Chapter 110: Flame Serpent Pact

The new alliance spent its first hour after signing the charter reducing Edward's plans.

Draco wanted weekly duels. Samuel changed them to supervised defensive drills with written limits. Pansy rejected an arrangement in which Edward assigned every research task. Theodore proposed that members choose work from an approved list and report what they had actually tested. Daphne added a rule that no family text could be copied without the owner's consent and an independent safety review.

Edward accepted each amendment.

The first assignments were deliberately small. Samuel would verify the source notes on concealment. Daphne and Pansy would compare the corridor-safety lessons with school rules. Theodore would define admissible evidence for an internal hearing. Draco would draft a training rota that did not reward stronger students for humiliating weaker ones.

"You gave me the dullest task," Draco said.

"You complain most loudly when rules waste time. Improve them."

Draco took the challenge as intended.

No spell practice occurred that night. The visitors left with copies of the charter and approved extracts, not badges that granted protection or objects that promised hidden power. Kreacher witnessed each packet being sealed.

The following morning belonged to Regulus's locket.

Dumbledore, Amelia Bones, the curse specialist, and a healer arrived before breakfast. They entered the lower ward room only after checking its seals from both exits. The locket rested inside a transparent case fixed to the stone table. The Basilisk fang stood in a silver clamp above it.

A jointed striking arm extended through the first shield. No hand would touch the fang. Three cords led from the mechanism to separate release points. Dumbledore, the specialist, and Kreacher had to pull together before the arm could descend.

"Why Kreacher?" Bones asked for the record.

"Regulus ordered him to destroy the object," Dumbledore said. "His participation is not magically required. It is historically and personally appropriate, provided he chooses it."

Kreacher stood at the observation line in clean gloves. "Kreacher chooses."

Edward held no release cord. His role was to identify any response connected to the House of Black and to give Kreacher a familiar voice if the locket tried to deceive him.

Before the evidence case opened, they rehearsed three failures with an ordinary metal weight. In the first, one release cord jammed. The striking arm stopped before descending. In the second, a shield cracked under a simulated outward pulse. Everyone withdrew through the western exit while the collection jar sealed itself. In the third, Kreacher deliberately let go after the count began. The mechanism locked because consent from all three release points had not continued.

"The locket will not wait while we repeat this," Kreacher said.

"That is why we repeat it now," Bones replied.

The healer assigned each person an exit partner. Edward's was Kreacher. Dumbledore would remain with the specialist if the inner apparatus required containment. Bones would carry the written log and alert the Ministry response team waiting beyond the house wards.

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They established three stop words. Venom stopped the attempt for any breach of the fang case. Memory stopped it if a participant could not identify the room and date. Regulus belonged to Kreacher alone and ended the attempt without requiring an explanation.

Edward asked for a fourth stop condition: any voice or image that persuaded someone to cross the observation line. The specialist added it to the list and charmed the floor to sound an alarm if a foot touched the boundary.

Only after everyone repeated the sequence correctly did Bones authorise the real test.

Edward checked that his walnut wand was secured but left it holstered. His fire had no assigned function in the containment plan. Drawing it merely because he felt afraid would add an uncontrolled reaction to a room already holding venom and damaged soul magic.

The healer checked everyone once more. Bones started the time log.

Dumbledore opened the outer evidence case without disturbing the inner shields. Cold entered the room. Frost formed along the clamp despite the summer heat outside.

The locket's clasp opened by itself.

A woman's voice spoke from inside.

"Kreacher, you failed me."

The house-elf lurched toward the table. Edward caught his sleeve before he crossed the observation line.

"That is not Regulus."

The voice changed. It became a young man's, hoarse from the cave.

"Why did you leave me there?"

Kreacher covered his ears, but the words entered through the enchantment rather than sound. The specialist raised the first shield to an opaque grey. The voice continued.

"You obeyed the easy order. You ran."

Edward kept his grip light enough that Kreacher could pull away. "Regulus ordered you home because your survival mattered. The locket knows the memory you carried around it. It does not know what Regulus would say now."

The accusation turned toward Edward.

His mother appeared against the grey shield, formed from smoke and reflected fire. Her face matched the Pensieve memory too perfectly.

"You have made my death useful," the image said. "Is that why you keep returning to it?"

Pain struck before reason. The figure used a question Edward had asked himself and gave it Isabella's voice.

He looked at the details it had missed. The real memory held exhaustion beneath her eyes and a burn along one cuff. The copy was flawless because it had been built from Edward's idealised recollection.

"You are reading fear," he said. "Not the dead."

The figure smiled with his mother's mouth. "Does the difference help?"

"Yes."

He meant it after saying it.

Dumbledore did not tell him to ignore the image. The Headmaster asked the specialist whether the projection had crossed the second shield. It had not. Naming the mechanism made the room measurable again.

Bones recorded that the locket produced tailored sensory and emotional pressure before physical damage. The healer confirmed elevated pulse in Edward and Kreacher but no possession.

"We can stop," Dumbledore said.

Kreacher lowered his hands. His face was wet. "No."

"Choice can be withdrawn at any point."

"Kreacher chooses to finish."

Edward looked at the false Isabella. "So do I."

The specialist changed the shield from opaque to filtered transparency. The images weakened but remained visible. She aligned the fang over the center of the locket and checked that the residue jar was open.

Each participant confirmed readiness. Bones read the purpose aloud: to damage the enchantment beyond repair, preserve the remaining shell as evidence, and prevent exposure to venom or released magic.

Kreacher placed both hands on his cord.

"Master Regulus ordered the locket destroyed," he said. "Kreacher carries out the order with witnesses."

Dumbledore and the specialist took their cords. On Bones's count, all three pulled.

The silver arm fell.

The Basilisk fang pierced the locket.

Black vapour struck the inner shield with enough force to ring the glass like a bell. The false images tore apart. A scream filled the ward room, not in any familiar voice but in the raw pressure of something wounded and furious.

The first shield bowed inward.

The specialist locked the striking arm in place. Dumbledore reinforced the glass. Bones ordered everyone to hold position while the collection jar drew the vapour away from the exits.

Inside the case, the locket convulsed around the fang as though metal had become living flesh.

Then the second shield began to crack.