Arthur Weasley's warning had, in the end, rippled through a realm beyond his reach.
After a full week of anxiety and struggle, Helmut Volk made a decision.
It was a choice he believed would preserve his dignity while asserting his power , a compromise, typical of the strong.
The last day before the school year began.
King's Cross Station was bustling with life.
The air of Platform Nine and Three-Quarters was thick with the lingering scent of magical fireworks, the heavy smoke from steam engines, and the complex emotions of countless families parting ways.
Alan Scott was about to lift his luggage and step onto the scarlet Hogwarts Express.
But at the very moment his foot was about to touch the carriage step, a shadow fell over him.
A gaunt figure, silent and ghostlike, blocked his path.
The figure was draped in a heavy black travel robe, so tightly wrapped that even the early autumn morning seemed mild in comparison. His face was sunken, skin clinging tightly to sharp cheekbones, wrinkles etched deep with the marks of time.
But the most striking feature was his eyes.
They were not the eyes of a normal elderly man. The whites were clouded, yet the pupils were so sharp they seemed to pierce the air, exuding an unmasked, predatory ferocity.
"You are Alan Scott?"
His voice was dry and coarse, like two rough stones scraping against each other, each syllable grating against the eardrum.
Alan set down his luggage and turned calmly.
He was not intimidated. He raised his head and, with an almost scrutinizing gaze, examined the figure before him.
Then, he nodded.
A simple confirmation, stripped of all emotion.
The gesture seemed to exhaust the last shred of patience Volk had.
He spoke no more.
The old German wizard, with utter disdain, suddenly pulled something from the folds of his wide robe.
It was a heavy, bulging leather pouch.
He didn't hand it over , instead, in a motion reminiscent of feeding livestock, he hurl it forcefully at Alan's feet.
"Bang!"
The thick leather sack hit the hard platform with a dull thud.
The drawstring snapped open.
In the next second, a torrent of gold poured out.
Golden Galleons, stamped with fairy heads, spilled like a flood, clinking and colliding in a crisp, almost musical cascade.
Each coin reflected the station's magical lights, dazzling and seductive.
For a moment, the surrounding commotion seemed to halt.
Several passing wizarding families stopped in unison, drawn to the gleaming gold, their faces a mixture of awe, shock, and envy.
"There are five hundred Galleons in here."
Every word in Volk's voice dripped with unyielding arrogance and condescension.
He looked down at Alan as if at a creature that could be bought for a few coins.
"Return my property.
Then we can pretend nothing ever happened."
He attempted to use the simplest, most primal, and, in his mind, the most effective "currency" to crush any resistance this boy might muster.
This was adult logic. The logic of the strong.
Yet Alan's response shattered Volk's expectations completely.
His gaze lingered on the pile of gold , enough to make any adult wizard's breath catch , for less than a heartbeat.
It was calm, like the surface of a bottomless lake, not a ripple disturbing it.
He simply smiled and slowly shook his head.
The smile was faint, carrying a piercing, all-seeing quality that made Volk deeply uncomfortable.
He didn't bend down. He didn't pick up a single coin that rolled near his feet.
He stood there, amidst the golden sea, and calmly reached into the pocket of his worn wizard robe.
He pulled out something.
It was not a wand, nor a magical artifact.
It was a letter.
It was a neatly folded letter, sealed with the official wax stamp of the German Ministry of Magic.
Alan unfolded it. The stern German words seemed to slice through the air, icy and precise.
"Mr. Volk," Alan began, his tone frighteningly calm, devoid of any youthful excitement or fear.
Each word was articulated with razor-sharp clarity, utterly devoid of sentiment, yet precise like a surgeon's scalpel, mercilessly cutting through the layer of arrogance and wealth that Volk had built around himself.
"I think you may have misunderstood something."
"The problem now is not your 'property.'"
He paused, his gaze locking onto Volk's pupils, which were beginning to constrict slightly.
"It is my 'reputation.'"
He lifted the warning letter in his hand. Between his pale, long fingers, the paper felt like a banner declaring judgment.
"Returning your key is, of course, possible," he said softly, as if stating the simplest of facts.
"However, I have a small condition."
At the word condition, Volk's deeply lined face betrayed a flicker of cold anticipation.
He had expected this.
The greedy little brat would eventually reveal his fangs.
But what Alan said next froze that faint smirk instantly.
"You must personally travel to the Ministry of Magic in England and clarify the facts to the Misuse of Magic Office.
Furthermore, I demand that the head of that office formally, in writing, apologize to me , Alan Scott , for their 'technical errors' and bureaucratic conduct in this incident."
Silence.
Dead silence.
Volk's weathered face froze completely.
Every muscle seemed petrified, as if struck by a petrification spell, locked into an expression of disbelief impossible to describe.
For the first time, the predatory arrogance and fierceness in his sharp eyes vanished, leaving only pure, ghostly incredulity.
An apology? Official… written… apology?
The thought exploded in his mind like absurd lightning.
He had considered countless possibilities.
He had imagined the boy demanding a thousand, maybe two thousand Galleons.
He had imagined a request for some rare magical material, nearly impossible even for him to obtain.
He had even prepared for the worst: that the boy might use the key to blackmail him in exchange for his vast knowledge of ancient runes.
But he could never have imagined this.
He had wracked his brain, running endless simulations of every possible bargaining scenario.
But he could not conceive…
The boy didn't want money.
Didn't want objects.
Didn't even want knowledge.
What he demanded was nothing but a simple, formal apology.
What he wanted was a form of procedural justice, something utterly laughable to a wizard like Volk, who worshipped absolute power.
Helmut Volk, the infamous and powerful German wizard, was stunned into speechlessness.
His brain, a repository of countless ancient spells and vicious curses, had completely shut down.
He could not comprehend.
He could not grasp the thought process of this boy before him.
It was a logic entirely beyond his understanding , cold, absurd, and precise.
At that moment, Arthur Weasley's warning from a week ago , full of good intentions and exasperation , struck like a delayed tsunami, washing over all of Volk's thoughts.
"He is not a child you can judge by normal logic."
And painfully, Volk realized with absolute clarity:
Arthur Weasley had been right.
The person before him was not a greedy or merely powerful wizard.
He was facing someone far stranger than himself, someone utterly beyond conventional reasoning , a pure force of logic and principle.
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