Percy almost called the dark water his. The recognition rose before thought, a familiar shape in the current where Umbridge's machine had torn something loose, and he caught himself with the word still behind his teeth.
It had come from him. That did not mean everything travelling with it belonged to him now.
Harry stood at the threshold with Hermione's hand in his. He looked from the silver grooves to the darkness pressing between them, then back at Percy without asking him to do the one thing he'd already given up.
"Can you walk?"
Percy nodded and took one step. The rope held him when his foot slipped. He put the foot back on his own groove and kept moving.
The dark current followed. It reached towards his groove, withdrew when the silver light touched it, and tried again through the space between Harry's feet.
Hermione watched its movement. The old language no longer opened for her as a complete pattern, but she still remembered the physical arrangement she'd drawn, and she pointed towards the channel joining the three returns beyond the doorway.
"It needs us to bring it together. Keep to the grooves until we're outside."
Harry moved his foot back over the silver line. The dark current withdrew. Percy followed the thread leading from his hollow, keeping his lamp above it.
They crossed separately. Beyond the threshold, the three threads joined into one clear stream, while the dark shape stopped against the line where the agreement ended.
For a moment it looked like a hand. Then it looked like a face Percy almost knew, and he turned towards the stairs before almost could become enough.
----------------------
The return tongue shook beneath their feet. Its edge rose a fraction, caught on Flitwick's wedge, and settled again with a scrape that told Percy exactly how much stood between them and a closed path.
Ron called down that the marker had moved. Hermione answered that all three were beyond the chamber, but the return was still flowing, and nobody touched the upper slab.
The darkness struck the threshold. The lamps flared, shadows sprang up the stairs, and a voice spoke in Dumbledore's tone from somewhere behind them.
"Close the channel now."
Ron didn't answer it. Above the stairs, the real headmaster called his position and told Flitwick to report the marker, while McGonagall counted the people she could see coming round the bend.
Percy started to turn at the sound of the false voice. Harry called the next step number. Percy faced forward and climbed.
Harry stumbled at the seventh step. Hermione steadied him, Percy put a hand against his back, and all three stopped long enough for Harry to place his foot properly before continuing.
Ron kept enough tension on the rope to help them find their footing. He waited when Harry stumbled, then took up the slack as they moved again.
Percy counted aloud. He lost his place and swore. Harry supplied the next number, and Hermione repeated it before they continued.
McGonagall took Hermione's arm at the top. Snape helped Harry clear the last step. Percy crawled over it and sat with his back against the wall.
"Three out," Ron said. He looked at each of them before repeating it. "All three."
The silver current continued past the marker. Percy waited for the lake to return, but there was still only the wet stone beneath his palms and the sound of water he couldn't command.
----------------------
Kingsley's Patronus arrived while they were still on the floor. Its message reported that the northern path had opened and that Voldemort was visible inside it, walking towards the original entrance with both hands held away from his body.
The real man was wet to the knees. His footsteps disturbed the shallow current continuously, and two Aurors followed the movement from fixed positions while Dorridge watched the place where he would cross into ordinary space.
A second figure had appeared beyond him. It stood on the grey surface without disturbing it, waiting beside the path like a reflection that had forgotten which direction it belonged.
Dumbledore sent instructions to keep the return narrow. Nobody was to strike across the boundary, widen the opening, or accept a figure appearing outside the observed path as the person they were receiving.
Harry pressed his fingers against his scar. Snape told him to look at the stone beside Ron's boot, and Harry obeyed before speaking.
"He's thinking about trying something."
"Then let the people waiting for him account for that," Snape said. He kept his hand on Harry's shoulder. "Your work here is not to conduct his thoughts for an audience."
Harry lowered his hand. Snape stayed beside him while Dumbledore sent the warning to Kingsley.
The next message came quickly. Voldemort had crossed the outer line, attempted a wandless strike, and been restrained by the waiting Aurors before he could take a second step.
Kingsley reported that the Aurors had restrained Voldemort. He was alive and disarmed. The team had watched him continuously from the ledge to the outer line.
The imitation had moved when he attacked. It reached the edge of the original path a heartbeat too late, finding only a narrowing strip where the blood claim no longer held the stones apart.
Dumbledore looked at Flitwick. The little professor checked the lower marker, then the current, and shook his head once.
"Not yet. The sea return hasn't cleared."
Percy stared at the silver water. Somewhere in it was the part of himself he had entrusted to a path, and the temptation to demand it back felt stronger now that everyone else seemed within reach of safety.
----------------------
The stolen sample reached the upper channel as a small dark bead. It floated beside the silver current rather than within it, turning against the flow while a thin clear edge tried to separate from its centre.
Percy watched the bead move beside the silver stream. He could no longer feel what was inside it. He asked Ron to bring the lamp closer.
"That's the bit that wasn't in our count," Ron said. He shifted the lamp so Flitwick could see beneath the surface. "It's trying to get into the return from the side."
Dumbledore asked Percy whether he had claimed it. Percy shook his head, then made himself answer clearly enough that nobody would have to interpret the movement.
"I recognised it. I didn't call it mine."
Hermione sat up. She looked at the clear edge around the bead and reached for the drawing she'd left on the shelf, following its channels with a finger that still trembled.
The apparatus had used Percy's sea connection as a claim over the sample. Voldemort had carried that claim into the inlet, and the repair was now separating the ordinary water from the authority stolen with it.
"It doesn't all have to come back to Percy," she said. "The water can return to the water. The command is the part that belongs to him."
Flitwick examined the old groove beside the main channel. It led to a shallow overflow beneath the shelf, an ordinary drain they had kept clear since first exposing the mechanism.
Ron moved the lamp. Dumbledore lifted a small flat stone from the overflow's mouth with the same care he'd used for the larger sluice, and the dark bead slid sideways as the ordinary water found a lower route.
Percy felt nothing at first. Then the silver current thinned, a cold sensation touched his fingertips, and the rainwater in the castle gutters returned to his awareness like a distant familiar voice speaking without asking anything of him.
The bead flattened in the overflow. Its dark centre stretched towards the silver stream, failing to follow when the last clear edge peeled away and ran down the drain.
Something beneath the stairs screamed. The sound contained no recognisable words, but Percy felt the impulse to answer it in the shape of his own power, newly returned and suddenly available.
Percy kept his hands on the floor as the sound continued. He could feel the water again, but Flitwick had not yet called the return clear.
----------------------
Flitwick called the marker clear. Ron looked once at the three of them, once at the empty silver groove, and put both hands on the lever.
Dumbledore lowered the upper slab with him. The stone met its seat without catching, and the return tongue settled only after the last of the borrowed connection had passed beyond the agreement.
The scream stopped. Under the lake, the fragment locked into the completed pattern, and Percy felt the great door close with a pressure too vast to resemble a sound.
The pipes above them stopped shaking. Water ran through a gutter. Ron took his hands off the lever and looked at the seated students.
Percy lost the strain he had felt around Aequor. He sat up and searched for the guardian's current.
He found it farther out beneath the lake. Aequor was moving slowly away from the pillars. Percy followed the turn until he was sure the guardian had cleared the gate.
He laughed before he could explain. It sounded dreadful, halfway to a sob, and McGonagall caught his wrist while he tried to get the words into the right order.
"He's moving," Percy said. "He doesn't have to hold it like that anymore."
Dumbledore closed his eyes briefly. Then he asked Flitwick to check the markers once more before sending for the outside reports.
Hermione looked at the cloth over the arch. She knew there were words beneath it, remembered studying them, and felt no question waiting for her to finish.
Harry could still feel the familiar foreign signature at his scar. The cold pressure from the gate had stopped. Snape noted both changes.
Ron sat down on the floor. He carefully placed the rope beside him instead of dropping it, then asked whether anyone objected to his never visiting a staircase again.
----------------------
They waited for the outside reports before calling it finished. Kingsley confirmed that the pumping station held ordinary water, the grey surface had gone, and no second figure had crossed behind the man now in custody.
The Yorkshire culvert remained a culvert. Its measurements matched the road, Venn's evidence case no longer carried knocking through its clasp, and the mist had not returned.
In Hogsmeade, the shop's well reflected the lamps lowered over it. The damaged floor still needed rebuilding, but no new stone had disappeared, and the line left beside it stayed the same length through every check.
Flitwick checked the slab and overflow. No movement answered from below. The remaining muddy water responded to his cleaning charm without changing the markers.
Percy listened from a chair in the passage with a blanket around his shoulders. Harry sat beside him. Hermione asked how long the outside teams had watched each route before sending their reports.
Ron listened to her for a minute. Then he told her she sounded like herself, and Hermione stopped talking long enough to understand what he meant.
"The breach is closed," Dumbledore said. "The outside teams will keep watch overnight. All three of you have returned, and the rescued villagers are still here."
Percy opened Flitwick's drawing and traced the three grooves toward the threshold. Then he looked at the rope beside Ron.
He gave the drawing to Hermione and let McGonagall help him stand. His legs still shook, and he was ready to go upstairs.
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Yeah, thats the last chapter for tonight. Bye now!
[SHAMELESS PLUG]
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