The tally had a seam along its bent edge. Ron found it while holding the lamp for Hermione, who had spent the previous minute explaining why nobody was going to read anything aloud merely because the metal looked interesting.
"It's two pieces," he said. He tilted the lamp without moving the brass. "Look where Venn bent it."
A thin dark line ran beneath the branching mark. Flitwick examined it through a lens, then used a wooden pick to lift the edge just far enough for them to see that one plate could slide across the other.
Percy stood on the dry side of the shelf. He watched Flitwick lift the plate and asked whether the bend prevented it from sliding.
"Any chance it's a very old sandwich box?"
"There are slots underneath," Hermione said. She bent closer to the lens, keeping her hands behind her back. "Three, with one longer than the others."
Flitwick stopped before separating the plates. He made a drawing instead, and they compared it with the channels beneath Hogwarts while the actual tally remained dry and untouched.
Percy recognized the slots beside the chamber doorway. He had passed them during both visits without looking closely. Flitwick marked their position on the drawing.
"It fits outside the three hollows," Hermione said. "Beside the return grooves."
Dumbledore studied the drawing. He asked whether fitting the tally would necessarily open the main exchange, and Hermione shook her head before stopping herself.
"I don't know. It may control something adjacent to it. We would have to inspect the connection before moving it."
Ron picked up the rope. "I suppose we are checking the slots from below," he said.
----------------------
They took the drawing and the boxed tally downstairs. Ron held the rope at the upper channel. Flitwick watched the markers, with Dumbledore and McGonagall beside him.
Harry went slowly. The cold at his scar had remained steady since Voldemort's demonstration, and he had agreed to stop if it changed rather than treating pain as a source of useful directions.
Hermione carried the second lamp. Percy carried the box, keeping it away from every wet surface and refusing to wonder whether the metal knew where it was going.
The sea hollow was empty. Percy felt the smaller crack holding closed beneath it. He reported that before approaching the slots.
They stayed at the doorway. Harry set his lamp beside the return tongue, Hermione compared the drawing with the stone slots, and Percy listened for anything that sounded like an invitation.
Aequor held the same current across the gate. Percy checked it once, then turned his attention back to the doorway.
The slots did match. More usefully, a narrow groove led from them into the wall rather than towards any of the three hollows, ending beneath a rectangular stone panel at shoulder height.
Hermione followed it with the lamp. The marks along its edge were sparse enough that she could examine one without finding a whole sentence trying to follow it into her head.
"This one means held," she said. "I thought it meant remembered when I saw it beside the journal's drawing. The surrounding marks change it."
Harry looked at the panel. "Held where?"
"That's the part we haven't opened."
Percy gave the rope two pulls and waited for the answer. Then he called the findings up the stair, repeating them once for Ron to pass on accurately instead of asking anyone to come down and complete the crowd.
Dumbledore's reply permitted an inspection. They would fit the tally, move it no farther than the first stop, and withdraw if any of the return channels filled.
"First stop," Ron called. "Not first exciting noise."
"You take all the joy out of archaeology."
Percy set the box down. Hermione guided the tally into its slots with the wooden pick, and Harry watched the floor while the upper plate slid beneath her hand.
The metal stopped after barely an inch. A square of stone moved inward, exposing a darkness that the lamp couldn't reach until Percy shifted it sideways.
Two people stood behind an iron grille. The woman wore a leaf-shaped clasp, and the younger man held one bandaged wrist close to his chest.
----------------------
Percy knew better than to celebrate. He still had to swallow twice before he could tell Ron what they saw.
The opening was wider inside than it looked from the chamber. Beyond the grille, a shallow ledge held both figures above a black surface that might have been water, though Percy could feel only a thin ordinary film beneath their shoes.
The woman blinked. Several seconds later her hand moved a fraction towards the young man's shoulder, then stopped in the middle of the gesture.
Harry leaned close enough to see without putting his face against the bars. "Mrs Merritt?"
Hermione counted the seconds between movements. Harry waited rather than calling the woman's name again.
The hand moved another fraction. It didn't return to its starting place, and the woman's next blink took longer than the first.
"It isn't repeating," Hermione said. "The rat repeated. This is continuing, very slowly."
"That doesn't prove it's them," Harry said. His gaze stayed on the moving hand.
"No. But it's a difference we can check."
Percy concentrated on the ordinary water beneath their feet. It had a direction, faint but continuous, entering through a crack behind the ledge and leaving under the grille in a thread so thin he hadn't felt it until he knew where to look.
The deeper black surface had no direction he trusted. He kept his attention on the small flow, the one piece of the room that behaved like something moving from one place to another.
Aequor's awareness pressed against his senses. This time the image showed two figures held between closing waves, the water kept apart by an old mechanism that had stopped before finishing its work.
Percy told the others. The impression that followed made his hands go cold around the lamp: if the mechanism released its hold towards the wrong side, the figures would fall into the deeper water instead of returning to the chamber.
"Of course there's a wrong side," he said. "Wouldn't want the rescue to be insufficiently educational."
Hermione inspected the tally's second plate. Its long slot had aligned with a groove leading back to the upper passage, while the shorter two remained closed beneath the brass.
The panel had opened, but the current beneath the captives still ran toward the deeper room.
Harry looked at the empty sea hollow. Then he looked at Percy, and neither of them said the obvious part until Hermione had finished tracing the route.
"We can't pull them through while the return path is closed," she said. "And we can't open it without the three parts recognising the direction."
Percy looked along the rope to the stairs. They would need Ron to keep the return open before moving the tally again.
They withdrew with the tally at its first stop. The stone panel slid shut as soon as the metal was removed, leaving Percy with the memory of a hand that hadn't yet reached another person's shoulder.
----------------------
Kingsley's next message interrupted the report. The guards at the pumping station had changed positions, and one had dragged a heavy chest beneath the floor while another watched the marsh for signs of pursuit.
Dumbledore listened without taking his eyes off the sketch. Then he sent word for the outer approach to be contained and turned the sketch so McGonagall could see the return channels clearly.
Dumbledore asked them to repeat the limits of the rescue. They would open the route for the two visible people and signal immediately if the deeper water followed them.
Dorridge arrived with the healer who had examined Venn. She confirmed the clasp and the wrist dressing against statements from the shop's neighbours, then asked Percy whether he had seen the captives make any movement that began and ended.
"Not yet," he said. "We weren't there long enough."
The healer asked how the woman's blink differed from the rat's repeated movement. Hermione demonstrated the unfinished hand gesture while Percy timed it.
Harry stood beside the blocked channel. Snape asked him to describe the edge of the foreign pressure, and Harry did so without closing his eyes or trying to make the cold disappear.
"Still mine on this side," he said. He touched his own chest rather than his scar. "Still his when it pushes."
Snape nodded once. He instructed Harry to keep that distinction while doing something ordinary, such as looking at a person who needed help, and to stop if either part became impossible to distinguish.
Hermione rehearsed her refusal beside the covered fragment. She didn't discard a memory, empty her thoughts, or speak the ancient words; she let the demand for an answer arrive without completing it.
Percy used a bowl of rainwater. He lifted one drop, returned it, and resisted the temptation to repeat the exercise until success started feeling guaranteed.
Ron watched all three demonstrations. Then he took Flitwick's spare rope and asked the healer where it would be safe to place it around somebody who couldn't move properly yet.
----------------------
Percy checked the rope at each bend on the second descent. He knew where the grille was now. That made him hurry until Harry asked him to slow down.
They fitted the tally again. This time the woman's hand had reached the young man's shoulder, and his face had turned slightly towards her.
Percy reported the change. Dorridge's reply came down through Ron: proceed only while the movement continued in the same direction, with the upper team ready to receive the first person who reached them.
Hermione positioned herself beside the mind hollow. Harry stood at blood, and Percy faced sea without touching the inscription that had tried to make his stolen water part of him.
Percy could see the two people through the grille. He held the return path in mind and brought only the drop they had agreed to use.
Percy brought a drop to his palm. Harry kept the moment before flight separate from the cold pressure, and Hermione refused the question waiting behind every line she understood.
The return grooves filled with silver. At the doorway, the tally's upper plate shifted another fraction, and the thin current under the grille began to flow towards the stairs.
The woman took a breath. It came in ragged and deep, and she bent over with one hand gripping the young man's shoulder as though she'd been holding it there all along.
He flinched at the movement. His free hand rose to catch her elbow, and the response was fast enough that Harry made a sound Percy couldn't quite hear over the water.
"Don't move forward yet," Hermione said. "We're getting you out. Stay together."
The woman looked through the grille, then up at the ceiling. She gripped Jonah's sleeve before speaking.
"Where is my shop?"
Percy nearly laughed. "Still in Hogsmeade. The plumbing's having a bad week."
She stared at him. The young man coughed into his sleeve, and Percy could feel the small changes in the water beneath their shoes as they shifted their weight.
Hermione moved the tally to its second stop. The grille lifted halfway, leaving room for one person to duck beneath it while the black water beyond the ledge remained level.
Harry reached for the spare rope. He explained what he was doing before offering the loop through the opening, and the young man took it with his uninjured hand.
Then every lamp in the chamber leaned north. The flames stretched sideways without a breath of wind, and Harry's face emptied of colour.
----------------------
Voldemort's presence arrived through the blood hollow before Percy felt it through the lake. Harry staggered, caught the edge of the stone, and said his own name as though he was answering Snape from a very long distance.
Percy kept the drop in his palm. The repaired crack held, but a larger pressure moved around it, finding the old boundary from the other side.
Aequor braced. Percy felt the guardian's weight shift beneath the floor, and the small current carrying the captives towards the grille slowed to a crawl.
Upstairs, a voice called down the passage. Dumbledore had received Kingsley's report, and Ron repeated it without changing a word: Voldemort had crossed below the pumping station floor.
Harry lifted his head. He said his own name again, then turned toward Percy.
"He thinks he's won."
The grille began to lower. Jonah Pike still held the rope, Ada Merritt had one hand against his back, and the water beyond the ledge rose towards their shoes.
Percy gave the return line two sharp pulls. He watched the silver thread continue towards the stairs, thinner now but still moving, and knew that withdrawing at once would leave two people standing on a ledge that was beginning to disappear.
Hermione met his eyes. "It is still flowing," she said. "We can bring the first person through if Ron holds the route."
"The path is still there," Percy said. He kept his hand over the water he'd brought. "Tell Ron we're bringing two more."
Harry lowered himself beside the grille. He held the loop where Jonah could reach it without stepping into the black, and Hermione called the message up the stairs in her own ordinary voice.
Beyond the chamber wall, something vast struck the gate. The silver water shivered, the grille dropped another inch, and Jonah put the rope around Ada before taking any of it for himself.
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I HAVE ONLY ONE MROE CHAPTER TO WRIET, THEN IT'S REST TIME FOR MEEE!!! YIPPEE!!!!! IM SO BLOODY TIRED!!!! YEYYY!!! *freaking dies*
[SHAMELESS PLUG]
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