The aftertaste of Divination class had not yet faded when Alan stepped into the owlery. Cold mountain air spilled through the open arches, carrying the flutter of wings and the faint, dry smell of feathers.
He dipped his quill, wrote a single brief message on a slip of parchment, and tied it to the leg of a school owl.
"Library. Same place."
As the owl swept into the gray sky toward the castle, Alan was already rehearsing the conversation that awaited him.
The secluded nook of the library, the one that had once borne witness to their joint unraveling of the Ravenclaw diadem's cipher, was as quiet as ever. Dust motes drifted like golden grains in the sunbeams, and the only sound was the soft rustle of pages.
Penelope was already there.
She sat in her usual place, an open ancient runes lexicon before her. Sunlight caught in her hair, tracing it with a muted gold. When she heard the footsteps, she looked up, with the same clear gaze that always held pure, unwavering curiosity.
But when Alan met her eyes, the words he had prepared so carefully suddenly felt unbearably heavy.
After all, what sane person would take such a claim seriously?
"I used a lost ancient algorithm and discovered you're statistically likely to be tricked by an academic fraud in the coming week."
It sounded less like a warning and more like a curse wrapped in poor humor.
He abandoned all ornamentation and chose the tone most natural to him, direct, unembellished honesty.
He pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down, leaning forward slightly. The small adjustment closed the distance between them, creating a circle of privacy, shut away from the outer world.
"Penelope."
His voice was low, each word imbued with unmistakable gravity.
She closed her book, curiosity deepening, and focused entirely on him.
"I've been studying a very old runic system," Alan began, keeping his pace steady. "It's unusual. One of its core functions is calculating the likelihood of a specific event occurring in the near future."
Penelope blinked, a faint crease forming between her brows.
"By accident, I ran a computation using your name."
He paused, gauging her reaction. Confusion flickered in her eyes, shading into uncertainty.
"The result indicated an extremely high probability that you would encounter academic fraud within the next week."
Before she could respond, he pressed on.
"And today," he continued, "Professor Trelawney gave a prophecy."
He repeated every one of her cryptic phrases, the web of false knowledge, the borrowed glory, the coming misjudgment, without any embellishment, his tone meticulously neutral.
"I know this must sound… improbable," he said softly, meeting her gaze. His sincerity was unmistakable. "Both the numbers and the prophecy point to countless possibilities. I can't define which one is correct. But I can tell you this: for the next several days, anything that appears too perfect, or whose origins are unclear, should be treated with absolute caution."
A long silence followed.
Penelope lowered her eyes slightly, absorbing his words.
Her expression shifted, surprise fading into something quieter, more conflicted. As a Ravenclaw, raised on logic and evidence, she could not easily accept a warning built on a mathematical model she could not verify and a Divination prophecy she instinctively distrusted.
The look she gave him said it all:
"I trust you. But I cannot fully believe you."
Alan saw the hesitation clearly.
Warnings alone would never convince her. If he wanted her to act, he needed a reason, a tangible, irrefutable incentive. Something that could outweigh her skepticism.
He needed to add another piece to the scale.
A heavy one.
"Well," he said lightly, shifting his posture, letting the tension ease from his face, "perhaps it is just my imagination. A coincidence."
He smiled, almost apologetically.
"So let me offer something as compensation, for troubling you with my rather paranoid 'forecast.'"
Penelope looked puzzled.
Alan didn't keep her waiting.
What he said next would have caused tremors throughout the entire Ravenclaw common room.
"Yesterday," he said calmly, "I formally accepted Professor Flitwick's invitation."
Penelope's breath caught.
"I will be joining him as a co-author on his new textbook, The Logical Structures of Modern Spellcraft."
Her eyes widened, stunned into silence.
"And because of that position," Alan continued softly, "I've been granted unrestricted, long-term access to the deepest sections of the Restricted Section, signed jointly by Professor Flitwick and Headmaster Dumbledore."
The effect was instantaneous.
A brilliant, burning light flared in Penelope's clear eyes, intellectual hunger, scholarly longing, the thrill of possibility. It washed away, in a single moment, all her doubts.
Alan leaned forward, his voice steady and sincere.
"So if you'll trust me, just this once, then in return, whenever your research requires something only the Restricted Section can provide… I'll help you. Anytime."
Her breath trembled, the last remnants of hesitation melting away.
And that was how two prophecies, one born of logic, the other of mysticism, together reshaped the course of a single scholar's future.
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