Professor Lockhart was horrified by the prospect of having to help clean up after the disaster. The very next day, he failed to appear at breakfast. Rumour had it that he had packed his belongings and secretly left the castle during the night.
Hermione was bitterly disappointed in the writer because of this. She had noticed long ago that Professor Lockhart wasn't actually teaching them any spells, but until the very end she had refused to believe that Gilderoy was nothing more than a writer and no hero at all. The teacher fleeing the castle simply because he would have to do a bit of work, even if it occasionally involved some minor risk to life and limb, proved to be the final straw.
Once again, Granger found herself forced to admit that Richard had been right. He seemed far more of a hero to her than the image Lockhart had created for himself; after all, Richie had already saved her life twice.
For the two weeks leading up to the holidays, the professors rushed around the castle and its grounds with wild looks in their eyes, dealing with the aftermath of the flooding. The third-, fourth-, and sixth-year students eagerly awaited the start of the holidays, as they had already relaxed and begun looking forward to their break, only to find themselves saddled with work.
Harry, Richard, and Hermione spent the entire time in the hospital wing. And although they had recovered by the very next day, Madam Pomfrey kept them within her domain until the end-of-term feast.
Potter was the only one of the three who was unhappy about it, though that was only one side of things. On the other hand, he was glad to be in the company of people who knew what he was going through and could support him.
The only problem was that his friends' activities drove him absolutely mad, and he couldn't find anything to occupy himself with. Richard helped Hermione with her Muggle schoolwork. While Granger studied on her own, Grosvenor dealt with business matters. Eventually, Harry found something to do: he started on his summer homework. Unfortunately, he finished all of it in a single day.
The trio made their way to the end-of-term feast with their hearts in their mouths. All three feared being exposed, though Richie, unlike his companions, remained outwardly unruffled. He had good reason to believe that even if they were found out, he could still turn the situation to his advantage, since what had happened had, in essence, been self-defence. And under British wizarding law, whoever had the Minister for Magic on their side was in the right.
Fortunately, gossip from their classmates made it clear that no one had discovered the Chamber of Secrets. The professors had merely been sealing off the branch passages that led from the main tunnel towards the Chamber.
More precisely, the few they had managed to discover by tracing the water leaks. The school authorities had attributed the incident to natural causes. A ground collapse was, of course, fairly rare, but it did happen from time to time. This cheered and reassured Richard, Harry, and Hermione.
***
After returning from Hogwarts, Richard found himself busier than ever.
First and foremost, Grosvenor Junior made the difficult decision to conceal most of his adventures from his father. The Duke of Westminster certainly wouldn't approve of his son's escapades.
This time, Richie doubted he'd get away with merely being given the belt. He knew his father well enough to imagine his train of thought: I've given him the belt several times, and it hasn't helped. Therefore, I'm doing something wrong. Consequently, more substantial measures are required. Richard's imagination ran wild from there, though even he couldn't quite picture what his father might come up with. The prospect of being packed off to a military academy for several years immediately after finishing Hogwarts loomed ominously before him.
In short, Richie gave his father an edited version of his life at school. After that, he was pulled in a dozen directions at once. The business needed his attention. A secret laboratory had to be built to study Horcruxes in living people. Some of the personnel from another secret laboratory operating under the Unspeakables' patronage would have to be quietly transferred there under conditions of absolute secrecy, but first those people would have to be recruited to Richard's side and bound by magical contracts; volunteers would also have to be found among terminally ill wizards who had nothing left to lose.
The plan was for one volunteer wizard to cast the Killing Curse, Avada Kedavra, on another volunteer, dying from his own curse in the process, while the second wizard would be struck by the spark produced by the lethal spell. They would attempt to resurrect the wizards who died; the necessary rituals existed, and so did the means to perform them.
With very large payments offered to their families and the possibility of being given a new life, there would be no shortage of volunteers, so Richard foresaw no problems on that front. Grosvenor's wizards would then search for ways to protect a Horcrux host from its harmful influence.
The greatest problem was maintaining secrecy. That required creating a clandestine security service, which seemed almost impossible. Finding a couple of bodyguards had been difficult enough, but creating an entire organisation while ensuring that nobody found out about it—especially the Unspeakables...
Richard spent a long time racking his brains over the problem.
(End of Chapter)
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