Officer Ruth Singer of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was a young woman with practical robes and a no-nonsense haircut. She consulted her clipboard before she'd finished crossing the threshold.
"Mr. Ashcroft. I'm here to conduct a follow-up inquiry into the incident of August fourteenth at this address. The Department has reviewed the initial assessment in light of recent press reports and would like to gather additional testimony."
"The initial assessment called it a magical accident."
"That assessment has been flagged for review." Her tone could have been reporting the weather. "I'll need a full account of the evening in question. Do you have time now?"
He gave her the account. She took notes on enchanted parchment that recorded his words as he spoke, occasionally asking for clarification on how many attackers, what spells were used, whether he recognised any of them. She was thorough, but she never once asked who might have sent them.
When he finished, she looked up from the parchment. "You've just described casting barrier traps, shield charms, and a Severing Charm. You're thirteen."
"Yes."
"The Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery prohibits wand use outside school by anyone under seventeen. You're aware of that."
"If the Department wants to charge me for defending myself and my staff against five dark wizards, they're welcome to try."
Singer held his gaze for a moment. Then she made a note on her parchment and moved on.
"You can identify none of the attackers?"
"They were hooded. One lost his hood during the barrier trap, but I've never seen the face before."
"Could you describe the face?"
"Male. Mid-thirties to forties. Clean-shaven. Sharp jaw. Dark hair going grey at the temples."
She wrote it down.
"I can provide the memory directly," Rowan said. "I've studied extraction techniques. Once I'm back at Hogwarts and can use my wand, I'll extract it and send it to you by secure owl."
Singer looked up from her clipboard. For the first time, she seemed interested.
"Memories aren't admissible as primary evidence under Department policy. They can be altered, fabricated, or implanted wholesale." She paused. "The Wizengamot stopped accepting Pensieve testimony after a fraud case in sixty-three."
"Even with an unaltered memory of the attacker's face?"
"Even then. A memory on its own can't open an investigation." She tapped her quill against the parchment. "But it can support one. If a name surfaces later, having the memory on file strengthens whatever case we build. Extract it, seal it in a vial, and send it to my office at the DMLE. I'll view it in a Pensieve and add it to the case record."
"I'll send it within a week of term starting. I also intend to show the memory to my professors at Hogwarts. If anyone recognises the face, I'll pass the name to you immediately."
Singer nodded and made a note. "The physical evidence supports your account. Damage consistent with Dark magic, Cruciatus exposure, and multiple spell impacts from different angles." She looked up. "But I can't make an arrest without a name or a wand signature. If anything new turns up, we reopen it."
"Thank you for your time, Officer Singer."
"Likewise, Mr. Ashcroft. Here's my card if you think of anything else." She handed him a small rectangle of enchanted parchment. "And for what it's worth, the wards on this building are impressive. I've only felt goblin work twice before, both at Gringotts." She glanced at the walls. "Whoever you hired, they didn't cut corners."
Rowan filed the card in the drawer behind the counter. A name at the DMLE and a standing offer to take his memory into evidence. More than he'd expected from the Ministry.
The shop reopened on the thirtieth of August, four days before term.
Lawrence worked the counter. Rowan had tried to persuade him to take time, to grieve his mother's injury properly before throwing himself back into work, but Lawrence had met the suggestion with the same immovable stubbornness that had driven him through the rebuild.
"Mum told me to keep the shop running," he said. "She's upstairs recovering. I can hear her if she calls. And if I sit in a room with nothing to do, I'll go mad."
Rowan let it go. Lawrence's grief wasn't his to manage.
"Let him work," Clara said from her bedroom. She still couldn't hold a quill. "He's my son. We manage grief by being useful."
The truth was that Lawrence behind the counter was better than Rowan behind the counter. He had Clara's ease with people and a knack for turning a casual browse into a conversation that ended with a sale. By the end of the first day he'd moved more luminaires than Rowan typically sold in a week.
The coverage drove traffic. Customers who had read about the Flamels came to see the products for themselves. Others came out of curiosity, wanting to see the shop that had been attacked and rebuilt, and left with luminaires they hadn't planned on buying. By the end of the first week, they'd sold more than in the entire month before the attack.
On the third day after reopening, Rowan walked to Eeylops Owl Emporium and bought a barn owl. Brown and white, steady-eyed, and healthy enough to carry a heavy scroll case. The shopkeeper tried to interest him in a young tawny with amber eyes, and Rowan said no without explaining why. He paid, carried the cage back to Carkitt Market, and set it on the windowsill where Athena's perch had been. Lawrence had taken the perch down that morning, unprompted. The empty bracket was still visible in the wood.
The barn owl watched him from behind the cage bars with the patient indifference of an animal that had no idea what he was replacing. Rowan fed him, filled the water dish, and left the cage door open so he could come and go. He'd need a name eventually. Rowan would get to it.
The articles brought more than customers. Among the owls that arrived in the days after publication were half a dozen letters from witches and wizards offering their services. Most were vague or overqualified or both. One stood out.
Eleanor Graves was Muggleborn, from Bristol, with OWLs in Charms and Potions and three years of experience working the counter at a Horizont Alley tea shop that had since closed. Her letter was two paragraphs long, free of flattery, and asked specific questions about the production process that told Rowan she'd actually read Inkwood's earlier article rather than skimming the headline.
He wrote back that evening.
Miss Graves,
Thank you for your letter. I need someone who can manage the shop and produce luminaires independently while I am at Hogwarts. The work involves runic inscription, basic alchemical preparation, customer service, and inventory management. Training will be provided. Compensation is negotiable.
If you are interested, please reply at your earliest convenience. The position would begin on the third of September.
Rowan Ashcroft
Her reply arrived the next day. She was very interested.
Clara handled the contract, dictating the terms to Lawrence, who wrote them out in his careful hand because Clara's couldn't hold a quill steadily enough for legal documents. The arrangement mirrored Clara's original contract: fair pay, housing offered if needed, and profit-sharing after a probationary period. Eleanor arrived from Bristol by Floo on the first of September and spent two days learning the production process under Lawrence's supervision.
On the last evening before term, Rowan sat in the workshop after the others had gone to bed. The athanor hummed. A new batch of silver was in the dissolution stage, the solution slowly clearing as the lunar fixation took hold. The wardstone pulsed gently on the floor beside him, a steady heartbeat he felt through the soles of his boots.
He opened his journal and wrote the date. Hogwarts in the morning. Third year.
Somewhere in the building, Lawrence turned over in his sleep. Clara's door was closed. Eleanor's things were still half-unpacked in the third bedroom, her trunk open on the floor, her Bristol accent lingering in the kitchen like a guest that hadn't quite settled in.
Rowan closed the journal and listened to the building. The wards hummed. The walls held. The silver transmuted slowly in the crucible, Saturn becoming Moon, one step at a time.
He turned off the light and went upstairs.