Three weeks later

Three weeks later;

Avery Mansion, Tagues village;

Inside the dueling room of the Avery Mansion, Neal and Draco were in the middle of a duel.

This room on the second floor was originally a mini ballroom designed for small gatherings among noble families. However, Oakley turned it into something that will be useful for his grandson.

At the moment, it was currently used as Neal's personal training space with a mini library in one part of the room where all kinds of books were placed along with a long table and seats. The Durmstrang institute's books on dark magic sent by Karkaroff before the third task of the Triwizard tournament were also included in the library.

Another part of the room was filled with stationary and moving puppets for magic spell training.

And the center part of the room was occupied by the dueling table, something similar to that of the table at the dueling club in Hogwarts.

With the room reinforced with several types of charms, it is perfectly a safe environment to even let the spell run wild, well, as long as one takes care of themselves.

At the moment, Draco was completely on the offensive while Neal was blocking his attacks with ease and giving advice from time to time, regarding the combination of the spells.

Once the five-minute offense from Malfoy is over, Neal unleashed the spell of Locomotor Mortis, the leg-locker curse to bind Malfoy's legs together before using a Dangling Jinx on his friend.

"Levicorpus"

Malfoy who was taken aback by the sudden sticking of his legs suddenly turned upside down and levitated in the air.

Neal wasn't done yet. He ended the duel with the finishing spell, The Expelliarmus to disarm Malfoy's wand as he was distracted by the sudden turn of events.

"C'mon, three combo spell, seriously?" Malfoy complained as if it was an unfair thing to do.

Neal let out a grin as he shoots a counter curse and replied, "I didn't use any advanced spells though. You could do this stuff even in your second year, well, I mean the first two. In duels, you have to be smart, not try to be strong."

"Well, most of the people aren't as fast as you in conjuring the spells," commented Malfoy as he stood up on his feet, to which, Neal replied, "If you have seen Voldemort in person, you would understand my current speed is nothing. He doesn't need any incantation or even a wand to neutralize my attacks. If I want to surpass him, I need to get stronger, swifter, and add more spells and tricks to my arsenal."

Malfoy stared at him in silence for a few seconds and said, "If I don't know anything better, I would say that you are obsessed with beating him."

"It might appear as if I was dreaming too big but I want to surpass every wizard out there in the world as well as the ones in history." Neal shrugged his shoulders, being honest with himself as well as his best friend.

"That's a big dream," commented Malfoy. Neal nodded, "I know."

"Well, anyways… how is the progress of that spell?" Malfoy then asked him about the spell Neal was trying to master for the past three weeks. Ever since he returned from Hogwarts, he was fixated on only one spell recorded in one of the books sent by Karkaroff.

It's a super powerful fire spell, even stronger than fiendfyre if one talks only about potential, and only one person in history known to master it.

Neal shook his head with a sigh of disappointment, "I can form the ring of fire but haven't mastered it to the point of controlling the flames to my bidding as Grindelwald did during the Global wizarding war (1920-45). It is a bit too tough to master."

"Maybe, it is because you are unconsciously afraid that the flames will go out of control and engulf this village?" Malfoy casually commented without trying to mean anything but Neal was stunned when he heard those words.

He screamed inside his head, "Ancestor… I need to talk to you…"

After a couple of seconds, he received a reply in his head, "I know what you are wondering. And yes, I believe the Malfoy kid is right. If you practice that spell in an inhabitable place, your progress might be faster. First, you need to be uncontrolled to master control.

But then again, I should say that I'm amazed that this dumb boy lately isn't dumb anymore. He appeared to be smart, had the knack of mastering spells, and was even quite good at dueling as long he doesn't get compared to you."

Neal didn't comment on Salazar Slytherin's view on Malfoy and just pondered on how to master the spell.

He cannot do as Salazar suggested as his wands were registered with the ministry. If he uses magic in a place where there is no flock of wizards around (like in a wizarding village or a magic school), his magic will be traced and he will be liable for punishment for underage magic. If worse, he might even get expelled, although it won't likely happen due to his new scheme that was happening behind the scenes.

To make sure the ministry doesn't fall under Voldemort's influence, Neal asked his grandfather to make sure to have his allies in high-ranking positions at the ministry. Whether it is done by bribes or threats, Neal doesn't care. He just wants results. Perhaps, this is Neal's dark side that all dark wizards and witches do.

On the same side, he also asked his grandfather to fund Hogwarts and its governors with huge sums of money to put Neal's maternal uncle, Leon Avery, on the board of governors of Hogwarts.

This way, he wanted to make sure to have an ample amount of stake in whatever decisions done in the ministry as well as the school.

As for how the funds were arranged, Neal didn't hesitate to reveal his transmutation ability to his grandfather. With a wave of the wand, he could create gold and silver, diamonds and gems, like it was nothing.

The only problem is making them legal. Each galleon and sickle had certain marks printed on them when they were being forged by the goblins.

Now, forging the gold coins exactly like the European wizarding currency needs a lot of expertise. Since the members of Avery house aren't experts, it is a difficult task to make them legal currency. Not to mention, there's a high risk of getting caught if one should do this on a large scale.

So, Neal thought of a simple method. He would just create loads of pure gold bars and gems, which the members of Avery House will smuggle into the muggle world, and sell them for muggle currency through various syndicates. It is easy to wipe off the evidence with a simple Obliviate charm and Imperious curses.

Then, they will exchange the muggle currency for galleons through Exchange counters located in several cities and wizarding villages. The Galleons will then be brought back to either Tagues village or get deposited in Gringotts wizarding bank.

Of course, Neal knew that his ability cannot be known to the public. Hence, this whole matter stayed between Oakley Avery and Neal, not even Malfoy and Leon Avery were informed of this matter. And with Oakley's great influence in the family, no one dared to question him as the source of his funds either. He can always use the excuse of his family's inheritances over the centuries.

And for the past couple of weeks, Neal made over 80,000 galleons without the knowledge of ministry or Dumbledore. Had he put his entire time and focus on transmutation, perhaps, he would have even made 1 million by now but didn't do that as it would lead not only to unnecessary suspicions but also hold back his training.

Back to the present, as Neal pondered on how to evade the ministry's tracking, Salazar Slytherin reminded him of the wand he acquired at the cursed vault of the forest.

Neal replied, "I haven't forgotten about the Acacia wand. However, conjuring such a spell with an unmastered wand will lead to disastrous outcomes."

"Well, technically, you will be alone in the wilderness and the spell won't harm either the caster or his true allies. So, does the nature of the outcome really matter? You might as well take this opportunity to gain the complete allegiance of the wand."