Chapter 187: The Magician in the Moonlight
The scene shifts to the weekend of the first week of June.
At that time, Professor Quirrell was still grading homework, putting on a facade of normalcy. Dumbledore was quietly preparing to "leave" on the coming Wednesday.
Meanwhile, in the small, windowless room at the end of the fourth-floor corridor, a ray of moonlight floated in from the void. Fluffy—the three-headed dog—narrowed his eyes, momentarily transported to a memory of his youth, when Hagrid would lovingly care for him.
But something wasn't right. There were no windows in this room.
Though often underestimated, Fluffy—once a cherished pet of Greek wizards—possessed far more wisdom than his brutish appearance suggested. Just as he began sniffing around for an invisible intruder, a cold voice echoed in the room, and his consciousness faded into silence.
Along with the moonlight came a young man. He wore a white suit, a monocle, and held a slender silver staff. He looked as if he had been born from the moonlight itself—as though he had always stood there, waiting since time immemorial.
If a time traveler had seen him, they would've exclaimed:
"Kaitou Kid?!"
From his appearance, he seemed to be of East Asian descent, with black hair and skin smooth and luminous as jade. His enigmatic smile brightened the room, filling the space with a soft, ethereal glow.
Raising his white-gloved right hand, he struck the ground lightly with his staff.
Instantly, Fluffy's unconscious body floated into the air. Below him, the trapdoor opened without a sound, revealing a dark shaft descending into the earth—no ladder, no steps.
Like a magician mid-performance, or perhaps a host of a magical livestream, the young man turned to no one in particular and said with a wink:
"Shh. No introductions just yet."
Then, stepping onto the air itself, he began to descend—his polished white shoes making no sound, his body gently gliding as though gravity had forgotten him.
As he went down, the darkness around him receded. Vines covering the walls and floor of the underground room twisted and shrank back like frightened snakes in the moonlight.
"Ah, Devil's Snare," he muttered, touching a curling vine. "Never seen it on the moon before."
"But it's rather tame."
"Any wizard worth their wand can summon light in darkness. Sunlight terrifies Devil's Snare—it can't harm anyone with basic magic. Honestly, it's more of a cushion."
He landed gracefully at the base of the room. A piece of the plant detached itself and floated into his hand.
"And a true magician always cleans up the scene of the performance."
He dropped the severed vine. It immediately slithered back to its original place and reattached itself, seamless and whole. The illusion of an untouched room was complete.
Had Professor Sprout seen it, she'd have been stunned—Devil's Snare doesn't regenerate.
He turned to the stone corridor ahead—damp, sloping downward, dripping with condensation.
"Down we go. Truly British—cold and wet."
After he passed, the trapdoor above quietly sealed shut. The Devil's Snare resumed its original posture, and Fluffy woke as if from a nap, remembering nothing.
The intruder had erased all traces of his passage.
At the corridor's end lay a bright room with a vaulted ceiling and glittering, bird-like keys fluttering through the air like living gemstones.
A heavy wooden door loomed beyond.
"Ah, charming. Very imaginative." He smiled at the room's creator.
Ignoring the broom that had been left for intruders, he reached for his staff, now fixed to his left hip, and drew from it a thin, gleaming blade.
"A magician's second hallmark—skill beyond what the eye can see."
With a flick of his wrist, a silver net burst forth—fine as silk, sharp as moonlight. In a single breath, he had struck hundreds of times.
Every winged key in the room was sliced in half, falling silently. All except one.
The last, wingless key dropped neatly into his waiting hand.
"Now that's a proper warm-up."
He unlocked the door and walked through. Behind him, with a wave of his wand, the room restored itself. When the next intruder came, they would never know he'd been there.
The next chamber was pitch-black. As he stepped inside, the room lit up, revealing a vast wizard's chessboard.
Black pieces—each nearly two meters tall—stood opposite a set of faceless white pieces.
He paused.
"Interesting. The intruder is assumed to be black—the villain—and the defenders are white, the righteous side. Yet they don't even have faces."
Irritated, he withdrew his wand. The sleek civilized staff morphed into a slim, seven-inch wand with a quiet snap.
"Vera Verto."
(Latin: I change, I transform.)
The colors of the two armies inverted. White became black. Black became white.
"Better," he muttered.
"Rules exist to guide—but not to bind. A magician must know when to break them."
He seemed to be speaking to someone. Or perhaps, simply to the moonlight.
Then, in a blur, he vanished—becoming moonlight itself—and reappeared at the doorway to the next room.
He paused briefly.
"Destroy."
With a single whispered command, the hulking troll inside—a beast sniffing curiously at the entrance—instantly vanished. So did its foul stench, leaving behind nothing but clean, empty air.
"The third hallmark of a magician," he said, "is strength."
And with that, he strode forward once again, his white cloak fluttering like the wings of the moon.
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End of Chapter
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