The air inside the Room of Requirement was dry and hushed, carrying that faint, comforting scent of old pages being turned.
Lucian stood at the center of the room, eyes closed, testing a bold hypothesis.
He visualized a specific image: a control console.
"I need to see Hogwarts' circuitry," he murmured silently. "Show me the real-time flow status of every magical node in the castle."
The air shivered once. Countless tiny motes of golden light gathered, coalescing in the empty space before him into a vast, intricate 3D perspective model of Hogwarts.
He could sense that this projection had linked itself to the sleeping leviathan beneath his feet. The model was staggeringly complex—layers of magical structures nested within one another, every part interconnected. When he focused his will on the Great Hall's dome in the model, he felt a direct tether to the real thing.
Lucian understood then: the Room of Requirement was effectively the castle's control center. Dumbledore hadn't minded him coming here, probably because he assumed a first-year's meager magic could do little more than scratch the surface of this ancient beast.
The reflection of the model shimmered in Lucian's eyes. What should have been smooth, flowing magical pathways now appeared riddled with alarming dark-red blotches. Some nodes flickered weakly like dying candles; others glowed a dangerous, backed-up yellowish-brown from congestion.
A thousand years hadn't just worn down the stonework—it had left the internal architecture of this colossal magical construct full of errors, blockages, and decay.
"Great Hall dome, A7 node."
Lucian extended his wand through the hologram and tapped the flashing red point at the top of the model. At his mental command, the spot zoomed in rapidly, peeling back layers until its microscopic core structure lay exposed.
It should have been a perfect tetrahedral energy loop—the fundamental magical unit sustaining the weather-simulation charm. But long-term magical erosion had deformed it severely: one edge had fractured, jamming the entire circuit like a misaligned gear screaming in protest.
"Structural fatigue causing foundational unit collapse," Lucian diagnosed. "Think of it as a short circuit in the underlying logic gate of the code."
He raised his wand again, movements gentle, and channeled an extremely fine, high-frequency stream of magic. Like a surgical probe, it slipped through the tangled structure and made precise contact with the damaged node.
Under his delicate manipulation, the warped foundational unit was straightened. The broken edge fused back together under the oscillating magical weld, restoring the perfect geometric form.
In the projection, the congested red spot flared violently once—then the blockage cleared completely. With the base unit rebuilt, the chaotic data flow snapped into perfect order. The red light faded, replaced by a steady, healthy emerald green.
A faint but exceptionally pure feedback current of magic flowed back along the structure into Lucian's body. It eased the constant tension in his nerves, granting a fleeting, indescribable relief—though his mind was now utterly exhausted, like a university student who'd just pulled two all-nighters for finals.
Restoring a piece of Ru ware painted with "night rain turning the sky the color of water" could intoxicate him; mending the ancient castle's "stone walls steeped in verdant blue" felt like an equally monumental achievement.
Lucian gazed at the sea of red dots still covering the model. No impatience. This was a project measured in years.
…
At the same moment, in the Headmaster's office.
The greatest white wizard of the century sat behind the massive claw-footed desk, half-moon spectacles perched on his nose, utterly absorbed as though studying some world-ending dark magic.
Yet what lay before him was a brightly colored Muggle textbook: Primary School Mathematics: Arithmetic Fundamentals. Stacked beside it were Junior High Physics, Volume One and a popular-science book on the composition of matter.
"Fascinating…" Dumbledore's long fingers brushed lightly over the diagrams of atoms and molecules. "If that boy's hypothesis in Transfiguration holds true, we may have to completely redefine the essence of the subject."
He popped a sherbet lemon into his mouth and gazed thoughtfully at Fawkes.
"This is far more difficult to grasp than ancient runes, Fawkes. Muggles, without any magic at all, still try to decode God's creation using mathematical formulas." The old man sighed softly, a trace of genuine respect in his voice. "If this really is the underlying code of the world, then we wizards have indeed been rather… incurious."
Suddenly, the walls of the office emitted a very faint hum.
Most people couldn't hear it, but to the portraits of past headmasters hanging on the walls, it was like fingernails scraping across a blackboard.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake!"
Phineas Nigellus Black's portrait jolted awake, hands clapped over his ears, his pale, sharp face twisted in agony. "Stop it! Albus, make it stop! It feels like someone's forcibly stretching my canvas!"
"It's not just stretching, Phineas," said the plump portrait of Dilys Derwent, frowning. "I feel… a very clear flow."
Dumbledore set the book down and looked up.
He felt it even more distinctly.
As one who held authority over Hogwarts, he could sense that an extremely tiny fault in the castle's system had just been repaired.
"No one is doing any construction, Phineas," Dumbledore said gently, fingertips resting against the bridge of his nose, eyes twinkling with hidden amusement. "Perhaps the old house has simply found herself a new physician."
"Physician? I say lunatic!" Phineas grumbled, straightening his robes.
Then he froze, realization dawning, his face filling with shock and suspicion. "Wait—no, you're still here. Who could possibly be controlling the castle?"
"For those who seek knowledge, the night is always too short," Dumbledore murmured to himself.
…
On his way back to Ravenclaw Tower after leaving the Room of Requirement, Lucian encountered a ghost in the corridor.
Helena Ravenclaw—the Grey Lady.
Her pearlescent, translucent form hovered motionless in the middle of the passage. The usual melancholy emptiness in her eyes had been replaced by something focused, fixed directly on him.
"What did you do?" Her voice drifted like mist.
Lucian stopped and gave a polite slight bow. "Good evening, my lady. I'm afraid I don't understand."
"The castle…" The ghost drifted closer. "For one single instant, it… took a deep breath."
"In that moment, I felt the rhythm of my mother's time. That ancient pulse."
Lucian was silent for a few heartbeats before answering calmly, "Nothing much. I simply noticed something out of alignment and put it back in place."
The Grey Lady studied the first-year boy before her. At last she drifted slowly through the wall and vanished, leaving behind only one quiet, meaningful whisper:
"Be careful, child. Some wounds, once opened, do not bleed blood."