At Hogwarts, the story begins with deconstructing Avada Kedavra.

It was evening, half an hour before curfew at the Hogwarts Library.

This was the last quiet moment before Mrs. Pince's inspection tour.

Hermione Granger sat in her usual corner, surrounded by copies of "Elementary Transfiguration Guide" and "Standard Spells (Level Two)".

Her quill made a rapid, scratching sound as it scratched across the parchment.

"...The third of the five exceptions to Gamp's fundamental law of transformation: Inanimate objects cannot be transformed into living beings with independent souls..."

Hermione recited it silently, her pen heavily underlining the word "insurmountable" twice.

"This is the ironclad rule of Transfiguration. Just as gravity cannot be ignored, inanimate objects can only simulate life, but can never become life."

"There is a misprinted word on page 312 of this edition of the textbook."

A voice sounded above her head.

Hermione's thoughts were abruptly interrupted. She looked up abruptly, even forgetting to brush aside the strand of curly hair that had fallen to her mouth.

She saw Lucien standing in the shadow of the bookshelf, toying with the pocket watch she had given him, looking at her with a scrutinizing gaze… or rather, at the pile of dogmas in front of her.

"Lucian? Are you here to study too?" Hermione instinctively closed her notebook, her eyes lighting up, a knowing smile about to spread across her lips, before quickly turning into confusion.

"Printed wrong? Impossible. This is the 52nd edition written by Miranda Goshak, and it was personally proofread by Professor McGonagall."

"The proofreading is not wrong, because it is written for students."

Lucian emerged from the shadows, his hand gliding over the rows of old book spines.

"But I recently browsed through a manuscript in the restricted section titled 'Alchemy and the Reconstruction of Origins,'"

The author was an anonymous 15th-century dark wizard. In the book, he states that the Gump Law is not a law, but rather a buffer between magic and miracles.

Hermione bit her quill, her canine teeth peeking out—a prelude to her long-winded rebuttal.

"We must trust authoritative teaching materials, Lucian. Many books in the restricted section were sealed because they contained theoretical errors or were too dangerous."

She said seriously, speaking quickly, "If the Gump Law had any flaws, Dumbledore or Professor McGonagall would have told us long ago. Magic is logical; it follows the principle of equivalent exchange and must avoid certain forbidden zones. There is no shortcut to bypassing the law."

"That's why you're good, but not great, Granger."

Lucian walked to the table, pulled out a chair but didn't sit down, just stood there watching her. This oppressive feeling made Hermione very uncomfortable; she straightened her back, trying to regain the upper hand in terms of presence.

Lucian placed the pocket watch on the table, and the second hand ticked.

"What do you mean?"

"You've treated textbooks like the Bible, and Professor McGonagall's words like divine pronouncements." Lucian's voice was low, mocking, and with a hint of devilish seduction. "Your so-called logic and laws are emasculated."

He gently tapped Hermione's thick book, "Transfiguration for Beginners".

(Please remember the website 20 ...

"That manuscript contains an ancient formula that clearly points out the paradox of the Gamp Law regarding the endowment of the soul. If the textbook is correct, that formula should be a joke. But if that formula works..."

Lucian paused, staring into Hermione's eyes: "...That's the foundation of your entire Transfiguration edifice; it's actually crooked."

"That's impossible!" Hermione's voice rose an octave, drawing a stern look from Mrs. Pince. She immediately lowered her voice and said urgently, "Absolutely impossible. Unless I see that book with my own eyes, see the derivation of that formula! No book can refute Gamp's Law!"

"You want to see it?" Lucien remained calm.

"Tell me the name of that book, if I have a professor's approval..."

"You can't borrow it. That book was put on a high-risk restricted list years ago, and even upperclassmen can't borrow it," Lucian interrupted her. "But I managed to borrow it."

Hermione's eyes widened: "You stole books from the restricted section? Lucien, that's a serious violation of school rules! If you get caught—"

"Keep your voice down, Miss Granger. Are you trying to use this as an excuse to report me to Filch, or..." Lucien leaned forward slightly, staring into her brown eyes, which gleamed with a thirst for knowledge, "you're actually more interested in knowing whether the textbooks are lying, or whether I'm lying?"

Hermione's reason told her that she should pack her bag and leave immediately, or warn Lucien to return the book.

But that was knowledge. Unknown knowledge, knowledge that could overturn her understanding. This temptation was more deadly to Hermione Granger than a large piece of Honeydukes chocolate.

She bit her lower lip, hesitated for a moment, and then squeezed out a sentence: "Where...is that book?"

Lucian did not answer directly.

He reached out and tapped the spine of the book, "Elementary Metamorphosis Guide," three times, neither too hard nor too soft.

Then, a heavy Galleon slid onto her parchment. The coin, as if alive, pressed down on the insurmountable word she had just written.

Hermione looked down and saw a Galleon engraved with a raven and an ouroboros.

"What is this?" she asked, looking up in confusion.

"Tickets".

Lucian reverted to his aloof indifference, as if his long speech had never happened.

"Tonight at midnight. Eighth floor, opposite the tapestry of the giant stick beating up Barnabas."

He turned and left, leaving Hermione with only his dark silhouette and a cryptic whisper:

"If you truly believe that truth trumps rules, then bring your brain. I'll show you the contents of that book; you'll never learn that in Professor McGonagall's class."

Hermione Granger sat alone in her seat.

As the library lights began to go out one by one as it prepared to close, shadows began to envelop her from all sides.

The three crisp sounds of Lucian tapping the spine of the book echoed in her ears.

This is insane. It violates curfew, school rules, and might even involve black magic.

Her hands trembled as she tried to push the gold coin away and continue reviewing her metamorphic theorems.

But the moment she touched the gold coin, she inexplicably grasped it in her hand, as if holding onto the future.

Hermione was startled from her reverie only when the sound of Mrs. Pince's footsteps approached.

She looked down at the gold coin in her palm.

The ouroboros on the gold coin came to life in the dim light; its fine scales seemed to move slowly, reflecting a faint glow with a deadly allure.

Like a heavy tombstone engraved with heresies, it silently buried the order she had built up over the past decade and the order by which she lived.

Lucian's voice still echoes in my ears.

For Hermione, a witch from a Muggle family, the rules were the Ironclad Curse.

By memorizing every school rule and earning every excellent grade, she proved to the magical world: I, a Muggle-born witch, understand this place better than any of you.

But what if... order itself is a lie?

Her gaze returned to the book, *The Beginner's Guide to Metamorphosis*, a sacred text once revered, now seeming utterly pale. The book's airtight logic resembled a gentle deception, tricking children into believing the world was only as big as a fireplace.

"This isn't right, Hermione," she muttered to herself in the empty hallway.

"That's the restricted area...that's curfew...that's Lucian. He's a...he's like a devil. Professor McGonagall will be disappointed in him, and even more disappointed in you. Imagine if Gryffindor lost a hundred points because of you..."

She began packing her schoolbag, tightening the ink bottle and haphazardly stuffing parchment into the compartments.

However, when she touched the gold coin again, a feeling of near-trembling rushed straight to her brain.

That is the thirst for knowledge.

An instinct that is purer and more insane than appetite, fear, or vanity.

For someone like Hermione, the most painful thing in the world is not death, nor being ostracized, but knowing that the truth is hiding behind a thin veil and beckoning to her, yet she hesitates to move forward because she is afraid of the red line under her feet.

That is the ultimate fear of mediocrity.

If the fundamental laws governing Gampo's transformation are flawed, or merely lies fabricated by those in power, then all her current efforts are nothing more than building beautiful blocks on a crumbling academic ruin.

"What if...the truth really is there?"

Her breathing became rapid.

Those three knocks were three cracks he had forcefully pierced into the seemingly impregnable fortress of logic within her. Through these cracks, she no longer saw the warm ceiling, but the starry sky, the abyss, and the most primal, untamed, and dark form of magic.

The tip of the ouroboros seemed to prick her skin.

At that moment, the docile demeanor of a model student shattered completely in her eyes.

"Professor McGonagall once said that magic requires rigor... but also the courage to cross the abyss."

She took a deep breath, and Mrs. Pince extinguished the last flicker of the oil lamp in the library.

In the absolute darkness, Hermione Granger slung her heavy satchel over her shoulder. Instead of taking the torchlight path back to her dormitory, a path leading to safety and praise, she gently stroked the gold coin and cast her gaze toward the dark, winding stone steps leading to the top floor.

She knew that once she took this step, she might never be able to return to that simple world where she could earn badges simply by memorizing books.

But she still took a step, her movements as light as a ghost that didn't belong to this era.