At Hogwarts, the story begins with deconstructing Avada Kedavra.

The stone walls of Hogwarts looked eerie under the cover of night.

Moonlight streamed through the high windows onto the stone floor, casting long, distorted shadows, in which the armored figure stood.

The trio huddled along the wall and slipped towards the third floor.

"Filch's over there!" Ron exclaimed in horror, pointing to a dark figure at the bottom of the stairs.

That was Mrs. Lorris, and the skinny cat was scanning the area with bright eyes.

They held their breath, walked around the corridor, and came to a secluded corner.

Suddenly, Harry, who was walking at the front, stopped in his tracks.

That feeling returned, stronger than ever before; it was a rejection from the depths of my soul.

Harry clutched his chest tightly, feeling his heart pounding, his instincts screaming in his mind:

That thing in front of us shouldn't exist in our world.

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked in a whisper.

Harry didn't speak, but stiffly raised his arm and pointed forward.

At the end of the corridor, beneath an abandoned staircase, stood a person.

That's Lucian Ashford.

The moonlight just happened to illuminate the area where he was.

He was facing a mottled stone wall, holding a magic wand in his hand, gray magic threads cutting into the cracks in the wall.

The moment Harry saw Lucian clearly, a violent wave of dizziness hit him.

At the same time, Lucian's vision blurred.

The real Hogwarts becomes a watercolor painting soaked by rain, the colors beginning to fade and distort.

The scene before my eyes has changed.

No longer a tranquil moonlit night, but a sky filled with swirling black ash.

The warm torchlight disappeared, replaced by a chilling, pale green phosphorescent flame.

He saw that the portraits hanging on the corridor walls were no longer moving, and the frames contained only withered bones and dried corpses;

He saw a towering gallows standing on the Quidditch pitch outside the window, and the huge Dark Mark hanging in the night sky atop the Astronomy Tower, slowly writhing.

The college flags lining both sides of the corridor had turned a uniform silver-green.

There was no laughter or joy; the air was thick with the stench of blood and the deathly stillness of despair.

Hogwarts is dead, replaced by a heavily guarded armory.

It lasted only a moment.

The sense of disorientation quickly subsided, moonlight once again filled the field of vision, and the corridor returned to its original silence.

Lucian blinked, lost in thought.

An illusion? Or... reality?

He calmed the chaotic magic within him and slowly turned around.

Harry felt a strong sense of suffocation.

"What's he doing?" Ron peered out from behind, his voice trembling. "Is he in the Cursed Castle?"

"No..." Hermione was stunned. She keenly sensed the trajectory of the magical flow. "He's not destroying, the flow of magic is repairing? He's reinforcing the magical nodes of the castle!"

If a wizard skilled in apparition were here, he would be surprised to find that this place is no longer a loophole in the castle's anti-apparition system.

"Your breathing is too heavy, Potter."

The voice, flat and clear, drifted over, "If you're going to play house with Malfoy, I suggest you take the secret passage on the right. Filch is lying in ambush at the left staircase."

The trio stood frozen in place, as if they had been immobilized.

"And another thing," Lucien said, turning around.

Harry's heart skipped a beat.

Lucien's gaze lingered on the scar on his forehead, his expression one of pity.

"That thing in your soul is so noisy."

After saying that, he waved his wand and disappeared in a distorted light and shadow, leaving behind three first-year students bewildered in the wind.

Harry leaned against the wall, panting heavily, his back soaked with cold sweat.

"He...what did he say?" Ron was terrified. "The thing in your soul?"

"He's just playing hard to get!" Hermione said, her voice trembling despite her stubbornness. "He's definitely trying to scare us! Let's go, Malfoy's leaving soon!"

Harry didn't move. He pressed his forehead tightly, where the skin was burning hot.

He finally understood what that feeling of disgust was.

That's not about human likes and dislikes.

It was the howl of the soul, and a feeling that was hard to describe.

But deep down, I felt a faint sense of...envy?

Lucian Ashford.

Harry silently repeated the name in his mind.

That boy is perhaps more dangerous than any monster in the castle.

"Meow--!"

A piercing meow shattered the silence. Mrs. Lorris had spotted them. Immediately afterward, Filch's raspy voice boomed from downstairs: "Students! Aren't you sleeping in bed? Upstairs!"

"Run!"

Harry's growl echoed through the empty corridor, carrying an uncontrollable sense of panic.

Lucian Ashford's warning was correct. There was no duel at all, only Filch's swaying lantern and Mrs. Lorris's piercing screams. Fear drove them to madness, and they had long forgotten the advice to stay on the right, running wildly down the moving staircases and the intricate corridors.

"Over here!" Harry shouted.

There was a dead end ahead. No, there was a door, a heavy-looking, locked oak door.

"It's over." Harry pushed the doorknob in despair. "It's locked."

"Get out of the way!" Hermione shoved Harry aside, drew her wand, and struck the keyhole. "Alohomora!"

Click,

The tightly locked mechanism made a soft click; it was a lock designed to protect against Muggles, but not wizards.

The trio stumbled inside, slammed the door shut, pressed their ears against it, and listened to Filch's footsteps lingering outside before fading into the distance.

"He's gone..." Harry breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed to the ground. "We're safe."

"I don't think so, Harry." Ron's voice trembled, on the verge of tears. "You...look behind you."

Harry turned around.

A warm, pungent smell of rotting flesh sprayed onto his face.

By the pale moonlight streaming through the window, they were able to see where they were.

The corridor on the right side of the third floor, the "no-go zone" that Dumbledore emphasized at the opening banquet.

The room was small, but it was filled with a huge creature.

It was a monster. It had three enormous heads, three pairs of wildly rotating yellow eyes, and three gaping maws dripping with thick saliva. It was looking down, staring intently at the three little snacks that had intruded, growling in its throat.

"ah--!!!"

The screams nearly lifted the roof off.

Harry didn't even know how he did it. He flung open the door, grabbed the terrified Ron and Hermione, and scrambled out, practically tumbling down the stairs.

Just as they disappeared completely at the end of the stairs, the slowly closing oak door was silently stopped by a long, pale hand.

He had been following Filch's movements while inspecting this floor.

Outside the door, Filch's cursing grew closer and closer, just as he was about to turn the corner.

But the owner of that hand simply stood quietly inside the door, completely unconcerned about the threat outside.

Lucian broke free of the illusion spell and emerged from the shadows like a ghost.

His gaze was fixed on the space behind the door from the very beginning.

He had long detected the anomaly in the area, where a living creature weighing over three tons had been residing for a long time, posing a devastating burden on the wooden floor structure on the fourth floor.

Lucian didn't panic like Harry. He cast a Bubble Head Charm.

"The hygiene situation is worrying."

Louie, the three-headed dog, was clearly enraged by the "food" that had returned (though not the same person). Its middle head growled, its left head tried to bite Lucian's left shoulder, and its right head blocked his escape route.

"roar--"

Faced with the overwhelming stench, Lucien did not back down.

In his mental vision, this colossal creature was instantly deconstructed. The outer skin peeled away, revealing muscles, bones, and rugged magical pathways.

"Cerberus subspecies. An artificial hybrid produced in pursuit of aggressiveness."

Lucian immediately identified the design flaw in this creature:

"Three brains sharing one body puts a heavy burden on the heart. The nerve bundles in the neck are so dense that they interfere with each other. Moreover, any disagreement among the three consciousnesses can lead to sluggish movements."

The enormous claw slammed down with the force of the wind.

Lucian merely moved half a step.

boom!

The claws slammed against the floor beside him, sending wood chips flying.

"The movement was too slow, and the muscle contraction signals prematurely revealed the trajectory."

Lucian stood beside the giant beast's claws, appearing so small, yet he seemed to control the entire situation. He looked at the three heads still vying for the best angle to attack and shook his head.

"A failed Fantastic Creatures design. It simply piled on firepower while neglecting compatibility. Three heads don't mean three times the intelligence, but rather three times the internal friction."

Louie was clearly enraged by the contempt of this tiny human. All three heads opened their mouths at the same time, preparing to launch a full-scale tearing attack.

Lucian did not draw his wand to attack.

He simply hummed a melody.

The sound was not loud.

The previously ferocious three-headed dog suddenly froze.

Its six eyes began to glaze over, and its fierce roar turned into a whimper. Its three heavy heads swayed, and its eyelids grew heavier and heavier.

boom.

The massive body collapsed with a deafening crash, slamming into the floor with a groan of unbearable weight. Less than ten seconds later, a deafening snoring sound filled the air.

"The auditory nerve is abnormally developed but has no protection."

Lucian stopped humming and jotted down the monster's fatal weakness in his notebook.

He bypassed Louie's massive claws and walked to the center of the room.

There is a trapdoor there.

Beneath the trapdoor lies a deep passageway, where layers of defensive magic extend downwards like a spiderweb. A devil's web, a flying key, a giant chessboard…

But in the deepest part, there was nothing.

He didn't try to open the trapdoor. He had no interest in getting to the heart of that troublesome vortex right now.

He crouched down, extended his finger, and gently tapped on the edge of the trapdoor.

"This is supposed to be the safest protection? Using a pet dog to guard a door that even a first-year student could open with 'Alahoko Opening'?"

Lucian stood up.

"Dumbledore, this isn't security. This is an amusement park. A dungeon designed specifically for the savior, called Dragon Quest."

He took one last look at the sleeping Louie, then turned and left.

Before the door closed, a silent reinforcement spell fell to the ground.

"I don't care about your savior game, but if this floor collapses, it will be a lot of trouble to repair."

Click.

The door lock was fastened again.

The corridor fell silent again, as if no one had ever been there.