Dumbledore moved the box out of his office before anyone asked to open it. Percy followed him to the western stair, carrying the lamp while Flitwick walked beside the covered tally and watched for changes in its glow.
The tally stayed dark. Percy remembered the click that had answered the lake and asked Flitwick to check for another movement.
They placed it on a dry shelf above the blocked channel. The old inscription remained covered, the wedges held firm, and Ron checked both wooden markers before allowing himself to look at the box.
"Still shut," he said. He kept a hand against the nearer wedge. "And the other bit's still open."
Harry waited in the corridor rather than beside the water. The cold at his scar had eased with distance, but it hadn't disappeared, and Snape had instructed him to report changes instead of trying to hunt them down.
Hermione looked at the plain lid. "It passed Professor Flitwick's checks."
"I checked for spells," Flitwick said. "It may connect to the old mechanism without carrying a spell of its own. We need to examine that connection separately."
Percy regarded the box. "I prefer my trouble stupid. Easier to distract."
Dumbledore lifted the lid with a wooden hook. The tally lay still. He kept the hook between it and his hand while Flitwick checked the empty space above it.
The two scratches beneath the branching mark were uneven. One ended in a deep gouge where Venn's improvised point had slipped, and Hermione traced their shapes in the air without touching the metal.
"He added those," she said. "The mark above them is older."
Aequor's attention reached the tally. Percy saw an open hand receiving a small disc.
Two figures passed behind the hand. When the disc returned, the same two figures stepped back into view, though the image vanished before Percy could tell what lay between their departures and returns.
Percy described the two figures. Ron looked at the tally, then at the rope.
"It's a receipt."
----------------------
Dorridge brought the names before lunch. The woman missing from the Hogsmeade supply shop was Ada Merritt, its proprietor, and the younger man was Jonah Pike, an assistant who had been carrying stock in from the rear yard when the well changed.
They did not announce the names beside the tally. Hermione wrote them on a separate page upstairs, then asked Dorridge what evidence linked the two people to Venn's description beyond their number and approximate ages.
Merritt wore a silver clasp shaped like a leaf. Venn had described a bright shape at the woman's collar, but not clearly enough to identify it, and Pike had injured one wrist earlier that week, which might explain the pale wrapping Venn thought he'd seen.
"I have sent the families the descriptions we are checking," Dorridge said. "We need a closer view before I can identify either person."
Harry stood beside the window. He looked down at the village roofs and asked whether anyone had examined the shop's well since Venn was recovered.
They had. The water was still too dark to reflect a light correctly, but the surrounding floor had stopped losing small patches of stone, and an Auror's measuring line remained the same length between checks.
Percy thought of the narrow crack they had closed beneath Hogwarts. One repair had changed something beyond the castle, though it was impossible to tell whether the improvement would hold.
Hermione turned her notes around. "If the tally records two people passing through, we might not need to open the whole gate to bring them back. Venn came out through the route that took him."
"Venn was still holding part of his route," Dumbledore said. "The case and its strap gave us a connection we could inspect. This may serve a similar purpose, but we have not established which end we possess."
Ron tapped the blank space below the names. "He scratched those marks himself. Maybe he wanted us to count them even if he couldn't get them out."
Dorridge nodded. That was what Venn had said when she asked him about the tally, before the healer stopped the interview for the second time.
He had found it beside the grille. He hadn't seen the captives carry it, hadn't taken it from either of them, and didn't know whether the original mark meant people, water, or something else entirely.
Percy sat back. "So Venn added a count," he said. "The older mark could still mean something else."
----------------------
Harry's scar hurt during lunch. It happened between one breath and the next, cutting through an ordinary argument about whether Ron's rescued boot joke had already been used too many times.
He put his cup down. The movement was careful enough that Percy recognised the effort behind it before Harry said anything.
"He's somewhere cold. Standing up."
Hermione moved her notes out of reach. Ron pushed his chair back to give Harry space, and Percy went to the door for Snape rather than asking Harry to keep looking.
Snape was already in the corridor. He entered fast, took one look at Harry, and pulled a chair into the clear space beside the table.
"Your feet," he said. "The floor beneath them. Describe it."
Harry's voice shook on the first word. He named stone, the edge of a rug, and a loose thread caught under his shoe, then swallowed as though the room had stopped tilting.
The pain receded. He kept his eyes open until Snape told him he could look away, and nobody congratulated him while he was still trying to breathe normally.
"Water under boards," Harry said. "I didn't go looking. It was just there."
Snape's expression hardened. He asked whether Harry had heard words, and Harry shook his head before correcting himself.
One sentence had come with the cold. Voldemort had said that he would have a demonstration before paying for a promise.
Percy felt the lake shift beneath the castle. Aequor was holding steady, but somewhere beyond the repaired crack the pressure had acquired a new direction.
Dumbledore arrived while Snape was checking Harry's pulse. He listened to the account once, then asked Snape whether the old map included any remaining structures above the inlet.
"A building marked at the northern edge," Snape said. "Square foundation, narrow access. The map was older than the building, which had been added in another hand."
Hermione took out the newer maps. Dumbledore asked her to mark buildings that crossed the old inlet line. She placed the survey beside them.
Percy helped hold the rolled edge flat while she worked.
----------------------
The building turned out to be an abandoned pumping station beyond the northern marsh. It had served a drainage scheme that failed generations earlier, according to a local survey Dumbledore kept for reasons Percy decided were less eccentric than they had seemed before breakfast.
The modern stream ran away from the lake. The older inlet had run towards the place where the gate now stood, and the foundations crossed the line where those directions met.
Kingsley went to inspect from a distance. Dorridge sent two Aurors along the public approach with instructions to watch and report, while Dumbledore asked the castle portraits to keep students away from the northern grounds.
Harry stayed with Snape while Kingsley inspected the station. Percy went back to the water readings by the window.
Snape left the office while they waited for the first report. He returned ten minutes later, stopped beside Dumbledore's desk, and rolled back his sleeve just far enough for the headmaster to see what had changed.
Percy looked away. Whatever Snape had agreed to years ago, the summons now pulling him out of the room didn't need an audience.
"I will go," Snape said. He lowered his sleeve before anyone else could look.
Dumbledore studied his face. "You have already given us enough to proceed cautiously."
"Then I suggest that you do so."
Harry moved before Snape reached the door. He didn't block it, but he stood close enough that the professor had to acknowledge him.
"He said he wanted a demonstration," Harry said. "If somebody's supposed to come back, it might not be the same person."
Snape adjusted his cuff before answering.
"A useful concern, Potter. Retain the habit of having it before agreeing to demonstrations yourself."
Then he was gone. Ron watched the doorway for several seconds before quietly putting Harry's untouched lunch back in front of him.
----------------------
Kingsley's report described fresh footprints, two masked guards, and a light beneath the pumping station floor. He had not approached close enough to test the wards, and Dumbledore thanked him for that before asking about the water.
It flowed towards the station. On the survey, it ought to have been flowing away.
Percy stood by the office window with his palms against the sill. He could not reach the marsh from here without extending himself farther than Aequor had warned him to, but the lake carried the pressure of something being connected at its edge.
Flitwick's messenger arrived from the western passage. The tally had clicked again. He gave the number and spacing of the knocks.
Hermione counted the marks on her drawing. They didn't match, and she crossed out the possible correspondence instead of trying to make the numbers fit.
They waited an hour for Snape. Percy kept looking at the door. When Snape entered, Hermione set down her quill.
Snape had no visible injury. He sat beside the map before giving his report.
Voldemort had ordered a rat placed inside a circle beneath the pumping station. The creature had been killed, its body left beyond the line, and the stolen sample poured into a shallow groove while Voldemort spoke to the darkness under the boards.
"Another rat appeared on this side," Snape said. "The first body remained where it lay."
Harry sat down. Hermione's quill hovered above the page without touching it.
"Alive?" Dumbledore asked.
"Moving. Breathing. It approached the food placed before it."
"What happened when it reached the edge of the circle?"
Snape looked at him. "It stopped. The movement of its whiskers stopped with it, though its chest continued rising and falling at exactly the same interval."
Percy pictured the woman behind the grille. A blink was evidence of something happening, but it might not mean that time was passing for her the way it passed for them.
"A repetition," Hermione said. She put the quill down. "It returned an action it remembered."
"That is one interpretation," Snape said. "The Dark Lord chose another. He considers the result unfinished."
Dumbledore asked whether the second rat responded when anyone moved the food. Snape said Voldemort had ended the test before they tried it.
"What payment did it request?" he asked.
Snape glanced towards Harry before answering. The movement was small, but none of them missed it.
"A living passage. Blood willingly placed inside the boundary, with the owner remaining there until the return is complete."
----------------------
Harry's first response was immediate. He said no, then looked angry with himself for thinking that anybody had asked him.
Snape shook his head. "He has no intention of using you for this step. His own claim is older, and he believes it stronger."
Percy looked at the line Hermione had drawn from Harry's scar. The inherited claim had come from Voldemort. He could supply it without taking it from Harry.
"He intends to enter the boundary himself," Percy said.
"He has not done so yet. He is preparing a way to hold the entrance behind him."
Dumbledore turned towards the map of the marsh. The repaired channel under Hogwarts had forced Voldemort to seek another route, and now the man intended to become part of that route himself.
Hermione drew two circles on a clean sheet. One contained the rat's body; the other contained the thing that had moved towards food, and she left the space between them blank.
"It can show him what he wants without giving him what he wants," she said. "He might decide the difference doesn't matter until he tries to leave."
Ron looked at the covered fragment. "And if he can't leave, we're stuck with him holding the door open from inside."
Dumbledore marked Voldemort's intended position on the map. It was beside the return route Kingsley had been watching.
Dumbledore sent Kingsley new instructions. The guards at the pumping station were to be contained if possible, the apparatus observed, and any entry by Voldemort reported immediately; nobody was to pursue him across the boundary.
Harry watched the messenger leave. When he spoke again, his voice was steadier than it had been since lunch.
"We still get the two people out. His bad decision doesn't make them part of it."
Percy looked at the two circles. The people behind the grille had shown almost no movement. They needed to find a way to check them before opening the return.
"Then we need to tell a return from an imitation," Percy said. He reached for the drawing of the tally, keeping his hands away from the actual metal. "Before he decides breathing is close enough."
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Hi lol :skull_emoji: Nah jkjk. Seriously though, do you guys enjoy this book?
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