Percy turned the fragment over once in his palm. He had expected something larger. Dumbledore wrapped it again while Flitwick checked the drawing of the central recess.
The edge matched the break in the chamber floor. Flitwick pointed to the three channels around it. They would have to release their connections before the fragment could settle.
"I was hoping for a masonry problem," Percy said. "I could've developed an interest in bricklaying."
Ron inspected the small wrapped bundle. "Still time to change careers afterwards."
Afterwards had become a word they used carefully. Percy appreciated that Ron had said it without lowering his voice.
The plan filled one sheet. The three locks would release their borrowed claims together, the fragment would settle into the completed pattern, and the return channels would carry each part beyond the threshold before the outer sluice closed.
Voldemort would leave through the northern inlet. Hermione had traced its connection from the holding ledge, and Aequor had confirmed the old direction: what entered there could return there once the stolen water stopped holding the route open for something else.
Kingsley and Dorridge waited on dry ground beyond that entrance. They had his wand, enough people to restrain him, and instructions to follow the actual man from ledge to threshold rather than trust a figure appearing where they expected him.
Harry read those instructions. He looked up when Dumbledore asked whether he understood his own part.
"I stop answering for him. I don't pull anything out of myself."
Snape nodded. He would check the foreign signature again after the repair. They had agreed to leave the scar connection itself intact during this work.
Hermione's task was equally specific. She would release the undertaking to answer the seal, keeping whatever ordinary understanding remained when that demand no longer supported it.
Percy had the part that sounded simplest. He would let go of the connection he used to command the water, including the instinct to hold some of it back in case his friends needed saving.
Percy wanted to keep enough power to help if someone fell. He checked the rope instead. Ron would be holding the other end.
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They rested before the descent. Dumbledore insisted on an hour without rehearsal, and McGonagall made the instruction enforceable by taking the notes away.
Hermione sat beside Ron in the unused classroom. She looked at her empty hands for a while, then asked whether he still had the first Chocolate Frog card he'd used for instructions.
He produced it from his pocket. The wizard on the front complained that the card had been damp, folded, and employed in work entirely outside his expertise.
"Same," Ron told him. He flattened the card against his knee.
Hermione laughed. She turned the card over, read the abandoned instructions, and looked at how much had changed since they'd first thought closing a stone would solve the problem.
"You kept it."
"It's evidence that I listened the first time. Rare historical document."
Percy sat on a desk by the window. Harry stood beside him, looking down at students crossing the courtyard with the purposeful irritation of people late for lessons.
"If we get this done," Harry said, "I'm going flying."
"Before or after Snape finishes telling you not to?"
"During, probably."
Percy smiled. For a moment he could imagine the broom rising, Harry leaning into the wind, and nobody in the sky asking him to be a key to anything.
Hermione asked what Percy wanted to do afterwards. He looked toward the Hall before answering.
"Breakfast without a report arriving halfway through. Blue pancakes, if anyone's taking requests."
Ron considered it. He said blue seemed unnecessary but pancakes were a sound strategic objective, and Hermione promised to check whether the kitchens had food colouring if all of them agreed to stop calling breakfast strategy.
McGonagall returned for them. Percy picked up the wrapped fragment while Ron continued arguing that blue food should taste different.
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Ron had placed the rope and lamps beside the arch. Flitwick checked the markers again. Percy stood where he had waited before the last descent and tried not to look at the stairs.
Flitwick had secured the damaged grille from the chamber side during a brief inspection. It could remain shut while the northern route opened behind the holding ledge, preventing Voldemort's return from becoming a visit to Hogwarts.
Snape asked Harry what he felt at the scar. Harry answered, then told him the moment he intended to hold in mind. Snape let him go to the rope.
Dumbledore gave Percy the fragment. Then he spoke to all three of them with his hands empty at his sides.
"You may stop before you begin. Once the release starts, we will help you complete the return. We will not ask you to turn an error into a sacrifice."
Hermione nodded. Harry adjusted his glasses, and Percy checked the knot at his waist because his fingers needed an ordinary job.
Ron waited until everyone else had finished. Then he pulled each section of rope, looked each of them in the eye, and told them he would be there when they came back.
Percy nodded and took the lamp. "Same signals," he said.
They descended. Water ran beside the stairs, and Percy listened to it for what he hoped would be the last time he needed to measure a friendly thing for signs of an enemy.
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Voldemort stood behind the secured grille. One hand rested against the wall. He looked toward the panel as soon as it opened.
Harry did not approach him. Hermione described the northern route in plain words, and Percy confirmed that the shallow water beneath the holding ledge still led towards the place where Voldemort had entered.
The man asked whether the repair would weaken him. Dumbledore's answer came down from the upper passage, unchanged from the conditions already agreed.
They would return the person who had crossed the boundary. They promised no preservation of the advantage he had tried to purchase inside it.
Voldemort's gaze moved towards Harry. Harry looked back once, then turned his attention to the blood hollow without offering either defiance or permission for another conversation.
Percy placed the fragment above the central recess. A narrow lip held it just clear of the broken edge, ready to settle when the three channels moved into alignment.
Hermione checked the direction of the return grooves. Harry gave the rope two pulls, waited for Ron's answer, and took his place.
Aequor's presence filled the space beyond the wall. Percy felt the guardian brace, then send one final image of three figures walking out under their own power while the fourth waited beyond the agreement.
Percy told Harry and Hermione what Aequor had shown. Then he held the lamp high enough for them to see the recess.
"Ready," Harry said. He looked at each of them in turn.
"Ready," Hermione answered. Her hands steadied at her sides.
Percy opened his hands. "Let's go home."
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The sea hollow filled first. Percy let the water answer, then released the part of himself that expected to be obeyed by it.
It felt less like losing strength than losing a direction. The lake withdrew from his awareness, followed by the damp stone, the blood in his own fingers, and every small current he had been using to understand the room without looking.
He wanted to seize the nearest piece. He could almost feel where it had gone, and the instinct to catch it arrived with a hundred good reasons involving Harry, Hermione, and people who might still need him.
Percy kept his hands open. He could see his friends, hear the lamp, and feel the rope against his waist, which was enough information to take the next breath.
Across from him, Harry put both palms against the edge of his hollow. The cold at his scar sharpened, and he spoke his own name quietly before shaking his head at something Percy couldn't hear.
He didn't force the foreign presence away. He stopped supplying his own assent to it, letting the two fears remain distinct even when both told him the room was dangerous.
Hermione watched the inscriptions brighten. Understanding opened before her with a completeness that made her sway, and Percy saw how badly she wanted to follow the pattern to its end.
Hermione kept silent as the questions pressed through the inscription. Percy watched her hands steady beside the hollow.
The three channels moved. Stone slid against stone, the fragment dropped into its recess, and the chamber filled with a silver light that came from no lamp.
Percy watched the light reach the return grooves. Harry stepped away from his hollow. Then something appeared beyond the doorway.
----------------------
The kitchen appeared beyond the doorway. Blue curtains moved beside the window, a pan sat on the hob, and Percy knew the exact place where the floor would creak if he crossed towards the table.
His mother stood at the sink. She turned, smiled, and said his name with none of the distortion he had prepared himself to recognise.
Percy stopped breathing. He could remember every reason to mistrust the image and still want, with a force that hurt, to take one step towards it.
"Percy," Harry said. He stayed close enough to be heard over the water.
The real voice came from his left. Percy turned his head towards it slowly, afraid that moving his eyes would make the kitchen disappear and ashamed of how much that possibility mattered.
"I can see her," he said. His voice sounded younger than he wanted it to.
Harry didn't tell him she wasn't real. He told Percy where he was standing, where Hermione was, and that Ron had just answered the rope.
Percy looked down. His shoes stood on cold stone, a silver thread flowed past them, and the kitchen had no place for either of his friends.
He thought of blue pancakes in a room where Ron would complain about the colour. The thought didn't erase the older kitchen; it gave him somewhere else to put his next foot.
"I'm keeping the memory," Percy said. He stepped towards Harry. "You don't get to turn it into a direction."
The image broke. It became ordinary darkness around the doorway, and Percy discovered he was crying only when the lamp blurred in his hand.
Hermione made a small sound beside him. She had stepped away from her hollow, but her eyes were fixed on the inscriptions as if a word she needed had fallen just beyond reach.
"I can't finish it," she said. "I know I understood it."
"You don't have to," Harry answered. He held out his hand without pulling her. "Come with us."
She took his hand. The silver channels followed them towards the threshold, separate lines waiting to join beyond the place where the agreement ended.
The northern current turned. A dark shape moved against the silver water toward the return groove. Percy looked for the familiar pull of the sample and felt nothing.
He raised his hand, then lowered it. The water no longer answered him. He called to Harry and gave the warning signal on the rope.
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Here is your extra chapter, maybe another one coming soon?
[SHAMELESS PLUG]
The final repair has begun, and Percy is fighting for the right to have an ordinary breakfast. Support Reader004 on Patreon for more chapters and help keep the author writing through the return. Thank you for reading and supporting the instant noodle fund!