metal and firmly incanted, "Reparo!" The crown remained unchanged. He tried standard cleaning and revealing spells: "Scourgify!" and "Specialis Revelio!" The artifact stubbornly resisted all magical intervention. It remained dull, ancient, and utterly unresponsive to the statue.
Allen realized he was missing a fundamental magical principle. The statue wasn't a lock that required a key; it required a fully active, fully intact artifact. The Horcrux creation process had fundamentally destabilized the Diadem's original enchantment, and merely removing the parasitic soul fragment hadn't restored its innate power.
His mind flashed back to the start of the term, to the strange, shimmering orb he had received from the Goddess of Luck—the one that had allowed him to break the curse during the Lizardman incident. The orb was a source of pure, concentrated magical force.
Since the crown was utterly useless to him in its current state, he might as well risk it. Maybe a miracle could happen! If he poured the orb's power into the Diadem, perhaps he could kick-start the original enchantment, restoring it to its full, powerful glory.
Just as Allen raised his wand, preparing the complex sequence to transfer the power, a sudden surge of noise erupted from beyond the common room door. He heard the distant, familiar voice of the Eagle Ring asking a question, followed by a rush of young voices.
The Halloween Masquerade is over!
The common room would soon be bustling with returning students. Allen had to move. He quickly packed the unresponsive crown back into his inventory. The statue was permanent; he could try again once he figured out the right magical catalyst.
He quickly stowed the armchair back in its corner, flattened himself against the wall, and darted back to his dormitory just as the main throng of students began spilling into the common room.
The dormitory door burst open with an excited thwack, and Edward stumbled in. He was beaming, his cream-colored sweater stained with streaks of pumpkin juice and treacle tart. The state of his clothes was definitive proof that he'd had a fantastic evening. To Allen's surprise, Edward didn't question his immediate presence.
"Allen, you're back already? You really missed out!" Edward exclaimed, peeling off his sticky jumper. "I honestly don't understand you scholarly types. It was the most fantastic party! If you wanted to read, you could've just done what the other bookworms did and brought your books to the lakeside. The lighting was magical!"
Edward leaned in conspiratorially, lowering his voice to a loud whisper. "You really shouldn't have disappeared. Penelope Clearwater, the Head Prefect, asked about you—not once, but a few times! If you ask me, discounting the twins Cho Chang and her sister Petit—who are both stunning, sure—Penelope is the most impressive girl in the House. She seems quite taken with you, you know."
Allen waved a dismissive hand, feeling a familiar twinge of annoyance mixed with amusement. "Stop talking nonsense, Edward. She'll get you hexed for suggesting such a thing! She's way out of our league, and besides, she's so tall and focused on academics, she wouldn't even consider me. Now, go take a shower before you attract frostbite tomorrow morning with that layer of crusty sugar."
Allen retired early, mentally exhausted but physically rested. He knew the next day would be an ordeal of a different kind.
The next morning, Allen and his friends entered the Great Hall for breakfast, and the usually roaring noise of the morning rush suddenly died down to an astonished hush. Every eye in the hall swiveled, focusing on Allen.
Then, the silence exploded into an even louder, chaotic roar of chatter. Younger students craned their necks to stare at the troll-slayer. More notably, the older Ravenclaw students no longer treated Allen as just another first-year; their demeanor towards him shifted to one of genuine respect, bordering on awe. He was no longer just the 'academic genius'; he was the 'unflappable hero.'
Amidst the swirling vortex of attention surrounding Allen, Harry Potter watched from the Gryffindor table. He nudged Ron with a genuine sigh of relief. "Hermione was absolutely right yesterday. Thank goodness it wasn't us who ran into the troll. Can you imagine the chaos and the detention we'd be facing if we'd actually killed the thing?"
Ron Weasley, however, was looking at Allen with a look of pure, unadulterated longing. "Honestly, Harry, I'd have preferred it to be us facing the troll," he muttered, pushing his sausages around his plate.
Ron, who was perpetually overshadowed both at home and at school, was deeply jealous of the spectacular, effortless fame Allen was attracting. "Imagine the glory, mate! Twenty points! The House Cup might actually be decided by him."
By November, the weather had turned bitterly, relentlessly cold. The mountains surrounding the school were perpetually shrouded in a cold, gray mist, already blanketed in glittering frost and ice. The surface of the Black Lake had begun to freeze, turning it as cold and hard as dehydrated steel.
Every morning, when the ground was stiff with frost, the students could see Rubeus Hagrid, the enormous Keeper of Keys and Grounds, through the common room windows.
Wrapped in his thick, long moleskin coat, wearing massive rabbit-fur gloves and huge beaver-skin boots, the gentle giant was cheerfully shaving the excess ice off the Quidditch pitch to make it safe for play. The moleskin part of his coat, however, looked less cheerful and more saturated with dew and dirt.
Quidditch season was about to begin.
Roger Davies, the Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain, was suddenly infused with an incredible, manic energy that rivaled even the notorious Gryffindor Captain, Oliver Wood. Davies began dragging Allen and the rest of the team out to practice every spare moment he could find, ratcheting up their Quidditch training sessions from three to a grueling five times a week.
The Hogwarts professors, however, had no intention of allowing the excitement of the upcoming Quidditch season to distract the students from their academic duties.
"A truly great wizard," drawled Professor Severus Snape during the next Potions lesson, his voice dripping with cynical disdain, "can withstand any pressure, any distraction, and any workload thrown at him." With that, he slammed a twenty-five-centimeter sheet of parchment onto the desk as the required homework assignment.
If the Potions Master hadn't subjected all the other three Houses to similar, crushing assignments, Allen might have thought it was a targeted act of persecution. But the sheer volume of work assigned to all first-years was staggering. God only knew the looks of despair on the faces of the Gryffindors, who had to suffer through Potions alongside the privileged Slytherins, facing this mountain of homework.
Allen was undeniably busier than any of his classmates. The increased Quidditch training was non-negotiable, and on top of completing the professors' immense assignments, he still had his own rigorous, self-imposed schedule: waking up before dawn to study advanced body-strengthening techniques, diligently reading every single Potions textbook and reference book he could pilfer from the library's Restricted Section, and, most importantly, continuing his secret, intense research on the Ravenclaw Diadem.