Chapter 162: Lessons from Defeat

Edward's first training plan filled six feet of parchment and lasted less than a minute under Remus's attention.

"One hundred wandless Summoning Charms every day?" Remus read. "After magical exhaustion and burns to your casting hand?"

"I wrote it before sleeping."

"That explains it. What is the goal?"

"To keep functioning if I lose my wand."

"Then practise retaining your wand, reaching cover, and carrying a spare before attempting a branch of magic you cannot reliably perform."

Remus crossed out most of the plan. Sirius removed the section about hunting low-risk creatures near the Forbidden Forest. Kreacher objected to being listed as a future sparring partner without being asked.

Edward began again.

The revised plan had three parts: recovery, observation, and decisions under pressure. Madam Pomfrey controlled the first. He could use ordinary school magic for short periods, stop at the first pain, and take no potion beyond the prescribed dose. Rest counted as part of training.

Observation started without a wand. Sirius tossed coloured cards from different angles while Edward named them and moved behind a padded screen. Edward failed whenever he tried to predict the next card instead of seeing it.

"Peter beat your timing with a feint," Sirius said. "You remember the frightening spell and overlook the false movement that opened you to it."

They slowed the sequence until Edward could identify both.

For wand retention, Sirius used a cloth loop rather than magic. Edward practised changing grip, lowering his profile, and letting a contested object go when holding it would expose his hand. The purpose was not to make disarmament impossible. It was to prevent panic if it happened.

Kreacher contributed escape practice after Madam Pomfrey cleared him for short Apparitions. He chose destinations Edward could see and moved them only a few yards. Edward had to state the destination aloud, keep contact, and confirm both arrived before casting.

On the fourth jump, Edward released Kreacher too early and turned toward an imaginary pursuer.

Kreacher slapped the back of his knee.

"Master Edward checks his companion first."

Edward checked.

The work with Ash happened in the quiet hours. Professor McGonagall joined Remus for those sessions because she had witnessed the aftermath of Fenrir and the forest.

They began with the settled continuity: Ash was not a second soul, a possession, or a hidden ancestor. It was a partition Edward's own magic had formed from survival instinct, suppressed fear and anger, and an old protective imprint left by his mother. Treating it as foreign had allowed Edward to avoid responsibility for actions taken under its pressure.

McGonagall placed an unlit candle on the table.

"Recall the moment Peter aimed at Kreacher," she said.

Heat gathered in Edward's chest. His fingers tightened.

"Name what you feel."

"Fear."

"More precisely."

"Fear that Kreacher will die because I brought him there."

"Continue."

"Anger at Peter. Shame that I cannot stop him. The urge to strike before he casts."

The candlewick smoked although Edward had not raised his wand.

"That is yours," McGonagall said. "Not a command from elsewhere."

Edward breathed until the smoke stopped.

They repeated the exercise with other memories. Sirius falling through the veil in the false vision from his nightmares. Fenrir pinned beneath his spells. Bertha going still on the platform. Each memory produced a different mixture, though Edward had once called all of them Ash.

Remus taught him a grounding sequence. Identify five visible objects, four physical sensations, three sounds, two choices, and one person whose safety mattered. It did not erase anger. It returned the present around it.

During the first trial, Edward named the wrong room.

During the third, a flame appeared above his palm.

He did not shape it into a weapon. He let it shrink until it warmed only the air.

McGonagall extinguished the candle with her fingers. "Control is not proving you can hold the fire longer."

"It is ending it when the reason ends," Edward said.

"Exactly."

Sirius struggled with the language of partitions and imprints. He understood the practical rule.

"If the hot part of you wants something, you still decide," he said. "And if you decide badly, you cannot blame the hot part."

Crude, but accurate.

The alliance attended one session after each member consented to know this private history. Edward did not demonstrate a dramatic transformation. He explained how fear had narrowed his choices in Albania and how naming it earlier might have shortened the retreat.

Draco listened with visible discomfort. "Are you saying emotion makes you unreliable?"

"Emotion affects everyone. My magic sometimes makes the effect visible."

Daphne glanced at the cold fireplace. "Can it take control?"

"No. I can become overwhelmed, as anyone can. Ash is a pattern within me, not another person waiting for a turn."

Hermione asked what the alliance should do if Edward's fire appeared during an argument.

"Create space, remove immediate hazards, and ask what I am responding to. Do not obey me because the room gets hot."

Pansy added the rule to the charter. No display of magical force could settle a vote.

The training continued for two weeks. Edward's bruises faded. Kreacher's shoulder closed, leaving a narrow scar. Sirius abandoned his cane and passed McGonagall's balance test, though she refused to call his attempt graceful.

Edward kept a separate record of moments when Ash surfaced. Lack of sleep, unexpected touch, and voices behind closed doors appeared more often than anger alone. That pattern changed the response. He moved his wand away from the bed, warned friends before crowded exercises, and stopped late-night practice.

The record also showed ordinary days with no flare at all. Ash was not steadily growing into an independent being. It was a survival partition becoming louder under recognizable conditions. Naming those conditions gave Edward choices before heat reached his hands.

McGonagall reviewed the record without reading private memories. She checked only triggers, responses, and outcomes. Even useful supervision had a boundary.

Edward still woke from dreams of the clearing. On one night, he reached for his wand before recognizing his own bed. The tip scorched the canopy.

He woke Sirius and reported it.

They removed the wand from beneath his pillow and placed it in a drawer within reach but not in hand. Edward repaired the canopy the next morning. Concealing the mark would have preserved pride and damaged trust.

Near the end of the month, Remus repeated the coloured-card drill while Kreacher rang bells and Sirius shouted false instructions. A red card came from the left. Edward named it, moved behind cover, checked Kreacher, and kept his wand.

No fire appeared.

"Again," he said.

Remus lowered the cards. "Stop on a success for once."

Edward wanted another round. He also recognized the lesson.

The World Cup was four days away. Preparation now meant sleep, reviewed travel plans, and carrying an ordinary wand he knew how to use. The Heart-Flame Crest remained broken in the archive.

Defeat had not taught him that tools were worthless or that strength alone would save him. It had taught him to see the moment before power became the only answer he could imagine.

Edward ended the session at the scheduled time and ate with the others. Rest no longer served as the reward after training; it was one of the conditions that made training safe.