Family Foundations

Ever since Skylar's magical outburst, Lucius had been eager to cultivate Skylar's magical education. To the family's surprise and delight, Skylar's talent for learning had extended into the realm of magic.

Skylar also displayed outstanding talent in his magical studies. He grasped all kinds of magical knowledge after just one lesson and even occasionally raised questions Lucius could not answer. Before long, Lucius gave up on personally instructing him and let Skylar tinker and research on his own.

As a top student in his previous life, Skylar had skipped the process of learning languages and writing. From the age of four, he had inherited his former thirst for knowledge, studying tirelessly and often burying himself in the Malfoy Family Library.

For centuries, members of the House of Malfoy had continuously expanded the family collection. Its books covered everything: history, Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology, Magizoology, and even obscure, unpopular subjects such as Ancient Runes and Alchemy.

There were also many precious rare and solitary copies among them. The value of an out-of-print magic book was simply immeasurable, worth a fortune. These were the foundations of a pure-blood wizarding family's inheritance, and no one would take them out unless absolutely necessary.

Skylar liked history books the most. Through the family's historical records, he could gain a deeper and more complete understanding of this magical world than he had from the original story.

He deeply understood that this was a complete magical world, where every person was truly alive. This world did not only contain the Savior Harry and his little companions, nor did it only contain the Dark Lord Voldemort and his followers. There were countless other people and ways of life: curse-breakers in the Egyptian pyramids, magizoologists traveling the world, alchemists creating magical items, and so on.

What puzzled Skylar was that, despite being a family aligned with the Dark Lord in the original story, the library did not contain a single book on the Dark Arts. Could it be because Dark Arts books were inherently dangerous, and his parents feared that he or his brother might accidentally come into contact with them and suffer an accident, so they had stored them elsewhere?

Pure-blood families, especially the Sacred Twenty-Eight, all possessed immensely ancient foundations.

Though several pure-blood families in the original story had acted submissively before Voldemort, their true foundations had never lain in force or combat. Instead, they controlled the economic lifeblood of the magical world by monopolizing highly profitable industries, gaining inexhaustible wealth and immense political influence in the process.

What allowed them to achieve this was not merely inherited wealth, but the various precious magical secrets these ancient families possessed. For example, the Ollivander Family, with a history of more than two thousand years, controlled the secrets of wandmaking and thereby created wealth by monopolizing one-third of the wand industry.

These documents and records containing family secrets were a family's most precious treasures.

Skylar knew that Voldemort's return was only a few years away. If he wanted to protect himself, or even safeguard his family, he had to race against time to strengthen himself. Already a top student by nature, he absorbed every scrap of knowledge in the Malfoy Family Library even more diligently than ordinary people.

Skylar had always been close to Dobby. After several years of persistent pleading, he finally persuaded Dobby when he was five to take him by Apparition into the Chamber of Secrets beneath the family's drawing room while the entire family was away.

Because the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets was sealed by layers upon layers of protective magic, no one could enter without the correct unlocking spell. However, protective magic in the wizarding world had a loophole: it did not account for the magic of creatures they considered inferior, such as House Elves. That was why Skylar could rely on Dobby's unique elf magic to enter the Chamber of Secrets.

Several skulls emitting an eerie phosphorescent glow hung from the ceiling, filling the dim chamber with faint light. Rows of shelves lined all four walls, packed with strange objects that clearly bore traces of the Dark Arts: pitch-black skulls, bloodstained daggers, grotesque masks, rusted chains, and more.

None of these items came with any explanation, so Skylar knew nothing about their names or how they were used.

Skylar moved cautiously through the cramped chamber. Ever careful, he tried his best to avoid accidentally touching anything. This was no joke. Even someone like Dumbledore could die from carelessly touching Voldemort's cursed object. Since his father had once been a Death Eater, Skylar was certain that Lucius had collected no small number of such terrifying Dark Arts items.

Among the countless objects, Skylar recognized one of them. It was an old-fashioned Diary with a black cover, utterly ordinary in appearance, like a commonplace diary from the Muggle world. Tom Riddle's name was written on it.

Skylar knew that this was Voldemort's first Horcrux. With his current strength, he would not recklessly touch it and bring trouble upon himself.

After briefly sweeping his gaze over those terrifying Dark Arts items, Skylar went to the corner reserved for books. The books there were especially ancient, and some covers were so worn that even the words on them could no longer be identified. From the piles of books, Skylar selected three magic books: Dark Potions, Fallen Creatures, and Arbatel Volume I.

The three books looked extremely old from the outside, and much of their content was even written in Ancient Runic Magic Symbols.

Skylar then found the family's inherited spell notes in a hidden compartment. They recorded secret spells passed down only through the family's direct line, so he had Dobby make him a copy. Since young wizards in Britain were not allowed to possess wands before the age of eleven, Skylar could only copy down the principles and methods of casting the spells in advance. He could not truly learn to use them yet.

[Dark Potions obtained! Fallen Creatures obtained! Arbatel Volume I obtained!]

[Malfoy Family Spells obtained!]

With his arms full of spoils, Skylar was just about to leave in satisfaction when he inadvertently caught sight of a dusty, battered hourglass in the corner. If not for the faint magical fluctuations his Magic Eye detected on it, its old appearance would never have drawn anyone's attention.

In the magical world, hourglasses, pocket watches, and similar objects that emitted magical fluctuations usually meant only one thing—time magic had been attached to them!

Filled with excitement, Skylar packed up the hourglass as well. He then summoned Dobby and used the elf's unique magic to create replicas of the magic books and hourglass, placing the fakes back where they had been. Only after carefully erasing every trace did he and Dobby leave by Apparition.

[Time-Turner obtained!]

That was right. This Time-Turner was an original model passed down from the Middle Ages. In the sequel to the original story, when all known Time-Turners had been completely destroyed, Lucius had still been able to have Theodore Nott create two brand-new Time-Turners from scratch. Nott might have had some talent, but Skylar had always doubted that Nott could make a Time-Turner without a sample or reference blueprint.

At that moment, Skylar confirmed the suspicion from his previous life—Lucius had possessed an ancient Time-Turner all along, and Nott had merely used it as a blueprint to improve it into a more practical version.

Time magic was one of the most mysterious magical fields. Skylar knew that time magic had many rules, and he had no desire to trigger terrifying consequences by breaking them.

Although this oldest Time-Turner could only send Skylar back one hour each time he turned it, that was more than enough for him. All he needed was more time to read and study, much like Hermione's overloaded course schedule in her third year in the original story. To obtain such a cheat at the very beginning, Skylar could not help but marvel at how lucky he was.

Though the Time-Turner had no limit on the number of uses, overly frequent use still burdened the body. Just like Hermione in the original story, he would eventually have to give it up due to exhaustion. Therefore, Skylar only turned the hourglass four times each day, using the extra four hours to study and immersing himself in reading and learning day after day.

There were more than a hundred books in the library, but with the Time-Turner's help, Skylar had finished reading the entire collection by the time he was nine, possessing an amount of knowledge beyond the reach of ordinary people.

As for those three Dark Arts books, Skylar did not intend to touch them for the time being. Dark Arts books were usually dangerous by nature, and recklessly handling them with his current strength would be rash and foolish. As for the Malfoy Family Spells, although Skylar had never practiced them, he had already memorized every step and detail of their casting.

With nothing else to do, Skylar began entertaining crooked ideas again.