At Hogwarts, the story begins with deconstructing Avada Kedavra.

The moonlight, like a thin layer of silver foil, barely covered the outline of Hogwarts.

Before the dramatic fire that engulfed Hagrid's hut, Albus Dumbledore was standing by the window of the Headmaster's office.

He did not light the lamp.

The old man always seemed to be like this; the older he got, the more he became accustomed to examining the truth in the dark, as if light would disturb the ghosts crawling out of the pile of old papers.

Starlight flowed silently through the room filled with silver instruments, and the endoscope on the table made a faint, intermittent clicking sound.

He gazed at the vast, lifeless black lake outside the window and suddenly felt powerless.

Not only were his old bones creaking, but the air outside the window, the foundation stones of the castle, and even his living space were becoming heavy.

Magic is fading away.

It is an extremely specific and almost cruel form of annihilation.

His once natural, breathing-like spellcasting was becoming dry and stiff; magic could no longer follow the limits of his imagination.

Outside the walls, the Muggle world, defined by steel, gunpowder, and natural science, is growing wildly.

This was a twilight that was destined to come.

But the darkness after sunset does not lead to dawn; rather, it is complete surrender.

Because of this destiny

He could only maintain order in the castle and the entire magical world, forgive the children for waving sticks and throwing curses at each other in the corridors, and even deliberately condone the conflict between Slytherin and Gryffindor, thus creating a stage for the savior.

He appeases, compromises, and manipulates.

After all, when a country is on the decline, someone has to do something.

Dumbledore's choice was to slam on the brakes.

As the old Eastern saying goes: "The people can be made to follow a path, but they cannot be made to understand it."

He needs these kids to linger in their illusions a little longer, keeping them busy with this low-intensity internal conflict, rather than learning the truth about the world.

They wouldn't storm the Muggle world in a panic over a depleted magic power, as that would only lead to a more violent and humiliating destruction.

He stretched out his palm, trying to catch a ray of moonlight.

At that moment, the greatest white wizard of our time recalled the scenes he had witnessed during his travels through the City of London.

Those Muggles in suits, possessing no magic whatsoever, have constructed a social structure a thousand times more sophisticated than that of the wizarding world through contracts. They don't need to rely on unstable magical fluctuations to reach out to the stars.

That is true civilization.

In contrast, the master-disciple traditions, blood feuds, and even those ancient covenants of Hogwarts seemed to Dumbledore like a makeshift stage play on the verge of collapse. He even read the Muggle novel *Leviathan* late at night, and the beauty of its authoritarianism and order gave him a chilling, almost immoral feeling.

He no longer longed to be Merlin; he longed to be the guide for the arrival of this new world.

He looked at Fox.

"Fox, what do you think? Am I really getting old and starting to talk nonsense?"

The phoenix on the shelf simply buried its head in its wings.

He shook his head helplessly.

Forgive him for getting old; even his thoughts have become so rambling.

"Fire..." Dumbledore's thoughts came to an abrupt halt.

At the edge of the forbidden forest, firelight shattered the tranquility of the night.

He sighed, rolled up his robe, and soared into the air.

……

When Dumbledore appeared in front of Hagrid's hut...

The oak cabin had completely collapsed, its once rough but thick walls licked black by the raging flames. The curtains and precious materials that Hagrid had sewn by hand were now turning into wisps of acrid black smoke, swirling in the chilly night air.

The house's silhouette looked desolate in the flickering embers.

Broken eggshells littered the ground, and the newly hatched Norwegian Ridgeback was anxiously breathing fire. Hagrid's massive body stood in front of the hatchling, charred marks still clinging to his whiskers. Harry, Ron, and Hermione huddled in a corner, their faces etched with fear.

Not far away, Draco Malfoy gripped his wand tightly, his pale face contorted in the firelight. Lucien, meanwhile, was still trying to extinguish the flames on the ruins with a spell.

"Hagrid, I think before the mermaids of the Black Lake suffer from collective insomnia, perhaps we can first teach these flames to be silent."

Dumbledore spoke. His voice was calm. He didn't even raise his wand; he simply walked past, and wherever he passed, the restless flames obediently extinguished, turning into wisps of pale smoke.

"Headmaster! I...I just..." Hagrid sobbed, "It was too small, it was innocent..."

Dumbledore walked up to the young dragon with pity.

He looked at the struggling little monster and saw a degenerating, deformed manifestation of magic. This creature had once represented the wildest phenomena of nature, but now it huddled in the cabin, clearly premature.

It lost its resistance to magic, and at this point, even a curse from an older student could injure it.

All it possesses now are these ordinary flames, which are no longer even magic; they have degenerated into mere trickery, no different from firewood.

Under the influence of that being, magic has become even less powerful.

"It simply chose the wrong time to hatch, Hagrid," Dumbledore said softly. "In this day and age, such immense power is itself a sin."

"It's illegal!" Draco finally found his voice. He stepped forward, a sense of justice he had never felt before making him tremble. "Headmaster! You should call the Aurors! Hagrid kept a dragon, Potter and the others were accomplices! According to Act 1709, this is a serious crime in Azkaban!"

Dumbledore turned his head. Through his half-moon spectacles, he carefully examined Draco before him.

Then, his gaze fell on Lucian behind Draco.

This young man possesses a profoundness that doesn't belong to this era.

This is the legacy of Ravenclaw, ever since that Christmas night.

What alarmed Dumbledore most was a connection: this child was more capable of changing the world than he was.

Even someone as strong as Grindelwald is still like a golden monkey wielding a mighty cudgel, but this young man has a rare possibility.

Especially recently, that being who stands above time and fate,

That vast consciousness, which even he could only glimpse a corner of, manifested itself several times.

He decided to test the waters, and then spoke to Draco.

"The Act. What exquisite and beautiful words, Mr. Malfoy." Dumbledore smiled gently.

"My dad says the law is the cornerstone of the magical world!" Draco puffed out his chest.

"Your father is right. But have you ever thought about why the foundation always needs to be strengthened?" Dumbledore's tone was still like that of an after-class chat. "When a home begins to crumble, its owner will desperately repair the windows and forbid anyone from opening them, not because the view outside is bad, but because he is afraid that even the slightest breeze will blow away the last bit of warmth in the house."

Draco was stunned.

"That's for the sake of dignity," Dumbledore continued. "When a civilization ages, its flesh and blood begin to wither, and it needs thicker, stronger armor—that is, laws and prohibitions. We forbid dragons not because they are dangerous, but because we have lost the ability to coexist with such danger. If I were to summon the Aurors now, lock Hagrid up in jail, and expel these children… that wouldn't prove you've upheld justice; it would only prove that the last vestige of vitality in this school has been strangled by that stack of laws."

"But that's not fair!" Draco screamed, feeling his reverence for Dumbledore crumbling rapidly beneath that gentle tone.

"Fairness is the mercy that the strong bestow upon the weak, my child," Dumbledore said, approaching Draco. "And we live in an age where we need to huddle together and slowly fall asleep in the winter. If each of us pursues absolute right, then this fire will soon be extinguished."

Dumbledore's feelings were extremely complicated at this moment. He looked at Draco's bewildered face, and then at Lucian's ever-calm eyes.

He wanted to see whether, once they realized the world was decaying, they would choose to stay in the ruins like him, or they would resort to more extreme destruction.

“Sometimes, silence is our final ritual to this ancient school.” Dumbledore reached out, seemingly to pat Draco on the shoulder, but stopped midway. “What do you think, Mr. Lucian?”

Lucien, who had been observing from the sidelines, stepped forward. He bowed slightly, his posture elegant and aloof.

“I think that since this was a misjudgment, it should indeed be handled properly and without leaving any record.” Lucian looked at Draco. “Mr. Malfoy was simply too worried about Hagrid’s safety, which is why he lost his way in the chaos. Isn’t that right, Draco?”

Draco looked at Lucian, then at Dumbledore.

He gleaned a terrifying message from Dumbledore: the rules were for those who still believed in the future of magic. For this old man, however, all the rules were merely a buffer in some sense.

Even his proud Malfoy family was nothing more than a slightly more luxurious cushion during his fall.

"I... understand," Draco managed to squeeze out a few dry syllables.

This humiliation was no longer the childish frustration of losing a fight, but a disillusionment caused by the abrupt stripping away of his worldview. He realized that so-called school rules, laws, and bloodline honors were as insignificant as dust in the face of some grand, devastating truth.

"Very good." Dumbledore winked with pleasure, a gesture reminiscent of a kind elder, even carrying a hint of a funeral prayer. "Potter, Weasley, Miss Granger... I think Madam Pomfrey has some calming potions. As for this little fellow..."

He turned to look at the dragon, his pity deepening in his eyes.

"Charlie Weasley's Dragon Field in Romania might offer it a slightly more respectable, aging place. It's still a cage, but at least big enough to give it the illusion of freedom."

"Professor!" Ron suddenly stepped forward, interrupting Dumbledore.

His face appeared somewhat pale in the moonlight, a lingering effect of extreme tension.

"I can handle this, Professor," Ron said in a low voice.

"I mean, I'll contact Charlie. He has connections with those unregistered dragon trainers who roam the border. They won't ask where they came from; they'll just take these dangerous things away before dawn. No department records needed, no school procedures required."

"That's crossing the line, Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore said, his tone devoid of any reproach. "It's even... a little less than 'open and aboveboard'."

"But...a very insightful observation." Dumbledore blinked.

The wind swept through the forbidden forest, carrying away the last wisp of smoke.

Draco walked slowly on his way back to the castle. The muddy grass soiled his boots, but he didn't curse as usual.

He remained silent the entire way. The Malfoy family had taught him that power was the rule itself, and his father had always been adept at manipulating the law within the ministry.

But tonight, he discovered that the laws he was so proud of were, in Dumbledore's words, nothing more than a layer of paste to prevent the world from shattering in this cold winter.

He turned back unwillingly, looking at Hagrid's hut still emitting wisps of smoke. A strong sense of insecurity gnawed at his heart. If the rules could be crossed so easily, then what exactly were the Malfoy bloodline and wealth protecting?

It wasn't until I stood in front of the cellar door again, looking at my mud-stained hem and boots, that I realized my body was still trembling, whether from the chilly spring breeze or something else.

"That's really dark; he doesn't believe any of that at all," Draco suddenly muttered to himself.

“Justice, courage, rules… he doesn’t believe in any of them.” Draco stopped and looked up at the castle, which appeared eerie, vast, and decaying in the moonlight. “He looks at me like I’m a group of puppets dancing by a grave. He spared Hagrid and Potter not because he loved them, but because they were his… backdrop. He needed these backdrops to maintain the illusion of Hogwarts.”

Lucian, hidden within the illusion spell, silently watched the boy.

"You understand the truth, Draco," Lucian murmured to himself. "This castle is a sinking ship, and he is the captain who played the requiem. He didn't want to save anyone; he just wanted everyone to drown in peace."

Draco couldn't hear him; perhaps only the old man could sense his emotions.

Lucian left the cellar and headed toward the Ravenclaw Tower.

Through the window, I gaze at the principal's tower, which still emits a faint glow.

His thoughts began to wander.

It now seems that Dumbledore was able to perceive this script.

More accurately, he should be seen as the embodiment of the current script, a paperhanger, a gravedigger in the twilight, and a guide for the new era.

Lucien abandoned his thoughts and continued walking forward.

The twilight of civilization was indeed beautiful, but Lucien did not intend to be buried with it.

"It's not time yet, Principal," he murmured softly, his voice ripped apart by the draft through the tower.