Chapter 157: Shadows in Albania

The white marker ahead disappeared beneath a knot of roots.

Edward stopped before the same trap could close around his ankles. He sent a cutting charm along the ground, severing the thinnest tendrils, but the thicker roots pulled the damaged pieces into the soil and grew across the gap.

"Can you move us past it?" he asked.

Kreacher touched the trunk beside them. "The ward changes when Kreacher chooses a place."

"Then choose me."

The house-elf blinked.

"Apparate to where I am standing now. Take me with you and hold the destination on this exact spot."

Kreacher gripped his arm. The forest folded and released them several yards ahead. By fixing on Edward rather than a place, Kreacher had shortened the jump without offering the ward a distant destination to distort.

They repeated the method twice. Each jump moved them closer to Dumbledore's phoenix signal.

A shout sounded behind them. The stranger's curse struck the passage they had just left and opened a smoking trench.

"Run!" Peter yelled. "Do not let them reach the old man!"

Edward and Kreacher crossed a low ridge. The two-way mirror brightened in Edward's pocket, then showed Dumbledore through a storm of thorns. McGonagall stood beside him, changing roots into ropes faster than the forest could replace them.

"Stay where you are," Dumbledore said through the glass. "We are opening a path."

A dark vine snapped around Kreacher's ankle and dragged him backward.

Edward caught a tree with one hand and cast with the other. His first severing spell bounced off the vine. His second struck the earth around it, tearing loose the root ball instead. Kreacher vanished and reappeared beside him, leaving the uprooted plant to thrash against empty ground.

The vine sprayed black sap. Edward shielded his face with his sleeve. Drops struck the inert Crest glove and began eating into the outer leather.

He tore the glove off and threw it away.

The crystal remained inside its pouch. It cracked as the vine crushed it, and the double leather layers contained every fragment. Burke's ugly containment design passed its most violent test.

Edward did not retrieve it.

Peter reached the ridge carrying Voldemort. The stranger followed with his wand raised. Both slowed when they saw the glow of Dumbledore's spells beyond the trees.

"Take the boy," Voldemort ordered. "We leave the elf."

Kreacher placed himself in front of Edward.

Peter fired a binding curse. Edward deflected it into a root, which coiled around itself. The stranger followed with a blasting spell. Edward and Kreacher separated, letting it strike the ground between them.

The blast knocked Edward to one knee. His wand stayed in his hand.

He sent a Stunning Spell at Peter, not Voldemort. Peter twisted aside to protect the small body he carried, and the stranger intercepted the spell. Their need to shield their master limited their approach.

Edward used that hesitation to retreat toward Dumbledore.

Kreacher snapped his fingers. Stones rose from the path in a rough wall. The stranger shattered them, but the debris forced Peter to cover Voldemort's face.

"Again," Edward said.

He transfigured fallen branches into a tangle of wooden hoops. Kreacher drove the hoops across the trail. None could stop a skilled wizard for long. Each demanded a spell, a turn, or a step.

The phoenix signal grew brighter.

Then Voldemort looked past Edward and fixed his red eyes on Kreacher.

"The cave," he said.

Kreacher faltered.

"I sent you into the cave."

The thin voice held recognition rather than uncertainty. Peter glanced down at the creature in his arms. The stranger's attention sharpened.

"You drank the potion," Voldemort continued. "The Inferi took you."

Kreacher shook so hard that his ears struck his cheeks, but he did not leave Edward's side.

"Master Regulus ordered Kreacher to return home," he said. "Kreacher obeyed."

Voldemort's expression changed.

"Regulus knew?"

Edward understood the danger. Kreacher's survival told Voldemort that the cave had been breached. Any further answer might reveal the locket's fate.

"Move," Edward told Kreacher.

The stranger cast before they could turn. A purple bolt struck Kreacher's shoulder and spun him to the ground.

Edward answered with a shield, then a series of red bolts that forced the stranger behind a tree. Peter raised his wand awkwardly while still holding Voldemort.

"Crucio!"

Edward threw himself sideways. The curse passed close enough to raise every hair on his arms and struck the roots behind him. He rolled, regained his feet, and pulled Kreacher behind the remains of the stone wall.

Kreacher's shoulder bled through his tunic. His fingers still moved.

"Can you Apparate?"

"Yes."

"To Dumbledore."

Kreacher tried. The dark ward twisted the jump and dropped them only a few yards away, exposed between two trees.

Peter laughed and aimed.

Edward conjured a solid wooden shield. The Killing Curse hit it. Green light split the shield and hurled burning pieces across the path, but the physical barrier had taken the spell. Edward dropped the useless handle.

A second green flash came from the stranger.

Kreacher pulled Edward down. The curse passed above them and killed the tree behind. Its trunk began to fall across the trail.

Edward pushed Kreacher clear. The tree crashed between them and their pursuers, shaking loose a shower of wet leaves. It would delay Peter for seconds.

Dumbledore's voice sounded close enough to hear without the mirror.

"Edward!"

"Here!"

A silver spell cut through the thorn wall ahead. McGonagall opened the gap by turning the severed roots into birds.

Edward lifted Kreacher. The house-elf was too light.

They reached the opening as the stranger blasted the fallen tree apart. Dumbledore stood on the other side with his wand raised. For the first time since the clearing, Peter stopped advancing.

Voldemort did not.

"Kill the elf," he said. "Bring me the boy."

Dumbledore stepped through the gap.

The forest fell silent around him.

"You have neither," he said.

Peter retreated. The stranger fired a curse to cover him, and Dumbledore turned it into a ribbon of water. McGonagall drew Edward and Kreacher behind the opened wall while the investigator sent a binding spell after him.

The moving ward convulsed. Roots tore from the ground, creating a curtain of soil and wood. When Dumbledore cleared it, Peter, the unknown servant, and Voldemort had vanished deeper into the forest.

Dumbledore did not pursue blindly. He sealed the path, collected a sample of the broken ward, and ordered everyone back to the camp.

McGonagall placed a pressure bandage on Kreacher's shoulder while the investigator recorded the curse colour and direction. Edward surrendered his wand for a trace check, then received it back under seal. The adults marked the route to Bertha's body for a recovery team and preserved the mirror message as a time-stamped witness record.

Only after those steps did Dumbledore ask Edward whether he could walk. Edward could. Kreacher insisted he could too, but his knees failed when he tried.

Edward looked once toward the hidden clearing where Bertha lay. They had failed to save her. Chasing her killers through ground prepared by those killers would not undo that failure.

He carried Kreacher toward the Portkey.

Behind them, the Black waymark faded from the mirror.

At the camp boundary, a healer met them with a stretcher. Edward surrendered the mirror and then stayed beside Kreacher until the house-elf was safely under treatment.