The fire in the study's hearth crackled softly, throwing long, amber shadows across the dark wood bookshelves. Outside, the Scottish winter night had fully set in, pressing against the window panes like a cold, heavy hand. Inside, the silence was thick as Allen finished his quiet, methodical recounting of the events in the hidden cellar.
He didn't dramatize the fight. He explained the wards, the carpet trap, and the execution of the positive energy spell with the detached precision of a scholar describing a successful laboratory experiment. But the effect on his audience was profound.
"Allen..." Aunt Josephine's voice was barely a whisper, her pale fingers tightening around the edge of her velvet hat. Her porcelain face, illuminated by the firelight, showed a vulnerability she rarely allowed others to see. "I don't even have the words. You didn't just end a monster tonight. You gave me back my soul. If the Duke had ordered me to... to hurt you or your father, I wouldn't have been able to stop myself. The hierarchical bond of the blood is absolute. You risked everything to sever it."
Owen Harris looked at his son, his chest rising and falling with a mixture of intense pride and lingering, paternal terror. He reached over, wrapping his arm around his sister's shaking shoulders, pulling her close. His hand was rough, calloused from years of paperwork and gardening, but the gesture was filled with a fierce, protective warmth.
"You did well, son," Owen said, his voice thick with emotion. "But Merlin's beard, Allen... a vampire lord? Alone? If your mother knew the details of this, she'd have us both locked in the cellar for the rest of the holidays."
"Which is why we aren't going to tell her the dramatic parts," Allen replied with a faint, reassuring smile. He stood up, smoothing his robes. "But the Duke wasn't the only thing hiding in the dark. I also managed to locate the Clark family's private legacy. The actual hoard."
The word hoard seemed to hang in the cozy air of the study. Owen blinked, his bureaucratic mind trying to process the shift from a life-or-death battle to a treasure hunt. "The hoard? I thought the Ministry cleared this place out decades ago during the inheritance disputes."
"They cleared out what they could see," Allen said, his eyes gleaming. "They didn't have a guide who knew the family's spatial architecture. Follow me."
He led them out of the study and back down the corridor to the second-floor balcony. The wind had picked up, carrying a fresh flurry of fine, powdery snow that stung their cheeks.
Owen watched with a look of sheer, existential dread as Allen climbed onto the marble railing, turned back to give them a brief nod, and simply stepped off into the open air. Even though he was an experienced wizard, jumping off a high ledge into a pitch-black ravine went against every survival instinct he possessed.
"Allen!" Owen gasped, lunging forward, only to stop as Aunt Josephine placed a cold, restraining hand on his arm.
"Watch," she whispered.
Through the curtain of falling snow, they saw the air shimmer. A faint, silver-blue ripple expanded outward, and then Allen was simply standing there, suspended in mid-air as if resting on a sheet of solid glass. He waved them forward.
Josephine didn't hesitate; she stepped onto the railing and glided into the void with the weightless ease of an immortal. Owen, swallowing his nerves, followed suit. Stepping through the boundary felt like passing through a cold, wet sheet. Suddenly, the howling wind of the ravine died down, replaced by a deep, resonant silence.
They were standing on the invisible terrace, surrounded by the six massive, iron-bound chests.
"A permanent, light-refracting spatial fold," Owen murmured, his professional curiosity temporarily overriding his shock. "This is... this is genius-level architecture. The Ministry's department of spatial enforcement would lose their minds if they saw this."
"They aren't going to see it," Allen said.
He walked to the first chest. With a dramatic flourish that was entirely uncharacteristic of his usual reserved self, he threw the heavy oak lid back.
The light that erupted from the chest was almost physical. Under the moonlight, the gold coins, heavy bullion bars, and raw, uncut gems gleamed with a brilliant, predatory luster. The reflections danced off Owen's glasses, painting his face in shades of gold and ruby.
Owen's mouth opened, but no sound came out. He took a step back, his hand flying to his chest as if to keep his heart from leaping out of his ribs. He had spent his entire life in the middle-class trenches of the Ministry, carefully counting Galleons for school supplies, measuring out his salary to ensure the family lived comfortably but modestly. He had never seen this much raw, concentrated wealth in one place.
"Are... are we allowed to keep this?" Owen finally croaked, his voice dry and strained. "The Ministry... the tax laws on ancient salvage..."
"Who is going to tell them?" Allen asked, a bright, sharp grin breaking across his face. "The only people who know this space exists are standing on this platform. And as far as I'm concerned, this isn't my treasure. It's ours. The Harris family's."
Josephine let out a soft, musical laugh, the tension fully leaving her frame. "Listen to him, Owen. The boy has the instincts of an old-money patriarch already. He's right, of course. Storing this gold in a dark corner of the sky is useless. We need to put it to work."
Owen nodded slowly, his eyes still glued to the glittering mountain of gold. He bypasses the chest of rotten medical supplies with barely a glance; his mind was already calculating the logistics of moving and cleaning such a massive sum without drawing the attention of Gringotts' more inquisitive goblins.
"Dad," Allen said, pulling his father's attention back. He reached into his robes and pulled out a rolled piece of parchment and a small, heavy box made of solid, polished Mithril. "I need you to use a portion of this gold to purchase some very specific materials. Here is the list."
Owen took the list, but his eyes were drawn to the box. He traced the delicate, silver-white runes etched into the metal. "Mithril... with preservation arrays. This is the kind of container they use in the Department of Mysteries to hold volatile temporal components. What is in here, Allen?"
He opened the lid. Inside, resting in a pocket of absolute stasis, were the pristine, glowing herbs and crushed minerals Allen had retrieved earlier.
"The formula," Allen explained, handing his father a faded sheet of parchment containing Master Verto's alchemical notes.
Owen's gaze scanned the title, and his face instantly went slack. "The Mana-Well... the Magic Enhancement Potion? Allen, this formula has been classified as 'lost' since the fall of the Alexandrian libraries. The ingredients are supposed to be extinct."
"They were," Allen said, gesturing to the Mithril box. "Until tonight. I have enough here to brew a limited batch. It's a potion that doesn't just replenish magic; it permanently expands the wizard's core. It increases the volume of power a body can channel."
This was where Allen's secret advantage came into play. With the help of the System, he didn't have to rely on the generic, volatile formulas of the past. The System allowed him to analyze his own physical and magical attributes in real-time, providing quantitative data that no other wizard could access. By tweaking Verto's ancient formula to match his specific body chemistry, he could maximize the potion's efficiency, leaving the standard limitations of magical development far behind. He would become a juggernaut, a wizard whose raw capacity surpassed his peers before he even reached adulthood.
But as Owen stared at the formula, his face didn't fill with joy. It drained of color, turning a deathly, paper-white.
"Owen?" Josephine asked, her voice suddenly sharp, her vampiric instincts picking up on her brother's sudden spike in heart rate and fear.
"Do you understand what this is?" Owen whispered, his hands trembling as he held the parchment. "A potion that can permanently increase a wizard's natural power? If the Ministry got wind of this, they wouldn't just confiscate it. They'd lock Allen in a room and force him to brew it until his bones rotted. If the old families—the Malfoys, the Blacks, the Nott clan—found out a second-year Ravenclaw had this formula, they would tear our family apart to get it. It's a tool that can shift the balance of power in Britain."
The reality of the wizarding world's political brutality crashed down on them, cold and uncompromising.
"He's right," Josephine said, her blue eyes narrowing into slits of pure, icy focus. Her aristocratic background as a Clark family wife rose to the surface. "This isn't a secret we can afford to let slip over a cup of tea or a loose tongue. We need security, Owen. Ironclad security."
"An Unbreakable Vow," Owen suggested, looking at his sister.
Josephine nodded. "Yes. Between you and me. We will swear never to speak of Allen's alchemical projects to anyone—not even to Morgan or Daisy, to protect them from being targeted. And we will swear to use our influence to shield him."
Owen looked at his sister in surprise. "Josephine... you've just escaped one set of chains. Are you sure you want to bind yourself to another?"
"These aren't chains, brother," she said, offering a small, sad smile that showed a hint of her elongated canines. "This is family. This is how we survive."
She turned to Allen. "Give your father his wand, Allen. You will be the Bonder."
Allen didn't hesitate. He took his father's wand, feeling the familiar hum of the wood. Owen and Josephine stepped close, their right hands locking in a firm, solid grip. Allen placed the tip of the wand over their joined hands.
"Do you, Owen Harris, swear to keep the secrets of Allen's magic and alchemy, protecting his knowledge from the eyes of the Ministry and the old houses, even at the cost of your own safety?" Josephine asked, her voice echoing with a strange, magical resonance.
"I swear," Owen said clearly.
A thin, bright tongue of red flame erupted from the wand, wrapping around their wrists like a glowing wire of liquid fire.
"And do you, Josephine Clark, swear to use every resource at your disposal, both of your late husband's house and your own blood, to shield Allen and elevate our family's standing so we may protect our secrets?" Owen asked.
"I swear," she replied.
A second thread of fire joined the first, binding them tighter, pulsing with the beat of their hearts before sinking into their skin and vanishing with a soft, final hiss. The Unbreakable Vow was established.
Owen let out a long breath, looking at his sister with eyes that were heavy with a lifetime of struggle, yet sparkling with a newfound, dangerous ambition.
"You were right, Josephine," Owen said, his posture straightening as he looked at the chests of gold. "A wizard with wealth but no influence is just a fat sheep waiting to be sheared. If we're going to protect Allen, I can't stay a mid-level bureaucrat in the Ministry. I need to move up. We need power."
"The Harris name used to mean something in this country, Owen," Josephine said, her voice dropping into a low, predatory purr. "Before we withdrew into our books and our gardens. It's time we reminded the Ministry of who we are. We have the gold. We have the talent. Now, we build the empire."
Allen watched them, his analytical mind already mapping out the future. He was curious about his aunt's comment—Will it bring back its former glory?