Green flames flared inside the hollow belly of an ancient tree.
Then died.
Douglas stepped out. Not a breath of wind followed him.
The night air was damp and cold, thick with the smell of earth and rotting leaves. It flooded his lungs. Bracing. The kind of cold that kept you sharp.
He looked up toward The Burrow.
That lopsided house, like blocks stacked by a drunk, had gone to sleep. The warm lights were out. Only a soft, crooked silhouette remained, hunched quietly beneath the dark sky.
A large orange cat sat perched on the vegetable garden fence.
Still as stone. Only the full, plume-like tail moved, swishing behind it in a slow, steady rhythm.
Crookshanks.
On duty.
Douglas had arranged this himself, before Hermione left. The most alert sentinel he could think of, stationed specifically against rats.
He pulled his gaze away. His silhouette dissolved into the dark. He moved low along the ground without a sound — a few quick, fluid bounds — and settled into the canopy of a tall oak, silent as a falling leaf.
The best vantage point in the area.
He tucked himself into the deep shadow of the dense branches and became part of the dark.
Douglas raised one hand and pressed two fingertips lightly against his temple.
"Visual zoom."
The world lurched forward. An invisible force yanked the distance shut and held it there. Every detail sharpened to an almost painful clarity , each groove in each stone on the Lovegood tower visible across the field, and the pot of wilted, drooping bellflowers sagging on the windowsill.
Time moved slowly through the cold mist. Like a frozen snake.
He waited.
Then , a rustle in the grass.
A short, hunched figure crept out of the dark.
Wormtail.
Every step looked like it hurt, like the ground beneath him was made of needles. His rat-like face was a map of animal fear. On his back, he carried something bundled in a ragged blanket, and the thing wouldn't stay still. It writhed and squirmed, leaking a faint but unmistakable aura of soul-deep evil into the surrounding air.
Douglas glanced at it. One glance, then he looked away. He tracked it only in his peripheral vision.
Pity it was wrapped so tightly.
A flicker of genuine regret moved through him. He couldn't even get a proper look at his own handiwork.
Wormtail stopped outside the Lovegood fence. His whole body shook. His teeth chattered in short, helpless bursts.
The bundle on his back convulsed with impatient urgency.
A cold voice, not meant for ears, not from this world, drove itself directly into Wormtail's mind.
Hoarse. Saturated with venom.
"Go in, coward. Now."
Wormtail sucked in a breath. It sounded borrowed. Hollow with despair. He squeezed his eyes shut, and like a man stepping onto a gallows, took that one fatal step forward.
The instant his toe touched the grass on the other side of the fence, a HUM moved through the air. A ripple, barely visible, almost nothing. Then a soft golden light flashed across the yard, gentle and absolute at the same time. It curved overhead like an inverted bowl, and for one breathless moment it enclosed the whole property in a dome of warm radiance.
A faint sweetness drifted through the cold damp air.
Lemon Sherbet.
The light vanished in the same instant, quiet as a firefly's exhale.
The bundle on Wormtail's back exploded into violent, thrashing motion.
"Ah—!"
Not a sound. A scream driven straight through the skull like an ice spike , pure rage and pure terror compressed into a single wordless blow.
It's him. It's him. Dumbledore.
He knows. He must know everything.
That old madman , it was him all along. He dares humiliate me like this,
Run. Run, you fool. Get out. NOW.
Wormtail shrieked aloud. He dropped to all fours and scrambled, clawing at the ground, fleeing back into the dark without a single backward look. Instinct had taken over completely.
In the canopy, the corner of Douglas's mouth twitched.
Clever old man.
That wasn't a defensive spell. It was a message. Any wizard with a passing knowledge of modern magical history could read the caster's identity from that lemon candy smell alone , same as if Dumbledore himself had strolled up, unwrapped a sweet with no particular hurry, fixed you with those pale blue eyes that saw straight through everything, and smiled.
I see you. I know exactly what you're here for. Now go away.
Douglas didn't move.
Why bother chasing?
He and Tom Riddle had never truly been enemies. Riddle was a whetstone , his student's whetstone, specifically. The final one. The kind that could only be made sharp with blood and fear, and only that way.
His job was not to break it.
His job was to make sure it stayed hard enough. Sharp enough.
Wormtail's silhouette had barely swallowed itself into the dark when ,
CRACK!
Snape materialized on a patch of open ground nearby, wand already out. His black robes whipped in the night air like something solidified out of fury. His face was thunderous.
He moved quickly to the now-silent ward and inspected it closely.
The air still held traces of it , a familiar thread of dark energy. And underneath, unmistakably, Dumbledore's sweetness, cloying as a sugar shop.
He hadn't arrived late. He knew that.
But whoever came was already gone.
Snape's wand slashed through the air.
"Sectumsempra."
A nearby rock split cleanly in two without a sound. The cut face was smooth as glass.
He swore under his breath, low and furious, the sound grinding out of him like distant thunder rolling through stone corridors. Merlin only knew how many times over the past two years he'd been dragged from sleep in the middle of the night like this , all to catch whatever wretch had the nerve to desecrate the Half-Blood Prince's name.
Xenophilius Lovegood and his wretched magazine attracted malice the way a wound attracted flies.
But tonight's visitor was different.
That dark aura. He knew it. He hadn't felt it in a long time, and he'd been perfectly content never to feel it again. The revulsion it triggered was bone-deep, almost reflexive.
His hand moved without thinking to his left arm.
He stood there a moment, jaw tight. Then he jerked his robes around himself and turned on the spot, dissolving into the dark like ink dropped in water.
Gone.
The forest settled back into silence.
Douglas waited a little longer in the tree. He half-expected Dumbledore to appear.
He didn't.
Douglas pursed his lips. A small, quiet disappointment. He shifted his weight and found a better angle against the thick trunk, getting comfortable.
He closed his eyes.
And waited for dawn.
Some things.
Owed someone an answer.
➤ Next: Molly Breaks Down in Tears! The Truth of Her Son's Enduring Humiliation Is To...
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