Chapter 156: Behind the Moving Ward

"Back to the camp," Edward whispered.

Kreacher seized his wrist. The forest folded with the familiar pressure of elf Apparition, but the journey ended after a sickening twist on the same side of the thorn wall. They landed six paces from where they had started.

Kreacher stared at the ground. "The ward did not stop Kreacher. It moved the place Kreacher was trying to reach."

"Can you take us outside the forest?"

"Kreacher can try."

A second scream came from beyond the roots. It broke into a cough and a plea for help.

Edward looked at the mirror. The silver star pointed toward the voice. Kreacher understood before he spoke.

"We reach Bertha, take her with us, and leave. We do not follow anyone else."

"Professor McGonagall said retreat."

"She also came to rescue a living person. If we can get to Bertha without contact, Kreacher can carry three."

The house-elf's ears flattened. "And if there is contact?"

"We leave without engaging."

Kreacher did not like the answer, but he nodded. He touched two fingers to Edward's glove and confirmed that the recognition bead had been destroyed after the camp attack. The Crest could not help them until it was reattuned before witnesses. Edward left it inert.

They followed the waymark through a narrow passage between roots. Edward used his own walnut wand to test the ground ahead. Simple revealing charms showed trip lines, patches of false moss, and one loop meant to turn travellers back toward the same tree.

He marked each danger with a white spark for the adults behind them.

The murmuring grew clearer. Peter Pettigrew was reciting words Edward did not recognize. Another man answered him in a harsher voice.

"Keep the line straight. The blood goes on the inner marks."

Bertha cried out.

Edward and Kreacher reached the edge of a clearing. A crude stone platform stood in its centre, carved with dark symbols. Bertha lay bound across it in torn travelling clothes. Peter knelt beside a cauldron. A tall, dark-haired man with a pale, strained face guarded the trees. Edward did not recognize him.

A bundle rested beside the cauldron. Something inside it moved.

Kreacher's fingers closed around Edward's sleeve. They were less than twenty paces from Bertha, with no clear path across the platform. Peter and the stranger both held wands.

Edward raised the two-way mirror and pressed the Black star. The surface flashed once. He could not tell whether the signal crossed the ward.

They needed a distraction, not a duel.

Kreacher loosened a dead branch above the far side of the clearing. Edward aimed a silent cutting charm at the branch and prepared to move when it fell. Before he cast, the bundle spoke.

"Someone has crossed the outer line."

The voice was thin and cold. Peter lurched upright.

The stranger swept his wand toward the trees. A revealing wave passed over Edward's hiding place. Kreacher bent the air around them with elf magic. The wave hesitated, then moved on.

"An animal," Peter said.

"Finish it," the bundle ordered.

Peter turned back to Bertha.

Edward had seconds. He cast at the branch. It crashed beyond the stranger, who spun and fired into the sound. Kreacher Apparated to the platform, reached for Bertha's bindings, and vanished before Peter could turn.

He reappeared beside Edward alone.

"She is fixed to the stone," Kreacher whispered. "The ropes moved with Kreacher. The woman did not."

The symbols had bound Bertha to the platform itself.

The stranger searched the fallen branch. Peter bent over the cauldron again. The bundle gave another instruction.

Edward could attempt to break the binding from cover, but he did not know which mark controlled it. A wrong strike might injure Bertha. He traced the arrangement into the mirror with his wand, hoping Dumbledore could see it, then wrote a single word against the glass: Bound. A silver light answered from somewhere beyond the thorn wall. The adults had received the signal.

Dumbledore's voice carried faintly through the roots. "Bertha Jorkins, we are coming."

The stranger swore. Peter overturned a vial into the cauldron. Bertha struggled against the stone.

"Now!" the bundle shrieked.

Peter raised his wand.

Edward fired a Stunning Spell. The stranger intercepted it with a shield, but the attack forced Peter to duck. Kreacher struck the platform with a burst of elf magic. One carved symbol split.

Bertha's left arm came free.

Dumbledore's next spell hit the wall of roots. The entire clearing shook.

The stranger sent three curses into Edward's trees. One cut through the trunk above his head. Another filled the air with black needles. Kreacher pulled Edward behind a boulder while the needles buried themselves in bark.

Peter regained his footing and dragged Bertha's loose arm back across the platform. She kicked the cauldron. Dark liquid spilled over the stone and hissed.

For a moment, Edward thought they had interrupted the ritual. Then the bundle began to scream, a thin sound that turned hope into something much colder.

The stranger struck Bertha with a curse. Her body arched, and the remaining symbols flared.

Edward fired again. Peter turned Bertha toward the spell as a shield. Edward twisted his wand aside. The red bolt missed her face and shattered the edge of the platform.

That hesitation gave Peter time. A green flash crossed the stone, and Bertha went still before Edward could bring his wand back around.

Kreacher made a broken sound. Edward felt rage rise through his chest, hot enough to blur the clearing, but the facts did not change. Bertha was dead. Rescue had become recovery and survival.

The liquid on the platform gathered around the bundle. Cloth fell away from a small, misshapen body with waxy skin and red eyes. Peter lifted it with both hands.

"My lord," he whispered.

Voldemort looked directly toward Edward's hiding place.

"There," he said.

The stranger's next curse broke the boulder in half.

Kreacher caught Edward before the fragments struck. They Apparated, aiming not for the camp but for the last white spark Edward had left along their path.

This time they moved.

They landed in the root passage as the clearing erupted behind them. The white markers gave them a route toward the adults, but dark vines were already closing over each one.

Edward checked Kreacher before moving. The house-elf had cuts from stone fragments but could still focus his eyes and close his fingers. Edward stated their direction and the intended destination aloud, forcing himself to follow the escape sequence they had practised.

The two-way mirror showed only fractured images. Edward pressed Bertha's name against the glass, followed by Peter and living body. The words blurred, then remained visible. Even if the signal failed, the mirror would preserve what he had tried to send.

He considered hiding beneath a Disillusionment Charm until the pursuers passed. Kreacher heard Peter ordering the roots to seal the rear path. Waiting would let them be surrounded and leave the adults without a clear position.

"Toward Dumbledore," Edward said. "No detour, no attack unless it opens the route."

Kreacher repeated the instruction. They moved together rather than letting Edward's anger choose the next direction.

Edward sent a red flare through the canopy. A phoenix-shaped answer burned briefly beyond the wall. Dumbledore was close, but so were Peter and the unknown servant.

The preserved message contained Bertha's name and the identity Peter had given the small body. Whatever happened next, the witness record would not depend on Edward surviving to repeat it.