Percy found Harry's sock in the pocket of his own robe.
He had no explanation for it. The sock was clean, which ruled out most of Ron's theories. It had also survived a whole morning beside Percy without becoming part of an ancient agreement. That seemed worth preserving.
He carried it across the dormitory on the end of his wand.
"I believe this belongs to you."
Harry looked up from his trunk. "Why are you pointing your wand at it?"
"I do not know where it has been."
"In your pocket, apparently."
Ron turned over in bed. "Give it to Hermione. She will write a report."
A pillow struck him before he could finish laughing. Harry had thrown it. Percy put the sock on Harry's trunk and kept his wand out of reach of the second pillow.
It was a small success. They were speaking to him without first checking which conversation they might have to survive.
That did not mean yesterday had gone away. Harry had left his notes on the bedside table. The sentence at the bottom was still visible.
I am alive now.
Percy looked away before Harry caught him reading it again.
"Breakfast?" he asked.
"After you find my other sock."
"I only collect the rare ones."
Ron pulled the blanket over his head. They left without him. Five minutes later he caught them on the stairs, insisting that leaving a friend hungry was worse than stealing his clothes.
Hermione waited outside the common room with one book beneath her arm. Percy noticed the single book and decided to say nothing. He liked having all his fingers.
"Dumbledore wants us after breakfast," she said. "He has the examination report."
Harry stopped beside the portrait.
"Has Marsh seen it?"
"Yes. She sent a separate letter. It is about the object, not a new test for you."
Harry nodded and continued down the stairs. Percy walked beside Ron, leaving Harry space to choose where he wanted to sit.
At breakfast, Harry chose the place opposite him.
Percy almost thanked him. Then he realized how strange that would sound and reached for toast instead.
Dumbledore's office contained fewer people than the last meeting. McGonagall stood beside the window. Dorridge sat at the desk with a sealed folder. Flitwick had brought a tray of thin glass plates, but no cursed objects.
Ron checked that last part before sitting.
"Photographs," Flitwick said. "The plates record the readings."
"Good. We have had a difficult month with trays."
Dorridge opened the folder after Dumbledore asked Harry whether he wanted to begin.
The locket's photograph lay on top. It showed the green stones in the letter clearly. Beside it was a drawing of a damaged hinge.
Percy remembered the object from the books. He also remembered being wrong about what another object meant. He kept both memories to himself until Dorridge asked him a question.
"Does this match the description you gave us?"
"More closely than the other one. The letter and the stones do. I cannot remember the hinge."
She recorded the answer without looking disappointed.
Flitwick placed a glass plate over a white sheet. Several fine lines became visible inside it. One moved around a dark knot at the center.
"These are observations taken without opening the locket," he said. "The ordinary protective charms were measured separately. This pattern remained after those charms were blocked."
Harry leaned forward. "And that is the soul piece?"
"That is one part of the evidence. Two examiners compared the response with sealed records of a known soul anchor. They reached the same conclusion independently."
Dumbledore placed the written findings beside the plate. Harry read the names at the bottom first. Hermione read the method.
Percy looked at the photograph.
The object seemed disappointingly small. He had expected something that looked more like the amount of trouble it could cause.
"How do you destroy it?" Harry asked.
Dumbledore did not reach for another object.
"By damaging the vessel beyond magical repair. We have several recorded methods. The team is choosing one it can contain without putting a living person beside the locket."
"Basilisk venom," Percy said before he could stop himself.
Everyone looked at him.
He put his hands flat on his knees.
"That is from the account I remember. I do not know where you would get it."
"There are licensed stores of rare potion ingredients," Dorridge said. "The Ministry has requested the available records."
"It is also one of the methods in the sealed material," Dumbledore said. "Your memory gives us a lead we can check. It does not decide the procedure."
Percy nodded. He had wanted the first statement to earn him the second. Instead, Dumbledore had done the work without making Harry part of it.
Harry turned to the next page.
"Will destroying the locket hurt me?"
Flitwick took a moment before answering.
"We have not found a shared working connection between the object and your scar. We will examine that possibility before the destruction. Healer Marsh will receive the readings."
"And you will tell me what she thinks."
"Yes," Dumbledore said.
Harry kept the report open. He did not say yes to anything else.
Dorridge took out two clean sheets. She wrote the confirmed object at the top of the first. On the second, she listed the objects Percy had named.
The ring. The diary. The cup. The diadem. The snake.
Under the second heading, she wrote leads requiring verification.
"The locket is established," she said. "The others may exist here. We have inquiries underway, but we will not count them as recovered before someone has found them."
Ron looked at the second list.
"Does Voldemort know you are looking?"
"He knows about the locket," Dorridge said. "We are investigating how he learned that. We have not discussed the other leads with him."
"He could guess."
"He could. That is why the inquiry teams are moving now."
Percy studied the diary entry. He remembered the name Malfoy and the book reaching Ginny. Here, Ginny had not come to school yet. He had met Draco at the tables, in lessons, and during arguments that should have stayed arguments.
"I remember one possible owner," he said.
Dorridge turned the second sheet toward him.
He told her the name and the circumstances he remembered. He did not describe them as something Lucius Malfoy had done in this world.
Ron stopped moving his foot beneath the chair.
"My sister," he said.
"In the remembered account," Percy answered. "I do not know if she has ever been near it here."
Ron looked at him, then at Dumbledore.
"Ask Mum. Today."
"I will contact your parents," Dumbledore said. "No one will question your sister without them present."
Ron nodded, but his face had gone tight. Percy wanted to explain why he had waited again. There was no version that would make Ron feel better right now.
He left the explanation alone.
The last part of the meeting concerned Edwin Vale. The appraiser was still missing. His office had held the false locket. Someone had used Ada's stolen stamp to give that object a believable paper trail.
Dorridge showed them a copy of a collection receipt.
"This signature is not Vale's," she said. "His clerk has identified it as an assistant's. We are looking for the assistant as well."
Hermione compared it with the disputed packing order.
"The same initials appear here."
"They do. We are checking whether they refer to the same person."
Harry put down the photograph.
"Could that person have told Voldemort?"
"That is one possibility. We are also checking access to the prison reports."
McGonagall stepped away from the window.
"That work will continue without this room spending the afternoon inventing suspects. You have a Charms lesson in twenty minutes."
Ron looked offended by the survival of the timetable.
Percy understood him completely.
Flitwick smiled and took back the glass plates.
"Bring your essays. We will be working on precision."
"Mine is about a stone," Percy said.
"That is your Transfiguration essay."
Percy shut his eyes.
Harry laughed once. It was short, and it ended when Percy opened his eyes, but it had happened.
They left the office with copies of the two lists. Hermione carried them until they reached the landing. Then Harry asked for the first one.
"I want to keep the confirmed part," he said.
She gave it to him.
Ron walked ahead. Percy caught up at the next turn, but Ron spoke before he could.
"I am going to write to Ginny."
"I know."
"I will ask about books she has been given. I will not tell her there is a monster in every diary."
Percy nodded.
Ron looked at him properly.
"You could have helped me ask that before."
"Yes."
"Then help me ask it now. After class."
"I will."
Ron continued toward Charms. He did not wait for an apology, and Percy did not use the invitation to pretend he had finished making things right.
He found his Charms essay in the bottom of his bag. It had tea on one corner and the missing date on another.
Flitwick read the first page and asked whether the tea was part of the demonstration.
"Only if it earns points," Percy said.
"It has already earned a drying charm. Sit down, Mr. Jackson."
The lesson used feathers instead of quills. Percy brought his across the desk slowly. It landed beside his hand, stayed a feather, and did not strike anyone in the forehead.
Harry managed the same distance on his third attempt. Ron's feather reached his sleeve and stuck there until Hermione showed him the wrong movement.
For forty minutes, the most urgent problem in the room was Seamus summoning the wrong feather.
Percy did not want to leave when the bell rang.
After lunch, he helped Ron write the letter. They used ordinary questions. Ron crossed out a line that sounded like an interrogation and added one about Ginny's room.
Harry sat across the table, finishing his own work. When Ron went to the owlery, Harry slid a loose page toward Percy.
"You missed this in the report. Marsh's note."
Percy read it. The healer had asked for a review of the locket's destruction plan. She had also written that Harry's next appointment would concern his symptoms and his questions.
No comparison with the object was required.
Percy looked up.
"Good."
"Yes," Harry said. "It is."
He took the page back, folded it, and put it inside his textbook.
Percy opened his Transfiguration essay again. The stone Harry had turned into a button was still in his pocket.
He set it beside the page and began the second sentence.
This time, when Harry leaned over to read, Percy let him.
"That is definitely a principle," Harry said.
"Progress."
"The spelling is still a threat."
Percy gave him the quill.
Outside the window, Ron's owl crossed the grounds with a letter for home. Percy watched it until it passed beyond the trees. Then he turned back to the sentence Harry was correcting.
===========================
Found a little more time today, here's a chapter.
[SHAMELESS PLUG]
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