203: Chapter 203 Underground Stone Chamber

"Dungeon? You've finally remembered there's a door that bites locked away beneath the old house?"

The door knocker slammed itself against the door panel. "I thought you were planning to entrust your life to that broken cracked pocket watch first, and then ask the ancestors if they had any objections."

Allen dimmed the lights in the study, where his phantom image continued to hunch over, writing an essay.

His real self stood before the narrow stairs leading underground, holding only his blackthorn wand and three knuts. His Portable Space had shrunk to the smallest possible gap, guarding the ebony box in the void, with Peter pressed into the recording position.

The family crest floated on the wall. "Outer ring of the underground containment area has registered the subject's authority. The inner old door requires triple confirmation: Potter bloodline, branch key position, and head of family permission. Risks: time affinity record contamination, consciousness loss residue."

The door knocker sneered. "Hear that? Even the door is better at writing warnings than you are."

Allen pressed his fingertips against the family crest. "Open the outer ring."

The lights below the stone steps flickered on one by one. He had explored the outer layer after returning during the summer break; the old containment area had doors with worn-off symbols and traces of clock faces, but he had never entered the innermost part. Dumbledore had mentioned the Dungeon in the Headmasters Office last year, leaving his words half-finished, as if waiting for him to step into it himself.

The door knocker followed, landing on the projection of the door frame. "Why not invite the Principal to cut the ribbon?"

"To invite him to split the inheritance?" Allen walked down the steps. "Save your energy."

The surface of the old door had no lock, only the Potter Family crest and a dial with missing hands. Allen pressed three knuts into the stone crevice in front of the door to confirm his retreat path, then guided the bloodline contract to his fingertips. The door knocker, the family crest, and the golden pattern on the north side of the Portable Space lit up simultaneously.

The door opened.

Behind the door was a circular stone chamber, with the floor half a foot lower than the outer layer. The walls were carved with ancient runes, many strokes of which had been artificially worn shallow, but the remaining parts still revealed words like 'space monitoring', 'time verification', and 'forbidden to open'. In the center was an empty pedestal; the edge of the pedestal had four fixing slots, shaped close to the size of the cracked pocket watch shell, but with two extra side clips.

Peter gasped in the Portable Space. "Your family really does have a Time Platform."

The door knocker immediately scolded him. "Shut up, rat. You've seen a few dirty tables and now you dare to name things in the old house?"

Allen did not touch the pedestal. He first had the family crest read the walls. Silver lines crawled along the runes, intermittently projecting old records. Hogwarts eastern waterway monitoring, branch key position retained, Chamber of Secrets seal verification. Further down, the handwriting broke off, and content related to time had been largely scraped away.

On the right side of the stone chamber was a low cabinet, with the Potter Family crest pressed onto the cabinet door. Allen opened it using his bloodline; inside, there was only a thin booklet, with the cover labeled 'Family Memorandum Appendix: Branch Time Affinity Anomaly Records'.

The iron voice of the door knocker lowered. "I haven't seen this booklet before."

"That means someone in the past didn't want the door knocker to see it." Allen turned to the first page.

The appendix had no stories, only names, years of birth, abnormal manifestations, and handling results. The first person was recorded in the sixteenth century; as a child, they could foresee the doorbell ringing three breaths later, and as an adult, they attempted to look back at the day of their grandfather's death, becoming mute three days later and only repeating the same sentence for seven years.

The second person was recorded in the seventeenth century; they walked into the "Golden River" in their sleep, and upon waking, could describe a future rainstorm, disappearing three months later just before that same rainstorm. Family note: consciousness lost in the flow of time, physical body withered after surviving for twenty-one days.

Next to the third person, it was written 'excessive fusion'. Allen turned to the bottom; the cause of death column had only two words: 'disintegration'.

The door knocker went quiet.

Peter was also quiet for a few seconds, then laughed dryly. "Your Potter Family writes about madmen so decently. If a Death Eater did this, it would have been called Dark Arts long ago."

The tail tip of the void tapped the cage, and Peter immediately shut up.

Allen continued to flip through. Most of the records in the appendix were incomplete, with many names followed only by short phrases like "lethargy", "hypothermia", "early warning", "blue light", or "refused recycling". Every few pages, the same type of conclusion appeared: excessive fusion, consciousness loss, external time tributary contamination.

He stopped at the last page.

His father's name was written at the very end. Abnormal fetal movement before birth, the mother dreamt of a cracked pocket watch ticking. During the fetal stage, he showed weak time affinity; after birth, occasional early warnings occurred before the age of three, which subsided after adulthood. Handling result: observation ended, did not enter the inner stone chamber.

The door knocker cursed softly. "James didn't come in?"

"My father's branch." Allen looked at the name. "It's not James."

The family crest added, "Subject: Father, Branch: Potter. The record was artificially inserted into the last page; the ink year is two years before his death."

Allen's fingertips paused on the edge of the paper. The four words 'subsided after adulthood' were written very lightly, as if the recorder was comforting themselves. If the talent really subsided, the pedestal would not have been empty after 1981.

The door knocker immediately grasped the main point. "Two years ago, someone was still investigating your father. Around the time you were born, someone in the old house had tampered with the appendix."

Allen made a rubbing of his father's record. "Check for traces of modification."

The family crest's silver lines split into three layers, scanning the paper, the cabinet door, and the pedestal. After a few breaths, the silver lines stopped in front of the pedestal. In the center of the pedestal was a circle of lighter wear marks, as if a round object had been placed there for a long time. There was gold powder residue in the four fixing slots, the composition of which was close to the gold threads on the cover of the cracked pocket watch.

Inside the ebony box, the cracked pocket watch made a short sound. The tail tip of the void pressed down, but a sliver of blue light still shone through the gap.

Peter's voice was airy. "Don't take it out. Time relics will call out to each other. You just finished reading the causes of death; do you want to lie on it and add another line?"

Allen isolated and thickened the ebony box. "I won't take it out."

He looked at the small nameplate next to the pedestal. Half of the nameplate was burned away, and the remaining words were only 'Verifier', 'Branch', and 'Must Not Be Taken Away'. Below that was a line for a date slot, which was empty.

"Something was once placed on the pedestal." Allen dropped the knuts at the entrance of the stone chamber. "The object was taken, the records were burned, and the appendix was altered. The order isn't right."

The door knocker asked, "Should we check the pedestal first, or seal the door first?"

"Check who took it first." Allen stored the appendix into the thin wall of the Portable Space, but did not take it out of the stone chamber, only making a rubbing. "Leave the original booklet in its original place. If the old house is searched, missing an item will be eye-catching."

The family crest agreed. "Rubbing sealed. Original booklet returned to place. The record of opening the inner stone chamber has been written into the head of family's private file; it is unreadable from the outside."

Before leaving, Allen took one more look at his father's name. Weak time affinity during the fetal stage, subsided after adulthood. Yet the cracked pocket watch ticked in his hands, space expanded during sleep, and the old Hogwarts door responded to the branch key position.

"The subsidence is fake." He said in a low voice.

The door knocker didn't scold him, replying only after two breaths. "Then investigate who wrote the lies."

The stone door closed, and the clock face traces on the door turned a small fraction. The golden pattern on the north side of the Portable Space flashed, as if responding to the empty spot on the pedestal.

After returning to the study, Allen changed the archive title to 'Potter Branch Time Affinity Death Records'. The first line below: previous warnings are valid. Second line: pedestal is empty. Third line: father's record was altered.

Peter hugged his arms in the cage. "Do you still need to train in seventy-two hours?"

Allen put down his quill. "First, investigate what was placed on the pedestal."

The door knocker uncharacteristically didn't respond. Under the study lamp, the last page of the appendix rubbing pressed against his father's name, and the empty space next to it was just enough to write down a new cause of death.