The first condition was the wand. Dumbledore required it to reach the dry floor of the pumping station before anyone moved the tally beneath Hogwarts, and Voldemort spent twelve minutes explaining why this was unnecessary.
Kingsley recorded the explanation. He did not move the chalk line, lower his guard, or send anyone into the grey light to retrieve the weapon for him.
At last the wand slid across the outer stone. It stopped short of the line, and Kingsley brought it the remaining distance with a plain hook while another Auror watched for anything following it.
Percy waited beside the upper channel with a bowl of water in his lap. When the report arrived, he set the bowl down and listened.
"I expected more dignity," Ron said. He glanced at the report.
"From the man who put himself in a haunted drain?"
McGonagall looked at them. Percy returned to checking the lamp instead of trying a second joke.
The second condition was withdrawal of the offer. Voldemort refused to discuss it until he had seen the holding place, which Hermione had expected and written into the proposal as the limit of their first inspection.
Hermione marked the first stop on the tally drawing. They would show Voldemort the holding ledge and keep the exit shut until he accepted the conditions.
Dumbledore asked each of them whether they were willing to make the inspection. Percy waited until he had heard the full plan before answering.
Ron checked the rope. His new card contained only the counts and the positions of the markers, because too much writing had become another way to miss what was happening in front of him.
----------------------
The chamber smelled of cold iron. The broken grille remained jammed across the holding ledge, and Flitwick had warned them that its damage made the tally's second stop unsuitable until the outer frame could be secured.
They would use the first stop only. Percy set the lamp down, Harry watched the hollows, and Hermione fitted the brass plates while keeping the old language out of her mouth.
The panel opened. The ledge was empty, but beyond it a narrow strip of pale stone now extended over the black water towards a place their lamps couldn't reach.
Percy felt the stolen sample at its far end. It was no longer tugging through his own hollow; it lay across another threshold, caught in the blood claim Voldemort had carried inside.
He didn't reach for it. He sent Aequor the smallest question he could manage, and the guardian answered with the image of a wet footprint that continued from one stone to the next.
Continuous, Percy understood. They needed the man who had stepped in to keep walking, rather than a figure produced where he wished to arrive.
Dumbledore's voice came down the stairs. Kingsley had told Voldemort that the ledge was visible, and the next movement belonged to him.
They waited. Hermione's lamp hissed once, Harry adjusted his grip on the rope, and Percy tried not to turn the darkness beyond the ledge into the outline of a person before one actually appeared.
Voldemort stepped into the light. His robes were wet at the hem, one hand hung stiffly at his side, and the sight of him without a wand made him no less unpleasant to look at.
Voldemort looked from the hollows to the tally beside the doorway. His gaze stopped at the sea position where Percy stood.
"Children," Voldemort said. His lip curled.
"You asked to see the path," Harry said. He stayed beside his own hollow. "There it is."
The man's gaze fixed on him. Cold struck Harry's scar, and Snape called his name from the upper passage before Percy could decide whether to intervene.
Harry put one hand against the wall. He named the stone beneath his palm, looked at Hermione's lamp, and waited until Voldemort's attempt to occupy his attention had become something he could refuse.
"That won't get you out."
Voldemort looked away. Harry kept his hand on the wall until the cold eased.
----------------------
The imitation appeared behind Voldemort. It wore the same face and robes, but its feet made no disturbance in the shallow water, and the lamp reflected in its eyes before it turned towards the light.
Percy felt no body where the imitation stood. He watched the wet footprints of the man in front of it instead.
Voldemort moved his injured hand. The other figure repeated the movement after a pause, bringing its fingers to exactly the same position before holding them still.
"A trick," Voldemort said. He did not look behind him while he spoke. "Nothing more."
Hermione watched the imitation. "Then stop asking it to return you."
Harry inhaled sharply. Hermione kept her eyes on the imitation while she waited for Voldemort to answer.
"The bargain gives me control," Voldemort said. "The mechanism is unfinished. I will correct it."
The imitation smiled. Voldemort wasn't smiling, and for the first time the difference appeared to trouble him more than the resemblance.
Dumbledore spoke from above. His voice reached the chamber plainly, without the enchanted amplification that might have given the gate another language to learn.
"You may continue defending the bargain, Tom. Or you may withdraw it and return as the man who entered. We are prepared to attempt only the latter."
"You would put me in a cell."
"Yes."
Percy watched Voldemort after Dumbledore answered. The man had demanded an exit; Dumbledore had told him exactly where it would lead.
The imitation moved closer along the pale path. Voldemort glanced at it and took one step toward the ledge.
"And if I refuse?"
Dumbledore waited until Voldemort faced the staircase before answering.
"We will continue trying to close the gate. Your presence makes that harder. It does not give you authority over the people outside it."
----------------------
The attack came without a wand. Voldemort lifted his good hand, and a thin red line struck the grille hard enough to make the damaged iron ring against its frame.
Percy threw himself sideways. Harry caught Hermione's sleeve, the lamp tipped without breaking, and the spell split against the threshold rather than entering the chamber whole.
A second red line appeared in the imitation's hand. It struck the same place a heartbeat later, cleaner and brighter than the first.
Voldemort stared at the second spell. Percy pulled his lamp away from the grille.
"It's learning from you," Hermione said. "Every time you prove you're stronger."
The black water rose beneath the pale path. Aequor's weight shifted beyond the wall, and Percy could feel the guardian taking the impact of something that had just acquired another way to push.
Ron called down for their status. Percy answered that all three were clear of the opening, then gave the signal to hold the tally at its first stop and prepare to close it.
Voldemort stepped forward. Harry moved between him and the blood hollow, keeping the grille and the threshold where they belonged instead of meeting the man on the path he wanted them to use.
"You're closing it," Voldemort said. He stopped beside the grille.
"You attacked us," Harry replied. He didn't raise his voice. "You don't get another try."
Hermione put the wooden pick against the tally. The panel began to move, narrowing the view of the pale strip and the two identical faces beyond it.
Voldemort looked behind him. The imitation had raised its hand again, though this time he hadn't moved his own.
"Wait."
Hermione stopped the plate short of removal. She looked at Harry and Percy, and neither of them answered for Dumbledore.
From above, the headmaster repeated the condition. Withdrawal of the offered return, surrender of the claim on the passage, and custody on the outside.
Voldemort stood still between the grille and the imitation. When he spoke, Harry had to lean closer to hear the words.
"I withdraw the request. I claim no replacement."
The imitation stopped moving. Its raised hand remained in the air, and the wet path beneath the real man's feet brightened by a narrow, continuous line.
----------------------
Hermione pointed to the water beneath the ledge. "It has stopped copying him. The inlet is still open."
Voldemort had withdrawn the request, but the blood and stolen sea sample still held the inlet. The original seal remained damaged, and the imitation had paused rather than vanished.
The holding ledge gave them a place to separate those problems. Dumbledore instructed Voldemort to approach it along the visible path, with no magic and no movement beyond the grille.
He obeyed slowly. Percy followed the water beneath his feet, confirming each step while Harry watched for any renewed pressure through the scar.
The imitation stayed behind as Voldemort crossed the pale path. It tilted its head toward him. Percy watched the water at its feet.
Voldemort reached the ledge. Hermione adjusted the lower plate a fraction within its first stop, closing the inner route without lifting the broken grille towards Hogwarts.
The pale path vanished behind him. The imitation disappeared with it, leaving one furious man in the place that had held Ada and Jonah.
Percy could feel a body on the ledge. Its weight shifted as Voldemort turned. He told Dumbledore which movements he could follow.
Dumbledore ordered the outer panel closed. Voldemort began to object, then stopped when the headmaster reminded him that remaining alive in a holding place had been the arrangement he accepted.
Hermione withdrew the tally. The stone slid shut, and Harry sat down so abruptly that Percy caught his shoulder before he hit the floor.
"Still here," Harry said. He looked at the lamp rather than his scar. "Still me."
Percy gave the return signal. He kept an arm beside Harry until they reached the first step.
----------------------
The northern inlet darkened when Voldemort left its inner threshold. Kingsley's report described a brief rush of ordinary water, followed by a grey surface that no longer moved in time with a heartbeat.
It wasn't closed. The stolen sample remained caught in its groove, and Dumbledore forbade anyone to reach across the line for it until the three locks had finished the repair from Hogwarts.
Voldemort's wand was secured. His followers no longer controlled the pumping station, and Dorridge had arranged a guarded room on dry ground for the transfer once a genuine exit could be opened.
Ron listened to the report while retying the spare rope. "So we've got him where the shopkeepers were. That's an improvement in several directions."
Snape examined Harry and said little. At the end he asked whether Harry had allowed the foreign pressure to choose any of his movements, and Harry answered no after thinking about it rather than rushing to make the lesson sound successful.
Hermione placed the tally beside its box. Her hands shook now that they had nothing immediate to do, and Percy pushed a cup towards her without pretending he couldn't see it.
Dumbledore unwrapped the seal fragment. The old light inside it had thinned, revealing a line of stone that matched the broken edge Percy remembered at the centre of the chamber.
"The borrowed claim has been withdrawn," the headmaster said. "Now we must return what holds the original breach open."
Percy watched Hermione take the cup. He could still feel its water clearly. He tried to imagine letting that sense go long enough for the return to carry it back.
Ron put the rope beside him. "I will be at the top," he said. "Same signals." Percy checked the knot once and left it there.
===========================
Happy Spooktober guys! Sorry i've been away, I have begun to prepare for my exams :P Oh how I hate exams. Grr. Anyways, have another chapter!
[SHAMELESS PLUG]
Voldemort has finally accepted that attacking the rescue team is poor customer service. Support Reader004 on Patreon for more chapters and help keep the author supplied with instant noodles as the gate crisis reaches its final repair. Thank you for reading!