Percy woke to Ron asking for more syrup. He stayed still for a moment, listening for anyone to mention the lake.
Hermione told Ron to taste the pancakes first. Harry laughed when Ron poured the syrup anyway. Nobody spoke about the repair.
Percy opened his eyes. A tray stood beside the bed, the curtains let in ordinary morning light, and the pancakes were an alarming shade of blue.
"We did consider a subtle colour," Hermione said. She looked at the plate with the disapproval of a person whose instructions had been interpreted creatively. "The kitchens were enthusiastic."
Ron held out the syrup. "They taste better than they look. Which is fortunate, because they look like a spell went wrong."
Percy sat up slowly. His ribs hurt when he bent toward the tray. He could feel the water in the jug beside it.
"They are perfect," he said, taking the plate.
Nobody asked why he stared at it for a moment. Harry moved the jug closer, Hermione found a clean fork, and Ron waited an impressive three seconds before asking whether Percy intended to eat the whole stack.
Halfway through breakfast, Percy realized nobody had opened the door. He took another pancake before Ron could reach it.
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Madam Pomfrey allowed them out of bed after the examinations. She did not allow running, unsupervised experiments, or any sentence beginning with a confident explanation of how much better someone felt.
Harry tried that sentence once. Ron watched the result and decided to say nothing when his own turn came.
Hermione passed the memory checks. She remembered the people, the work, and the ordinary facts she had learned, though parts of the ancient language now required notes and effort instead of arriving whole in her thoughts.
Hermione asked where her language notes had been put. Madam Pomfrey told her she could read them after lunch.
"I can learn it again," she said. She paused before adding the part that mattered. "If I choose to."
Snape and Dumbledore checked Harry separately. The pressure from the gate had ended. The foreign signature remained at the scar, and they would investigate it after he had rested.
Harry asked to hear the proposed checks before anyone performed them. Dumbledore agreed and wrote the request in the examination notes.
Dumbledore agreed. Snape looked as though the conversation would have been shorter if everyone had already possessed better habits, which Percy suspected was his opinion of most conversations.
Percy lifted water from a cup and lowered it. Madam Pomfrey watched, then told him that was enough for the morning.
Ron had rope burns across both palms. Pomfrey treated them while he explained that the rope was perfectly serviceable and should not be blamed for the people attached to it.
She told him the rope could wait outside during his next examination. Percy laughed hard enough to make his ribs complain, and for once nobody mistook the sound for a symptom.
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Dorridge brought news of the rescued people after lunch. She gave those updates before opening the Ministry investigation folder.
Venn was recovering under observation. His wife had reached him, his account had been recorded without demanding that he make sense of every missing hour, and the evidence case remained sealed for examination in an ordinary dry room.
Ada and Jonah were still at Hogwarts. The healer expected them to leave soon, but both had been promised another examination before returning home and someone to contact if sleep, memory, or the sight of a well became difficult.
Their shop would need repairs. Dorridge had arranged for the damage to be documented before anyone cleaned away the evidence, and McGonagall had already found people willing to help with the rebuilding once the site was cleared.
"Some of the convoy attackers are still missing," Dorridge said. "The injured officers have given descriptions. Kingsley is checking them."
Umbridge remained in custody. The apparatus, the stolen sample records, and the testimony of the injured people were now part of an investigation that could not be reduced to a disagreement over school discipline.
Percy asked whether anyone was still calling it an educational experiment. Dorridge looked at him for a moment before answering.
"Some people may try. The evidence is less accommodating."
Voldemort remained alive in guarded custody. His wand was secured elsewhere. Dorridge said the guards had been warned about his wandless attack at the pumping station.
Harry listened without smiling. When Dorridge asked whether he wanted to add anything to his statement, he said that the man had agreed to return into custody, and nobody should turn that into a story about repentance.
Dorridge wrote down Harry's statement and asked whether the account of the attack was accurate. Harry read it before signing.
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Ada found them in the corridor that afternoon. She wore borrowed robes, carried a bag of clothes from the village, and looked at the four of them with an expression Percy couldn't decide whether to fear.
"Which one of you spoke to me through the bars?"
Percy raised a hand reluctantly. "Depends whether this is a complaint about the plumbing joke."
Her mouth twitched. Then she stepped forward and hugged him with enough care for his bruises that he knew someone had warned her, and enough force that he had no idea what to do with his hands.
"I thought we'd been left there," she said. Her voice was quiet against his shoulder. "I want you to know what it meant when somebody answered."
Percy put his arms around her. He didn't find a joke, and she didn't seem to need one.
Jonah waited behind her with his wrist in a new brace. He thanked Harry first, then Hermione, then Ron, who immediately explained that he had been upstairs for most of the interesting bits.
Jonah looked at the bandages on Ron's palms. "That's where the rope went, wasn't it?"
Ron stopped explaining. He accepted the thanks with an awkward nod, and Hermione stood close enough that their shoulders touched.
"The professors saw most of it," Harry told Ada. "They were at the top when we came back."
McGonagall arrived before Ada could demand anything further. She confirmed that the school would recognise all four of them, then told them that recognition did not include permission to neglect their recovery.
"Or their coursework," Hermione said automatically. Ron turned to stare at her.
McGonagall looked at her. "Miss Granger, on this occasion I am prepared to allow the coursework to suffer."
Ron made a small sound of wonder. Percy wished he had the Chocolate Frog card available to record the date.
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They visited the western passage once more under supervision. The lamps were out, the channel lay behind its seated stone, and the space looked like a storage corridor somebody had neglected for too long.
Flitwick was documenting the mechanism. He used drawings that recorded the positions of the stones without copying the binding language into a form an unwary reader might finish aloud.
Flitwick placed the tally in a locked case beside the mechanism records. Dumbledore would decide who could inspect it after the investigation.
The fragment was back where it belonged. Dumbledore's office no longer contained a piece of the breach, and Percy found the empty cloth on the shelf more satisfying than he would have found an impressive trophy.
Hermione looked at the covered arch. She remembered the ache of wanting to finish what it asked, and now felt only the ordinary curiosity of a difficult text waiting behind fabric.
Hermione left the cloth in place and joined Ron by the rope.
Ron took down the rope. Flitwick examined its length, marked the damaged sections, and said the sound parts could still be used for ordinary work if Ron wanted them kept.
Ron considered it. Then he asked for a short piece from the end, one that hadn't taken anyone's weight, and folded it into his pocket beside the worn card.
"The rest can retire," he said. He glanced towards the stair. "It's earned better employment."
At the end of the corridor, Dumbledore asked them to wait. "I should have shared the records sooner," he said. "You needed the information before the danger forced us to discuss it."
Harry nodded slowly. He didn't offer forgiveness on behalf of everyone else, but he stayed while the headmaster finished speaking, which was a beginning Percy could recognise.
----------------------
The lake was waiting when they reached the bank. That was the first thought Percy had, and the second was that waiting no longer felt like a demand.
Aequor moved beneath the surface. Far below the reflected clouds, a great golden eye turned towards them, and the water lifted in a broad slow swell that stopped short of their shoes.
Ron stepped back anyway. "I'm calling that reasonable caution."
"For once," Hermione said. She sat down on a dry patch of grass.
Percy knelt at the edge. He asked the guardian about the seal, and the answer showed the great door whole, the smaller routes closed, and the pressure beyond it unable to find the claims that had once led into the world.
The image showed a closed boundary. Nothing moved through the places where the borrowed claims had joined it.
Aequor turned away from the pillars. Percy followed the movement farther into the lake, then told the others the guardian was resting.
"He can rest," Percy told them. "Not stop caring. Just rest."
Harry sat on the grass. Hermione settled beside him, and Ron stretched his legs with the theatrical relief of someone whose knees had been inconvenienced by world events.
Percy remained by the water for a moment longer. He thanked Aequor without trying to turn the thanks into a promise for another task, and the answering pressure was warm enough that he stopped looking for words inside it.
The great shape moved away. Ripples travelled towards the bank, met the stones, and became ordinary ripples with nothing asking to be heard beneath them.
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Percy told them a little more about the blue pancakes. He began with his mother, the kitchen, and the world he remembered from before this one, watching their faces as the ordinary details became an explanation he had delayed for too long.
He didn't offer every answer at once. Some parts were difficult to put into words, and some were things he was still trying to understand himself, but he told them that he had lived another life and remembered its ending.
Ron listened without interrupting until Percy stopped. Then he looked at the lake, back at Percy, and asked whether this explained the occasional expression he wore when everyone else found something magical impressive.
"Probably. I was trying to be less obvious."
"You weren't doing brilliantly."
Hermione opened her mouth, then paused. "Do you want to tell us more now?" she asked.
"Helping," he said. He looked down at the grass between his hands. "I think."
Harry picked up a flat stone and turned it over. He didn't throw it into the lake while Percy was still speaking.
"It used what you missed," Harry said. "That doesn't make the memory belong to it."
Percy nodded and looked at Harry's stone. He told them another detail about his mother before Harry set it down.
The old kitchen stayed in his memory. So did the room where they had eaten blue pancakes that morning, with Ron stealing the last one while Hermione pretended not to notice.
He missed the old kitchen. He also wanted to be there when Harry went flying, and when Ron finally tried the blue pancakes without complaining about their color.
They stayed by the lake until the light changed. Harry eventually skimmed his stone, Ron claimed he could do better, and Hermione began keeping score despite insisting there was no proper system for it.
Percy watched the ripples spread. For the first time in days, he let the water go where it wanted without asking it to carry anything back.
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Alright, another 4 chapters to write.
[SHAMELESS PLUG]
I would like to thank everyone who made it to Chapter 60. If you enjoyed the journey, support Reader004 on Patreon for more chapters and help keep the stories coming. Your reading and support mean a great deal, and the instant noodles remain deeply grateful!