The Smith family manor was a fortress of silence, buried under a thick shroud of Highland snow that muffled the outside world. Inside the master study, the atmosphere was heavy with the scent of old parchment and cold tea. Gerber Smith sat motionless at his mahogany desk, the flickering candlelight dancing off the rows of memory vials that lined the cabinets behind him. Each silvery thread in those bottles represented a secret, a legacy, or a life—the collective weight of the Wildsmith inheritance.
A soft, rhythmic scratching at the door broke his concentration. A house-elf, dressed in a crisp, tea-towel toga bearing the Smith crest, stepped inside with a deep bow.
"Master, the guests have breached the outer wards. They will be at the hearth in five minutes," the elf squeaked.
Gerber didn't look up immediately. He rubbed his weary eyes. This manor was one of the best-kept secrets in the wizarding world. To the Ministry, it didn't exist. To the rest of the Smith clan, it was a ghost story. Only the inner circle—the true heirs of the Wildsmith name—knew how to find the path through the snow.
"Understood," Gerber rasped. He reached for his teacup, found it cold and bitter, and drained it anyway. The caffeine did little to settle the gnawing unease in his gut. He stood up, his joints popping like dry kindling, and made his way toward the Great Hall.
He arrived just as the fireplace beneath the massive marble mantel erupted. A pillars of emerald-green flame roared upward, and Bard Broad stepped out, stooping slightly to clear the hearth. He was followed almost immediately by Tiberius Ogden and Morg MacDougall.
"The internal Floo?" Gerber asked, his voice echoing in the vast hall. "You're taking a massive risk. The Ministry's surveillance on the network has been tightening since the Quidditch fiasco."
"The Ministry doesn't monitor the Hogwarts-to-Manor line," Bard Broad replied, brushing soot from his heavy travelling cloak. He looked older than he had a month ago, the shadows under his eyes deeper. "Besides, some things shouldn't be whispered in corridors, even magically silenced ones."
Morg MacDougall nodded grimly. "Everyone is here. Let's get to the point. We don't have much time before the castle wards register our absence."
Gerber led them into a smaller, more intimate drawing room. A house-elf appeared silently, deposited a tray of firewhiskey and oatcakes, and vanished before the door even clicked shut.
Bard Broad didn't waste time with pleasantries. He pulled a letter from his pocket—the very letter Albert had sent him regarding the discovery of Ravenclaw's Secret Chamber—and tapped it with his wand. The parchment smoothed itself out, the ink glowing faintly.
"It's about Rowena," Bard said, his eyes scanning the faces of the other three. "How much of the 'Big Picture' has she actually pieced together?"
The room went cold, and it wasn't because of the snow outside.
"She's a Smith, Bard," Gerber said, his voice flat. "She grew up in a house built on riddles. She might not have been chosen for the inner circle, but she's spent her life digging through the family archives. If she's found the references to the Wildsmith line in Ravenclaw's notes, she knows we're more than just a family of scholars."
"It's not just what she knows," Morg MacDougall added, his voice trembling slightly. "It's what she might do. Don't forget what happened to Brair."
The mention of Brair MacDougall—Isabel and Katrina's father—brought a heavy, suffocating silence to the room. Officially, Brair had died in a tragic experimental accident involving a miscalculated Transfiguration. Unofficially, the circle had always suspected Rowena's hand in the 'accident.' Brair had been a candidate for the Wildsmith inheritance, and Rowena had been his primary rival. When he died, the seat remained vacant, and Rowena was eventually bypassed for being 'unstable.'
"She's obsessed," Tiberius Ogden grunted, swirling his drink. "She feels cheated of her birthright. And now, we have two of the most promising candidates in decades sitting right under her nose at Hogwarts. Albert Anderson and Isabel Macdougall. If she decides that she can't have the legacy, she might decide that no one else will either."
"She's leaving Hogwarts in a few months," Morg said. "Her contract as a substitute ends with the spring term. We just need to ensure nothing 'accidental' happens before then."
"I'll watch them," Gerber Smith said, his tone shifting to something much harder, more ancestral. "Rowena is my blood, but the Wildsmith name is my soul. If she crosses the line... if she threatens the new generation... I will handle it. No one is above the circle."
"And the Bronze Book?" Tiberius asked. "The one Albert found in the chamber?"
"Tell him to put it back," Bard Broad instructed. "Once Rowena is clear of the castle, he can return it. It's too dangerous to have it circulating while she's on the warpath."
The meeting broke up shortly after. One by one, the wizards stepped back into the green flames, vanishing toward their respective hidden hearths. Gerber remained by the window, watching the sleet turn into a full-blown blizzard.
"What are you hunting for, Rowena?" he whispered to the glass. "And are you prepared for what happens when you catch it?"
While the elders were debating the fate of the wizarding world, Albert was busy in the Room of Requirement, engaged in a far more practical, and arguably more dangerous, form of magic.
He was wearing heavy-duty dragon-hide gloves, earplugs pushed deep into his ear canals, and a pair of enchanted earmuffs on top of that. The silence was absolute, save for the rhythmic thumping of his own heart.
On the table before him sat a jar of heavy brine. Using a pair of silver tongs, he reached inside and pulled out a shriveled, blackened object. It was a salt-pickled Mandrake root.
After months of dehydration and chemical treatment, the root no longer looked like a screaming baby. It looked like a mummified nightmare—a twisted, gnarled piece of wood with features that suggested a life ended in a state of absolute, unadulterated fury.
Albert took his 'Honesty Detector'—the thin, sensitive rod used to detect magical residues—and touched the root. The rod didn't just vibrate; it shrieked with a silent, visible frequency that made the air around it shimmer. The Mandrake had died with a "grievance," and that grievance had been preserved in its vocal cords. It was no longer a plant; it was a Dark Arts battery.
A few feet away, a lab rat in a cage had already gone limp the moment the jar was opened. Albert didn't know if it was dead or just deeply unconscious, and frankly, he didn't have the time to check.
He moved with the precision of a surgeon. He picked up the silver "lighter" casing he had been working on. Inside, the honeycomb cylinder was waiting, its internal space expanded by a flawless Undetectable Extension Charm.
He carefully slid the mummified Mandrake into the leather-lined sleeve—made from the hide of a Swamp Digger to dampen the vibration—and lowered it into the silver container. He felt a faint, thrumming resistance, as if the device itself was trying to scream, but the silver seals held firm.
With a final twist of a jeweler's screwdriver, the Banshee's Wail was complete.
Albert didn't remove his earmuffs immediately. He sat there for a full minute, watching the device. No sound leaked out. No cracks appeared in the silver. Slowly, he peeled back the earmuffs, then the earplugs.
The Room of Requirement was silent.
He breathed a sigh of relief that felt like it had been held for an hour. If the seal had failed, he wouldn't have just been knocked out; he would have been found by the twins the next morning, probably with permanent brain damage. He had left a set of emergency instructions on his desk just in case, including a specific antidote recipe, but he was glad he didn't have to find out if Fred could actually follow a potion recipe under pressure.
He picked up a piece of parchment from the hearth—the 'In Case I Die' note—and tossed it into the fire. He watched it curl into ash.
He poked the finished device with the Honesty Detector again. This time, there was no reaction. The insulation was perfect. To any magical sensor, the Banshee's Wail looked like a harmless piece of Muggle silver.
"Self-defense," Albert murmured, turning the cool metal over in his hand.
It wasn't a standard Dark Arts tool, which was why no new skill had popped up on his system panel. But in terms of practical utility, it was perhaps the most dangerous thing he had ever created. It was an indiscriminate, non-lethal (mostly) weapon that could end a duel before the opponent could even draw their wand.
He thought of Fred and George. They had been practically begging to test his latest invention. A small, slightly devilish smile crossed Albert's face.
Well, he thought, they did say they wanted to be the first to try it. Who am I to deny my friends the opportunity to contribute to science?
He tucked the silver device into his pouch, right next to his wand. The snow continued to rattle against the walls of the castle, but inside the hidden room, Albert felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the fire. He was ready for whatever Rowena, or the Ministry, or the Slytherins had planned. After all, it's hard to plot against someone when you're fast asleep on the floor. 🏰🌙💀