In Alan's Thinking Palace, the name Helmut Volk acquired a new and sharper definition:
A man who honors every promise, but never forgets a slight. An old child of logic and vengeance.
The parcel from Germany had been heavier than a mere magical data crystal ought to be. Alan, curious, had dismantled it with his own steady hands, fingers as precise as those of a bomb technician.
Layer by layer he stripped away charms and wrappings, waterproofing, binding runes, silencing wards, until only two items remained at the bottom of the box. The first was the Living Information Codex, a heavy brick of enchanted crystal etched with Volk's intricate sigils.
The second object lay still and discreet in a black velvet pouch, tucked into a corner.
It was soft to the touch, yet something hard and cold pressed beneath the fabric. Alan untied the silver thread at its neck and poured the contents into his palm.
A tiny crystal vial slid into the light.
The Gift of Logic
The liquid inside was not clear but filled with minute, silver motes, like suspended stardust, perfectly still. Light refracted through it into drifting auroras of metallic blue.
A neat little label clung to the glass, written in firm German cursive and signed with Volk's flamboyant, unmistakable hand.
Logik-Wahrheitsserum , "The Logic Truth Serum."
For that young man who also refuses to play by the rules.
Beneath the bottle lay a folded sheet of parchment, Volk's instructions, written with his characteristic precision and dry humor.
Alan unfolded it. His expression remained calm, but within the palace of his mind, streams of data began racing, parsing, simulating, modelling.
The potion's function was elegant, cruel, and utterly fascinating.
It was not a sibling to the Ministry's crude interrogation tool, the Veritaserum, that brute-force "truth potion" which smashed its way into a mind, breaking down defenses until every secret spilled out indiscriminately.
No, Volk's creation was something far subtler, and therefore far more dangerous.
According to the parchment, anyone who drank the Logic Truth Serum would not be forced to reveal unwanted secrets. They would retain the right to remain silent.
However, for one full hour, they would lose an even more fundamental human ability,
the ability to speak anything illogical or internally inconsistent.
In short: the drinker could still lie.
But any lie must be flawless.
Every sentence, every word, every implication must obey perfect logical coherence. No contradiction, no circular reasoning, no semantic loophole, not even the slightest grammatical ambiguity.
To deceive under this serum, one had to construct an entire consistent universe where the lie was true, a feat of intellect, not instinct.
It did not test honesty. It tested intelligence.
To those accustomed to manipulation and empty rhetoric, the potion would be a torment. Every attempt at deceit would require lightning-fast mental computation, constructing a coherent falsehood under suffocating precision. One failed equation, one broken premise, and the mind would simply collapse under the paradox.
"Fascinating..."
Alan's fingers turned the bottle, feeling the cool glass against his skin. His smile deepened, silent and razor-thin.
It was, without doubt, the perfect weapon, a scalpel forged not of steel, but of logic, meant for a future adversary who lived by lies and rhetoric.
Carefully, almost ceremonially, he pocketed the vial.
In the chambers of his mind, plans began assembling themselves.
There would come a moment, a game, where this silver potion would become the single, decisive piece that overturned the board.
After securing the gift, Alan's thoughts drifted elsewhere, to the Boggart.
To that vast, black mirror that had swallowed light, reflection, and hope itself.
He sought out Professor Flitwick.
In the Charms Master's office, cluttered yet immaculately ordered, Alan calmly recounted the entire encounter: the mirror's form, the abyssal "void" that seemed to drink even the soul's light, and how he had abandoned the Riddikulus charm, choosing instead to deploy a series of logical paradoxes that forced the Boggart, representing "nothingness," to annihilate itself through contradiction.
Flitwick listened silently throughout. His bright, clever eyes deepened with every word, until by the end they shimmered with an emotion both grave and unreadable.
When Alan finished, the office was silent enough to hear the clock's faintest tick.
The professor did not speak at once.
He sat in his high-backed chair, his small frame nearly swallowed by it, and regarded Alan, this strange student whose mind burned too brightly.
In that gaze lay admiration, awe, and something heavier: concern… perhaps even pity.
At length, in a tone more serious than Alan had ever heard from him, Flitwick said quietly:
"Alan," he began, his voice low but resonant in the still air,
"I don't believe your Boggart represents any tangible fear, something that could be made ridiculous."
His eyes seemed to look past Alan's face and into the whirring machinery of his mind.
"It represents a concept."
He paused, each word deliberate.
"It represents that part of your mind, the part that seeks order, proof, and explanation, facing what it cannot ever explain. It is the embodiment of your deepest fear: the void itself.
The place where logic ends, and meaning unravels."
Flitwick's voice softened.
"That, Alan, is the one thing no intellect, however brilliant, can truly conquer."
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