Harry Potter: Fire Lord Black

The problem with a safety device was that success invited people to invent new uses for it.

Within two days, Draco wanted to wear a Flame Mask while dueling. A fourth-year asked whether it could conceal his face. Goyle wondered if two masks at once would make darkness stronger.

Edward answered no, no, and absolutely not.

Theodore wrote those questions into the test record anyway.

"Future idiots deserve documentation," he said.

Edward could not argue.

The supervised drills revealed more ordinary weaknesses. The parchment took several seconds to unfold if stored in a pocket. Gloves made the release harder. Students who activated it while standing in the middle of a room became disoriented. The safest use remained the least heroic: reach a wall, lower the head, activate the veil only if necessary, and move toward a known exit.

Hermione returned her strip after one practice session with the edge creased.

"It still works," she said.

Flitwick refused to let her test that assumption. He replaced it and kept the damaged strip for examination.

"A life-saving object that works until it looks slightly untidy is not much of a life-saving object," he said.

Edward added folding damage to the list.

The tests should have satisfied him. They did not.

The pipe theory remained in his mind. Mrs. Norris and Colin had survived indirect encounters. Harry heard something in walls. The Chamber legend pointed toward Slytherin. Edward kept thinking that if he could only find the attacker's route, the adults could close it.

That thought was how he ended up outside curfew again.

He did not carry the Basilisk fang. He did not carry the remains of Slytherin's locket. Both pieces of dangerous evidence were where they belonged under adult control. He carried only his own walnut wand, one approved Flame Mask strip, and a castle maintenance map copied from an ordinary library reference.

The distinction did not make the trip authorized.

Edward knew that before he reached the second staircase.

He had told himself he would inspect only visible pipe access in public corridors. No spells. No locked doors. No secret passages. He would return within ten minutes.

A black robe moved at the end of the corridor.

Edward stopped.

"How fortunate," Snape said. "I was wondering which student would volunteer to demonstrate why the escort rules exist."

Edward lowered the map.

Snape approached without hurry. "Explain."

"I was comparing the maintenance routes with the attack locations."

"At midnight."

"Yes."

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"Alone."

"Yes."

"After helping write a rule that specifically forbids this."

Edward considered whether silence could improve the situation. It could not.

"Yes."

Snape held out his hand. Edward surrendered the map and the Flame Mask strip.

"What did you expect to find?"

"A route large enough for a serpent. Or evidence that the pipe theory is wrong."

"And if you found the creature instead?"

"I would leave."

Snape's expression made clear what he thought of plans dependent on a curious twelve-year-old choosing retreat after finding exactly what he had been searching for.

"Detention tomorrow," he said. "You will copy the relevant school safety rules and then assist Filch with inventory in a corridor containing no mysterious serpents."

Edward nodded.

"You will also provide your route theory to Professor McGonagall in the morning. Adults can inspect maintenance passages without using you as bait."

The rebuke struck harder because it preserved the useful part of his work while rejecting the method.

Snape started toward the dungeons. Edward followed.

"Professor?"

"You are in no position to bargain."

"I know. The mask. May I ask whether carrying it was also a mistake?"

Snape glanced at the folded strip in his hand. "Carrying an approved emergency aid is not permission to enter danger. That confusion is precisely what concerns me."

Edward remembered his own language in the common room. Safer, not safe.

"Understood."

"I doubt that, but repetition may eventually achieve what judgment has not."

The next morning, McGonagall received his map. She did not praise the midnight excursion. She did, however, ask Professor Binns for older plans and assigned two staff members to compare pipe routes near the attack sites.

Edward attended lessons while they worked.

The waiting irritated him.

At lunch, Hermione noticed his detention notice.

"You went looking for the pipes."

It was not a question.

"Visible access points."

"Alone."

"Yes."

She stared at him. "You told Harry not to chase voices."

"I am aware of the hypocrisy."

"Good. That saves time."

Edward almost objected, then decided he had earned that too.

After classes, he spent an hour with Filch counting replacement torch brackets. Mrs. Norris remained in the hospital wing, and Filch's grief made him less interested in tormenting students than usual. He handed Edward a list and told him not to touch anything that hissed.

The joke was so dry Edward was not certain it was a joke.

Near the end of detention, Snape arrived with McGonagall. Their inspection had found that some old plumbing ran behind the attacked corridors, but the passages visible on modern plans were far too narrow for the creature described in Basilisk texts.

"That does not eliminate magically altered spaces," McGonagall said. "It also does not prove they exist."

Edward nodded.

"Your contribution is now complete unless a professor asks for more."

"Yes, Professor."

Snape returned the Flame Mask strip after checking it for damage. "Emergency use only. If I find you treating this as a permit for further exploration, I will burn the remaining test notes myself."

Edward believed him.

That evening, he reported the incident to the small group discussing the Flame Serpent charter. He could have omitted it. Instead, he added his detention beneath the project's failure record.

Pansy read the entry. "So the device did not fail. The inventor did."

"Correct."

Theodore added a line: possession of a safeguard must not be used to justify taking a risk that would otherwise be rejected.

Edward signed beneath it.

Draco heard about the detention before supper and took the news personally.

"You had a route theory and did not tell me?"

"I told McGonagall after Snape caught me."

"That is not what I asked."

Edward looked at him. "Would you have come?"

Draco hesitated just long enough.

"That is why I did not tell you. It is also why going alone was not better."

The admission irritated both of them.

They carried the argument to the charter meeting, where Daphne asked a more useful question: what should a member do when another member announced an obviously unsafe plan? Edward's original draft had rules about obedience during emergencies. Pansy crossed that section out.

"If the leader is the idiot," she said, "obedience makes the whole group idiotic."

The replacement required a second person to challenge any non-emergency expedition involving restricted areas, unknown magic, or suspected Dark creatures. If no qualified adult approved it, the group did not go.

Draco objected that this could stop useful action.

"That is the purpose," Theodore said. "Useful action can survive being explained to a professor."

Edward signed the amendment first.

The rule felt painfully specific.

It was also likely to remain useful long after the Flame Mask was forgotten.

The detention ended. The lesson did not. Edward returned to the dungeon with the map under Snape's custody and no private expedition planned.