Ada Merritt tried to push the rope back at Jonah. He shook his head, caught the loop against her coat with his good hand, and said something too quiet for Percy to hear over the water.
Harry heard it. His expression changed, and he shifted closer to the grille without looking away from the two people behind it.
"He's right," Harry told her. "You go first. Then we bring him."
Ada looked at the lowering bars. For one moment she seemed ready to argue on principle, but she ducked her head, gripped the rope, and began to crawl.
Percy kept the drop over the sea hollow. The small current beneath her moved towards the chamber, carrying ordinary water and the weight of a person who was no longer standing still between moments.
Black water rose behind the ledge without splashing. Ada had to lower her head beneath the grille as it reached her shoulders.
Hermione stood with her hands clenched beside the mind hollow. Percy could see the effort in her jaw each time the chamber offered her another sentence, and he knew she was refusing faster than he could hear the invitations arrive.
The grille scraped Ada's shoulder. Harry lowered himself onto one knee, held the bars with both hands, and gave her enough room to drag the rope across the lip of stone.
Percy raised his free hand, wanting to force the grille upward. The northern pressure caught the movement. He lowered it and kept holding the drop.
He held one drop instead. Ada's hand reached the dry floor, Harry pulled her elbow clear of the bars, and the first captive crossed into the chamber coughing hard enough to make Percy flinch.
"One through," Harry called. He kept his hands beneath the bars.
Ron repeated the count from above. The rope tightened gently, drawing Ada towards the stairs while she struggled to get her feet underneath her.
----------------------
Jonah had waited on the ledge with his back against the grille's frame. As Ada cleared the opening, he lowered himself carefully, keeping his bandaged wrist against his chest and reaching for the spare loop with his other hand.
The water rose behind his knees. Percy felt the ordinary film beneath him thin until it was barely separate from the black, and the distinction took more effort to hold than the drop in his palm.
"Don't step back," Percy said. "Everything useful is this way."
Jonah gave him a look of exhausted disbelief. Then he laughed once, mostly from shock, and pushed the rope beneath his arm.
The grille stopped descending. Harry's scar went white around its edges, and Percy knew before he spoke that the sudden pause had nothing to do with their work.
"He's holding it," Harry said. "He thinks we're opening his way out."
Percy felt the blood groove pull toward the north. Harry's hand tightened on the bars as that pull reached him.
The silver thread in Harry's groove darkened. Harry looked at it, shook his head once, and moved his foot onto the stone beside it instead of following the pull towards the centre.
"I didn't agree for him."
The pressure sharpened. Harry's grip slipped on the bars, and Hermione took one step towards him before catching herself beside her hollow.
Percy looked at Hermione's hollow. Its water had started to turn when she stepped away. She returned to her position while he called to Harry.
"Your broom," Percy said. "The bit before you push off."
Harry shut his eyes, opened them immediately, and looked at Jonah. The young man had managed to fasten the loop but was still trying to hide how much his wrist hurt.
"No," Harry said. "This bit. I'm getting him out."
Harry reached for Jonah. The dark thread separated from the silver in his groove. Percy watched the clear part continue toward the stairs.
Voldemort's pressure slid past. The grille dropped again, uncontrolled now, and Jonah threw himself forward when Harry pulled.
The bars caught the back of his coat. He stopped so abruptly that Harry nearly fell on top of him, while the black water struck the opening behind his feet.
Something moved through the black water toward Jonah's shoe. Percy could not see its edge clearly enough to grasp it.
"The coat," Hermione said. "Leave the coat."
Jonah twisted his good arm free. Harry pulled the fabric away from the injured wrist as carefully as time allowed, then hauled him onto the chamber floor while the coat vanished beneath the grille.
The bars struck stone. Percy heard metal buckle, and the ordinary current beneath the captives' ledge broke cleanly at the opening instead of dragging the black water after it.
"Two through," Harry called. This time his voice cracked on the number.
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Ada was already at the first bend with McGonagall coming down to meet her. Dumbledore remained at the channel, Flitwick watched the mechanism, and Ron held the line with both hands while repeating every movement for the people who couldn't see the stairs.
Jonah couldn't stand without help. Harry put his shoulder beneath the young man's good arm, and they moved towards the doorway in short, uneven steps.
Hermione stayed beside her hollow until Percy nodded. Then she stepped backwards along the return groove, refusing the urge to turn the release into a final sentence that would make everything feel neatly complete.
Hermione stopped beside the threshold. Her lips moved without a sound, then she shook her head and took another step.
"I've understood enough to leave."
She crossed the threshold. The silver water in her groove followed, and for a moment Percy could feel the return being held in the passage by people who had chosen to remain outside it.
Harry helped Jonah onto the stairs while his scar still hurt. He kept naming where they were and what he was doing. Jonah answered when Harry asked whether he could manage the next step.
Percy lowered his hand. The drop left his palm, settled into the sea hollow, and joined the narrow thread flowing towards the door.
He lost the lake again. This time he knew what was happening, but knowing didn't keep the absence from making the chamber feel abruptly enormous.
He picked up the lamp. His own breathing sounded too loud, his shoes slipped on the damp stone, and the rope was the only reason he found the threshold without trying to reach for power that wasn't there.
At the doorway, the tally still sat at its second stop. The plate had begun sliding farther, pulled by a mechanism beneath the floor, and Percy realised the inspection panel was opening again behind the ruined grille.
He gave the rope two pulls. Hermione turned on the lowest stair, saw where he was looking, and reached for the wooden pick tucked into the box.
"Back to the first stop," she said. "Then out. Don't force it past the notch."
Percy put the lamp down and braced the box. Hermione eased the brass plate back with the pick, waiting through a violent shudder rather than jamming the tool deeper into the slot.
A voice came from behind the panel. It was Ada Merritt's voice, perfectly placed and perfectly frightened, calling that they had left her behind.
Above them, the real Ada coughed. McGonagall told her to take another step, and Ron called her position down the stairs without waiting for anyone to ask.
Hermione kept moving the pick. The plate reached its first stop, the false voice cut off, and Percy lifted the tally out of the stone with fingers that no longer felt entirely steady.
Percy shut the tally inside its box and climbed after Hermione. He held the lamp close to the wall until they reached the bend.
----------------------
Ron checked off the five names he had been waiting to count. Ada, Jonah, Harry, Hermione, and Percy crossed the last step in that order, with McGonagall helping the captives towards the waiting healer.
The count wasn't the end. Ron checked the lower marker, waited for Flitwick's answer, and kept the return tongue open while the last silver thread travelled through the channel.
Percy sat against the wall. His awareness of the lake returned in small pieces rather than all at once: rainwater in the gutter, the narrow channel beside Ron, and finally the great weight beneath the grounds.
Aequor was still there. The guardian was holding a strain Percy had no strength left to measure, but the presence remained its own, deep and steady beneath the newer pressure from the north.
The silver water cleared the marker. Ron called it, Flitwick confirmed it, and Dumbledore lowered the entrance slab only after the return path had finished carrying what belonged outside.
Something struck the far side of the stone. It struck again in the rhythm of footsteps, slow and patient, as though another visitor expected the count to continue.
Ron kept his hand on the lever. He looked at the five people he had already counted, then at Flitwick, and neither of them moved the wedge.
The footsteps stopped. Percy rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes. He waited until Ron sat beside him before speaking.
"Five," Ron said. He sat down beside him without letting go of the spare rope. "You could've warned me the job was expanding."
"I'll put it in your performance review."
Ron laughed, then covered his face with both hands. Percy stayed beside him until the laugh had become ordinary breathing again.
----------------------
The healer took Ada and Jonah to a room away from the western stair. Dorridge brought clean clothes and the shop statements. She waited outside until the healer had checked their injuries.
They were cold, dehydrated, and frightened. Jonah's injured wrist needed attention, Ada had bruises along one shoulder, and both remembered the well in the shop going dark before the floor disappeared.
Neither remembered days passing. Ada thought she'd spent a few moments reaching for Jonah, while Jonah remembered trying to keep her away from the edge and then seeing three schoolchildren through an iron grille.
"One of them made a joke," he told Dorridge. "I thought I'd hit my head."
Percy sat near the door with a cup of water. He showed the healer his scraped palms and let her check them before drinking.
Their accounts matched the shop's layout and each other where they should. They differed over who had reached for whom first, and Ada interrupted Jonah twice to insist that he hadn't caused the accident by putting a crate down too hard.
Dorridge wrote down both accounts. Ada was still arguing that the crate had nothing to do with the floor disappearing when the healer asked her to rest.
The healer confirmed that their movements continued normally. Their pulses changed with exertion, their eyes followed new sounds, and neither stopped at a line drawn on the floor, though Dumbledore cautioned that observation would continue before anyone was sent home.
Harry listened from the next chair. His scar still hurt, but he was drinking water, answering questions, and keeping the pain separate from the person causing it.
Hermione had all her memories. She checked the point herself by describing the tally, the slow movement of Ada's hand, and the sentence she'd chosen not to finish, then stopped when Dumbledore told her that a report could wait until she'd eaten.
Percy looked through the open doorway. Ada had taken Jonah's uninjured hand, and this time the movement began and ended in the same room, at the same speed as everyone watching.
He finished his water. For once, he had no improvement to suggest.
----------------------
Kingsley returned before the food arrived. His robes were torn at one shoulder, and he carried the wooden frame from the pumping station wrapped in a thick cloth.
The outer guards had been driven away or captured. The chest beneath the floor contained spare bands, copied diagrams, and tools for adjusting the stolen sample's cradle, but Voldemort himself had disappeared below the boundary before the Aurors reached the building.
"We did not follow him," Kingsley said. "The line stayed open after he crossed. I kept the team outside it."
The apparatus had remained on this side. Its metal bands were still hot when the Aurors removed them, though the vial between them was empty and a narrow groove beneath it contained water nobody had tried to touch.
Percy could not feel the sample inside the wrapped frame. He asked whether the Aurors had found the original vial.
"He took the water across with him."
Kingsley nodded. "There was blood on the inner stone. It continued beyond the place where the floor should have been."
Dumbledore asked for the exact sequence of the apparatus being removed. Kingsley gave it, including the moment when the light beneath the pumping station changed from silver to a flat, colourless grey.
Hermione set down her bread. "The entrance is still being held."
"Yes," Kingsley said. "It no longer appears to depend on the frame."
Percy remembered the condition Snape had reported: blood inside the boundary, its owner staying until the return was complete. He asked Kingsley whether the line had changed when the bands were removed.
Kingsley said it had remained open. The apparatus outside was gone, but Voldemort still held his place beyond it.
Dumbledore looked towards the lake. The captives were safe enough to be eating in the next room, but the larger seam under Hogwarts now had somebody holding it from the wrong side.
"Keep the pumping station closed," Dumbledore said. "Bring the measurements here. We need to find which part of the binding his claim is holding open."
----------------------
Percy went to the window after the others had settled. He could feel the lake clearly now, though using that sense for more than a moment left him tired in a way ordinary sleep didn't immediately promise to fix.
Aequor sent no countdown. The guardian showed him the great door, the pressure against it, and a thin human shape standing inside the line where the water ought to have closed.
The shape turned. Percy couldn't see a face, but he felt the movement reach Harry through the room a heartbeat before Harry put his cup down.
"He's stopped being pleased," Harry said. He set both feet firmly on the floor.
Snape moved beside him. He asked Harry to name five things in the office, and Harry did so without taking his eyes off the ordinary chair in front of him.
Then the cold sharpened. Harry gripped the edge of his seat, held his own name in a whisper, and waited until the room belonged entirely to him again.
Dumbledore did not ask him to look back. He waited until Harry chose to speak, and Percy watched that small act of patience cost the headmaster more than it had earlier in the week.
"He tried to leave," Harry said. "It showed him something on the other side. Something with his face."
Hermione's hand closed over the drawing of the two circles. One held the rat's dead body, the other its moving imitation, and the space between them remained blank.
Percy looked towards the dark water beyond the window. For the first time since Voldemort accepted the offer, the fear pressing through the blood connection belonged to a man who understood that he might not be the thing allowed to return.
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