Chapter 127: Changing the Alliance

The revised charter took three meetings. 

Draco objected to elections because a popular fool could defeat a competent candidate. Pansy answered that appointments made by one person could produce the same result without anyone being able to remove the fool. Theodore proposed fixed terms, written duties, and a vote of no confidence requiring more than a simple majority. 

Edward listened, amended, and submitted his own authority to the same limits. 

"You founded the alliance," Draco said. "That is different." 

"It is an argument every permanent ruler makes." 

"You would still win an election." 

"Then the vote costs me nothing. If that changes, the vote matters." 

They kept an emergency clause allowing the nearest trained member to direct a response while danger was immediate. Any restriction that continued afterward required written reasons and review. Dangerous books and spells remained limited by demonstrated training, not family name. 

The blood-status rule took longest. Grayson wanted insults prohibited but old family access recognised as proof of preparation. Daphne pointed out that inherited libraries created opportunity, not judgment. Hermione had more discipline than several students who could recite ten generations of ancestors. 

At last, the charter stated the principle plainly: membership and responsibility depended on conduct, competence, and consent. Blood status could be relevant history, never rank. 

Draco signed with visible reluctance. 

"My father will call this surrender," he said. 

"Your father is not joining." 

That earned a brief smile. The others added their names. No Gryffindor entered the room, no friendship appeared by decree, and no centuries-old rivalry vanished. What changed was smaller and more durable. The alliance could no longer use reform as a pleasant word for replacing one inherited hierarchy with another. 

Later that night, Edward carried the charter to his dormitory and activated the Two-way Mirror. Sirius appeared after the third signal from the secured room Dumbledore had authorized near the Shrieking Shack. Rain ticked against the narrow window behind him. 

"You are late," Sirius said. 

"The meeting ran long." 

"A mutiny?" 

"A constitution. Draco found it more offensive." 

Sirius laughed, then looked past the joke. "Did anything happen with Pettigrew?" 

Edward reported what the Marauder's Map showed and how Scabbers reacted on the train. He also told Sirius that Lupin might have noticed the missing toe. 

"Remus notices everything after pretending not to," Sirius said. "Do not depend on him guessing the rest. Dumbledore decides when he is told." 

"I know. What did you find outside the castle?" 

Sirius turned the mirror slightly, showing a table covered with copied owl registers and three scraps of parchment. Former Death Eaters had received short letters at separate dead drops around Hogsmeade. The handwriting changed, as did the owls, but the instructions used the same uncommon fold. 

"Someone is testing which of them will answer," Sirius said. "No meetings yet. No names." 

"Have you seen the sender?" 

"A tall figure in a travelling cloak, always at distance and never twice from the same direction. It could be one person or three people dressed alike. I will not improve the evidence by pretending." 

Edward studied the copied folds. "Let Kreacher watch one of the drops. He can leave if anyone recognises him." 

"Too many of the old families know him. A house-elf from Grimmauld Place appearing near a Death Eater's message points directly to us." 

"Then do not approach alone." 

Sirius's expression tightened. "You are entitled to give that instruction exactly once." 

"I have used it." 

"Good. I will ask Dumbledore for a second observer. You will stay inside the grounds and do the same." 

They agreed on what counted as urgent contact: Peter leaving Ron for more than an ordinary class period, a message from an unknown owl, or any attempt to reach the castle from outside. Suspicion without movement went into the written log. 

Before ending the call, Sirius asked about Harry. Edward described the Dementor attack without claiming the rescue. 

"Lupin drove it away," he said. "Harry recovered before the train arrived." 

Relief softened Sirius's face. "Thank you for standing there until Remus could act." 

The mirror cleared before Edward could answer. 

A white owl woke him at breakfast. Dumbledore's note asked him to come to the Headmaster's office after lessons and to bring the copy of the Horcrux passage from Secrets of the Darkest Art. 

Edward found Dumbledore beside a table already holding the remains of the Slytherin locket, the black notebook from the Chamber, and photographs of the ruined diary. Each item lay beneath a separate transparent ward. 

"Professor Snape said your report on the Basilisk was precise," Dumbledore said. "He was especially impressed that you admitted what the Flame Mask could not prove." 

"That sounds unlike him." 

"His exact words were less generous." 

Dumbledore invited him to sit. He had examined the damaged locket and compared its residue with the records recovered from the diary. Both had held the same kind of separated soul fragment. Edward's family book supplied the name and general method, while the black notebook showed how a sixteen-year-old Riddle had planned his first attempt. 

"My father died taking the locket from the cave," Edward said. "Kreacher escaped with it and spent years trying to obey the order to destroy it." 

"Regulus chose resistance when doing so cost him everything," Dumbledore replied. "That choice deserves to be recorded accurately." 

Edward looked at the broken shell. Recognition could not restore Regulus or give Kreacher back the years spent believing he had failed. It could prevent their actions from being misnamed. 

"Will you clear his name?" 

"I will document what the evidence establishes. Public disclosure must wait until it does not reveal that we know Tom's greatest secret, but delay is not erasure. You and Kreacher will receive copies of the sealed record." 

That answer carried a limit and a promise. Edward accepted both. 

"The shell is no longer dangerous?" he asked. 

"Not in the manner it was," Dumbledore said. "The fang destroyed the fragment and damaged the enchantment beyond repair. What remains is evidence, not a living anchor. It stays under wards because residue can still mislead an examination, and because losing it would make Regulus's account harder to prove." 

Edward wrote the distinction into his notes. Destroyed did not always mean discarded, and preserved did not mean active. 

Dumbledore asked next about Peter. Edward gave him the train observation, the missing toe, and the map entries. He did not describe certainty as proof. A transformed Animagus, a bewitched animal, or a forged map entry each had to be excluded before anyone acted near students. 

"Professor Lupin may already suspect," Edward said. 

"Then I shall speak with him in terms that protect the investigation," Dumbledore replied. "You are not to seize the rat, enter Gryffindor Tower, or arrange a private confrontation." 

"Understood." 

Dumbledore placed Edward's copied passage beside the three warded objects. "The evidence now allows us to use a name for what these were. It also raises a question neither of us can answer yet: how many did Tom make?" 

The office fire settled with a soft crack. Edward looked at the diary photographs, the broken locket, and the notebook that had preserved a young Riddle's calculation. 

Private research had become a shared investigation. That made the danger more real, but it also meant Edward was no longer carrying it alone. 

Dumbledore opened the black notebook to the marked page.