Fred held the diary up into the moonlight. The shifting letters had stilled, settling into one final, crystal-clear instruction.
"This is the place."
His voice was pressed so low it was almost swallowed by the air.
"The Know-It-All says: speak the password 'Wisdom over strength' to the tapestry, and it will open a secret passage. One that leads directly to the back wall of the Restricted Section."
It sounded like the perfect plan, tailor-made for them.
George's eyes glittered in the dark. He mouthed a silent "Well done" to Fred, then rubbed his palms together in barely contained excitement, the dry friction whispering in the silence.
Slipping halfway out from under the Invisibility Cloak, he cleared his throat. With what he thought was a solemn enough tone, he declared loudly to the massive tapestry:
"Wisdom over strength!"
His voice echoed faintly through the empty corridor—and then nothing.
The goblin chess players woven into the tapestry held their eternal poses, their sharp ears bent toward the game, utterly indifferent to the intrusion. The wall stood as solid as ever, not the slightest sign of movement.
"…What's going on?"
George's thrill froze on his face. He stepped closer, almost pressing against the velvet surface, and repeated in an even firmer voice:
"Wisdom over strength!"
The result was the same.
Only an awkward silence hung over the corridor.
"Could it be the Know-It-All was wrong?" Fred's brow furrowed deeply. He snatched back the diary and flipped it over and over in his hands. The instructions were written clearly, the ink firm and confident—no smudges, no corrections.
The twins' shoulders slumped in unison, defeat washing over them like a cold tide.
It was then that Alan, who had been silently watching, finally moved.
He stepped between them, ignoring both the diary and the tapestry. From the pocket of his robe, he drew a smooth wooden token engraved with intricate runes—his Guardian.
He said nothing. Holding his breath, he slowly inched the token closer to the tapestry. Inch by inch.
Fred and George watched curiously, puzzled but captivated.
When the edge of the wooden charm hovered just a few inches from the tapestry's velvet surface, it happened.
The runic matrix etched into the wood flared faintly, then dimmed again. A thread of warmth trickled through the token into Alan's palm, so subtle it was almost imperceptible—anyone less focused would have missed it entirely.
"There's something here."
Alan's voice cut through the silence, cool and steady, as if stating an already established fact.
"Another magical field. Strong—and active. It's overriding the original passage trigger."
His mind instantly accelerated. In the vault of his Mind Palace, libraries of knowledge sprang to life. The energy fluctuations detected by the charm were being dissected, analyzed, categorized.
An invisible map of power unfolded in his thoughts.
This current… it bore no resemblance to Hogwarts' ancient, weighty wards. The castle's enchantments were like a vast, fathomless sea. But this—this was like a net: precise, modern, logical.
Its purpose was perfectly clear.
To seal.
To conceal.
The conclusion was undeniable.
The passage had been deliberately locked away.
The secret passage had already been occupied from the inside by someone else. Not only that, but the other party had cast a reverse sealing spell from within, completely locking the entrance shut.
At the very same moment Alan made his precise judgment, the Know-It-All diary in Fred's hand underwent a violent change.
The ink on the pages no longer appeared gently, but boiled furiously, shaking and twisting, before finally converging into a single line of scrawled, distorted, almost unreadable handwriting. Between those jagged strokes, a near-terrified emotion seeped out.
"Impossible! This seal… I recognize this magical imprint!"
"There's only one person in the castle who can use this method!"
"Impossible, absolutely impossible, unless…"
"Professor Quirrell…"
Professor Quirrell!
The name split the silence of the corridor like a bolt of invisible, icy lightning, striking their nerves with crushing force.
A chill shot up their spines from the base of their tails to the back of their necks, raising goosebumps across their skin.
That professor who usually stammered when he spoke, who sweated nervously through every class, whose body always reeked of pungent garlic?
Why was he here?
Why, in the middle of the night, would he use such a powerful sealing spell to block a secret passage leading to the library's Restricted Section?
The three of them instinctively exchanged glances.
Beneath the Invisibility Cloak, they could clearly see the shock and unease mirrored in each other's eyes—along with a rapidly swelling, far greater mystery.
What they had thought would be a thrilling and fun midnight adventure…
Now, it seemed they had unwittingly stumbled straight into a secret far more dangerous than they could ever have imagined.