Harry Potter: Fire Lord Black

Edward reached the corridor with Draco and half the Slytherin breakfast table behind them. Professor McGonagall was already clearing space around a small figure near a suit of armor.

Colin Creevey lay rigid on the floor with his camera clutched against his chest.

He was alive.

That fact came first. Madam Pomfrey confirmed it before anyone could turn the scene into another death rumor. His eyes were open but unresponsive, and his body showed the same suspended stiffness as Mrs. Norris.

The second attack changed the castle faster than the first. Students began looking at Harry before anyone had explained where Colin was found or when he had last been seen.

Draco followed their gaze.

"Potter," he said.

Edward caught his sleeve before he pushed through the crowd. "Do not."

"He was at the first attack too."

"He found the first victim. We do not know where he was when this happened."

Harry arrived with Ron and Hermione a moment later, which did nothing to help appearances. Colin had followed Harry around for weeks with his camera. The connection was obvious enough to feed rumor and weak enough to prove almost nothing.

Draco raised his voice anyway.

"There he is. Parseltongue at the Dueling Club, then another petrified student. How much more do you need?"

Ron stepped in front of Harry. "Evidence would be a start."

Several Slytherins laughed. Hermione did not.

"Colin is Muggle-born," she said. "If someone is acting in Slytherin's name, that makes him a plausible target. It does not make Harry the attacker."

Draco shot back, "Potter is a half-blood."

"Which also does not prove anything. Blood status does not decide who can commit a crime or who can be attacked."

Edward was glad she corrected the point before the argument slid into the absurd claim that a half-blood could not possibly support a blood-purity cause. History contained too many people who hated parts of themselves for that logic to survive contact with reality.

"What matters," Edward said, "is whether Potter can be placed at the scene, whether Colin saw the attacker, and whether the camera recorded anything."

McGonagall turned sharply. "What matters at this moment is that students clear the corridor."

That ended the debate.

They moved away under prefect direction. Edward saw Snape seal Colin's camera in a cloth bag for examination rather than opening it in front of students. If the device contained a clue, adults would handle it.

Hermione caught Edward near the stairs.

"You changed your mind."

"About what?"

"The library. Yesterday you were willing to share notes. A few weeks ago you would have called this a chance to see who stayed useful in a crisis."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Edward disliked how accurately she remembered his language.

"I still notice who handles pressure well."

"That was not my question."

Students flowed around them in pairs. Edward lowered his voice.

"I thought competence gave people a stronger claim to decide for everyone else. I am less certain now."

Hermione folded her arms. "Less certain is not the same as wrong."

"No. It is usually the stage before I have enough evidence to admit I was wrong."

That earned the smallest twitch at the corner of her mouth.

They went to the library after lessons with permission from McGonagall. The second victim changed their notes. Colin's camera became important because he had apparently been holding it when petrified. If a direct Basilisk gaze killed, perhaps the lens had stood between him and whatever he saw.

Hermione found the idea first.

"A camera uses mirrors and a lens," she said. "If he saw something through it..."

"Then the effect may not have reached him directly," Edward finished.

They both stopped.

The possibility linked Mrs. Norris to the same problem only if she had also seen the attacker indirectly. They did not know how. Edward wrote the gap in large letters.

"We tell McGonagall," Hermione said.

"Immediately."

They found her after supper. She listened, asked where each claim came from, and refused to confirm whether Colin's camera film had shown anything useful. She did tell them that staff were considering indirect exposure among several possibilities.

"You will not test this theory," she added.

Hermione looked offended. "Professor, we would not look at a Basilisk through a mirror on purpose."

McGonagall raised an eyebrow.

Edward thought of his own history with unsupervised experiments. "The reminder is justified."

Back in Slytherin, Draco had turned the morning's argument into a second one.

"If Potter is not the obvious suspect, who is?" he demanded.

"That question assumes we have an obvious suspect," Theodore said from the sofa.

Pansy nodded. "And it assumes the attacks need a student culprit."

Draco looked betrayed by the room.

Edward sat opposite him. "We know someone or something is attacking people. We know the message invokes the Heir of Slytherin. We know Potter speaks Parseltongue. Those facts may connect. We do not yet know how."

"You sound like Granger."

"She was correct about the weakness in your accusation this morning."

Draco's ears reddened.

Edward continued before pride could become another insult. "If you want the Flame Serpent group to mean anything, begin here. No accusation becomes true because it flatters our house. No defense becomes true because we like the person accused."

Theodore looked interested. "A rule of evidence."

"A basic one."

Blaise, who had been reading near the fire, closed his book. "What would disprove Potter as the Heir?"

Draco opened his mouth, then stopped.

"Good question," Edward said. "If nothing could change our minds, we are not investigating."

They spent the next half hour testing their own claims. Harry's presence near Mrs. Norris mattered, but three witnesses said he arrived after the attack. Parseltongue mattered, but no one had heard him issue commands during either petrification. Colin's admiration for Harry might support a personal connection, but it also made deliberate targeting less obvious, not more.

The exercise did not prove Harry innocent. It did make the easy accusation harder to repeat.

Later, Hermione returned one of Edward's borrowed books through Madam Pince. A scrap of parchment marked the section on indirect magical sight.

She had written only one sentence beneath the citation: "A theory that explains one victim should have to explain the other."

Edward added it to his notes.

His earlier talk about justice and order had treated the two as rival banners. The distinction now seemed childish. Order without fair judgment was only organized coercion. Justice without procedure could become whatever the loudest frightened person claimed it was.

He did not suddenly possess a mature political philosophy. He had two petrified victims, a frightened school, and enough mistakes behind him to distrust simple answers.

For the moment, that was sufficient.

The castle bells marked curfew. Edward closed the book and joined the escort group waiting outside the library.

Snape later returned Colin's camera to the staff evidence cupboard with the film still sealed. Edward learned only that the mechanism had been damaged and that the professors were consulting someone who understood Muggle cameras better than they did. That detail pleased Hermione far more than it pleased Draco.

"They are asking an expert instead of pretending they know," she said.

"A revolutionary practice," Edward replied.

She gave him a suspicious look, perhaps checking for mockery. There was some, but not at the expert.

The exchange also reminded Edward that old magical families did not possess every useful form of knowledge. Colin's camera had introduced a question that none of Edward's Black books could answer by themselves. If the alliance he imagined treated inherited archives as the highest source by default, it would miss exactly that kind of evidence.

He added another line to the draft charter before bed: expertise had to be demonstrated in the subject at hand, not assumed from a surname.

No one walked alone.