Hogwarts' stone walls looked especially sinister under the cover of night.
Moonlight poured through tall windows, stretching long, twisted shadows across the flagstones. Suits of armor stood motionless in the gloom.
The trio hugged the walls, creeping toward the third floor.
"Filch is over there!" Ron hissed in terror, pointing at a dark shape below the stairs.
It was Mrs. Norris—the bony cat's eyes gleamed as she patrolled.
They held their breath, skirted the corridor, and slipped into a quiet corner.
Suddenly, Harry froze mid-step.
The feeling struck again—stronger than ever before. A rejection that came from the very depths of his soul.
He clutched his chest; his heart felt like it was contracting. Instinct screamed inside his skull:
That thing ahead does not belong in our world.
"What's wrong?" Hermione whispered.
Harry didn't answer. He simply raised a rigid arm and pointed forward.
At the far end of the corridor, beneath a disused staircase, stood a figure.
Lucian Ashford.
Moonlight happened to fall exactly on him.
He faced a mottled stone wall, wand in hand, thin grey threads of magic slicing into the cracks.
The instant Harry clearly saw Lucian, violent dizziness crashed over him.
At the same moment, Lucian's vision blurred.
The real Hogwarts dissolved like a watercolor painting left in the rain. Colors bled and warped.
The peaceful moonlit night vanished.
Instead, black ash filled the sky.
The warm torchlight was replaced by cold, piercing green will-o'-the-wisps.
Portraits on the walls no longer moved; inside the frames were only skeletons and desiccated corpses.
Beyond the windows, the Quidditch pitch was lined with towering gallows. A gigantic Dark Mark hung above the Astronomy Tower, writhing slowly in the night sky.
The house banners along the corridor had all turned the same silver-green.
No laughter, no voices—only the stench of blood and suffocating silence.
Hogwarts was dead. In its place stood a grim military factory.
The vision lasted only a heartbeat.
The displacement faded quickly. Moonlight returned. The corridor was quiet once more.
Lucian blinked, lost in thought.
Illusion? Or… reality?
He steadied the chaotic qi inside him and slowly turned.
Harry felt sudden suffocation.
"What's he doing?" Ron peeked out from behind, voice shaking. "Is he cursing the castle?"
"No…" Hermione stared, wide-eyed. She had caught the flow of magic. "He's not destroying anything. The magic is… repairing? He's reinforcing the castle's magical nodes!"
If a skilled Apparition wizard had been present, they would have been stunned: the anti-Apparition flaw in this section of the castle had just been sealed.
"Your breathing is too loud, Potter."
The flat voice drifted over clearly.
"If you're off to play house with Malfoy, take the secret passage on the right. Filch is lying in wait at the left staircase."
The trio froze as though hit with a Full Body-Bind.
"And one more thing," Lucian said, turning fully.
Harry's heart skipped.
Lucian's gaze lingered on the scar on Harry's forehead. There was something almost pitying in his expression.
"The thing inside your soul is very noisy."
With that, he flicked his wand. His form twisted into light and shadow and vanished, leaving three shell-shocked first-years trembling in the draft.
Harry slumped against the wall, gasping, cold sweat soaking his back.
"What… what did he say?" Hermione voice cracked with fear. "Something in your soul?"
"He's just trying to scare us!" Ron insisted, though her own voice shook. "Come on—if we don't hurry, Malfoy will leave without us!"
Harry didn't move. He pressed hard against his forehead; the skin burned.
He finally understood what that revulsion was.
It wasn't ordinary human dislike.
It was the scream of one soul against another.
And somewhere beneath the terror… a faint, shameful thread of envy?
Lucian Ashford.
Harry silently repeated the name in his mind.
That boy might be more dangerous than any monster in the castle.
"Miaow—!"
A piercing cat cry shattered the silence. Mrs. Norris had spotted them. A second later, Filch's gravelly bellow exploded from below: "Students! Out of bed! Upstairs!"
"Run!"
Harry's hoarse shout echoed down the empty corridor, laced with barely contained panic.
Lucian Ashford had been right. There was no duel—just Filch's swinging lantern and Mrs. Norris's shrill yowls. Terror made them bolt blindly, forgetting the suggestion to take the right passage. They careened through moving staircases and twisting corridors in a frenzy.
"This way!" Harry yelled.
Ahead was a dead end. No—a heavy oak door, locked tight.
"Damn it." Harry shoved the handle in despair. "Locked."
"Move!" Hermione pushed him aside, rapped the keyhole with her wand. "Alohomora!"
Click.
The Muggle-proof, wizard-vulnerable lock gave way.
They stumbled inside, slammed the door, and pressed their ears to the wood. Filch's footsteps paced outside, then slowly faded.
"He's gone…" Harry exhaled, sliding to the floor. "We're safe."
"I'm not so sure, Harry." Ron's voice trembled, almost tearful. "Look… behind you."
Harry turned.
A hot, rotting-meat stench washed over his face.
In the pale moonlight from the window, they saw where they were.
The third-floor right corridor—the very place Dumbledore had declared off-limits at the start-of-term feast. "The place where death awaits."
The room was small, but completely filled by an enormous creature.
A monster. Three gigantic heads. Six mad yellow eyes. Three mouths dripping thick ropes of saliva. All three heads lowered, staring fixedly at the three tiny morsels who had wandered in. A low growl rumbled from its throats.
"AAAHHH!!!"
The scream nearly tore the roof off.
Harry didn't even know how he managed it—he wrenched the door open, dragged the petrified Ron and Hermione, and they tumbled out in a frantic heap, rolling down the stairs.
As they vanished around the bend, the heavy oak door began to swing shut.
A long, pale hand silently caught it just before it closed.
He had been shadowing Filch's patrol on this floor from the beginning.
Outside, Filch's cursing grew louder—he was about to turn the corner.
But the hand's owner stood calmly inside, completely unconcerned by the approaching threat.
Lucian dropped the Disillusionment Charm and stepped out of the shadows like a ghost.
His attention had been locked on this room from the start.
He had long since detected the anomaly here: a living creature weighing over three tons had taken up permanent residence. For the wooden floorboards of the fourth level, that was catastrophic load.
Lucian felt none of Harry's panic. He cast a Bubble-Head Charm.
"Hygiene is deplorable."
Fluffy—the three-headed dog—was clearly enraged by the return of "food" (even if it wasn't the same individuals). The central head roared. The left tried to snap at Lucian's shoulder; the right blocked escape.
"ROOOAR—"
Facing the reeking gale, Lucian didn't retreat.
In heart-phase vision, the colossal beast was instantly deconstructed. Skin peeled back to reveal muscle, bone, and crude magical circuits.
"Cerberus subspecies. Artificially crossbred for maximum aggression."
He immediately identified the design flaws:
"Three brains sharing one body—massive cardiac strain. Cervical nerve bundles so dense they interfere with each other. And any disagreement among the three consciousnesses causes sluggish movement."
A massive paw slammed down with crushing wind pressure.
Lucian took a casual half-step sideways.
BOOM!
The claw smashed the floor beside him; wood chips flew.
"Too slow. Muscle contraction signals gave away the trajectory in advance."
Lucian stood next to the monster's paw—tiny, yet utterly in control. He watched the three heads still arguing over attack angles and shook his head.
"A failed magical creature. Pure firepower stacked without regard for compatibility. Three heads don't mean triple intelligence—they mean triple internal conflict."
Fluffy, enraged by the tiny human's disdain, opened all three mouths for a full-coverage bite.
Lucian didn't draw his wand to attack.
He simply hummed a short melody.
The sound was quiet.
Yet the raging three-headed dog froze instantly.
Its six eyes grew glassy. The ferocious roars turned to whimpers. Three massive heads swayed; eyelids drooped.
THUD.
The enormous body collapsed, shaking the floorboards with a groan of protest. Within ten seconds, deafening snores filled the room.
"Auditory nerves hyper-developed, yet completely unprotected."
Lucian stopped humming and jotted the beast's fatal weakness in his notebook.
He stepped around the gigantic paw and walked to the center of the room.
There lay a trapdoor.
Below it stretched a deep passage, layered with defensive magic like a spiderweb: Devil's Snare, flying keys, giant chessboard…
And at the very bottom—nothing.
He made no attempt to open the trapdoor. He had no interest yet in poking the troublesome vortex at the center.
He crouched, tapped the edge of the trapdoor lightly with a finger.
"So this is supposed to be the 'ultimate protection'? A pet dog guarding a door that any first-year can open with Alohomora?"
Lucian stood.
"Dumbledore—this isn't security. This is an amusement park. A set of 'hero slays dragon' levels custom-designed for the Chosen One."
He glanced one last time at the sleeping Fluffy, then turned to leave.
Before closing the door, he cast a silent reinforcement charm on the floor.
"I don't care about your Savior game—but if this floor collapses, the repairs will be a nightmare."
Click.
The lock snapped shut.
The corridor returned to dead silence, as though no one had ever been there.