Hedwig sat on Draco's letter.
Not beside it. On it.
"I need to go out."
She hooted and settled her wings.
I'd left the letter on top of everything yesterday precisely so I wouldn't forget it. Apparently, she'd decided the reminder needed a little extra weight.
I sat down and reached for my quill. Only then did she step off the parchment.
"You're a tyrant."
She closed her eyes. Apparently, she'd accepted the compliment.
I read the end of the letter again.
The invitation was still there.
Malfoy Manor.
Next week.
Only yesterday, I hadn't been sure whether I wanted to accept. Now there was another complication.
Wiltshire.
Draco lived in the very county I was going to look for maps of today.
He didn't need to know anything about the Peverells to recognise the name of a local wood.
I wrote:
Draco,
Tell your father I found the right office and I'm still alive.
I'm sure he'll be pleased.
As for the visit, Saturday works for me if it works for you.
By the way, since you live in Wiltshire: have you heard of a place called Ashcombe Wood?
Oliver
I read the question about the wood again. Hedwig waited at the edge of the desk.
"It's a perfectly normal question."
She didn't answer. This time, I knew what was bothering me about it without any help.
Yes.
There was a good chance that if Draco didn't know the answer, he'd ask his father.
That wasn't ideal.
On the other hand, the name Ashcombe Wood was hardly a secret. The Ministry had it in its records. The Fawleys had once owned land there. Lucius already knew I was looking for the family home.
I wasn't going to give him directions.
Mostly because I didn't know the way myself yet.
I rolled up the parchment.
Hedwig immediately held out her leg.
I tied the letter on.
"Off you go."
She launched herself from the windowsill.
I watched her disappear between the rooftops.
Then I picked up my folder.
Maps today.
Really.
Just maps.
Thimgrin appeared sooner than last time.
Either Gringotts was becoming more efficient, or the bank was starting to prepare for my visits in advance.
I preferred the first explanation.
"Mr Peverell."
"Thimgrin."
He glanced at the folder.
"The Ministry?"
"Not today."
He looked almost pleased.
"I'd like to check the inventory of maps and plans in the main vault. I remember long tubes along one of the walls."
"The western wall?"
"I think so."
"There are maps there. One moment, please."
He returned with a small ledger under his arm.
"That was suspiciously easy."
"Not every question has to lead to a complication."
I hoped he'd remember his own words.
We set off.
The stone in my signet ring fitted into the recess.
A brief check.
Recognition.
The door opened with its usual creak.
I was beginning to suspect Gringotts preserved that sound on purpose. Perhaps it was part of the atmosphere.
I walked past the gold, heading straight for the wall Thimgrin had indicated.
On the way, I had to go around several chests and two objects whose purpose I still hadn't worked out.
The western wall.
Tubes.
More than I remembered.
Of course.
Some leather.
Some wooden.
A few metal.
One looked like a bone from something I didn't want to identify.
Thimgrin set the ledger on a table by the wall and opened it to the relevant section.
"The numbers correspond to the markings on the tubes."
I pulled the catalogue towards me.
Estate maps.
Boundary maps.
Property plans.
Old trade routes.
Maps of magical transport points.
One entry caught my eye immediately.
Ancestral Estates — 1827.
I pulled out the matching tube.
Dust.
A lot of dust.
"Do you really preserve everything?"
"The parchment, yes."
"What about the dust?"
"It is not part of the deposit."
Fair enough.
I unrolled the map on an empty table by the wall.
It was enormous.
Much larger than I'd expected.
England.
Part of Scotland.
A stretch of Wales.
It wasn't a Muggle map.
That much was immediately obvious.
The county boundaries were there, but they seemed secondary. Far more prominent were the markings for magical settlements, Floo routes, old family lands and places marked with protective symbols.
Wiltshire lay in the south.
I leaned closer.
Names.
Greengrass.
Fawley.
Malfoy.
Several families I didn't recognise.
And Peverell.
Not a dot.
An area.
A large one.
Or rather, one that had once been large.
The boundaries were drawn in faded ink. In several places, they crossed later markings.
Peverell land.
"Right, then."
Thimgrin stood across the table.
"What?"
"This used to be really big."
"Yes."
I found the scale along the bottom edge. Even a rough calculation was enough to make me regard the marked area with considerably more respect.
This wasn't a house with a large garden.
I moved my finger across the map.
Ashcombe.
There it was.
Not quite Ashcombe Wood.
An older name.
Ashcombe.
Beside it lay a small Fawley estate.
A thin line ran west from there.
A road.
Then it ended.
Not at a house.
It simply vanished.
I frowned.
"Is that the hereditary road?"
Thimgrin leaned closer.
"Possibly."
"Wonderful."
I traced further with my finger.
The line began at a small symbol.
A square crossed by a single stroke.
Beside it, in small letters:
West Stone.
My heart beat a little faster.
Not much.
Just enough.
"A marker."
"It appears so."
"We've found it."
"On a map from 1827."
"That'll do for now."
I wrote down the name of the marker and the date of the map. Later, I'd check whether it appeared on the newer ones too.
Beyond the stone, the map became strange.
Not blank.
That would have been normal.
The ink simply avoided the middle of the area.
Trees were drawn around it.
A stream ran in from one side and reappeared on the other.
The boundaries were there.
But the central section looked as though the cartographer had deliberately refused to draw whatever lay inside it.
I placed a finger on the empty space.
Nothing.
"The house should be here."
Thimgrin studied the boundaries.
"That is what the markings suggest."
I bent closer. The stream ended too neatly. The cartographer had drawn its little bends on either side and left out the middle stretch entirely.
I wanted to see whether anything lay beneath that empty space.
I focused.
For a moment, all I could see was parchment. Then a thin strand of magic appeared beneath the line of the stream. Another followed the boundary, but turned away from the ink. Several finer strands converged at the symbol for the West Stone.
I smiled.
The map was more than a drawing.
I tried to get a better look at the point where the strands met. A brief prick of pain caught beneath my left eyelid.
I looked away and blinked. The lines vanished, and the discomfort faded.
I was tempted to try again. But giving myself a sore eye today wasn't worth it just to confirm what I'd already seen. The map had enchantments of its own. I could try to understand what they expected of the person reading it first.
"Have you noticed something?" Thimgrin asked.
"Still checking."
I looked at my signet ring.
At the bank, it confirmed my right to access the family deposits. At the Ministry, a document had recognised me. If someone had deliberately hidden part of a family map, they might have left a similar way to read it.
I touched the black stone to the parchment beside the marker.
The ink shifted.
I went still.
A moment later, the road from the West Stone extended a few centimetres, turned and stopped well short of the empty centre.
A short inscription appeared beside it.
First mark of recognition.
"Well, look at that."
Thimgrin leaned over the table. I waited a little longer, but nothing else happened.
I pressed the signet to it again.
Nothing.
I tried a different angle.
Nothing.
Held it there longer.
Nothing.
"It won't show any further."
"Perhaps it is not meant to," Thimgrin said.
I drew my hand back. I didn't yet know whether there was another condition to meet, or whether I'd have to look for the rest of the road once I got there. Neither my eyes nor pressing the signet harder answered that question.
I looked over the map.
First mark of recognition.
Which probably meant there was another.
It looked like a sequence of passages or markers that recognised the right person. So far, the map had only shown me the beginning.
That explained why an ordinary address wouldn't solve anything.
You could know the county.
The wood.
Even the exact boundaries.
And still not get in.
The West Stone seemed the best place to start.
"I need a newer map."
Thimgrin checked the catalogue.
"1896."
"Let's have it."
The second map was smaller.
The Peverell boundaries were much more modest.
Some land sold.
Some transferred.
Ashcombe was still there.
So was the road.
And the West Stone.
This time, though, there was another name several hundred metres farther on.
Fawley Bridge.
"A bridge. That's a second landmark."
I added it to my notes beside the stone.
I moved my finger across the map.
The bridge was relatively close to the marker.
If it still existed, finding the West Stone would be much easier.
"What's the most recent map?"
Thimgrin checked.
"1949."
I opened it.
The first disappointment.
Ashcombe was no longer the name of the whole estate.
The land had been divided.
New roads had appeared.
Different boundaries.
But the wood remained.
Ashcombe Wood.
Exactly as it appeared in the Ministry document.
Fawley Bridge...
I stopped.
Still marked.
Not as a bridge in use.
Ruins of old bridge.
Ruins might do just as well. At least I knew what to look for.
And the West Stone?
Gone.
I frowned.
"The stone isn't here."
Thimgrin glanced at the map we'd examined earlier.
"Try the signet."
Right. A missing symbol didn't necessarily mean the stone itself had been removed.
I looked at the date.
Decades before Elias's last documents.
I touched the signet to the map.
The ink trembled.
And there it was.
A small symbol.
A square crossed by a line.
West Stone.
I smiled.
"There it is."
Thimgrin watched the parchment.
"Interesting."
I waited for the ink to settle, then compared the marker's position with the earlier map. It was still on the same side of the bridge.
I made notes.
Ashcombe Wood.
Ruins of Fawley Bridge.
West Stone — several hundred metres to the south-west.
Family road.
First mark of recognition.
That was specific enough to actually find the place.
Almost.
"Do you have a map from after 1949?"
Thimgrin went through the remaining entries, then checked them against the deposit ledger.
"No later maps from this survey are recorded as having been deposited."
"Elias didn't leave one?"
"No."
I didn't know whether later maps had never been drawn or were simply kept somewhere else.
I kept looking through the catalogue.
One entry caught my attention.
Register of Boundary Stones and Family Passages.
Status:
Withdrawn from deposit.
Date:
1979.
Withdrawn by:
Elias Peverell.
Of course.
"Thimgrin."
"Yes."
I pointed to the entry.
He read it.
"Yes."
"He took this register three years after the request to the Blacks."
"It appears so."
"Did he return it later?"
"There is no record of that."
"Is there a more detailed description?"
Thimgrin pulled the ledger closer and read the next field.
"Route map. Passage markers. Conditions of access. External wards."
I stared at him.
That was almost exactly what I needed.
"Wonderful."
"You do not look pleased."
"Because a man I can't ask took the instruction manual for a house I can't find."
"That simplifies the problem."
I looked at him.
"How?"
"You know the manual existed."
I hated it when he was right.
He might have taken the register home. If so, the instructions were still waiting in the very place they were supposed to help me reach.
I wrote down the deposit number and the withdrawal date. The connection to the request to the Blacks might be a coincidence. For now, all I had were two dates and my father's name.
I ordered copies of the three maps.
Not the originals.
Thimgrin pointed out a condition of the deposit: the originals were to remain in the bank, available for inspection and copying.
One of the Peverells had introduced it in 1884. According to an attached note, someone in the family had previously taken a map out, used it as a mat under a cauldron and returned it with a hole burnt through Cornwall.
I didn't ask for details.
Every family had its idiots. That was almost comforting.
While I waited for the copies, I kept browsing the catalogue.
Not because I was looking for another lead.
I simply had time.
There was a difference.
I found a map from 1642.
Then 1588.
Then an even older one with no date. I found its tube and unrolled the parchment.
Some of the names on it were written in a language I didn't know.
The Peverells occupied an enormous area.
Much larger than on the later maps.
I ran a finger along the boundary.
"How did they get so much land?"
Thimgrin shrugged.
"Purchases. Inheritance. Grants. Agreements. I do not know."
"Most of it disappeared later."
"Families change."
That was the most philosophical thing I'd ever heard him say.
I didn't like it.
I turned the map over.
Someone had added a note on the back.
The ink had almost faded away.
If Edmund moves the northern stone without permission again, he can explain himself to the Fawleys.
I stopped.
Read it again.
Looked at Thimgrin.
"Who was Edmund?"
"I do not know."
"This is the first Peverell document I've found that basically says 'Edmund is an idiot'."
"Historically valuable information."
I smiled.
It felt strangely good.
Not a curse.
Not Death.
Not old secrets.
Some Peverell several hundred years ago had been annoyed because Edmund kept moving boundary stones.
People.
Ordinary people.
At least sometimes.
I rolled the map up a little more carefully.
The copies were ready an hour later.
They preserved the ordinary markings, right down to the small notes in the margins. The magic of the originals hadn't carried over.
I touched my signet to the newest one.
Nothing.
The bridge ruins were there. The West Stone was still missing. The copy of the 1827 map showed its old symbol, but the road ended where it had before the map recognised the signet.
"A basic copy," Thimgrin explained. "It reproduces the map. It does not duplicate its enchantments."
I laid both sheets beside the originals.
First, I unlocked the newest map and marked the stone's position on the copy, using the bridge ruins and the bend in the stream as reference points. Then I returned to the older one and carefully copied the revealed stretch of road by hand, along with the inscription.
I used a different colour of ink. Later, I wanted to be able to tell what came from the cartographer and what I'd added myself.
I compared everything once more.
My line was a little crooked, but the turn was where it should be.
I put the copies in my folder.
"If I find the West Stone..."
Thimgrin looked at me.
"Yes?"
"What would you advise?"
"As a banker?"
"Yes."
"Do not lose the signet."
"Excellent advice."
"As someone who has overseen your family's assets for a very long time?"
That gave me pause.
"Yes?"
"Do not assume the first obstacle is the hardest."
I looked at him for a moment.
"That sounds as though you know something."
"That sounds as though I know the Peverells."
Fair enough.
"Have you ever been to the house?"
Thimgrin glanced at the closed folder.
"Yes. Elias invited me."
My hand stopped on the clasp.
"You've been there. And I've spent the last few days asking how to find it."
"I do not know its location. Elias took me to the entrance and guided me through. I could not retrace the route on my own."
"But you can tell me what you remember."
"I can."
"You could have told me earlier, too. I asked you about the house. About who was looking after it."
He was silent for a moment.
"Yes. I should have mentioned the visit."
I hadn't expected that answer. I already had at least two more sentences ready, and suddenly neither was needed.
I set the folder back on the table.
"All right. What do you remember?"
"A wood and a stone at the beginning of the passage. Elias led the way. Once we entered, our surroundings changed. The way back did not look the same."
"The family road?"
"That is what he called it."
I looked at the maps.
"An illusion?"
"I cannot say. The trees seemed to stand closer together. A few minutes later, we were outside the house."
"What about the Fidelius Charm?"
"No."
He answered without hesitation. At least I could rule one thing out.
"Do you remember a bridge?"
"Not clearly enough to confirm it was the one on the map."
I noted down the wood, the stone and the changing road. They still weren't directions I could simply follow. But they matched what we'd found.
"What did the house look like?"
"It was large. Old. I did not see the entire estate."
"And Elias?"
Thimgrin looked up.
The question came out before I'd quite meant to ask it. A moment ago, I'd been interested in a point on a map. Now I was picturing my father walking down a woodland path with the goblin standing in front of me.
"He was young," Thimgrin said. "He asked a great many questions. He disliked answers limited to the exact question he had asked."
I looked at him.
"That, I understand."
"I have noticed."
I ran a finger over the folder's clasp.
"Did you meet Aria then?"
"Yes. She was at home."
"What was she like?"
He considered that for a moment.
"More patient than he was. At least during our conversation."
It wasn't much. A guest's impression from a single visit.
Even so, I wanted to remember it.
"Who else was there?"
"A house-elf. I remember one."
I raised my head.
"Earlier, you said the fund might be supporting house-elves."
"I do not know whether that elf is still alive, or whether the current expenditure is connected to him. I can only confirm that I saw him at the house then."
This time, the distinction made sense.
If the elf was still there, he had known my parents. He knew what the house had been like when they lived in it. Perhaps he could also tell me what had happened afterwards.
I didn't write it down as a certainty. I put a question mark beside the word elf.
"So someone might have stayed."
"They might."
I closed my notebook. Thimgrin hadn't given me an address or a way through the road. But he'd given me something the register didn't contain: a memory of a place where my parents had welcomed guests.
For a moment, I had no further questions.
I turned to leave.
"Mr Peverell."
I looked back.
"What?"
Thimgrin glanced at my signet ring.
"When you find the stone, please do not try to force your way through."
I raised an eyebrow.
"I'll check whether it responds to the signet first."
"That is a good start."
I reached for my folder. After my experience with the third vault, I wanted to find out what the passage expected of me before trying to impose my own ideas on it.
Hedwig returned before dinner.
I heard her before I saw her.
She swept through the window, circled once and landed on the desk.
"Good to see you."
She held out her leg.
One letter.
Thick.
Of course.
I untied it.
Draco.
Peverell,
I'm taking your question about Wiltshire as an admission that I was right.
I don't care what you write back.
I've heard of Ashcombe Wood. I've never been there, because apparently there's nothing there.
I asked Father.
I now regret it.
He said Ashcombe used to belong to the Fawleys, and before that, some of the surrounding land had ties to the Peverells.
Then he asked why you were asking.
I said I didn't know.
He said that sounded like you.
I'm not sure whether you should be offended.
Saturday works.
Mother said that now you've agreed, I'm not allowed to pretend the invitation was a joke.
Father says that if you're interested in Wiltshire's old family boundaries, he has better maps than most of those at the Ministry.
He also told me not to write anything else.
So, naturally, I'm writing more.
Ashcombe is about half an hour from our estate on a good broom. A little longer by road.
Father can collect you from the Leaky Cauldron on Saturday morning.
Draco
I read the last few lines twice.
Half an hour from Malfoy Manor.
I looked at the copy of the map.
Ashcombe Wood.
Fawley Bridge.
The West Stone.
Then at the letter.
Lucius had better maps.
That wasn't surprising.
The Malfoys had lived in Wiltshire for generations.
He might know the Fawleys.
He might know where the bridge ruins were.
The problem was that every question told him a little more about what I was looking for.
I didn't want to lead Lucius straight to the hidden Peverell home.
On the other hand, he already knew it had something to do with Ashcombe.
Thanks to Draco.
I looked at Hedwig.
"It's not your fault."
She hooted.
"Not his either. I asked."
That was the trouble with having a friend whose father knew half the old wizarding world.
Information flowed both ways.
I picked up my quill.
Draco,
You weren't right.
Let's consider that the most important part of this reply.
Saturday works.
Thank your mother for the invitation.
Tell your father I'd be glad to see the maps.
And don't tell him anything else about what I'm looking for.
I'm serious about that last part.
Oliver
I read it over.
Left it as it was.
Draco would understand.
Lucius probably would too.
That didn't mean he'd stop being curious.
But at least I'd made it clear what I didn't want passed on.
I set the reply beside the lamp.
"Tomorrow morning," I told Hedwig.
She began preening. Apparently, she'd had enough correspondence for one day.
I spread the map across the desk.
Wiltshire.
Ashcombe.
The bridge ruins.
The West Stone.
First mark of recognition.
I ran a finger along the line leading towards the empty centre.
Thimgrin had been there.
Elias had guided him through the wood. Aria had been waiting at home. An elf had taken care of things the bank never recorded in any ledger.
I didn't know whether I'd ever lived there with them. I'd been found on the orphanage doorstep as a baby, probably only a few hours after I was born. That didn't leave much time for a life in the family home.
But they had lived there.
The map still showed an empty patch. Now it was easier to imagine a house there, a place where Elias had invited a guest, rather than somewhere that meant nothing but curses and secrets.
I traced my own slightly crooked line with a finger.
I looked at the Saturday marked on the calendar.
Malfoy Manor.
Old maps.
Then...
No.
Not yet.
First, I'd see what Lucius knew.
Only then would I decide what to do about Ashcombe.
I folded the map and put it back in the folder.
That was enough for today.