Chapter 161: Return to Grimmauld Place

 

The official accounts ended. The private consequences did not.

Sirius received three letters in one morning. Amelia Bones confirmed the search order for Peter. The Albanian authorities retained Bertha's body until their examination was complete. Cornelius Fudge requested that Sirius refrain from making public statements about Voldemort.

Sirius read the last letter twice and fed it to the kitchen fire.

"You needed that for the record," Edward said.

Kreacher retrieved the burning page with a snap of his fingers and smothered it beneath a pan.

"Thank you, Kreacher," Edward said.

Sirius looked unrepentant. "Make a copy. Then I can burn that one too."

The family solicitor arrived before noon and persuaded him to answer in colder language. Sirius would not speak publicly while the inquiry remained active, provided the Ministry issued adequate safety warnings and did not describe Bertha's death as an accident.

Fudge's office accepted the first condition and avoided the second.

Edward watched Sirius pace between the fireplace and the window. In Albania, Sirius had obeyed the extraction order once adults reached him. At home, inaction gnawed at him.

"Running after Peter would help him," Edward said.

"I know."

"He prepared the ground once. He can do it again."

"I know."

"Then stop looking at the door."

Sirius turned. "You have become very irritating."

"Family resemblance."

That won a brief laugh.

They converted the drawing room into a planning space. One wall held only confirmed facts. Peter had killed Bertha. Voldemort possessed a weak physical form. An unknown servant helped them. The ritual used Bertha's blood and dark bindings. Peter escaped as a rat. A Portkey trace crossed the stream.

A second wall held questions. How had Peter found Bertha? Who was the servant? What materials did Voldemort still need? Why did Bartemius Crouch react to the description? What had the ritual revealed about the remaining soul fragments?

The family solicitor added a third category: information they had no right to release. Bertha's medical findings belonged to her family and the investigation. Kreacher's cave memories belonged to him as well as to the Black record. Harry's connection to Voldemort could not become an alliance briefing merely because it helped a theory.

Edward marked those limits in red. Evidence preservation did not mean accumulating every secret in one private archive.

They created access rules. Dumbledore and Bones could request the original witness records. The alliance could receive safety conclusions with identifying details removed. Reporters received nothing without permission from the affected person or family. Sirius could not override those rules simply because the documents rested in his house.

He signed anyway.

The access rules prevented Edward from turning knowledge into personal leverage, a temptation he recognized in the old family histories. Those books praised the Blacks who knew what others did not. They rarely recorded the cost to the people whose lives became useful secrets.

Nothing moved from the question wall without evidence.

Hermione came through the Floo with Harry and Ron. Mrs. Weasley followed long enough to inspect the room, Sirius's ankle, and the lunch Kreacher had prepared. She left only after extracting a promise that the children would hear no graphic description.

Edward told them that Peter had been found, Bertha had been murdered, and Voldemort had obtained an incomplete body. He did not describe the platform. He made clear that the danger was real and that Dumbledore had increased protections.

Harry went very still. "Did he ask about me?"

"No."

"Then he was not trying to come for me?"

"Not in that clearing. We do not know what he plans."

Harry rubbed his scar. It had not hurt during the Albanian ritual. That absence became another fact, though Dumbledore warned it proved little. Distance, wards, or Voldemort's weak condition might have interrupted the connection.

Hermione read the wall of questions. "The unknown man could be the person who helped Peter control Bertha."

"Or someone Peter found afterward," Ron said.

"Both stay as possibilities," Edward replied.

Sirius showed Harry the escape plan for the World Cup. Harry would attend with the Weasleys and return with them if anything happened. Edward would use the Malfoy Portkey or his own emergency one. Neither boy would investigate a disturbance.

Ron stared at Sirius. "You expect something to happen?"

"I expect crowded camps to attract idiots even without Voldemort."

That answer satisfied no one, but it prevented fear from taking the entire afternoon.

They moved to the ballroom and practised finding exits under ordinary distractions. Kreacher rang bells, dropped sheets across doorways, and moved furniture while they walked in pairs. No one cast offensive spells. The point was to leave together.

Harry and Ron treated the first round as a race and missed the child-sized dummy behind a chair. Hermione stopped to retrieve it and became separated from them.

On the second round, they assigned roles. Harry called the nearest clear exit. Ron checked that everyone moved. Hermione carried the dummy. Edward watched the rear without turning the exercise into a duel.

They reached the marked safe point as a group.

"Again," Sirius said.

By the fifth round, the exercise felt dull. That was when Kreacher extinguished the lights and released harmless smoke from a covered jar. Harry found the wall, Hermione counted voices, and Ron opened the wrong door before Edward caught his sleeve.

They corrected and continued.

After the visitors returned to the Burrow, Edward found Sirius studying the confirmed-facts wall.

"You did not tell Harry that Voldemort recognized Kreacher."

"It would expose the cave and the locket."

"He will need to know about the soul fragments eventually."

"Yes. Dumbledore and I will decide when the knowledge helps him more than it burdens him."

Edward disliked decisions made around Harry. He also understood that revealing a secret could make him a target before he had any way to act on it.

"Include him in the decision when the time comes," Edward said.

Sirius considered that. "Fair."

Kreacher entered with Burke's sealed tray. The alchemist had returned the ruined Crest, every fragment numbered inside separate glass envelopes. The dark sap had not reached the clay bead because Edward had crushed it earlier. The inner pouch contained all quartz pieces.

The field failure justified the containment design. It did not justify rebuilding the device immediately.

Edward placed the tray in the archive.

"Surprised?" Sirius asked.

"I want to rebuild it."

"That was not my question."

"Yes, I am surprised that I can want to and still wait."

Sirius touched his shoulder. "Keep practising that."

At dusk, Dumbledore sent a phoenix Patronus into the drawing room. The Albanian specialists had found no further sign of Peter. Bertha's remains could return to Britain. Her family would be notified before any public announcement.

The message ended with a warning. Evidence from the clearing suggested that the rudimentary body required regular magical support. Voldemort was vulnerable, but a desperate enemy with loyal servants could still be lethal.

Sirius extinguished the question wall's candles one by one.

"We prepare," he said.

"We do not hunt," Edward answered.

The words were not surrender. They were the rule that kept Albania from repeating itself.

The rule went onto the confirmed wall beneath the facts, separate from speculation. It described conduct they could control even when the enemy's location remained unknown.