Before revealing her grand new strategy to the Order, Ariana had one final piece of personal business to attend to. In the shielded silence of her London flat, she undertook the now-familiar ritual. The Cup of Hufflepuff, a simple, beautiful badger-crested cup, sat on the marble pedestal, radiating a cold, palpable aura of corrupted magic.
The process was the same, but her confidence and skill were greater. The magical anesthesia, the Parseltongue command, the silent Exsilium Animae. The screaming, shadowy wisp of Tom Riddle's soul was ripped from its golden vessel and imprisoned within a new obsidian sphere. She then meticulously cleansed the cup, leaving the ancient, benevolent magic of Helga Hufflepuff intact, a warm, comforting presence where a dark cancer had once resided.
With four contained soul-fragments now in her possession and two historical treasures reclaimed, she was ready. She sent a single, simple message to Dumbledore: "Full operational debriefing required. All senior members. My location. Tonight."
That evening, the small, minimalist living room of her magically-shielded flat was filled with an unprecedented gathering of power. Dumbledore sat in an armchair, his expression thoughtful. McGonagall stood beside him, her posture rigid with anticipation. Snape lingered in the corner, a dark, silent shadow. Sirius and Remus were on the sofa, a nervous, excited energy radiating from them. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley looked on, their faces a mixture of pride and parental concern. Harry and Hermione sat close to Ariana, a silent, supportive unit.
And, to the surprise of many, Amelia Bones was also present, not as the Head of the DMLE, but as a new, grimly determined member of this clandestine council. Her presence signified a new, unofficial alliance between the Order and the uncorrupted elements of the Ministry.
Ariana stood before them, a calm, commanding presence.
"Thank you all for coming," she began, her voice filling the quiet room. "I have several operational updates to report."
She started by placing the small, golden cup on the table. It glowed with a soft, warm light. "This is the Cup of Helga Hufflepuff," she announced. "I retrieved it from the Lestrange vault at Gringotts this morning. It was a Horcrux. It is one no longer."
A collective gasp went through the room. Sirius and Remus, who knew part of the plan, grinned triumphantly. Dumbledore's eyes shone with a profound pride.
Next to the cup, she placed the small, black obsidian sphere containing the newly imprisoned soul fragment. "This is the fifth piece of Voldemort's soul that we have accounted for," she stated. She gestured to the other contained spheres, which she had arranged on a side table. "The Diary. The Ring. The Locket. The Diadem. And now, the Cup."
She looked at Dumbledore. "Professor, this new fragment is yours to destroy, as with the others.
With its neutralization, I believe only two Horcruxes remain, we can speak about them later."
The room was silent, the sheer scale of her secret accomplishment sinking in. In a single summer, while they had been regrouping and reacting, she had been systematically dismantling the very foundations of Voldemort's immortality.
"But securing the Horcrux was only a secondary objective of my visit to Gringotts," Ariana continued, her tone shifting from academic to strategic. "My primary objective was to open a new front in this war."
She looked around the room, meeting each of their gazes. "We have been operating under the assumption that this will be a conventional war fought by us—the Order and the Ministry—against them. This is a flawed model. Our forces are limited. Theirs are bound by fear and fanaticism. We have been playing a defensive game. It is time to go on the offensive."
"What did you do, Ariana?" Remus asked, leaning forward, his voice full of a nervous curiosity.
"I have initiated an act of global, economic warfare," she said. "As of this morning, Gringotts Bank, on behalf of the 'Regulus Black Memorial Fund,' has issued an international, magically-binding bounty on the head of Tom Marvolo Riddle, also known as Lord Voldemort."
The silence that followed this statement was so absolute, so profound, that it felt as though the air had been sucked from the room. Mrs. Weasley's hands flew to her mouth. Mr. Weasley's jaw dropped. Snape, for the first time, looked genuinely, utterly shocked.
"A bounty?" Sirius finally breathed, a slow, predatory grin spreading across his face.
"The prize," Ariana stated, her voice as cold and hard as a Galleon, "is the entire remaining fortune of the Lestrange family vault. An amount so significant that it will attract every amoral, powerful, and greedy entity on the planet. We have just hired the world's mercenaries to be our private army."
She laid out the strategic implications with brutal clarity. "Voldemort can no longer operate from the shadows. Every move he makes, every secret meeting he holds, is now a potential payday for someone. His own followers, those motivated by power and not just fanaticism, will now have to weigh their loyalty against a fortune beyond their wildest dreams. His trust in his own inner circle will be shattered. He will be forced to look over his shoulder not just for Aurors and Order members, but for anyone with a wand and an empty vault."
She had not just put a target on Voldemort's back; she had turned his entire world into a hostile hunting ground. She had weaponized greed.
Amelia Bones stared at her, her monocle nearly popping out. She had been fighting dark wizards her entire life with laws and spells. This girl was fighting him with economic theory and global-scale psychological warfare.
"My dear girl," Dumbledore said, his voice full of a staggering awe. "You have changed the very nature of the conflict. You have turned his greatest strength—his network of fear and secrecy— into his greatest weakness."
"He is a variable," Ariana said simply. "And his operational security was a vulnerability. I have merely chosen to exploit it."
She stood before them, the quiet architect of a new and terrifyingly effective war. She had secured the past by cleansing the Horcruxes, and she had just redefined the future by placing a price on the Dark Lord's head. The Order of the Phoenix had gathered expecting to hear a report. Instead, they had just received a masterclass in a new kind of warfare, a war fought not just with courage and magic, but with cold, hard, and utterly ruthless logic.