At Hogwarts, the story begins with deconstructing Avada Kedavra.

Chapter 61 Eagle Ring

Midnight at Hogwarts is so cold that it can freeze your snot into icicles.

The area in front of the bronze door knockers of the Ravenclaw Tower is almost turning into a covered walkway campsite.

For Ravenclaw students, being shut out because they couldn't solve the eagle ring riddle was as commonplace as flipping through thick textbooks.

Through generations of accumulation, the eaglets have even developed a set of survival rules for camping outside the tower.

Elana, a fifth-grader, yawned, waved her wand, and skillfully turned her several rolls of discarded parchment into a soft down pillow. She then took the sleeping bag that had been prepared outside and placed it on the stone floor without complaint.

Julian, a seventh grader, leaned against the corner of the wall, poked a ball of fire with the tip of his cane, and carefully put it into an empty jam jar to serve as a makeshift heater.

Beside them, three third-year students huddled together, covered tightly with thick wool blankets that had been transformed from robes, one of whom was even snoring softly.

“Look on the bright side, folks,” Julian said, putting his hot hands in his pockets and adopting a Ravenclaw tone, “at least we’re just sleeping peacefully in the hallways, instead of turning them into fighting arenas like Gryffindor and Slytherin do.”

“You bet,” Elana chimed in with her eyes closed. “Did you hear? This evening outside Potions class, some Slytherin boys were mocking Gryffindors as brainless trolls, and they almost got covered in some kind of smelly slime by the Weasley twins. Professor Snape was furious and threatened to put them all in solitary confinement.”

"A bunch of monstrous creatures driven by emotions and impulses," muttered a third-year boy wrapped in a blanket. "I'd rather freeze here half the night than get caught up in their pointless fighting. When they're fighting tooth and nail for some so-called school honor, their combined brain capacity wouldn't even be enough to solve half the puzzle of tonight's door knocker."

A few soft laughs echoed in the dark corridor, and then everyone adjusted themselves into comfortable positions, preparing to peacefully fall asleep outside the threshold of knowledge.

However, among this group of students in the same college who were content with the status quo and camping in a relaxed manner, twelve-year-old Padma Petil was a little irritable.

"Give up, Padma." Julian watched the first-year student pacing back and forth in front of the bronze gate and kindly patted the empty space next to him. "Tonight's puzzle involves some metaphysical philosophical concepts, so it's normal for a first-year student to lack logical reserves."

Come and warm yourself by the fire, and wait for Professor Flitwick to open the door first thing tomorrow morning.

"I don't!"

Padma wrapped her dark blue robe tighter around herself and, unwilling to give up, knocked on the door knocker again with all her might.

The bronze eagle slowly opened its eyes, and in that maddeningly elegant, monotone tone, repeated the riddle that tormented her: "Does the unseen ghost still roam? If you have never been seen by any eye, never been remembered by any mind, are you alive now, or were you already dead at birth?"

In the empty corridor, only the echo of the eagle and the whistling of the draft could be heard.

Padma was chilled to the bone, her brain nearly shut down from exhaustion. She tried to answer the question using knowledge from the History of Magic and Standard Spells.

"Ghosts are certainly roaming!" she protested loudly at the door knocker, trying to mask her lack of confidence with her volume. "They have pearly white, translucent forms! As for the second question—as long as my heart is still beating, and I can feel hunger and cold, of course I'm alive!"

"A heartbeat is merely an hourglass for the continuation of the body, not an anchor for existence. If your joys and sorrows go unnoticed, your body is nothing but the ruins of time," the door knocker said slowly. "The loss of reason is not enough to be the key to open the door, child. Go and think, go and search."

"I exist! Because I'm standing right here, not only alive, but frozen like an ice sculpture!" Padma angrily waved her wand, nearly poking the eagle's beak. "If you don't open the door, my existence will be obliterated by the cold winds of Hogwarts!"

The eagle closed its eyes again, giving its final rejection with silence.

In the corner, Julian, who was warming himself by the fire, turned a page of the book in his hand and slowly interjected: "A typical Berkeleyan idealist trap, Padma."

You need to let go of your obsession with physical entities and answer from the perspective of "existence is being perceived" or "the gaze of others." For example, answer it like this: "I live in the gaze of others, and I also die in the oblivion of others" —

"Shut up, Julian!" Padma stared desperately at the lifeless eagle statue, gritting his teeth at the door knocker. "I just accidentally left 'A Thousand Wonderful Herbs and Mushrooms' in the greenhouse and went out for a run!"

My brain is frozen solid. I don't want to think about whether I live in other people's eyes or died at the moment of my birth. I just want to go back to my warm bed!

"Damn philosophical thinking!"

Padma kicked the stone wall in frustration. She was completely locked out.

A cold wind seeped in through the cracks in the tower, and she suddenly remembered Parvati's smug and confident demeanor when he impersonated her. A crazy thought became uncontrollable:

Since Ravenclaw's wisdom has rejected her tonight, why doesn't she go and experience Gryffindor's recklessness?

Since they're twins anyway, even if they get caught by the patrolling prefect, they can just pretend that Parvati is sleepwalking!

Thinking of this, Padma's eyes lit up. She tiptoed down the spiral staircase and, relying on her memory, made her way towards the Gryffindor common room.

Twenty minutes later, behind a tapestry not far from the portrait of the fat lady, two identical figures came together.

"I knew you'd come looking for me!" Parvati exclaimed excitedly in a low voice, grabbing her shivering sister. "You have no idea how exciting tonight was! They were fighting again!"

Padma gasped, her good student instincts telling her to stop it, "This violates school rules."

"Come on, you couldn't even guess the riddle about the door knocker tonight. What right do you have to be a Ravenclaw's good boy?" Parvati mercilessly exposed her sister's sore spot, then mysteriously pulled something out of her pocket.

That was the glass ball that Lucian had given her before.

Under the faint moonlight, the red and gold nebula inside the glass sphere continued to rotate slowly, and the miniature lion inside seemed to move as if it were alive.

"Look! That's what Lucian gave me," Pavati said with a hint of pride. "He said this thing works wonders when it's bumped. If we secretly follow them—"

"That's too risky!"

"That's called the Gryffindor spirit of adventure! Come on, Padma, this is way more interesting than 'A History of Medieval Magic'!"

With a mix of reluctance and coercion, Ravenclaw's Padma was pulled into the depths of Hogwarts' corridors by Gryffindor's Parvati.