Chapter 60

Ryan made the most of the last day of vacation. It was pure productivity.

After Tristin left, he spent the first half of the day fully focused on the system books and on creating the rapid-reading glasses commissioned by the Ministry.

At noon, during his lunch break, Mr. Morrigan returned with the official purchase order and a bag containing the 320 galleons they had agreed upon. The meeting was brief, no more than twenty minutes.

Ryan read every document carefully before signing. Once the deal was formalized, he handed over the four finished pairs of glasses. The remaining two would be sent from Hogwarts within five days, and he would receive the second payment of 180 galleons once that delivery was completed.

When Mr. Morrigan left, Ryan placed the galleons inside his black coin purse, the one he used exclusively for his personal fortune. On the outside, it looked like an ordinary worn leather purse, but in reality it was enchanted with an Extension Charm: a magical pocket that held more than five thousand galleons, impossible to fit in any normal purse.

He knew carrying that much money was risky. He could have stored it in Gringotts, but he disliked the idea of having his gold out of reach. Besides, he had designed the purse with multiple security runes, even offensive ones that would activate if anyone other than him tried to open it. Still, it wasn’t invulnerable. With time, skill, and knowledge, an expert wizard could eventually break through its defenses.

That’s why, that afternoon, he resolved to finish the storage ring. He knew that if he managed to complete it successfully, he could store his money there with complete safety. No such ring existed in the wizarding world.

So even if someone stole it, no one would know what it was for, or how to activate it. Only the bearer could open it, either by will or a secret password. Not even Dumbledore could access its contents, no matter how long he held the ring in his wrinkled hands.

After saying goodbye to Mr. Morrigan, Ryan went up to his room and worked nonstop for three hours. By 3:30 p.m., he had finished crafting the x2 reading glasses, just one more to go before completing the second order.

After that, he spent an hour reviewing the theory of storage rings. He had key pages highlighted, went over rune diagrams, and re-checked the most common mistakes in the final stages of magical binding.

At 4:30 p.m., he went down to the kitchen to share a snack with his mother. They talked and laughed, it was a peaceful moment he appreciated. Then he returned to his room with a single goal in mind: to begin the second-to-last session for the ring.

The clock read 5:01 p.m. He knew that session could take up to three hours, meaning he’d finish around 8:01 if everything went well.

And it did.

He worked with relentless focus. The runes were inscribed flawlessly. The magical structure of the ring remained stable throughout the process. The inner protective layers bonded without conflict, and in the end, the ring glowed softly, as if recognizing his progress.

There were no sparks, no dangerous vibrations, no signs of rejection.

It was perfect, and only one final session remained, four hours long.

“Ugh… I’m tired…” Ryan muttered.

Over six hours of inscribing runes with his wand, performing meticulous enchantments, it was exhausting, both mentally and magically. Yet he could still manage another four-hour session, provided he rested first.

“Self-exploited…” he thought with a half-smile. “Although… my magic reserves are improving because of this.”

And it was true. Since he had started working like this, day after day, inscribing runes, enchanting objects, correcting flaws with millimetric precision, he had noticed his magical capacity increasing. Not only did he have more endurance for channeling long or complex spells, but his precision in both offensive and defensive magic had also improved.

Spells that used to require effort to sustain now came easily and lasted longer. Spells that once wavered with slight instability were now solid, direct.

That meticulous, repetitive, demanding work was a kind of covert training.

“My version of running magical marathons…” he murmured softly, eyes half-closed.

He glanced at the clock and put the ring away.

He couldn’t start the final session right away, he needed to rest a few hours. Tomorrow he had to be at King’s Cross Station by 11:00 a.m.

And tonight, he planned to stay up very late, until five in the morning. He would take the Perfect Sleep Potion and wake up feeling refreshed at seven.

“If I start the final session at midnight, I can rest four hours and still have time left to finish it,” Ryan thought.

All in all, the ring would take him about ten hours of total work, two more than the agility boots, and twice as long as the glasses.

Just then, someone knocked on the door.

“Come in,” he said without looking up from the parchment filled with magical-stability calculations.

The door opened, and Iris appeared holding a tray. On it were a hot sandwich, a glass of fruit juice, and a small bowl of fresh fruit. She carefully set it down on his desk, pushing aside a couple of rune books without even asking.

“So this is what a fifteen-year-old does during his winter holidays,” she remarked wryly. “Do you have a union, or do you prefer self-exploitation?”

Ryan smirked, still tracing a floating diagram with his griffin-feather quill.

“Look who’s talking, the one who locks herself away for hours studying impossible theories of reversible transfiguration on living beings…”

“That’s different. It’s for me, not to sell unique items and build my galleon empire,” Iris replied with a smile. She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. “Eat, and then you can get back to your crazy but useful creations.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Iris turned to leave, but froze mid-step. She sniffed the air, frowning slightly.

Slowly, she turned around, walked toward the bed, and bent down a little, theatrically sniffing again.

Then she looked at him, one eyebrow raised, a smile tugging at her lips.

“Oh… So you brought a girl here, and I didn’t even notice.”

Ryan didn’t bother denying it. “Yeah. She left this morning, around nine, through the fireplace. You were locked in the study, probably debating with yourself whether a dragon can be transfigured into a teapot without exploding.”

Iris crossed her arms, amused. “And does she at least meet my minimum standards?”

“She can cast a Protego,” he said with a shrug. “But don’t worry. It’s nothing serious. And I used protection.”

Iris stared at him for a few seconds in silence. Then she gave a single nod, like a teacher approving a well-done assignment.

"Good. Don’t disappoint me with amateurs."

And with that, she left the room.

Ryan let out a quiet laugh and put away the parchments about the storage ring. He wasn’t going to eat while thinking about those complicated magical structures, his brain deserved a break too.

He needed to be fresh by midnight. It was his final session, and he wanted to finish it without any mistakes.

He ate in silence, unhurried.

With each bite, he felt the tension in his shoulders ease.

When he was done, he picked up his cup of hot chocolate and carried it with him to a small bookshelf beside his bed. There, between books, he pulled out a black-covered notebook. It was small, elegant, and on the cover, a few finely inscribed runes glowed faintly with a golden shimmer.

Ryan returned to his desk, set down the cup, and holding the notebook with both hands, he murmured:

"Diarium meum aperi: unus, unus, tres, duo, duo, unus, quinque, quinque, unus."

At once, there was a soft click, like a magical lock being undone. The runes dimmed, and the diary’s cover opened slightly, smooth and silent.

A runic password.

Of his own invention.

In truth, it wasn’t all that complex: a magical numerical code disguised as a Latin phrase. Basically, a Muggle cellphone PIN, but inside a magical diary… and created thirty years before smartphones even existed.

Ryan chose Latin phrases purely for style, not necessity, he just thought they sounded elegant.

You could use whatever you wanted as a password: an Elvish sentence, a made-up spell, your crush’s name, or simply normal words in your language.

Of course, you’d better remember it, or you could say goodbye to your diary.

As he flipped through the pages, Ryan thought it would make a great product to sell, a secure diary, safe from nosy mothers, annoying friends, and siblings who believed that “reading isn’t snooping, it’s investigating.”

Perfect for students wanting to store secrets, romantic confessions, or well-crafted insults.

Even adults who liked to keep their secrets under layers of protectio, research notes, inventions, crimes…

It was easy to market.

Once he inscribed the necessary runes, the diary was in a virgin state, without a password. To activate it, the buyer only needed to make a simple wand movement, touch the cover, and say: Intium vinculi (“start of the bond”).

That would activate the listening rune, which glowed faintly as a signal that, for the next twenty seconds, it would record the chosen password, the only key to access it.

This way, Ryan never had to hear the buyer’s password. Ever.

It was part of the deal, ensuring they could trust that he didn’t know their codes.

If your password took ten seconds to say, you’d have to wait silently for the remaining ten until the rune stopped glowing, signaling the process was complete.

'A diary that not even your ex could open, even if they stole your backpack,' Ryan thought, amused.

The only real drawback was that you had to say the password out loud, though whispering close to the diary worked just as well. Besides, people usually wrote in their diaries alone, not surrounded by others, so it wasn’t much of an issue.

In the future, if he had the time, and the motivation, he could design a more advanced version. One where the rune recognized not only the password but also the owner’s voice. That way, even if someone knew the password… without the right voice, the diary simply wouldn’t open.

More security. More paranoia. Perfect for the distrustful.

What happens if you forget the password?

Good question.

Ryan had already thought of that.

He had included a recovery system, not to retrieve the password (that would be a security risk), but to break the runes without damaging the diary.

A kind of forced reset.

The process, however, wasn’t easy.

He had to use a specific counter-spell he’d learned from the system’s book Practical Runic Manual I & II. That way, he could dismantle the runes one by one, with extreme care. It was basically the same as inscribing them, only in reverse. Any mistake could burn the pages, warp the cover, or, in the worst case, turn the diary into a useless puff of smoke.

After that, the diary could be opened again. But if the owner wanted to protect it with a new password, Ryan would have to reinscribe all the runes from scratch, as if it were a brand-new diary.

And that reinscription took even longer than making them the first time, not because it was theoretically harder, but because any trace of the old runes could interfere with the new ones.

It was like erasing pencil marks on paper: the residue always left a shadow, making rewriting more difficult.

That’s why, when the time came to sell these diaries, Ryan already had his business policy planned:

"Lost your password? Well… yes, technically I can help. But you’ll have to bring me the diary, and it’s not cheap, it’s not a quick process. It takes time."

Breaking down the runes took him about an hour of work. Inscribing them on a new diary took thirty minutes, half the time. Not much, really.

But he was never going to say that.

The harder he made it seem, the more people would trust him.

They’d think: “Not even he can open it if he doesn’t know the password.”

And that would make them feel safer, more protected, more confident that no one, not even the creator, could steal their secrets.

The truth was, Ryan had zero interest in other people’s secrets.

He couldn’t care less about their drama, their crush lists, or their revenge plots against teachers.

The only thing that mattered to him was that they paid.

And if a client wanted their recovered diary to have a new password, Ryan would charge again for the rune-inscription process, which would now be harder and take him about 45 to 50 minutes instead of 30, due to the residue from the previous runes.

Although personally, if it were him, he would just buy a new diary. But if the old one still had unused pages, one might want to keep using it, or simply reapply the protection.

He had already bought several regular diaries to begin selling at Hogwarts. Each one cost him about 0.4 galleons. They were high quality, hardcover, well-bound.

It was his first invention entirely of his own creation, without relying on any system formulas. Well, not counting the magic marbles, the talismans, or the clothes with automatic Protego enchantments.

He still wasn’t sure about the price. In terms of effort, the diary took him longer to make than the self-writing quills.

And even though the raw materials were slightly cheaper, the runic inscription process demanded much more focus.

He could probably sell them for 10 galleons or more, but he doubted that would be viable at Hogwarts.

Yes, it was a diary with a magical password and real security.

But the student market wasn’t homogeneous.

While many students could afford it, others couldn’t even pay half that amount.

At Hogwarts, several social classes coexisted:

The magical aristocracy, such as the Lestranges, Rosiers, Blacks, Greengrasses, and Malfoys.

The upper-class wizards, like the Potters, Macmillans, Longbottoms, and even families like his own, the Ollivanders, who likely received allowances of 15 to 20 galleons per month.

Ryan, with all the money he now had, no longer accepted an allowance from his mother, but back in his fourth year, he used to get 20 galleons a month, sometimes even 25.

Then came the upper-middle class: children of successful wizards or well-known merchants. Those students could comfortably handle 10 to 15 galleons per month.

Next was the standard magical middle class, which still lived quite well. Ryan estimated their allowances ranged from 3 to 5 galleons a month, which was more than what an average Muggle teenager received.

Why such a range?

Simple:

The wizarding world had a smaller population, lower unemployment, and many jobs required specific magical skills.

That made wages, even in ordinary magical professions, considerably higher than in the Muggle world.

Then there were the Muggle-borns, like his friend Lily Evans. Her father was the only one working, probably earning around 150 pounds a month, roughly equivalent to 30 galleons.

Ryan knew Lily could afford to pay him 2 galleons per month for the magical quill he’d sold her.

That gave him some clues: either her full allowance was 2 galleons, or perhaps she received 1 galleon monthly and covered the rest from her personal savings.

For a middle-class Muggle teenager, 1 galleon a month, almost five pounds, wasn’t bad at all. In fact, it was quite generous of her parents to give her that much.

Then, of course, there were the more extreme cases, those with worse financial situations. Like Severus Snape.

Although Ryan had never spoken to him, he knew who he was from the books and movies.

Snape lived in Spinner’s End, a Muggle lower-class neighborhood. His robes were always worn, and his appearance was unmistakably austere.

It was likely he didn’t receive more than a single galleon a month, if he received anything at all.

Maybe he had just enough to buy the bare minimum… and nothing more.

Students like him, though a minority, did exist.

And since the diary was a useful item but not something extravagant like the x2 reading-speed glasses, Ryan didn’t want to set the price too high and drive away the middle-class buyers.

That’s why he was considering a price between five and seven galleons, see how people reacted, and adjust if needed.

Ryan shook his head, pushing those thoughts aside, and focused his gaze on his notebook.

The title on the page read:

[Voldemort’s Horcruxes / Tom Riddle]