Ree involuntarily twitches at the sudden movement because before it was different, and he doesn’t have time to fully get used to such an innovation. Before he was transferred from the darkness into the grey mist, where he was allowed to collect himself, and only then was he switched on the memory scrolling or he carefully brought to memory if his viewing required broadcasting in normal time mode.

Such sharp, abrupt, unpleasant movement from the darkness immediately into the memories began after he became Ree, having made his choice that he wouldn’t accept any of the personalities – neither the one of the young man nor Harry’s one.

On the other side, I need to look for positive points in everything, and there’re two of them. One of them was that now I don’t need to start my day together with Harry, accompanying him wherever he goes and following him like a shadow all day before he goes to bed. Though all this happened with dizzying speed, but still watching the monotonous days follow one after another particularly stressed me out.

The second positive point was that they began to transfer me to fragments of only those memories that, in my opinion, contained the information I should know. That’s why such a change in memory watching is useful for me; there’s no need to litter my head with extra information.

This time he’s appeared again in Harry's office, near the desk at which he’s sitting. Only this time, Alrus is sitting in the chair opposite the table.

Well, finally, because when Alrus is absent, almost nothing interesting happens!

Ree becomes very glad and begins to listen to the conversation in the office.

“What can you tell me?” asks his son Harry.

“Everything is fine, father; I managed to do everything as I wanted, so now I am at your disposal.”

“I already understood that. I'm more interested in how much time you managed to get?”

“One month.”

“Ooooh! One month? I didn't expect you to have a month. Great, great!” he rubbed his hands in anticipation. “In that case, we’ll have enough time for you to be able to first look at and evaluate the secret protection system I created. Maybe you can give some good advice or see some flaws.”

Alrus laughed a low, deep laugh. Throwing back his head on the back of the armchair and looking at his father with admiration, he says:

“I knew that after learning about a month’s time, you’d come up with something else, so it for sure wouldn’t be enough. Well, let's go meet with your ferocious-scary secret, along with its protection”, having raised his armchair, he adds with irony in his voice. “Let’s not waste time when it’s so precious.”

“Yes, let's go now! I need… a little… just a little bit…” Harry starts muttering unintelligibly, fussily trying to write something on the scroll.

Once again, I feel that I‘m not quite the same as Harry; I wouldn’t have been so worried and feel nervous because of some secret ...

Albeit stop! How can I judge something I know nothing about? As well as about my attitude and behaviour if I were him? Because I completely don’t know myself. I guess it would be better to make such a decision. If I don’t know myself, then from this moment on, I will begin to know myself. And in the future try to stick to this decision.

Alrus, who is about to rise from his armchair, has heard his father’s muttering and has to sit down again, but before he can sit comfortably, his father throws back his feather vexedly, stands up abruptly, and quickly heads for the exit from the office.

When he opened the door, he stumbles out of the office and, at a brisk jogging speed, heads down the hall. And only after running away at a reasonable distance does he finally remember that he isn’t alone today, so he stops, turning around abruptly, and rushing back. But when he sees his son coming out of the door, so he stops, turns around, and only then freezes in place, unable to understand what to do next. He stands like that until Alrus comes up to him, holding a vial in his hand. Passing it to his father, he says:

 «Here, take a sedative; otherwise, I’m afraid that in such an unbalanced state you can do something ... even harm yourself.»

Having looked his son in the eyes, Harry gratefully nods to his son, takes a vial, drops three drops of his blood into it, and drinks. They stay a bit, wait for the potion to take effect, and move further down the hall.

***

Secrets can be different. Dangerous and not so dangerous, material and non- material, but every secret shares one thing: at all costs, they try to hide it. Someone succeeds, someone doesn’t. A lot here depends on the imagination and mental flexibility of the owner, but luck plays an even greater role in the concealment of a secret. If a fortune turns a man, then the secret, even if it’s poorly hidden, wouldn’t be found, and on the contrary, well-thought-out hiding and all the complex protection would be broken down if a fortune didn’t turn the owner of the secret.

But still, it’s easier for the owner of the secret in the form of a small thing to hide it because you can come up with many options for hiding places, but if the secret is a stationary object, then there’re very few options for hiding it.

So it’s not surprising that the passage to Harry’s secret is in the basement of the house, in one of its branches, behind the door leading to the warehouse, which is littered with old things from the category of those that are no longer needed, but it’s a pity to throw them away.

Gently skirting around the things scattered throughout the room, Harry came close to a huge wardrobe standing near the wall. Taking out his wand, he began to tap an intricate rhythm on the wardrobe door. A short pause, three more quick hits, and now the outline of the wardrobe changed, forming a passage to another room.

Ree has strained because, at the moment of opening the secret passage, he had a slight feeling of recognition that immediately disappeared, leaving him not even a small part of itself so that he could later try to remember it.

But pain has settled in his soul, and with it comes a belated regret that he hasn’t accepted Harry’s personality. Having harnessed his willpower, Ree discards unnecessary worries and hurries after Alrus.

The secret passage leads to a small square room in which all that is available are two similar doors. Harry makes a step towards one of them, stops, and, having turned to this so, says:

“For realism, we will play such a situation. You - it doesn’t matter how- “convinced” me to show a secret. I’ve led you to this door, assuring you that the secret is located behind it. What will you do?”

“Somehow this is unexpected ...,” - Alrus drawls distantly after a short pause, taking out his wand and continuing to think hard about something.

After that, tapping his wand on the shoulder, he walks around the perimeter of the room, carefully examining the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. Having returned to his father and standing in front of him, he says:

“You didn't quite set the task right.”

“And how should I do it?” with interest in his eyes, his father asks, being extremely interested in this matter.

“You see, father, if I, as you have said “convinced you to show me a secret”, he emphasises the last sentence. “Then you yourself must demonstratively switch off the traps set here so that they won’t harm you if they go off.”

“And why must I switch them demonstratively?”

“In order to show me now, acting as an evildoer that you’re ready for cooperation, only I haven’t seen when you managed to switch the traps off.”

“Because I have no traps in this room,” Harry says with irritation.

After these statements, Alrus freezes for several seconds with astonishment, looking at the father. Then, having shaken off the freeze, he cautiously asks:

“Do you think the secret passage is sufficient protection?”

 “No, besides the secret passage, I have traps and protection, just not in this room.”

Having heard his father’s answer, Alrus nods, showing that he has heard him, and immerses himself in thoughts. Having emerged from them for some time, he clarifies.

“I can do magic without fear for my life, can’t I?”

“Yes.”

After that, Alrus begins casting various diagnostic spells, inspecting the entire room thoroughly.  After the end of the examination, he shakes his head and says:

“Really, there’re no traps. But still, I was able to detect something, and it’s located here,” he indicates with a wand on the wall near the door from the knob side at eye level.

“And here!” he utters, going away to another door and pointing to the same spot on the wall, commenting:

“If we don't talk about the various spells on the doors, those are the only two places that stand out against the general background. But knowing your developments, I may assume with confidence that there’re the mage-panels you designed.”

“I can't even see the slightest hindrance that would indicate the presence of the mage-panels with my diagnostic spells. And you found them just like that, on the run. As I understand it, I don't know this version of diagnostic charms. What else don't I know about you, son?”

The father’s question for a moment has made a son feel slightly embarrassed, but he quickly recovers and calmly answers:

“A lot, father! And not just because I keep things from you, but also because you don’t want to know more. Yes, you don’t know this spell because it’s a new development of your grandson.”

Because of the son’s words, Harry’s face becomes gloomy. And in order not to allow his father to become even more upset, Alrus swifts to distract him.

“Without relevant information, I can't judge the traps set or the level and complexity of your protection. Nor can I speak for other evildoers, for their reaction to the fact that there’re no traps in this room. But my intuition, if I were them, would immediately yell, warning of the danger.”

“I don’t quite understand what exactly would alarm you” a father inquires.

“You see, father, for me, everything looks like this. Even if you hadn't just  told me that there’re traps next door, the mere fact that there’re no traps in this room would alert me, warning me that it's nonstandard protection, hence the traps are non-standard too.

 After that, I would think hard about whether I could disarm these clearly non-standard traps and break an equally non-standard protection. Maybe it’s better to refuse this secret and do a runner before it’s too late?”

“And so what? Would you leave everything without even trying? ”

“Well, first, I'm not going to rob, and I haven't had much experience like this, so I can't say for sure what I would do in this or that situation. Secondly, the preliminary survey and information I would get before going out in the country would play a significant role in my decision to take the risk or not.”

“Please try to imagine, at least somehow, Alrus, what you would do next in this situation,” Harry has asked with a smile of the Cheshire cat on his face.

“All right, I would try. First of all, I would first increase my vigilance, then, for reliability, I would put on you an artefact suppressing the will.”

“Yeah...”- Harry has scratched the back of his head, “but you... I'm shocked.”

  After a short silence and coming to his senses, Harry asks:

“Son, tell me, when you got into this room together with me, how would you know that there weren’t any traps? In the event I decide not to demonstrate their switching off?”

“You forgot about the spell that shows magic traps, didn’t you? It was invented a couple of years ago; we already spoke with you about it.”

“I completely forgot about it,” Harry repents. “But how would you discover them? Because today, before using spells in this room, you clarified about a possible threat in the case of using magic.”

“And what are you for?”

“?!”

Alrus has sighed heavily and explains:

“I would make you cast a spell on the room, showing magic traps.”

“And you wouldn’t give me a wand? And if I attacked you?”

“With spells of double slow-down put on you?”

“Damn, son, do you, by chance, experiment with crime?”

“No,” Alrus laughs merrily. “It’s just a hobby of my son. Once he asked for help in some matters, and I helped him. So unnoticed for me, it became my hobby also, to design protection and traps for exact tasks from the scratch.

  First, we develop protection and traps according to specified parameters, each of us separately; then, we create a specimen; and then I, if we test my son's development, I try to break the protection and neutralise the traps.

   That's how we've been having fun with my son for many years, and in order to successfully break the protection created by my son and neutralise traps of varying difficulty, I had to learn to put myself in the burglar's shoes, learn to think and act like a burglar, so gradually I developed a criminal perception and thinking.”

“Really? I didn’t think it was possible.”

On this, Alrus just shrugs, showing that he doesn’t want to continue disputes on this matter, which leads to Harry not starting to develop this topic, and he speaks about the other theme.