Chapter 3.
Since the incident with Soren that triggered the magical turmoil, Lucius has eagerly fostered Soren's studies in magic. To the astonishment and delight of the whole family, Soren's talent for learning surprisingly extended to the realm of magic.
Soren has also shown remarkable talent in learning magic, mastering various magical knowledge almost immediately, and even occasionally posing questions that Lucius found himself a little troubled while answering. Before long, Lucius gave up on personally guiding Soren, allowing him to explore and research on his own.
As a top student in his previous life, Soren skipped the process of learning languages and characters, inheriting an insatiable thirst for knowledge and a diligent attitude towards learning starting from the age of four, often immersing himself in the family's collection of books.
For centuries, members of the Malfoy family have been enriching the family's library, with a vast array of book genres that cover history, spell studies, transfiguration, herbology, magical beasts, and even obscure ancient magical literature and alchemy.
Among these are many extremely rare and valuable first editions; a single copy of a rare magical book is priceless and can be considered invaluable. These are the foundations inherited by pure-blood wizarding families, and unless absolutely necessary, no one would bring them out.
Soren's favorite books were historical ones. Through the family's historical documents, he can gain a deeper and more complete understanding of this magical world than what is presented in the original work.
He deeply understands that this is a complete magical world, where every person is a living character. This world is not only home to the savior Harry and his friends, nor is it just about the dark lord Voldemort and his followers; it also includes diverse individuals and lives, such as curse-breakers of the Egyptian pyramids, traveling magical biologists, and alchemists who create wondrous items.
What puzzles and confounds Soren is that, as a family aligned with Voldemort in the original work, there are surprisingly no books on dark magic in the library. Could it be because books on dark magic carry inherent danger, and his parents are worried about him and his brother accidentally encountering them, leading them to be hidden away?
Well, it's not impossible; Soren suspects this possibility is quite high. In the second installment of the original work, when Harry and Ron impersonated Goyle and Crabbe to extract information from Draco, Draco accidentally revealed that there was a hidden chamber under the manor's living room, used to store the Malfoy family's contraband.
The pure-blood families, especially the Sacred Twenty-Eight, possess an ancient and profound historical legacy.
Despite the portrayal of a few pure-blood families being submissive to Voldemort in the original story, their true strength has never been displayed through violence or combat; rather, it is rooted in monopolizing lucrative industries within the magical world to control its economic lifeline, thereby amassing unimaginable wealth and maintaining significant political influence.
What enables them to achieve this is not merely the inheritance of wealth, but rather the various precious magical secrets that these ancient families possess. For example, the Ollivander family, which has a history of over two thousand years, thrives by controlling the secrets of wand-making and thereby monopolizes one-third of the wand industry in Europe to create wealth.
The documents recording family secrets are the most precious treasures of a family.
Soren knows that Voldemort's return is only a few years away, and if he wishes to protect himself and safeguard his family, he must seize every moment to enhance his strength. Being a past life top student, he diligently absorbed all the knowledge in the family's library even more than others.
Soren has a good relationship with Dobby, and after several years of coaxing, he finally succeeded in persuading Dobby at the age of five to take him along while the family was out, to sneak into the hidden chamber located beneath the living room.
The entrance to the hidden chamber is blocked by heavy protective magic and cannot be entered without the correct unlocking spell. However, protective magic in the wizarding world has a vulnerability: it often underestimates the magic of creatures they consider inferior, such as house-elves. Therefore, Soren relied on Dobby to use house-elf magic to gain entry into the hidden chamber.
The ceiling of the secret room was adorned with several skulls emitting a strange fluorescence, filling the dim space with a faint light.
On all four walls, rows of shelves were visible, brimming with bizarre items that were clearly infused with dark magic—black skulls, blood-stained daggers, oddly shaped masks, rusty chains, and so on.
These items came without any descriptions, leaving Soren completely in the dark about their names and uses.
Soren moved cautiously in the cramped secret room, carefully avoiding contact with any of the items.
It was no joke; even someone like Dumbledore could meet death by accidentally touching Voldemort's cursed objects. Given that his own father was a former Death Eater, Soren was sure that such terrifying dark magical items were definitely part of the collection.
Among the many items, Soren recognized one: an old-fashioned notebook with a black cover, looking exceedingly ordinary, much like an everyday diary in the Muggle world, with the name Tom Riddle inscribed on it.
Soren knew this was Voldemort's first Horcrux, and with his current strength, he wouldn't rashly touch it to avoid trouble.
After hastily glancing over these dreadful dark magical items, Soren made his way to a corner dedicated to books. The books here were particularly ancient, some even so worn that the titles were unreadable.
From the pile of books, Soren selected three magical tomes: "Dark Potions," "Fallen Beings," and "Abathar Volume One."
These three books looked very old, with much of the content written in ancient runes.
Then, he found the family spell notebook in a hidden compartment, containing secret spells limited to family heirs, and had Dobby copy one for him. Since young wizards were not allowed to possess wands before the age of 11 in the British wizarding world, Soren could only note down the principles and methods for casting spells but couldn't actually learn to use them.
["Dark Potions" obtained! "Fallen Beings" obtained! "Abathar Volume One" obtained!]
[Malfoy family spell obtained!]
Just as Soren was about to leave, satisfied with his haul, he caught sight of a dusty, decrepit hourglass in the corner. If not for the faint magical aura detected by his magical eye, the item's old appearance would have gone unnoticed.
In the magical world, hourglasses, pocket watches, and similar items that emanated magical energy usually meant one thing—this item was infused with time magic!
With excitement, Soren decided to take the hourglass as well. He summoned Dobby over and, using the elf's unique magic, crafted imitations of the spell-book and hourglass to place them back, then carefully erased all traces before leaving with Dobby via apparition.
[Time Hourglass obtained!]
Indeed, this time hourglass was a time-turner, a prototype that had been passed down since the Middle Ages.
In the later texts of the original story, when all known time-turners had been destroyed, Lucius was still able to have Theodore Nott create two brand new time-turners from scratch. While Nott had some talent, Soren had always been skeptical of his ability to produce a time-turner without any samples or reference diagrams.
At this moment, Soren confirmed his previous guess—Lucius had long possessed the oldest time-turner, and Nott had merely improved it to create a more practical version.
Time magic is one of the most mysterious branches of magic, and Soren knew it came with many rules; he did not wish to provoke terrible consequences by breaking them.
This oldest time-turner, while only capable of sending Soren back one hour at a time, was quite sufficient for him. What he needed was merely more time for reading and studying, similar to Hermione's excessive studying in her third year in the original story.
To gain such a cheat right from the start, Soren couldn't help but feel incredibly lucky.
Although the time hourglass had no limitations on usage, excessive and frequent use would still impose a burden on the body, as seen with Hermione in the original story when she ultimately had to give up due to exhaustion. Therefore, Soren only flipped the hourglass four times a day, using the extra four hours for studying, becoming increasingly absorbed in reading and learning day by day.
The collection in the library has more than a hundred books, but with the help of the time hourglass, Soren managed to read all the books by the age of 9, acquiring a level of knowledge that is unattainable for ordinary people.
As for the three books on black magic, Soren does not plan to touch them for the time being, as books on black magic are usually inherently dangerous, and it would be reckless and foolish for him to approach them with his current strength. As for the magical teachings of the Malfoy family, although Soren has not practiced them, he has already memorised the steps for casting spells and various details.
With nothing else to do, Soren began to come up with mischievous ideas again.
NOTE : See any error; let me know so I can edit them.