HP: Spirit Talker

We've been here for three hours. Well, some of us are sitting, some of us are working, some of us are playing cards. The Prince Manor is a wonderful place to be, even if the weather is not the most inviting. Wales, Snowdonia National Park, right on the shore of the Irish Sea, there is a large estate in the Gothic style.

Black stone was not used in the construction, but because of the architecture and finishes, it seemed that the whole building was black. The high fence seemed to be made of thick metal, but there was nothing to be seen beyond it but a gray mist.

The Irishman, which was the call sign of this agent, gave out quite a bit of information about the Prince family and the property that belonged to the family. Unfortunately, Prince — the family is an outsider, either from Spain or Portugal — it could not be determined exactly, but they came with ready-made gifts, wealth, and an ancestral altar.

At the time of their arrival, the situation with natural sources of magic in Britain was not as critical as it is now, so the then head of the family simply bought a piece of land with a weak, weak source from the crown and ennobled it. By the way, this head was already old, but from the moment he moved to Britain, he lived another sixty years. Then, according to circumstantial information, the prince allied himself with the natives by marriage, got involved in politics, and went down a slippery slope.

I can't say what kind of curse it was, but the Clan Curse began to undermine the psyches of the water wizards and the plant life movement, so they were born with talents in potions, herbology, and not-too-aggressive magic, but where Snape got such a strong inclination to the dark arts and mentalism is unknown. Oh, well.

Nothing is clear about the murdered man's mother, I mean, why on earth would she get involved with a Muggle, and a poor one at that? The history of the wizarding world is full of examples of a clever witch marrying a rich Muggle in order to lay a strong foundation for her offspring.

Here, the situation is extremely strange from all sides, especially considering that Snape's mother, as it turns out, had an older sister and a younger brother who died under mysterious circumstances. The then-Head's younger brother was killed in an attack by a wild creature, in a private forest!

And after that, the Chief and his wife locked themselves in their mansion, where their lives ended. For two and a half thousand gold pieces, the goblins lifted the veil of secrecy surrounding the Prince's family money, which is actively managed by a hired banking specialist.

As for Severus Snape himself, it is known that he was sent two letters from the bank: one with an invitation to the announcement of the last will of the head of the Prince family, and the second with a notice of complete preservation of the manor and a small house with a plot on the south coast, where there was a garden and greenhouses family with rare plants for personal needs and experiments.

Snape hadn't answered any of the letters, and when he visited the bank he didn't ask about it, and the goblins themselves weren't in a hurry to impose themselves: the main thing for them was to keep the money working and in their paws, and the rest didn't matter. It's just a pity that the exact amounts are unknown, and there's also the suspicion that Prince, like others, has boxes of artifacts or other curiosities in the bank.

It was with all this in mind that I came here. According to the laws and traditions, as well as the terms of the duel, I have the right to lay my hands on anything that Snape was the heir or master of, unless there are no direct heirs, in which case only what was specifically the Potions Master's property is mine. By the way, the house in Spider's Dead End is already being searched by my men, and from Hogwarts, all the junk and not-so-junk has not only been removed, but examined and appraised. But as soon as we got here, we ran into problems. I can't say I didn't expect it, because the goblins said they'd put protective and preservative spells on themselves so that no clever person could get their hands on it, but those complexes fell apart the moment Snape's head separated from his body.

 In general, we found powerful magic installed by unknown people right on top of the goblin magic, but when the latter fell apart, its energy only amplified the foreign one, triggering additional functions. In fact, my staff is currently unraveling the network of advanced fortresses, aided by some nasty rituals that make it impossible to destroy the defenses in one fell swoop.

When we discovered this, I immediately went to my specialty, which is to rip out some of the anchors of the complex through the spiritual plane. The clever man who installed all of this also installed a feeder to the natural "exhaust" of the Ancestral Spring. In addition, a structure unknown to me was discovered which, within certain limits, is capable of restoring damaged parts of the complex.

This alone delighted me, and I was about to plunge into calculations on the topic of implementing this miracle in my defenses. But Elizabeth, who didn't have any lessons, was persistent, so she and I had an unexpected rendezvous in nature, a picnic. And nature here is really wonderful, because the natural magical source Prince expanded, plus the setting of the altar, so it is thanks to them and formed a national park Snowdonia.

Cold, sure, but we're magicians, or where? So good food, hot tea, hot girl by my side, and don't care about the weather. And other mages and wizards were of the same opinion. Now I look at all of us from the side, and I see not a group of magicians, but a crowd of vacationers.

After another hour, the specialists managed to break the strongest circuit, like the backbone of the system, but it took too much effort. I could do it myself, though, so I had to leave my dozing blonde in the care of the medics and pick up my wand again. It took me another forty minutes to find the nodal points of the weave and destroy the remnants of the protection with point-blows.

It was a bit rough, of course, because the experts who had worked before me had been more gentle, literally unweaving and removing the spells, but that's how I know how to do it. On the gate was found a strange structure of generally unclear what and for what purpose. In my spiritual vision, it looks like a tangle of filthy, slimy, black slime-covered worms right where the keyhole and doorknob are. It's the first time I've ever seen anything like it.

A few diagnostic spells were absorbed without a trace, with only a few worm outgrowths stretching forward slightly to catch the next web. I asked the more knowledgeable for advice and decided not to use the seals for the time being. The specialists had time to back away a bit from the previous work, but they did not even find the clot, because they simply did not see it, and the spells and charms it absorbs. They couldn't destroy it in any way, either, because the manor's defense system kicked in. Eventually, I got tired of that and used seals.

I must say that when the seals were lined up in three large squares with a ring inside, and the whole thing hung in the air and pulsated with different colors of light, the magicians were impressed. And then they were even more impressed because the whole structure was constantly moving at different speeds, mostly jerky, and each time it was accompanied by either a wide beam of light, or a jet of brilliant steam, or lightning.

I, on the other hand, kept a close eye on the information I was receiving. After twenty minutes of testing, it was clear that it wasn't physical, but it wasn't entirely energy, and it smelled of demonic power. It was also hiding in a small "hole" — a kind of warp of two planes at once: physical and astral. It hides its body in the hole, and through a subtle small breach in these two planes, it peeps out, completely blocking the entrance mechanism. It's a good thing I started wearing a memory bracelet!