Chapter Text
Chapter Three — In Their Absence.
It took Hermione nearly a month to go to Dumbledore.
For the first few days after Harry disappeared, there had hardly been room to think.
Hogwarts had become noise.
Professors disappearing into offices. Ministry officials arriving and leaving. Students whispering in corridors and falling silent whenever a teacher approached. Stories multiplying faster than anyone could correct them.
Harry Potter had been kidnapped.
Harry Potter had run away.
Harry Potter had been expelled.
Harry Potter had escaped the Tournament.
Harry Potter had gone to France.
Harry Potter had gone to America.
Harry Potter had joined Sirius Black.
Harry Potter had married Daphne Greengrass in secret, which Hermione had dismissed immediately, although judging by the enthusiasm with which that particular version travelled through the younger years, nobody else seemed inclined to.
The facts were considerably smaller.
Harry was gone.
Daphne Greengrass was gone with him.
Dobby had disappeared from Hogwarts at roughly the same time.
Nobody seemed to know exactly where they had gone, or if somebody did, they weren’t telling.
And Harry’s seat remained empty.
That was the part Hermione couldn’t stop noticing.
Not the newspapers.
Not the teachers.
Not even Ron, who had moved through anger, disbelief, indignation and a peculiar sort of offended silence before settling on pretending Harry’s disappearance was something he didn’t particularly want to discuss.
The empty places did it.
At breakfast.
In the library.
In Transfiguration, whenever Professor McGonagall asked a question difficult enough that Hermione’s hand went up automatically and some stupid part of her still expected Harry to mutter an alternative solution from two seats away.
He never did.
A month was long enough for absence to stop feeling temporary.
It was also long enough for Hermione to remember a conversation in a cold courtyard.
Whenever something about someone in charge doesn’t sit right with you, don’t bury it. Talk to the Headmaster. Even when it’s him.
She had thought about it the first evening.
Then the next.
Then after a week.
By the third week she had started remembering other things.
Harry sliding a stack of books toward her months earlier.
I’m asking you to check.
Her own voice answering almost immediately.
If Professor Dumbledore has looked at it and said there isn’t a way out, then there isn’t one, Harry.
She remembered how tired he’d looked.
She remembered telling him to stop wasting his time.
She remembered being busy helping Ron.
There was no kinder way to phrase that anymore.
Harry had come to her frightened, carrying research about a magical contract that might force him into mortal danger.
And Hermione had left him to deal with it himself.
She had abandoned him.
The word hurt every time she allowed herself to think it, so naturally Hermione had spent several weeks finding increasingly sophisticated ways not to.
Eventually, she ran out.
* * *
Dumbledore’s office was warm, and Hermione resented that slightly. It was irrational, but there was something offensive about the quiet fire and the ticking instruments and the comfortable chair waiting opposite his desk, when she had spent a month feeling as though something had been removed from her life and nobody had bothered to repair the space.
Dumbledore poured tea. She accepted it because refusing would have been rude, and did not drink it.
“Now, Miss Granger,” he said gently, settling behind his desk. “What may I do for you?”
She had prepared an introduction, built over dinner, revised on the staircase, and reorganised while she waited outside the gargoyle. None of it survived.
“Could Harry have withdrawn from the Triwizard Tournament?”
Dumbledore went very still. It wasn’t dramatic, which was what frightened her. He didn’t look caught or guilty; he simply stopped for half a second before folding his hands on the desk.
“That is a complicated question.”
Something cold settled beneath her ribs. “Harry told me to ask you.”
His eyes sharpened. “When?”
“A few days before...” She stopped. Before he left. It was ridiculous that she still had difficulty saying it. “A few days before Harry left.”
He looked down for a moment. “What precisely did he tell you?”
“Almost nothing.” That seemed to surprise him. “He told me to ask whether there was ever a way for him to leave the Tournament. About the exit clause from the old case in his notes.” She swallowed. “He said that whenever something about someone in charge didn’t sit right with me, I shouldn’t bury it. That I should ask you, even when it was you, and then tell him what you said and what I thought about all of it.”
For several seconds only the silver instruments made any sound. Dumbledore removed his spectacles, and her heart sank a little further. She had wanted him to smile and say Harry had misunderstood, or pull a book from a shelf and point to a paragraph, so that five minutes later she could feel embarrassed for ever having doubted him. Instead he polished the lenses slowly.
“Shortly after his selection, Harry discovered an old legal precedent concerning the recognition of champions by their participating institutions.”
Her fingers tightened around the untouched teacup. “So there was something.”
“There was a procedure.”
“Would it have allowed Harry to leave?”
“Not automatically.” He replaced his spectacles. “The provision allowed the head of a participating institution to challenge recognition of a champion under particular circumstances, provided the challenge occurred before the contractual structure had fully settled.”
“Was Harry still inside that period when he found it?”
He didn’t answer immediately. “Yes.”
The word barely disturbed the room. Her throat tightened.
“And Hogwarts had recognised him.”
“Yes.”
“Could you have challenged that recognition?”
“I possessed the authority to initiate such a challenge.”
“Would it have worked?”
“Old ceremonial magic is rarely quite so predictable—”
“Professor.” It came out sharper than she’d intended, and she looked down. “I’m sorry.”
“You needn’t apologise.”
Her eyes had begun to sting, and she hated that. “Would it have worked?”
“The evidence available to me suggested a substantial likelihood that the magical contract would have released him.”
She stared at the tea until the blur across its surface cleared. “Harry found that.”
“Yes.”
“He brought it here, and he asked you.”
“He did.”
She took a breath through her nose. “What did you tell him?”
He looked very tired. “That the historical provision did not provide him with a viable means of withdrawal.”
“Was that true?”
A pause. “Not entirely.”
Her eyes burned harder. She set the cup down before her hands shook enough for him to notice. Perhaps he already had.
“Did Harry ask you directly whether there was any way out?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you say?”
“I told him there was no way to withdraw from the Tournament.”
This time blinking didn’t fix it. She turned her face toward the fire and waited for the room to sharpen, and when she spoke her voice was remarkably steady.
“You lied to him.”
“I withheld information that I believed would place him in greater danger.”
She closed her eyes. A month earlier she might have seized on the distinction and asked what information, why it was dangerous, whether he’d had good reasons. She still wanted those answers. But she could no longer pretend the first thing wasn’t true simply because the second might be.
“He asked you if he had a choice.”
“Yes.”
“And you told him he didn’t.”
His face tightened. “Yes.”
“Why?” It came out smaller than she’d wanted.
Dumbledore leaned back. “When Harry’s name emerged from the Goblet, I knew almost at once that whoever had placed it there possessed considerable knowledge and ability. The protections were not trivial, and circumventing them required preparation.”
“Barty Crouch said something similar.”
“He did.”
“So you knew someone was trying to hurt Harry.”
“I strongly suspected someone intended to use the Tournament to reach him.”
She frowned. “And you kept him in it.”
“I kept him within a structure I understood. The Tournament had rules and officials, and each Task took place in an environment we could observe and prepare for. Harry would be surrounded by teachers and hundreds of witnesses. If I withdrew him, the person responsible would remain unidentified, and we would lose the only visible portion of their plan. There was no reason to believe they would simply abandon their objective.”
“You thought the Tournament was safer.”
“I thought keeping the threat within a controlled environment gave us the best opportunity to protect Harry while discovering who was behind it.”
Hermione understood, and hated that she did. It was logical. Someone had already reached Harry inside Hogwarts, and ending the Tournament might simply have forced that person to improvise. It was exactly the kind of argument she would once have found reassuring, and perhaps even defended.
She looked at him. “Is he?”
“Is he what, Miss Granger?”
“Safe.” Her voice trembled on the word. “Is Harry safe now?”
Something changed in his face. Her eyes were burning badly, but she didn’t wipe them; doing so would acknowledge what was happening, and she wasn’t ready.
“You said keeping him in the Tournament meant you could protect him. But he’s gone.”
“Hermione—”
“You don’t know where he is.”
“I have reason to believe—”
“But you don’t know.”
He stopped. Her breathing had gone unsteady, and she pressed her lips together until it passed.
“He left the castle. You don’t even know whether he’s still in Britain. He left everyone who was supposed to be protecting him.” Her eyes finally overflowed, not enough to fall, just enough that the room blurred completely. She wiped beneath one eye with the heel of her hand, almost angrily. “So was he safer?”
Dumbledore looked older than she had ever seen him. “I believed he was.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No.” He looked toward the fire. “No. I cannot tell you that Harry is safer now because of the choices I made.”
She looked away. That hurt more than she had expected. She hadn’t wanted him to be wrong, which was perhaps the worst part, because his being wrong didn’t make anything better. It didn’t bring Harry back, and it didn’t change what she had done.
After a while she asked, “Did you ask him? Whether he wanted to stay in, whether he was willing to accept the risk because you thought keeping the Tournament going might help catch whoever entered him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“He was fourteen.” The answer came without hesitation, and something twisted painfully in her chest. “He was frightened and isolated and under enormous pressure. Asking him to decide whether to expose himself to known dangers in order to avoid an unknown one would have been an extraordinary burden to place on a child.”
“So you decided for him.”
“I believed that was my responsibility.”
She shut her eyes. There was no villain hiding behind it, and that would have been easier. Dumbledore had loved Harry enough to be frightened for him. He had weighed the dangers, decided Harry was too young to carry the decision, and removed it.
When she opened her eyes again they were red, and she knew it because they felt hot and swollen, and because his expression had settled into the careful concern adults wore when trying not to embarrass someone who was struggling not to cry.
“Do you remember Harry coming to you with his research?”
“Very clearly.”
“He came to me afterward.”
He went still. Hermione laughed once, without any humour. “He brought the books. He’d marked everything and made notes, and he asked me to check.” Her voice cracked. She stopped, breathed, and started again. “I asked him what you’d said.”
She stared at a point beside Dumbledore’s shoulder, because looking at him directly had become too hard.
“He told me you’d said there was no way. And I said, ‘Then it’s settled.’” The sentence sat between them. “I remember the exact words. I told him you knew more about magical contracts than we did, and that there was no point continuing. I told him to stop wasting his time.”
A tear escaped and travelled halfway down her cheek before she caught it. She looked furious with herself.
Dumbledore leaned forward. “You could not have known.”
“I could have checked.”
“You trusted my judgment.”
“Exactly.”
He stopped. She looked at him, red-eyed and thoroughly miserable.
“That’s the problem. He wasn’t asking me to agree with him. He wasn’t even asking me to say you were wrong. He asked me to check.” Her voice shook. “And I didn’t. I had homework. I was helping Ron.” Her laugh came out broken. “I wanted everything to go back to normal.”
His expression softened. “Hermione, you were a child caught in a situation you could not possibly have understood in full.”
“No.” It was quiet, not angry. “No, Professor. I was his friend.”
That broke through whatever careful distance she had been holding. She didn’t sob, but the tears came faster now, and she kept wiping them away while stubbornly continuing.
“He came to me because he was scared, and I knew he was scared. I knew Ron wasn’t speaking to him and everyone thought he’d entered himself, and that he was spending every spare minute researching because he didn’t know what would happen to him.” Her voice dropped. “And I still left him alone.”
Pain crossed his face. “You did not abandon Harry.”
“Didn’t I?” She wasn’t accusing him anymore; she was barely speaking to him at all. “He asked me for help once, and I said no. Then the dragons happened.”
Her eyes closed. “I knew. Hagrid told Ron, and Ron told Cedric, and I knew too.” Her face crumpled for a second before she forced it still. “I told myself helping Harry would be cheating. I told myself the rules mattered.” A tiny, miserable smile came and went. “I always had a reason. There was always a very sensible reason not to choose him.”
The office was silent. She looked toward a window.
“He must have thought I didn’t care.”
“I doubt that very much.”
“How would you know?” It wasn’t hostile; it was almost pleading. He had no answer.
She lowered her gaze. “For months I kept thinking we’d fix it later. That Ron would apologise properly and Harry would calm down, and eventually we’d be us again.” Another tear appeared, and she left it there. “And now he’s been gone a month. I don’t even know what country my best friend is in.”
Dumbledore removed his spectacles. “Hermione, whatever mistakes I may have made, you must not carry responsibility for decisions that were mine. You are not responsible for what I told Harry, or for the choices I made about the Tournament.”
“Perhaps.” She looked down. “But I’m responsible for mine.”
He was silent. She drew a shaky breath.
“I chose your answer over him. I trusted you more than I trusted Harry when Harry was standing right in front of me asking for help. And that isn’t something you made me do.” A long pause. “I did it because I believed that if Professor Dumbledore said something was true, then checking it myself was almost disrespectful.”
His expression changed. She shook her head faintly. “I’m not saying you wanted that.”
“I did not.”
“I know.” It was immediate, and sincere. “I know you care about him, and I know you thought you were protecting him. I think that’s why this hurts.” She wiped beneath her eyes. “If you didn’t care, this would be easy.”
Neither spoke for several seconds. Then she asked the question she had been avoiding.
“If you’d told Harry everything. The clause, the danger, your suspicion that someone would still come after him even if he withdrew. If you’d told him all of it, and he had still said he wanted out...” Dumbledore’s face went very still. “Would you have let him?”
The silence was long enough that she received the answer before he gave it.
“I do not know.” He continued quietly. “I would like to believe that I would have respected his decision.”
“But you didn’t trust him enough to find out.”
“No.” There was no defence in the word.
She wiped the last dampness from her cheek. For some reason the admission let her breathe properly again.
He looked at her for a long time. “I am deeply sorry, Hermione.”
“I know.”
“And you should understand that Harry’s departure was the result of many things, my mistakes among them. You cannot reduce the loss of your friendship to one conversation or one decision. You are not guilty of driving him away.”
Her mouth tightened. For several seconds she fought whatever answer wanted to come, and when she spoke there was no anger in it, only exhaustion.
“Maybe not. But your certainty helped me stop listening to him.” His face fell slightly, and her voice softened. “And my certainty helped me leave him alone. So perhaps neither of us gets to take all the blame.” A tear gathered at the corner of her eye, and she wiped it away. “But between your choice and mine...” Her voice almost disappeared. “I lost my best friend.”
Dumbledore closed his eyes. She looked uncomfortable at once, as though she worried she had been cruel. “I don’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you wanted any of this.”
“No.”
“And Harry made his own decisions too.”
“He did.”
“But I wish...” She looked toward the window. “I wish one of us had just asked him what he wanted.”
That was the sentence that finally emptied the room. It wasn’t accusation or anger, only something terribly simple that, in retrospect, should never have been difficult.
After a while, Dumbledore said, “So do I.”
She stood. Her face felt hot and swollen, and anyone she passed on the way back to Gryffindor Tower would know she’d been crying. She found she didn’t care very much.
Dumbledore rose as well. “Miss Granger.”
She looked back.
“If Harry contacts you...” Her hand tightened on her schoolbag, and he stopped. Whatever he had meant to ask changed before he said it. “Tell him I hope he is well.”
He inclined his head. “If he wants to hear it.”
She crossed to the door and stopped with her hand on the cold iron handle. She didn’t turn around.
“Professor.”
“Yes, Hermione?”
“The worst part is that he would have stayed.”
Behind her, the instruments went on ticking.
“If either of us had sat him down and explained what you’ve just told me, the clause and the danger and why you were frightened, he would have listened. I know him. He’d have argued first, and then he would have said yes. He’d have offered himself as bait to catch whoever put his name in that Goblet, and made a joke about how badly the rest of us had planned it.” Her voice cracked on the last word, and she let it. “He would have let us keep him safe, if we had only let him choose it.”
She turned then. Her face was wet and she made no attempt to hide it.
“But nobody told him, and nobody asked. So he had to work out on his own that he was the only person in the whole castle who thought he could be trusted with the truth.”
Dumbledore did not answer. He stood behind his desk with one hand resting on its edge, and for the first time since she had known him, he looked like a man with nothing left to say.
She nodded once, gently, as though that were answer enough, and left.
She had reached the bottom of the spiral staircase before Harry’s final words in the courtyard returned to her.
And tell me what you think about all of it.
She stopped. For nearly a month she had thought Harry sent her to Dumbledore because he wanted her to discover he’d been right. Now she understood. He hadn’t wanted vindication. He had wanted her to make one decision without borrowing someone else’s certainty.
Hermione stood alone beneath the stone gargoyle, eyes red and cheeks still damp. It had taken her far too long.
But this one, at least, was hers.
* * *
Sirius was sitting alone when he finished the letter.
The chair had been pulled close to the fire, one ankle resting over the opposite knee, the parchment held loosely in one hand. For several seconds he did nothing at all. Then he smiled, not a large smile, just enough to soften something in his face, and drank the rest of his Firewhisky in one swallow.
He looked down at the letter again.
Padfoot,
We’re all right.
I know that is the first thing you’ll want to know, so there.
Daphne is studying more maths than I thought existed. She has someone teaching her properly now, and apparently this has only encouraged her. I thought she studied a lot before. I was wrong.
I’m still doing maths in the afternoons too, so don’t tell her I said that.
The mornings are different. I’ve started learning carpentry, drafting and a bit of welding.
Carpentry is brilliant. I know that probably sounds stupid, but I really like making something and then having it actually exist afterwards. Not a spell that disappears or homework that gets marked and forgotten. An actual thing.
Drafting is interesting too. You have to draw everything so another person could build it without asking what you meant: walls, doors, measurements, sections, all of it. I like that part more than I expected.
Welding is mostly learning that metal has some serious opinions. I burned a hole through one shoe. Before you ask, my foot was mostly fine.
Daphne did not agree that this made the incident acceptable.
Dobby agreed with her.
That was worse.
I’ve made a few things so far. A small box, and then another box because the first one leaned slightly. Daphne says it leaned a lot.
It did not.
I made a little frame too, and a shelf that I am not allowed to call bad even though one corner annoys me every time I look at it. Daphne has stolen every single thing I have brought home. I told her I was practising, and she said that did not mean I was getting any of it back.
I think she has started a collection.
Honestly, I love doing it. I like coming home with sawdust on my clothes and something under my arm that wasn’t there in the morning. That probably sounds very boring.
It isn’t.
Anyway, we’re good.
Really.
Harry
Sirius read the last line again, then let his eyes drift back up the page.
Honestly, I love doing it.
His thumb moved along the edge of the parchment.
Sawdust on my clothes. Something under my arm that wasn’t there in the morning.
It was not the happiness that caught in his chest. He could have borne that. It was how carefully Harry had wrapped it. I know that probably sounds stupid. That probably sounds very boring. It isn’t. A boy of fourteen, apologising in advance for liking a wooden box, as though nobody had ever told him that ordinary things were allowed to matter.
And the first line, written before anything else. We’re all right. I know that is the first thing you’ll want to know. Harry had worked out exactly what the adults in his life needed from a letter and put it at the top, where it could be dealt with.
Sirius looked at the empty glass in his hand.
Harry had fought a basilisk at twelve, faced Dementors at thirteen and walked toward a dragon at fourteen. Every adult who had ever stood in a room with him had asked what he had survived. Sirius could not remember one of them asking what he would like to make.
And what apparently made him happy, now that nobody was pushing him at a monster, was learning to build a crooked box and having a girl refuse to give it back.
Sirius lowered the glass very carefully onto the table. For a long moment he stared into the fire.
Then he laughed once, and there was nothing amused in it.
“Oh, pup,” he said quietly.
His eyes dropped to the letter again.
“How badly did we fail you?”
* * *
Ophelia Greengrass was halfway down the corridor to her husband’s study when the door opened.
The man who stepped out had to turn slightly to clear the frame. He was broad rather than fat, with the heavy build of someone who had spent more of his life outdoors than behind a desk, and his travelling coat looked as though it had seen several countries without enjoying any of them. There was rain dried pale along one shoulder and a thin scar disappearing beneath his collar.
He stopped when he saw her. “Lady Greengrass.”
Ophelia inclined her head. He did the same, respectfully and without another word, then continued down the corridor. She watched him go.
By the time she entered the study, her husband had already returned to his desk. He had not resumed working, and that was how she knew the meeting had gone badly.
Normally, Lord Greengrass treated bad news as an invitation to become busier. Papers would move, letters would be written, orders would be given, and problems were things one applied structure to until they became smaller. Now he simply sat behind the desk with one hand resting against his mouth.
Ophelia closed the door. “Who was that?”
He looked up. “Mercer.”
“That tells me very little.”
“He is coordinating the search outside Britain.”
Ophelia stopped beside the chair opposite him. “Europe?”
A tired nod.
“What did he find?”
Her husband looked toward the papers on his desk. “Perhaps something.”
That was not the answer she had expected. She sat. “Perhaps?”
“Two witnesses in France. Separate accounts, which is why Mercer considers them worth mentioning.”
Ophelia became very still. “Where?”
“Paris.”
Her hands went still in her lap.
Her husband continued. “One remembers two English children travelling together, a boy and a blonde girl, both approximately fourteen. The second remembers them later the same day near one of the ordinary transport terminals.”
“Magic?”
“No. No names either, and the descriptions are poor.”
Ophelia’s hope diminished as quickly as it had appeared. “Then it could be anyone.”
“Yes.”
“But Mercer believes it was them.”
“He believes it may have been.” Lord Greengrass rubbed a hand slowly across his forehead. “That distinction has become very important these last months.”
Ophelia looked down at the desk. A map lay partly hidden beneath a stack of correspondence, with several places marked across France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
“How many people are searching?”
“Too many.”
“That is not a number.”
He sighed. “Eight directly, and more through contacts. France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany. Two more are checking Switzerland and northern Italy through old family connections.”
Ophelia stared at him. “You expanded again.”
“We exhausted Britain.” The words came out flat as he looked at the map. “Potter properties, Greengrass properties, inns, Ministry transport, known families, old school contacts, properties held through trusts, empty estates that have not been occupied in decades. We checked everything we could reach without announcing to half the country that we had lost our daughter.”
Ophelia’s mouth thinned. “We did not lose her.”
“No.” He looked very tired. “She left.”
That was worse.
Ophelia folded her hands. “And Mercer?”
“Has orders to find her, verify that she is safe and bring her home if she agrees.”
“If she agrees.”
His eyes moved to hers. “That was always the order.”
She held his gaze. “And Harry?”
“If Potter wishes to return with her, they are to bring him as well.”
“And if he does not?”
“Then nobody touches him.”
There was a little more force in that answer. Good. Ophelia had worried, in the first weeks, that panic might make her husband less careful than anger ever had.
“What if Daphne refuses?”
His jaw shifted. “They are to confirm she is healthy, tell her we want her home and send word to us.”
That, at least, was sensible. Ophelia reached into the pocket of her robes.
“I received another letter.”
Everything about him changed, though not dramatically. His shoulders simply straightened. “When?”
“This morning.”
“From Daphne?”
“Yes.”
His eyes went immediately to the envelope in her hand. Ophelia placed it on the desk between them, and he did not reach for it.
“Anything?”
“Nothing useful.” She watched his face. “She is well. Harry is well. Dobby is well.”
“Where?”
“She did not say.”
“Country? City? School? Teacher?”
“None of them. She says they are studying.”
He stared at her. “That is all?”
“Essentially.” Ophelia opened the letter again. “She says they are busy and learning a great deal, and that Harry is studying as well.”
“Studying what?”
“She did not say.”
Her husband looked toward the ceiling for a moment, and Ophelia almost smiled.
“She did say she is happy.”
He looked back at her, and that silenced him.
Ophelia’s fingers pressed against the parchment. “She said they are safe. She said we should stop wasting time and money looking for her.”
Her husband’s face hardened. “She does not get to decide that.”
“She anticipated that response.”
His eyes narrowed. “What did she write?”
Ophelia hesitated, then read.
Father will continue searching because Father believes that stopping means giving up on me. It does not.
I am not missing.
I left.
Please stop treating those as the same thing.
Lord Greengrass looked away. Ophelia continued more quietly.
If you have people searching, send them home. Spend the time on Tori instead.
Teach her what she needs to know.
Do not make the same mistakes with her.
Neither of them spoke. Her husband’s gaze settled somewhere on the map without seeing it, and Ophelia lowered the letter.
“She asks about Astoria twice.”
“I assumed she would.”
“She wants to know how the training is going.”
His expression shifted. “That is interesting.”
“She also wants to know whether we are giving her any choice in it.”
That removed whatever satisfaction had begun to appear. Ophelia leaned back.
“She knows us rather well.”
He said nothing.
A soft tap sounded against the window. Both of them turned. An owl waited on the sill with a thick packet tied to its leg, and Lord Greengrass stared at it for a moment before he stood and opened the window. The owl stepped inside and let him remove the packet.
Astoria Greengrass was written across the front in his handwriting.
Ophelia recognised it. “The estate work?”
“Yes.”
He broke the seal. Inside were the ledgers he had given Astoria three days earlier, along with several pages covered in her smaller handwriting. He turned the first page, then the second, and Ophelia watched his eyes move.
“Well?”
He did not answer immediately. Then, “She found the discrepancy in the western tenant accounts.”
“You left one deliberately.”
“Yes.”
“Did she know?”
“No.” He turned another page. “She questioned the timber figures.”
“Were they wrong?”
“No. The cost increased without the volume changing.”
Ophelia smiled faintly. Her husband did not. He turned another page.
“She asked why.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“It is irritating.”
“That also sounds healthy.”
He gave her a look, which Ophelia ignored.
He kept reading. There were calculations in the margins, questions, several passages underlined and one entire column redone in Astoria’s hand.
“She has answered all of it.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I expected half.”
“She is your daughter.”
“Yes.”
“That should have warned you.”
For the first time since she had entered, something almost like humour crossed his face. It disappeared quickly.
He lowered the papers. “I can continue this.”
Ophelia waited.
“With Astoria. I know what to teach her.” Estate accounts, contracts, tenancies, family holdings and inheritance law: the machinery beneath the name Greengrass. Those things had rules, and rules could be explained. He looked again at Daphne’s letter. “What I do not know,” he said quietly, “is where the line is.”
Ophelia studied him. “Between teaching her and making another Daphne.”
His mouth tightened. “Yes.”
That admission cost him something. Ophelia looked at the letter, then at Astoria’s careful analysis spread across the desk.
“Perhaps that is the point.”
He frowned. “What?”
“You do not decide where the line is alone.”
He was silent.
“Ask her.”
His expression became almost offended. “Ask Astoria?”
“Yes.”
“She is fourteen.”
“So was Daphne.”
That stopped him. Ophelia regretted the sharpness immediately, but she did not take it back.
Her husband sat slowly. For a while neither of them spoke. Then he looked at the map again: France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, a search spreading across a continent after a girl who had written to tell them she was not lost.
He reached for Daphne’s letter, and his eyes stopped on one line.
Spend the time on Tori instead.
Lord Greengrass closed his eyes briefly. “I will not stop the search.”
Ophelia had expected that. “But?”
He opened them. “I will reduce it.”
That was more than she had hoped for.
“No more additions. Mercer keeps the current teams and follows credible leads. Nothing else.”
“And Astoria?”
He looked down at her work. “I continue.” After a moment he added, “And I ask.”
She smiled slightly. “That sounds difficult.”
“It sounds ridiculous.”
“Yes.”
He looked at the papers again. “But perhaps I have had enough practice doing the other thing.”
Ophelia reached across the desk and rested her hand over his. He turned his palm beneath hers.
Neither of them mentioned Paris again, not that evening.
But later, after Ophelia had gone and the study was quiet, Lord Greengrass unfolded the map once more and let his finger rest over France. For the first time in months the search had produced a real lead, and for the first time in months Daphne had written to tell him exactly what she wanted.
He suspected only one of them would prove useful, and that it was not the one on the map.
* * *
The bench behind Greenhouse Three had become theirs mostly because nobody else wanted it.
It was slightly crooked, permanently damp at one end and close enough to the greenhouses that the air usually smelled faintly of soil and something Professor Sprout had warned them not to touch.
Tracey liked it. Astoria tolerated it because Tracey did.
They were halfway through an argument about whether Professor Vector could reasonably expect anyone to complete two feet of calculations before Monday when a shadow crossed the path.
Astoria looked up first. “Post.”
Tracey followed her gaze. The owl came down awkwardly, carrying two letters tied separately to one leg. It landed on the back of the bench, fluffed itself twice and held out one foot with the long-suffering air of something that had travelled farther than it considered reasonable.
Tracey was already moving. “Two.”
Astoria’s face changed. The owl clicked its beak at her.
“Yes, yes.”
She untied the first letter, checked the name and handed it to Tracey. The second was hers.
Neither of them opened theirs immediately. That had happened with the first letters too, and the second set, and by now it had become less fear and more habit.
Tracey turned hers over. “No return address.”
Astoria checked hers despite already knowing. “No.”
“Still irritating.”
“Yes.”
Tracey looked at her, and Astoria looked back. Then both of them broke the seals.
Tracey read first.
Tracey,
I know you are avoiding the Potions essay. Do not deny it. You complained about the introduction for half a page in your last letter and then somehow forgot to mention whether you had written the rest.
Finish it.
If you do not finish it on time, I will send Dobby. This is not an empty threat.
We are well. We have found someone willing to teach us Arithmancy properly—or, in Harry’s words, more properly. She is very decent at it, though I reserve the right to revise that opinion the next time she gives us an unreasonable amount of work.
Harry has started studying several Muggle subjects alongside it: carpentry, technical drawing and other things involving rulers, wood and the belief that measuring twice is apparently preferable to cutting twice.
He is disgustingly happy.
He also managed to put a nail through the sleeve of his jumper without noticing until he tried to stand up. He insists this was not a carpentry accident because he was technically finished with the carpentry at the time.
I disagree.
He has started making things, too. There are now several small ones, and I am not giving any of them back.
Tell me how classes are going. Properly this time. And finish the essay.
Daphne
P.S. Harry says Dobby will not actually be sent over an essay.
He is wrong.
Tracey stared at the page, then read the postscript again. Astoria looked over.
“What?”
Tracey slowly folded the letter. “She has weaponised Dobby.”
Astoria smiled. “That seems efficient.”
“She knows I haven’t finished it.”
“You told her.”
“I told her I disliked it.”
“You told her you had written the introduction.”
“That is practically progress.”
Astoria gave her a look. Tracey pointed at the letter.
“She is somewhere out there and still judging my homework.”
“You sound relieved.”
Tracey stopped, then looked away. “Shut up.”
Astoria smiled and returned to her own letter.
Tori,
You were very vague about the new training in your last letter. That usually means either you do not want to worry me or Father was standing nearby while you wrote it.
So I am asking again. How are you? Not how the lessons are going, and not whether Father thinks you are progressing. You.
If the heir training is useful, learn it. You should know the estate, the accounts, the contracts and enough politics that nobody can make decisions around you simply because you were never taught how. But if they are turning you into me, tell them no. You are not me, and you do not need to become me because I left.
I am sorry Father is still dealing with the consequences of the marriage negotiations collapsing. I know it has caused him work, embarrassment and probably several conversations he would rather not have.
I do not regret it. I hope he knows that by now.
We are safe, and things here are good. We have an Arithmancy tutor who is very competent and very irritating when she is correct, which is unfortunately often.
Harry has become very interested in carpentry and in drawing plans for buildings. He made me a small wooden box, and it leaned. He made another because he said the first was bad, and I kept that one too. There are more now. I think I may be developing a collection.
Do not tell him I called it that.
Write back and tell me how the training actually feels. If Father or Mother are pushing too hard, tell me, and if you are fine, tell me that too. I do not want to spend every letter assuming the worst.
Love,
Daphne
P.S. Harry says the first box did not lean.
It did.
Astoria finished. For a while she said nothing, and Tracey watched her carefully.
“Well?”
Astoria folded the letter along the existing crease. “She asked about the training again. She says I should learn it, and that I should refuse if they try to turn me into her.”
“Both of those sound exactly like Daphne.”
Astoria looked down at the letter. “Father will hate that second sentence.”
Tracey leaned back against the bench. “Then perhaps don’t read him that one.”
Astoria gave her a flat look. “I am not giving him my letters.”
“Good.”
“He has asked.”
“Less good.”
“I said no.”
Tracey turned her head. Astoria looked very pleased with herself, and Tracey smiled.
“There she is.”
Astoria elbowed her.
The owl was still waiting. Tracey noticed and reached into her bag for a biscuit, which the owl accepted with significantly more enthusiasm than it had shown either girl.
Astoria glanced at Tracey’s letter. “Did she say where they are?”
“No.”
“Mine neither.”
“Anything identifiable?”
Astoria thought. “No names, no places, no dates beyond ordinary things.”
“Same.”
Tracey looked toward the castle. Three months ago, every letter without an address had felt like proof of danger. Now it mostly felt like Daphne being Daphne: careful, deliberate, annoying and alive.
She unfolded her letter again. Astoria noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You are rereading the threat.”
Tracey pointed at her. “If Dobby appears because of this essay, I am blaming you.”
“How is that my fault?”
“You knew she would ask.”
“I did.”
“You could have warned me.”
Astoria smiled sweetly. “I wanted to see what happened.”
Tracey stared at her, looked down at the letter and sighed. “I hate both of you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No.”
She folded the letter properly and stood. Astoria looked up.
“Where are you going?”
“The library.”
Astoria smiled. Tracey pointed at her again.
“Say nothing.”
“I said nothing.”
“You are thinking very loudly.”
That only made Astoria laugh harder.
The owl finished the biscuit, ruffled its feathers and took off again. Neither girl watched it for long.
They had letters now. That was enough.
* * *
The graveyard was quiet again, or as quiet as it was ever going to be.
Several headstones had cracked, and one had split clean down the middle. Near the centre of the clearing the ground was scorched black in a wide circle where the cauldron had stood, and what remained of it had slumped into a twisted pool of cooling metal. A stone angel watched over the damage with one wing chipped away. At its base, something in Hogwarts robes hung limp against the stone.
Nobody looked at it. They were looking at him.
The Dark Lord stood beneath the pale light, white-skinned and thin, his black robes seeming to drink what little colour the graveyard had left. Masked figures made a loose, uneasy circle around him. He was laughing, and not loudly, which was worse.
Then one of the Death Eaters said Potter’s name, and the laughter stopped.
“Potter.” Voldemort smiled. “You speak of his absence as though it were a failure.”
No one answered. He turned slowly, taking in every mask in the circle.
“It is not.”
A few heads lifted.
“Harry Potter has removed himself from Britain. From Dumbledore, from Hogwarts, from all of them.”
Someone shifted their weight. “My Lord, should we not continue searching?”
“No.”
The word came at once. Voldemort stepped across the burned earth, ash stirring around the hem of his robes, and looked past the graves to the dark trees beyond.
“We watch. We listen for rumours, for sightings, for any whisper that Harry Potter has come home.” His red eyes swung back to the circle. “If he returns, we will take him, and we will make an example of him.”
Several figures bowed.
“But until then?” He laughed again, softly. “Leave him exactly where he has chosen to be.”
The Death Eaters stayed silent. Voldemort let the silence stretch, then spread one pale hand.
“A symbol is useful only while people believe it belongs to them. The Boy-Who-Lived is gone. There will be no speeches, no resistance, no brave child standing at Dumbledore’s side.” His mouth curled. “If Potter stays away, Britain does not have a hero.”
The graveyard seemed to shrink around his voice.
“It has a boy who left.”
A few of the masked figures began to understand, and Voldemort saw it happen.
“Yes.” His smile turned almost pleased. “Let them remember that.”
The white face tilted toward the night sky.
“Let them wonder why their saviour never came back.”
Then he laughed once more, and this time the Death Eaters laughed with him, thin and late and careful.