204: Chapter 204 Empty Base and Old Objects

"The signature was burned? Who burned it? Don't tell me the manor got hungry in the middle of the night and gnawed on the parchment." The door knocker read the damaged file projected by the family crest three times, its iron rings shaking faster and faster. "October 31st, 1981. It just had to be that night."

Allen sat at his desk, with the rubbing of the stone Dungeon on his left and the trace records of the old door's dial on his right. The family crest dragged out a damaged file from the core of Potter Manor; the edges were scorched black, leaving only a few lines legible.

The item on the pedestal was taken on October 31st, 1981. The person who took it possessed a temporary entry permit. The signature field was burned. The custodian's mark was burned. The witness family crest record is missing pages.

The door knocker was so angry its iron rings clattered against the door. "All three places burned, and it certainly knew how to pick its spots."

The silver lines of the family crest dimmed for a moment. "The burn marks came from an internal family fire curse, not external destruction. The authorization level was higher than a normal visitor but lower than that of a full head of the house."

Allen circled the date. That night in Godric's Hollow, The Potters were killed, Lord Voldemort lost his body, and Harry was left with a scar on his forehead. At the same time, in the stone Dungeon of Potter Manor, someone had taken an artifact related to time.

Inside the ebony box, the cracked pocket watch gave a soft chime. The tip of the Void's tail pressed down on the lid, and silver eyes looked coldly toward the cage.

Peter had already started to tremble. Allen lifted the silencing spell without giving him any buffer. "October 31st, 1981. Who entered the old house near Godric's Hollow?"

"I don't know!" No sooner had Peter shouted this than the cage pressed inward by half an inch, and he immediately changed his tune. "I only heard about it! I hid far away after I left that night. The valley was in chaos; Aurors, neighbors, and members of the Order of the Phoenix were all looking for survivors. I heard someone had entered the nearby old house and taken something away."

The door knocker sneered. "Heard it from whom?"

Peter's teeth chattered. "Mundungus Fletcher. He was drunk and bragging, saying that more than one group had entered and exited the valley that night, and someone went to the old house while everyone was focused on the ruins. He didn't dare get close, just picked up cigarette butts and a broken button from the ground to sell."

Allen pressed the name Mundungus Fletcher into the file. "Did he recognize the person?"

"He didn't recognize them, or pretended not to." Peter swallowed hard. "He only said the person used a very clean method of unlocking, and the old house didn't trigger any alarms. Mundungus Fletcher suspected it was the Order of the Phoenix, or perhaps someone in the Ministry of Magic who understood old contracts."

The family crest added, "The record for the outer door of the old house is missing pages. The residual magic has a fire affinity similar to a Phoenix tail feather, though it has no direct common source, but there are traces of a gentle flame cleansing."

The door knocker stopped cursing for a beat. "Fawkes?"

Allen didn't respond. Phoenix fire could clear traces, and Dumbledore could enter many places, but the inner-layer permissions of the Potter Family might not necessarily be open to him. A temporary entry permit was more like a ticket left in advance.

He opened the pages of the old letter. Lily questioned the stability of the Secret-Keeper; James and Sirius Black actively requested a change, and Dumbledore knew of the inclination to change. The date the time artifact was taken overlapped with the Secret-Keeper incident; it was too neat.

"Source of the cracked pocket watch." Allen pushed the ebony box to the center of the table. "family crest, check the earliest registration of the cracked pocket watch."

The silver lines of the family crest swept over the lid of the box without opening it. It projected three segments of records. The cracked pocket watch first appeared in a secret compartment in the study of the outer ring of the manor; the registration year was missing. The holder was unknown. Status: cracked, some gold threads dormant. Note: suspected to be of the same origin as the inner-layer return device, must not be brought near the pedestal.

The door knocker exploded after hearing this. "Must not be brought near the pedestal? You almost took it down there a few days ago!"

"I didn't take it." Allen underlined the note. "Same origin does not mean the same object. The pedestal might have originally held a complete return device, and the cracked pocket watch is a key, a needle, a fragment, or a replacement part."

Peter said in a low voice, "The Master also liked to take things apart and store them separately. Dangerous items were distributed to different people, and everyone thought they had received the whole thing."

The tip of the Void's tail tapped the bars. Peter hurriedly added, "I'm not saying you Potters are the same as the Master. I mean, old families all love to leave a contingency plan."

Allen ignored his desperate attempt to save himself. The cracked pocket watch had awakened in his hands, the item from the pedestal had been taken the night his parents were killed, and the core of Potter Manor was being watched by both the Order of the Phoenix and the Department of Mysteries. All these threads revolved around time affinity.

The door knocker suppressed its anger. "Dumbledore warned you about the Dungeon last year. At the end of the term, he warned you not to answer when the cracked pocket watch chimed. If he didn't know anything, he wouldn't have been so accurate."

"The probability that the Principal is informed has increased." Allen wrote down the conclusion. "But he may not necessarily know the whereabouts of the item."

The family crest suddenly called up another damaged file. It was a short permit; the beginning was destroyed, leaving only: "To prevent loss of control over branch key positions in extreme situations, the bearer of this letter is permitted to enter the outer ring for a short time to verify the status of the return device." The signature was nameless; the first half of the date was burned, and the second half was October 31st.

Allen made three copies of the short permit: one for the Potter Family file, one for the Dumbledore file, and one for the Department of Mysteries file. The signature being burned did not mean the path was completely cut off. Someone had to issue the temporary permit, someone had to witness it, and someone had to be able to make the family crest grant access; there would always be fragments left elsewhere.

Peter suddenly said in a low voice, "If someone took the complete object that night, why is the cracked pocket watch still in Potter Manor?"

The door knocker rarely refrained from scolding him. "You've hit the nail on the head."

Allen looked at the ebony box. "There are two possibilities. The person who took it grabbed the wrong thing, or they left the cracked pocket watch behind on purpose."

"Left it for whom?" Peter regretted asking as soon as he finished, and he shrank back.

Allen flipped out his father's notes. Weak time affinity during the fetal stage, which faded after adulthood. The person who wrote the record noted the fading, yet put the appendix in the last page of the inner-layer stone Dungeon. If they really wanted to cut off the inheritance, the cracked pocket watch shouldn't have been left in the study's secret compartment.

"Left for a branch family member who would return." Allen held down his quill. "Or perhaps left for a future Potter."

The door knocker's iron rings made a dry, scraping sound. "Can you stop talking like an epitaph?"

Allen closed the file. "Three unresolved items: the empty pedestal, the source of the cracked pocket watch, and the identity of the person who took it. Prioritize investigating Mundungus Fletcher, the old Order of the Phoenix list, and personnel related to space-time in the Department of Mysteries."

Peter shook his head immediately. "Don't look for Mundungus Fletcher. He'll sell you to Dumbledore, and then sell Dumbledore to a pub."

"That's why I won't look for him." Allen wrote the name into the bait column. "Let someone else find him first."

The family crest reported external activity. The observers at the street corner changed shifts seven minutes early, and someone in the empty house opposite had swept the second-floor curtains with a low-intensity detection spell. The Wizard in the round hat had yet to appear, but the Department of Mysteries line was beginning to close in.

The door knocker cursed under its breath. "Once the Dungeon opened, everyone outside pricked up their noses."

Allen adjusted the illusion in the study to look even more exhausted, with the essay on soul protection assigned by Snape spread out on the table. All the real files were pressed into the thin wall of his Portable Space. People outside would see a student tormented by an essay, perhaps with a bit of summer sleepiness added on top.

He finished writing the last line. Dumbledore might know the answer, or at least know the shape of the problem. Asking directly would expose the progress of the cracked pocket watch, so he would delay it.

Inside the ebony box, the cracked pocket watch fell silent. The rubbing of the empty pedestal still glowed with pale gold patterns, like a map missing its core.

The door knocker scraped against the door panel for a long time before squeezing out a sentence. "Before the Quidditch World Cup, you'd better not open the Dungeon door again."

Allen cleaned the quill. "Before the Quidditch World Cup, I will only do one thing."

Peter looked up, his voice dry. "What?"

"Write out the full list of people watching me." Allen looked at the pages of the old letter on the table. "Start with the Order of the Phoenix."