Fleur and Harry saw a narrow-looking passage appearing in the place of the orb where they had dripped their mixed blood.

Neither of them spoke anything as they took a synergistic breath before they started walking forward. With each step they took, they left a drop of blood that fell from their conjoined hands that they were tightly holding on to.

“There is some sort of shield…” Harry noticed a blue sheen in the place of the previous wall and informed Fleur.

“I can see too, ‘Arry. Let’s just keep going.” Fleur was working on her intuition as she decided to go in headfirst. Both of them stepped inside the membrane in tandem and stopped for a moment. They saw a dark corridor that just went straight.

“Lumos.” They both cast the spell and the tips of their wands lit up. The corridor was completely empty with no end in sight so they kept walking.

“I’m not sure if this was the best idea…” Harry said as he glanced back. He sighed in relief when he saw that the way back hadn’t disappeared or been blocked.

“The blood made it creepy, didn’t it…” Fleur knew the issue with the place.

“Exactly. If it was just our sex fluids, I would be sure that it would be a special Veela heritage or something that your Grandmother left for you, but the blood just made things…” Harry said.

“Eerie,” Fleur completed for Harry, “I know. But we’ve come this far. And I doubt my grandmother would leave her old mansion with death traps for her descendants.”

“It could’ve been someone else.” He said.

“Unlikely. My grandma was the one who made this mansion and it doesn’t exactly have anything historical that would have value to truly strong dark wizards. And the whole mansion is covered with many protection wards like invisibility, shielding, and more, including anti-apparition. That’s why we appear in that horrendous courtyard every time. Thankfully, we can leave by apparition at any time, the restriction is only on apparating in.” She told him as her tone was gradually getting weaker.

“Let’s heal up.” He instantly noticed Fleur’s weakness and stopped there.

“I can still go on.” She said.

“We’ve left a long enough trail of blood,” Harry said as he glanced back at the drops of their blood left on the floor, “We can heal up now.”

As he separated his palm from Fleur, she hissed, feeling the burn of the wound as the air hit it. Harry ignored his own pain and gave Fleur the Blood-Replenishing Potion as he started casting some basic healing spells that his mother had taught him. They would make sure that her wound was mended without leaving any scars.

As Fleur saw his hurried actions, she just gave him a loving yet concerned look as she downed the potion, “It’s your turn now.” She said. Her palm was already healed and she just needed some natural recovery to fix things.

“Just a moment,” Harry wasn’t satisfied and kept casting more spells to make sure there was no problem. Fleur had to put her hand over his wand to stop him, “I’m okay now, ‘Arry.” She said gently.

“Hm…” He nodded as he cast a couple of the same spells on his wound to mend it and stop the bleeding. He also drank a Blood-Replenishing Potion to get his lost blood back.

“Let’s continue,” Harry said as he grabbed Fleur’s hand again. He didn’t want something separating the two of them at some point.

After a couple of minutes of walking, Fleur said, “I don’t think we’re getting anywhere…”

“Yeah… I think this corridor is enchanted with a Confundus Charm.” Harry said as he stopped walking aimlessly.

“What do we do now?” Fleur asked.

“Conjure a shield around us,” Harry said with an undertone of annoyance.

“‘Arry, NO!” Fleur’s shout fell on deaf ears as Harry spoke, “Bombarda.”

She barely cast the shield before Harry cast multiple successive explosion spells all over the walls.

“‘Arry!” Fleur shouted at him after he stopped.

“I was annoyed, okay? There’s only so much patience I have… The constant puzzles-solving and thinking are annoying.” He told her with a shrug, “And I noticed that the walls were enchanted. Unless I cast the stronger Maxima spell, they wouldn’t be destroyed.

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“Ventus.” As Harry cast a wind spell to get dit of the dust, Fleur saw that the walls were only somewhat damaged, with cracks and gouges running along them. They could easily be fixed later with a simple Mending Charm.

“Low and behold,” Harry said as the door to the exit appeared in front of them.

“Fine…” Fleur begrudgingly accepted his actions, “You are such a brute sometimes…” She said with some frustration.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Harry’s words confused Fleur, she asked, “Is that supposed to be a common saying?”

“Yeah. Sirius likes using slang…” Harry explained, “Some of them stick…” He was a little embarrassed.

Fleur didn’t say anything as they both reached the door. Harry turned the handle and the door opened with a click.

As they both entered the room, Harry increased the intensity of his light spell and said, “Lumos Maxima.” That quickly illuminated the entire room. At the same time, multiple everlasting candles automatically flickered to light, illuminating the entire room clearly.

The first thing that Harry and Fleur noticed was the large clearing at the heart of the room, with a large circular platform, and a ritualistic arena in the center of the clearing. It was elevated, carved with a labyrinthine weave of symbols and runes. Every step leading up to it bore inscriptions, each line and curve seemed to whisper tales of a lost ancient language. It was an intricate masterpiece that emanated an eerie sense of power.

“Yeah, your grandmother was definitely more than a simple innocent and sexy Veela…” Harry commented while feeling a chill go down his spine. And that chill didn’t come from Fleur’s impassive gaze at him.

Moving his gaze away from what could only be considered a ritual platform, Harry’s gaze was drawn to what was supposed to be the ceiling.

It had been replaced by a mirror that enchanted the room in its ethereal glow, it reflected every detail of the room, amplifying the flicker of each candle into a soft, radiant light that filled every corner, every crevice of the expansive room.

The mirror, besides being a source of light, lent a sense of boundless space, a surreal touch to the ancient room.

The reflections that Harry saw in the mirror had an almost ephemeral yet timeless feel to them as if they were enchanted. Just as his gaze was about to go to Fleur’s reflection in the mirror, “Harry!” Fleur pulled Harry away from his musing about the ceiling.

“Hm?” He looked at Fleur and saw her concerned face, “What happened?” He asked her.

“You were distracted, I called you multiple times…” She said with a worried frown.

“Well, don’t look at the mirror ceiling for too long…” Harry told her with a wry smile as his gaze was drawn to a section that took up a little less than half of the room. It was on the left side of the ritual altar.

The area was an elevated enclave, almost a meter higher, partitioned from the rest of the room by a stately railing that spanned from one end of the room to the other. A lone door, at the center of the railing, invited one into this section, accessible only through a flight of steps that marked its threshold.

This was the library. Consisting of towering, majestic bookshelves of rich, dark wood, stretching ambitiously to brush against the mirrored ceiling. They were stuffed to the brim with a magnitude of books and scrolls that seemed to pulsate with an enchanting allure, casting a passive spell that Harry found himself almost incapable of resisting.

He cursed inwardly as he reinforced his Occlumency.

“Fleur…” He said and saw that she’d already taken a step toward the library. He yanked her back by her hand as she also came out of her reverie, “Let’s consciously keep our Occlumency up,” He told Fleur who nodded vigorously.

As Harry’s gaze examined the elevated library area and looked to the right side of the library, he gasped a little.

Adjacent to the section filled with shelves, separated by a thin, almost translucent partition, was a well-equipped laboratory.

The walls of the lab were awash with enclosed cabinets, each housing enumerable potion vials filled with liquids of every conceivable hue and consistency. All these vials were doubtlessly safeguarded by an array of potent preservation charms inscribed on the cabinets.

Hugging the wall beneath the cabinets stretched a long, seasoned workbench. This resilient surface, marred by burn marks and stains from past concoctions, extended from the ethereal partition separating the library and lab, right up to the far wall of this section.

Cauldrons, scales, and alembics sat alongside sets of mortar and pestles took their place on the right side of the table, while bunches of dried herbs hung overhead on the right wall, spanning the right side of the table, covering half of that wall.

The rest of that wall was dedicated to cabinets with magical creature parts, housing a variety of specimens.

On the other side, below the generous work surface, a set of large, double-fronted drawers hinted at a trove of additional supplies and equipment.

”How much do you want to bet that most of those parts are illegal?” Harry asked as he pointed to the area that had multiple jars that contained magical creature parts.

“My Grandmother was an upstanding citizen of society,” Fleur said with an offended tone.

“How much are you willing to bet on it?” Harry asked her with a smirk.

Fleur went quiet for a while, “…Nothing. They are definitely illegal. Look at those preservation charms…” Fleur chickened out. She had never met her grandmother, otherwise, she would have some concrete idea about the older woman, but all she knew about the woman came from her mother.

So, Fleur was more than willing to believe the signs that she was receiving. Her grandmother was probably someone who delved into many dark arts.

On the opposite side of the library was another elevated platform that mirrored the library area. It was a modest resting area. A large, plush armchair sat near a cozy fireplace, with a small table next to it, presumably to rest a cup of occasional tea. There was also an unassuming door that led to a bathing area and lavatory.

“What are the odds that my grandmother’s preferred choice of drink was Dragon Blood?” Fleur asked rhetorically as a joke.

“Pretty high…” Harry pointed toward a vintage-looking bar embedded in the wall beside the recreational area It had multiple shelves filled with labeled jars of multicolored liquids, red being the most dominant color of the liquid.

The other half of that resting area was completely bare as if someone had ripped out existing furniture and materials from there.

“That finalizes it…” Fleur sighed resignedly.

“…Your grandmother was a dark lord…” Harry nodded.