The voice came before anyone had taken a step. It rose from somewhere below the arch, faint enough that Percy first mistook it for water striking a hollow stone.
"Harry?"
Harry turned so quickly that Hermione's lamp shook between them. Dumbledore put out an arm before he could move past the first block on the floor.
"Sirius?"
Percy looked down the passage. He could feel the narrow channel and the old water beyond it, but there was no human body on the steps.
The voice called again, this time with a strained breath between the syllables. Harry's face changed, and Percy recognized the effort it took him to remain where he was.
"He's hurt."
"That is what it wants you to think."
Dumbledore kept his arm across the opening. He did not look away from Harry as he spoke, and his calm voice seemed to make the other one sound more urgent.
Percy felt something close around his chest. He could imagine exactly how Harry would hear that calmness, with a person he loved apparently calling from the dark.
"There isn't anyone on the stairs," Percy said. He moved beside Harry so that they could both see the opening. "I can feel the water all the way down. Nothing is disturbing it."
Harry's jaw tightened. He stared past Dumbledore's arm, listening so hard that Percy wondered whether he had heard either of them.
McGonagall stepped away from the arch and sent a Patronus along the corridor. She gave it a short message for someone who could check Sirius's location, then returned to Harry's side.
"We will establish where he is. Until then, you will remain here with us."
The voice stopped. For several seconds, there was only the sound of the lamp wick and the thin trickle in the wall.
Then Hermione heard her father. Percy knew because she said his name before pressing her lips together, and Ron caught the lamp when her hand tipped.
Percy heard nothing that sounded like her father. He still heard the last trace of Sirius's voice, although it was fading into an ordinary echo.
"Different voices," he said. He watched Hermione pull herself upright. "It isn't speaking into the passage. It's speaking into us."
Dumbledore drew them back into the corridor. Flitwick placed a flat board across the channel near the top step, and the water gathered behind it before overflowing harmlessly onto the floor.
The pressure vanished at once. Harry blinked and took a breath that sounded painful.
Ron set the lamp on the shelf. He kept his hand on Hermione's elbow until she shook her head and told him she could stand.
"That was a particularly horrible staircase. I'd like that recorded somewhere."
Nobody laughed, but Hermione took out her quill. She wrote down exactly where Flitwick had placed the board and how quickly the voices stopped.
----------------------[Bored break]-----------
The reply about Sirius reached them in Dumbledore's office. He was safe, irritated at being checked on, and apparently in the middle of an argument about whether a damaged chair should be repaired or thrown away.
Harry read the message twice. Then he put it down beside the tea Dumbledore had given him and looked at the table for a long time.
"I knew it was probably lying. I still wanted to go."
Percy sat beside him. He had been trying not to imagine what voice the passage would choose for him, and Harry's admission made that effort harder.
"That's why it used him. It wasn't expecting you to make a sensible decision about somebody else's family."
Hermione had her hands around her own cup. She had not drunk from it, but she no longer looked as though she might drop it.
"It didn't show me anything. I supplied the rest myself."
Dumbledore nodded and moved her notes away from a wet patch on the desk. He waited until she looked at him before answering.
"The dreams it gave Umbridge did much the same thing. A suggestion becomes more convincing when we complete it with something we already fear."
Ron looked toward the covered fragment. Flitwick had wrapped it in thick cloth before bringing it into the office, and the silver light was no longer visible.
"Then why didn't it say anything to me?"
Percy considered the question. He had assumed everyone heard a voice until Hermione reacted to one he could not hear.
"Nothing at all?"
"I heard water. Then Harry answered someone, and Hermione nearly dropped the lamp."
Flitwick returned to the desk carrying the wooden board. A dark line marked how high the water had risen against it, but there were no burns or runes on the surface.
"The three of you are already connected to the seal. Mr. Weasley is not. That may explain the difference."
"May," Ron repeated. He leaned forward and pointed at the board. "Can we test that before we ask me to stand next to it?"
Percy looked at him with new interest. Ron's voice was steady, but his hands were pressed flat against his knees.
"You still want the job?"
"I want us to know whether I can do it. Those are different things."
Dumbledore looked pleased with the distinction. He asked Flitwick to describe what the board had interrupted, and the small professor set it beside Hermione's notes.
The board had stopped the local flow of water. It had not repaired the gate, blocked every route used by the entity, or broken Harry's connection to Voldemort.
It had only interrupted the channel carrying the pressure up those particular steps. That limited result was enough to make Percy feel better, because it was the first useful thing they could repeat without asking someone to risk their mind.
"We keep the board," he said. He glanced toward Dumbledore, then added the part he knew Hermione would want. "And we work out what happens below it."
----------------------[Baad Break]----------------
They returned after dinner with two lamps and a bucket. McGonagall made all four of them eat first, which Ron supported until he learned that this did not excuse him from carrying the bucket.
Harry remained beyond the arch with Snape. The professor had arrived shortly before they left the Great Hall and had made his opinion of the expedition clear without raising his voice once.
Percy found that more impressive than the criticism itself. He would have needed at least three different volumes to express that much disapproval.
Flitwick lifted the board while Dumbledore stood beside the channel. Percy felt the cold pressure return, but it remained faint with Harry and Hermione several paces behind him.
This time, Percy did not reach toward it. He watched the ordinary water instead and described its movement as Flitwick lowered the board again.
The pressure stopped at the same point. Hermione marked the result on her sheet, then asked Ron to approach the arch alone.
Dumbledore stayed within reach of him. Ron walked to the first step, looked down the passage, and waited for a full minute while Percy counted.
"Anything?"
"Damp. Poor lighting. A strong preference for going back upstairs."
"Any voice?"
"No."
They repeated the test with the board raised. Percy felt the pressure reach Ron's position, but Ron showed no sign of hearing it and correctly counted the drops falling from a crack above the arch.
That did not prove he could never be reached. It did prove that, under the conditions they had tested, he could stay clearheaded beside a channel that confused the other three.
Flitwick seemed satisfied enough to examine the wall around the board. His wand remained lowered while he followed a narrow seam in the stone with his fingers.
"There was a proper barrier here once. Look at the wear on this edge."
He pointed out a rectangular slot above the channel. Something had once slid down through it, and repeated use had polished the stone on both sides.
Ron set down the bucket and crouched beside him. He looked from the slot to the floor, where a flat piece of stone lay partly beneath the old shelf.
"Would that be it?"
McGonagall lifted the shelf again. The slab beneath it was longer than Percy's forearm, with a hole near one end and a chipped lower corner.
Flitwick cleaned it with a cloth. He tested its width against the slot before lowering it carefully into place.
The channel stopped flowing. Water collected on the upper side, and the dark pressure disappeared from Percy's senses just as it had with the board.
Ron watched a thin stream leak through the chipped corner. He put a finger beside it without touching the water and looked at Hermione.
"That's going to be a problem."
"Eventually," she said. She crouched beside him and measured the gap with the end of her quill. "But at least we know which problem."
Dumbledore checked the slab, then the surrounding wall. He asked McGonagall to bring a plain wedge that could seal the damaged corner without adding another spell to the channel.
Percy looked down the first seven steps. The darkness beyond them had stopped feeling like an invitation and become an ordinary place he would rather avoid.
That was enough for tonight. He told Dumbledore so, and the Headmaster agreed without trying to turn the discovery into an excuse to go farther.
--------------------------[BROKEN BAD]---------------------------
Harry's second lesson took place in the classroom beside the blocked passage. Snape chose it so they could compare Harry's response before and after the channel was opened, although Dumbledore insisted that it remain closed throughout the first part.
Percy waited near the door with Ron. Hermione sat at a separate desk with Flitwick, working through a short phrase she had copied from the arch.
She did not say it aloud. Instead, she pointed to the marks and wrote possible meanings beneath them, crossing out more words than she kept.
Harry stood opposite Snape. He had asked to remain standing because sitting made him feel trapped, and Snape had accepted with a short nod that surprised everyone except Dumbledore.
"You are not required to welcome the influence. You are required to recognize where your response ends and its pressure begins."
Harry closed his eyes. His hands curled at his sides, then loosened when Snape told him to stop preparing for a fight.
The first attempt lasted only a few seconds. Harry stumbled, caught the desk and swore, while Snape lowered his wand immediately.
"Again," Harry said. He straightened before Snape could answer. "But tell me what I did wrong first."
Snape looked at him for a moment. Then he drew a line through one of his diagrams and turned it toward Harry.
"You attempted to empty your mind. An empty room still has an open door."
Ron glanced at Percy. Percy shook his head before he could comment on the quality of Snape's decorating advice.
On the second attempt, Harry chose the memory of flying. He described the cold air on his face and the familiar balance of a broom beneath him, speaking slowly enough that Percy could hear him steady his breathing.
Snape introduced the foreign pressure with a controlled spell. Harry's voice faltered, but he did not stop speaking about the flight.
For a moment, Percy felt the scar connection change. It became less like a single knot and more like two threads held close together.
"There," Percy said. He kept his voice low and stayed by the door. "Something changed."
Harry opened his eyes, and the feeling vanished. Snape lowered his wand before anyone could ask him to repeat the exercise.
"That is sufficient. You will rest before attempting it again."
Harry looked disappointed. Then he realized that Snape had not called the attempt a failure, and he sat down without arguing.
Hermione came over with her copied phrase. She waited until Harry had drunk some water before putting it on the desk between them.
"I think the mark at the arch describes the fourth place. It doesn't call the person there a lock."
Ron moved beside her. He kept his hands away from the parchment, as though touching it might make the inscription change its mind about him.
"What does it call them?"
"The one who waits. Or the one who witnesses the return. The grammar could mean either."
Percy thought of the three dim lights travelling back along the channel. He asked whether the fourth person needed to remember the seal language too.
Hermione shook her head slowly. She pointed to a repeated mark, then to the section beside it.
"It seems to warn against that. The person outside must remain outside the agreement."
Ron stared at the page for several seconds. Then he looked at each of them, and Percy saw the decision settle in his face before he spoke.
"Then stop explaining the actual words to me. Tell me which stone to move and when to pull the rope."
----------------------------{Fancy Break}-------------------------
The message from Yorkshire arrived while they were packing away the lamps. Amelia brought it herself, and Percy knew from her expression that the missing officer had not simply turned up at a nearby inn.
The attackers had opened three containers at the roadside. They had left most of the instruments behind and taken the vial, a narrow metal cradle and a folder of Umbridge's measurements.
One injured officer remembered hearing an argument. The Death Eaters had been told to bring the cradle intact, but one of them had damaged a fastening while removing it from the transport.
"Does that help us?" Harry asked. He stood beside the desk with his cup still in his hand. "If they broke something he needs?"
Amelia put a rough drawing on the table. It showed a clamp around a glass tube, with three narrow leads running from its base.
Percy recognized the design from the extraction frame. He had felt his power passing through something like it just before the machine exploded.
"It keeps the sample connected to the device. If the fastening is broken, he can't hold it steady."
Hermione looked at him, then back at the drawing. The brief hope in her face made Percy want to stop there, but he could still feel the stolen pressure testing the lake.
"He'll find another way," Percy added. He pointed at the three leads. "And he'll have to keep adjusting it while he does."
Dumbledore studied the drawing. Then he asked Amelia to find every surviving note about that cradle and bring the information by ordinary courier.
Percy listened to the water beneath the floor. The pressure was uneven now that he knew what to notice, arriving in short pulls with a pause between them.
For the first time since the vial was stolen, Voldemort's work felt less like an approaching disaster and more like something that could make a mistake. Percy held on to that thought as they put the lamps out and closed the classroom door.
===========================
Ron has a job, and it involves telling everyone else when to stop. This breaks canon (But its a fanfic so who cares anyways :p)
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