“For some reason, I thought that for the evildoer going with me would be completely unimportant if there’re traps in this room or not.”

And you're telling me, no, you're demonstrating to me that if an evildoer would think like you, the absence of traps in this room would alert him and give him information to think about. And if that would happen, such an evildoer could become very dangerous to me. I have absolutely no desire to expose myself to unnecessary danger,” and quietly, to himself, “I've had enough of it in my youth.”

And already, addressing Alrus in a normal voice:

“I’ve felt what you want to tell me. Really, it’s a remiss of me; in the near future, we'll have to get busy setting traps.”

“I will help you, father.”

“Thank you, Alrus!”

“Don’t thank me too soon.”

“Yes, yes, you're right,” Harry speaks too hastily, turning away from his son.

   Alrus shakes his head sadly. Father often shows emotion, but there has never been he is embarrassed about it. Why does it manifest? He asks himself a question. Does it happen because of the appearance of a mystery in his life? Or because of his age? He will soon be eighty years old. By the way, it's a round anniversary;  I need to think of something to present him, Alrus noted to himself. And he continues his interrupted thought. But eighty years for a mage is not such a great age. Or maybe, all together, the presence of a mystery and age led him to emotional instability? Or perhaps there's something I don't know? Anything is possible.

Harry, having mastered with his feelings, returns to the son and, in a deliberately cheerful tone, asks:

“Is it all? Or have you seen some other drawbacks?”

“No, I can’t think of anything,” and in this moment, his eye falls on the neighbouring door. “Wait!” he stops the father, willing to say something. “I didn’t ask you about what’s behind the second door?”

“There’re two laboratories for artefact science and potion making.”

“Laboratories for artefact science and potion making,” echoes Alrus his father. “It reminds me of something; it certainly does. Ah, I remember! In one of the books I presented to you, there’re calculations for a plurality of rooms connected by a single door. Are you saying that you managed to make something like this?”

“Yes!” Harry says with pride for himself and his achievements. “Both doors in this part open the passage to several rooms.

“I also thought about creating something like this but   never got around to. If memory serves, then any thinking creature can get in the first room and speaking about the rest – only their owner and those whom he allowed to do this.

“Yes, you’re right; that’s why both rooms are designed the same, like a warehouse for artefacts. Along the walls, the shelves are standing on which different materials, defective articles, as well as artefacts that are unnecessary for various reason, but haven’t lost their value, are placed. Can you define that the abundance of things lying on the racks serves as a cover for laboratories?” smiling broadly father replies.

“Well, we have two doors that have similar protection and lead to two similarly designed rooms. Yes, I don't envy the thief. Go and find out which of the two rooms to enter. Well, father, accept my sincerest congratulations!”

“Thank you,” says Harry gratefully, smiling happily.

“How and what traps have you set in the warerooms?”

“Only one trap is placed in each room,” somewhat confused says Harry, “so it turns out I’ve made here the same mistake?”

   Alrus just shrugs his shoulders in silence and asks:

“What intricate trap have you set that you didn’t cover with the presence of other traps?”

“The trap is created on the basis of non-mages’ technology; no searching spells can find it. I checked it,” he’s thought for a moment, then continues “I suppose a spell that manifests magic traps won't find it, either?”

On this, Alrus just nods yes, his eyes encouraging his father to continue.

“It’s triggered by the weight of a person stepping on one of the slabs, scattered randomly along the racks. The pressure activates the stasis artefact closest to the slab, which, along with the other artefacts, are on the racks.”

“What about you?”

“These particular stasis artefacts were designed and made by myself,” proudly states Harry, a little bit protruding his chest, but having seen that his son hasn’t evaluated his humour, fizzles out and, already without fanfare, adds:

“Everything is simple; these artefacts I made tied to my aura, so stasis won't affect me.”

“Great. A nice trap. You figured out the rest.”

 ”Yes, I can see that now!” he says irritably. “I invented a good trap, but I didn’t think about the fact that it should be covered in order not to alert the evildoer. Now that you’ve rubbed my nose in it, it becomes obvious. And I realise now that I would have been alarmed, too, by the fact that there’re absolutely no traps in one room or the other. What kind of  secret is this that isn’t hidden and protected? So I’m cheating him somewhere.”

“The conclusion is that the secret is elsewhere,” Alrus continues the father’s  line of thought.

  Harry just shakes his head with sadness at his son's words.

“Don’t be upset, father! Nothing happened; smart evildoer hasn’t come to you. We’ll handle the rest.”

On this, the father beams and says:

“As they say, you need to look at everything with a fresh look in order to see the defects. So you did it. I’m glad, very glad I decided to show you the protection system of the secret.

The son just nods, agreeing with the obvious fact, and his father continues:

 “Well, in that case, let’s continue! If the evildoer willing to know other people's secrets wouldn’t buy into the artefacts located in the room or would be able to find the mage-panel hidden in the wall as you did and try to use it, then in this case I have something else,” Harry says, and turning to face the door takes his wand and casting a spell on the wall.

The wall has shivered, and the mage-panel protrudes in the surface. The resemblance with the non-mage’s code-panel is that the vertical surfaces of both panels have buttons. If non-mage’s panels have figures, then figures of mage’s panels are replaced with runes.

Nine runes are individually selected by the customer, and below the buttons there’s a plate for the cast recipient, which the owner of a mage-panel chooses and records as an additional code. This is the second level of protection, and the third level is a small recess next to the plate, in the depth of which a barely visible needle sticks out to draw blood.

Harry, as usual, presses a code on the mage-panel and then reaches the door’s knob to open it when his son stops him.

“Wait, you forgot to enter the spell and leave a drop of your blood for identification.”

Pause. The puzzled look on Harry's face, coupled with a sly smile, has made Alrus wary, then snicker, and after assessing everything correctly, he speaks, his words confirming that he’s understood everything from his father's clue. 

“Since you've now missed the two operations required to be entered on a standard mage panel, there's a valid reason for that, right?

“Yes.”

Having looked at the father once again, Alrus shakes his head in agreement, then not aristocratically scratches the back of his head and says:

“Good thinking, father! If I didn’t wait for a catch plus the absence of the trap in this room and if you wouldn’t be smiling mysteriously now, all together led me to the suggestion that…”

Having stopped speakingm Alrus begins to step the distance from wall to wall, reasoning aloud:

 “If you execute the operations you’ve missed on purpose now, that's it! Good thinking, father; I'm thrilled! If I understand correctly, the second level of protection will be switched on. Which won't be so easy to break in the end.”

“Impossible,” he corrects his son.

“What?” Alrus doesn’t understand the father.

 “It would be impossible to break into the second level of protection. Because even I, who know where and what to do, would need several days to switch it off. That's why I corrected you that the second level of protection is not simple; as you said, it’s impossible to break. Because its components are hidden in different parts of the manor.”

“Well, you’re really paranoid! I can't wait to know what this mystery is that requires so much complex protection.”

“You'll be paranoid too when you know it.”

“It’s good”, Alrus says, frowning, “but here’s what I don't like. You can protect the secret, but who would protect you from the evildoer when he would understand that the secret has slipped away from his hands? What would you do when you're near him without your wand?”

In reply, Harry just fervently winks and then decisively opens a door and steps into a dark doorway.