Chapter 180: The Abandoned Tower

The message appeared inside Edward's observation log after Defence class.

Midnight. West tower. Proof about the servant.

The ink had dried before he opened the book. No one had borrowed it. A revealing charm showed that the words were written by a delayed enchantment attached to the page.

Edward did not go to the tower.

He carried the open book to McGonagall, who sealed it in a glass frame and summoned Dumbledore, Snape, and Amelia Bones. Harry received an identical message in his Transfiguration notes fifteen minutes later.

The invitation linked the two fraudulent champions and named the Albanian servant. Whether it offered evidence or bait, someone expected them to act without adults.

Bones searched the west tower with an Auror team. They found no person. The top room contained an open trunk, a chair facing the door, and a strip of parchment bearing the same delayed enchantment.

Dumbledore allowed Edward and Harry to enter only after the Aurors cleared the route. McGonagall, Hermione, Sirius, and two investigators accompanied them.

The tower had been unused since a lightning strike damaged its roof. Dust lay thick on the stairs except where the search team had marked existing prints before stepping over them.

One set entered two days earlier. The shoe had a narrow heel and uneven left edge. It could belong to hundreds of people.

The open trunk was empty. Its lock showed no forced entry. Inside the lid, someone had drawn a blue eye.

Harry looked toward Dumbledore. "Moody."

"Or someone who wants us to think of Moody," Edward said.

The chair faced a small table. Two clean circles in the dust suggested bottles had rested there. A sharp medicinal smell lingered in the wood.

It resembled Moody's flask.

Hermione crouched without touching the table. "Polyjuice Potion contains ingredients with strong smells, but a finished dose does not always smell the same. So do dozens of medicines."

Bones collected scrapings.

Behind the chair, the wall carried a phrase scratched into stone.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE FAILED.

Sirius's jaw tightened. "This is meant to be found."

The message could be a confession, threat, accusation, or another false lead. The investigators photographed it and took an impression.

Edward's brass whistle vibrated once beneath his robes.

No one else moved.

He held up a hand. "Alliance signal."

The whistle should sound only when another approved whistle activated. The pattern meant immediate danger near a member.

The call came from Draco.

McGonagall sent a Patronus to Snape while Edward answered with the location-safe pattern. Draco's second signal indicated he could not speak.

They did not split the search group. Dumbledore opened a direct route to the Slytherin common room through the headmaster's Floo. Everyone travelled together.

Draco stood beside a stone wall with Pansy and Theodore. A black envelope lay on the floor.

"It came through the dormitory window," he said. "No owl."

The envelope contained one line.

Ask Edward what he saw in Albania.

Draco had activated the whistle before touching it. Pansy cleared students from the area. Theodore fetched Snape.

They had followed the plan.

Bones sealed the letter. Its ink matched neither tower message on preliminary inspection, but both used ordinary school parchment.

"Someone is testing the alliance response," Pansy said.

"Or trying to make us think every message comes from one person," Theodore added.

Dumbledore ordered a temporary restriction on uninspected parcels and reinforced the dormitory windows. The school could not search every student's possessions without cause, but it could monitor delivery routes and delayed-writing spells.

Moody arrived after the evidence was sealed.

His magical eye focused on the black envelope. "You should have brought it to me."

"Professor Snape is Head of Slytherin," Draco said.

"And Professor McGonagall supervised the original inquiry," Edward added.

Moody looked at Edward. "Afraid I wrote it?"

"I do not know who wrote it."

"Careful answer."

"Accurate answer."

Bones asked Moody where he had been during the tower search. He had taught sixth-year Defence, confirmed by students and a portrait. The delayed enchantment could have been set earlier, so the alibi resolved little.

When Bones mentioned the medicinal residue, Moody offered his flask for comparison.

The liquid inside was a strong restorative mixture prepared by his private healer. Snape tested a sample and found no Polyjuice ingredients. The flask itself carried years of Moody's magical signature.

A clean result did not prove what the flask had contained yesterday. Refusing the test would have proved even less.

Moody reclaimed it. "Satisfied?"

"No," Bones said. "Informed."

His mouth twitched.

The investigators found one useful feature in the tower dust. The unknown visitor had entered through a maintenance door whose key remained in Filch's office. The lock had not been picked. Three staff members had signed out the key that month: Filch, Professor Sinistra, and Moody.

The key itself showed evidence of a copying charm. That widened access beyond the sign-out list. Filch admitted leaving it unattended during the welcome feast. A visitor, student, or staff member could have made the duplicate in less than a minute.

Portraits near the office remembered a dark-haired student waiting in the corridor, but disagreed on age and house colours. Bones asked them separately before allowing the portraits to argue. Their common memory narrowed the time without identifying a person.

The tower residue contained fluxweed and lacewing traces, both used in Polyjuice Potion, but also in regulated healing mixtures. Snape confirmed that no bicorn horn or boomslang skin appeared in the sample. The residue supported a potion theory without establishing a complete dose.

Dumbledore ordered an inventory of school stores. Nothing was missing from Snape's current stock. Older ingredients taken in previous years could not be excluded.

Each result added structure to suspicion and removed the temptation to call one clue decisive.

Filch used it after a leaking roof. Sinistra inspected the tower for an astronomy instrument. Moody claimed he checked sight lines as part of castle security.

All three reasons were plausible.

Dumbledore suspended Moody's unsupervised patrol access while the inquiry continued. Moody protested, then complied after Bones cited the copied key record.

That consequence was proportionate to evidence. It did not declare him an impostor.

Back in the Slytherin common room, Draco apologized for not telling Edward more about Albania.

"You knew what I was allowed to share," Edward said.

"The letter made it sound as if you hid something from us."

"I did. Horcrux details and witness evidence are restricted."

"Do you trust us?"

"Trust does not erase another person's right to confidentiality."

Draco considered the answer. "Then tell us what affects our safety, within those limits."

Edward agreed to a formal briefing with Dumbledore and Sirius present. The alliance needed to know that Voldemort had a weak body, Peter served him, and an unknown servant might be inside Hogwarts. It did not need the location or status of every soul fragment.

The meeting was scheduled for the next evening in a guarded classroom, not the abandoned tower.

The bait had asked two boys to arrive alone at midnight.

Instead, it produced evidence, tightened access, and prompted a supervised disclosure.

Whoever wrote it had failed to control the response.

The west tower was sealed again after the search. Its key returned to Filch inside a numbered envelope, and every copy was ordered destroyed under witness.