The dormitory still carried the fresh scent of earth after the rain. The calm mood from their walk had barely settled when it was completely shattered by a stifled, oddly pitched exclamation.
Fred was crouched by his bed, buried in a chaotic pile of experimental materials. To make room for his new invention, he had to start organizing. Charred feathers, semi-solid frog egg jelly, and a few sticks of foul-smelling dragon dung fertilizer—all were pushed aside one by one until he finally found the wooden box buried at the bottom.
Inside was the "Categorized Quill" set Alan had given him.
An idea flashed in his mind.
For convenience, he had been storing the different colors of "Memory Ink" in separate bottles, which was cumbersome to use.
"Memory Ink" was Alan's improved creation—a peculiar liquid capable of capturing and replaying whatever was written the first time. It had become the twins' hottest prank product, saving countless lazy students struggling with their assignments.
Fred grabbed a large empty glass bottle. Its walls reflected the candlelight with a glossy sheen. He planned to mix a "hybrid color" that would be entirely unique to him.
First, he unscrewed the deep green ink representing "Potions."
A bitter, herbal scent spread.
The ink was thick, like licorice syrup simmered for days, and poured heavily into the bottle.
Next came the silver ink representing "Transfiguration."
This ink was light and flowed with a metallic, cold sheen.
The moment the first drop of silver liquid touched the surface of the deep green, chaos erupted.
"George! Come look!"
Fred's voice trembled with disbelief.
Inside the glass bottle, the two colors didn't blend as he expected.
They began a war.
The liquids churned and collided violently, countless tiny bubbles erupting from their interface with hissing sounds. Green and silver devoured and tore at each other, like two primitive, instinct-driven creatures fighting to the death in a confined space.
In mere seconds, the turmoil stopped.
The liquid settled. All color had vanished. In its place was an unprecedented deep obsidian hue, its surface flowing with a strange, ever-changing metallic sheen.
Then, a droplet of overflowing ink slid down the bottle and landed on a spread of parchment covered with meticulously copied Potions notes.
A bizarre phenomenon occurred.
The black ink came alive the instant it touched the parchment.
It was no longer an inanimate droplet.
It began to writhe and stretch, like a tiny, intelligent amoeba. It flowed along the preexisting writing, seemingly "reading" and "analyzing" the text.
Then, using a kind of "licorice root technique," it began to replicate the nearby words. The edges of the ink extended into fine tendrils, stretching and transforming, like cells dividing in an orderly manner.
Eventually, a miniature, intricately detailed illustration of a licorice root appeared next to the word automatically.
"Merlin's beard…"
George leaned in, mouth agape, completely captivated.
"It… draws by itself?"
Fred's heart pounded. He grabbed a quill and eagerly dipped it into the newborn ink.
He traced it on another piece of parchment containing a spell.
"Wingardium Leviosa."
The wet black ink paused on the page for just a second before undergoing the same life-like evolution. The lines twisted and reformed on their own, eventually drawing a feather slowly floating upwards, with even the tiniest fluff clearly visible.
The twins stared at each other in shock.
In each other's eyes, they saw the same emotion—a mixture of astonishment, ecstasy, and insatiable greed.
"We're rich!"
Fred's voice was hoarse with excitement as he hugged the glass bottle, arms straining.
"George, do you realize what this means?"
"This is a magical material that can replicate itself, understand text, and even create simple illustrations! It's worth more than all our inventions combined!"
"We can call it 'Intelligent Ink'!"
George was already lost in frenzied visions of the future, his eyes glowing with the gleam of Galleons.
Fred and George shouted excitedly:
"Sell it to The Daily Prophet! Imagine—moving pictures, automatically generated illustrations!"
"Or sell it to the Ministry of Magic! They could use it to make forms that fill themselves out! All those tedious documents would be a thing of the past!"
Unable to contain their frenzy, the twins grabbed the warm bottle of ink and charged out of the dormitory like two crazed bulls, crashing through the common room.
Alan sat in an armchair by the fireplace, a heavy tome of ancient runes open across his lap. The flickering firelight cast soft shadows on his focused profile.
The twins' commotion shattered the quiet.
Breathless, they reached Alan and thrust the bottle before his eyes, tumbling out their grand discovery and ambitious business plans in a chaotic torrent.
Alan listened without changing expression.
No surprise. No admiration. Not even a hint of curiosity.
His gaze lifted from the pages, resting on the newly glimmering ink.
He calmly took the glass bottle.
The slight warmth of the bottle made his expression serious.
He drew his wand and gently lifted a droplet of ink with its tip. The obsidian liquid hovered there, writhing slowly and deliberately.
Alan held it up to his eyes, observing it carefully for a moment.
Then he looked up, his gaze sweeping across the twins' flushed, overexcited faces.
A splash of cold water poured over them.
"Put away your get-rich-quick ideas."
His voice was calm, yet carried an icy authority that brooked no argument.
"If you don't want to spend the rest of your lives in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies, you'd better rethink your plans."
"What do you mean?"
George's elation froze instantly. Fred's arms slackened around the bottle. Half of their soaring enthusiasm was extinguished in a single sentence.
"This is not 'Intelligent Ink' at all."
Alan's tone turned unusually serious, each word striking directly at the twins' suddenly chilled hearts.
"Memory Ink's core is an extremely precise micro-rune structure I designed. Different inks correspond to different rune sequences."
He pointed at the seemingly docile black liquid in the bottle.
"When you forcibly mix two incompatible rune structures, it's like shoving two sets of gears that don't fit into a machine. The result is a complete rupture of the rune chain and catastrophic reorganization.
"In essence, it's an extremely unstable, exponentially accelerating magical chain reaction."
His explanation continued, each word deepening the twins' pale expressions.
"The so-called 'reproduction' and 'creation' are not intelligence at all. It's simply consuming free ambient magic in a frenzy to replicate itself meaninglessly. An instinct based on rune collapse."
"Right now it appears stable only because the magical energy in this bottle is small and the free magic in the environment is limited, temporarily creating a fragile balance."
Alan's eyes sharpened.
"The moment you try to 'cultivate' it on a large scale, feeding it a more 'nutritious' environment, the chain reaction will spiral out of control. The final result could be a violent magical explosion, enough to level this common room. Or it might generate some completely uncontrollable and highly dangerous new substance."
The twins were speechless. They stared blankly at the bottle, no longer a symbol of wealth but a potential bomb ready to detonate.
"As for commercial value," Alan concluded with biting sarcasm,
"The patterns it generates have no logic. They're entirely random combinations following rune collapse, with zero practicality. Today it draws a licorice root; tomorrow it could draw a fire-breathing rat next to 'Wingardium Leviosa.'
"If you foolishly sell this, I guarantee that within three days, officials from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes will be at your door. And politely, they will invite you both to the Wizengamot to have a cup of tea on charges of 'reckless use of dangerous magical materials.'"
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