Nobody reacted to Dumbledore settling into the chair beside Harry. The phase of the group's development where his sudden appearances produced any visible surprise had passed sometime around third year and never returned.
"Good evening, everyone." He looked around the table with a warmth that was entirely genuine and in no way prevented him from being several moves ahead of everyone in the room simultaneously. "Yes — the Horcrux situation is developing faster than I'd anticipated. I have some useful information for you, and an assignment, which I think is best delivered now."
He held up the locket — opened, the inner lid bearing a deep black scorch mark where Kevin's basilisk fang had punched through it.
"This is Slytherin's Locket." He set it on the table. "It passed through the hands of a collector — a prominent one, who died suddenly and unexpectedly. The locket disappeared from his estate the same week he did. Along with a second item."
He conjured an image — a golden cup, two handles, a badger motif worked into the metalwork.
"Helga Hufflepuff's Cup. One of the four Founders' original treasures. My current intelligence suggests it found its way into a vault at Gringotts, and the vault belongs to a Death Eater family." He let that settle. "I have reason to believe it is also a Horcrux."
Harry was nodding. "So Voldemort killed the collector, stole both, turned them into Horcruxes."
"Almost certainly. And a third treasure went missing from the same period — Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem. The real one. It's been missing for decades."
Kevin straightened slightly. The Diadem. He'd known it was coming, but the confirmation still landed.
"There's a complication," Dumbledore continued, folding his hands on the table. "The Diadem is known to one person who will not speak to me about it. Helena Ravenclaw — the Grey Lady, Ravenclaw's house ghost. She was its guardian before it disappeared. She knows where it is. She's been furious about its loss for decades, and she's decided that those of my vintage are not to be trusted on the subject."
He looked at Harry, then at the others.
"You, however, are students. You have somewhat better odds of a genuine conversation."
Harry leaned forward. "Where do we find her?"
"I have absolutely no idea."
The table went quiet.
"She was in the Albanian forest for a period. That was many years ago. She moves rarely, but she does move. She might be anywhere that has a meaningful connection to Ravenclaw's history."
He shrugged pleasantly.
Harry absorbed this. "So we have to find a ghost who's been deliberately invisible for decades."
"Before Voldemort's people do." Dumbledore stood, smoothing his robes. "Think of it as a treasure hunt. Rather a good one, as those things go." He paused. "Oh — and Hagrid will be back at the start of term. I thought you'd want to know."
He left.
They looked at the space he'd vacated.
"He could have told us where to at least start looking," Ron said.
"He genuinely doesn't know," Hermione said, with the certainty of someone who has cross-referenced this. "If he did, he'd have retrieved it himself already."
Kevin was thinking about the Room of Requirement, and about something Voldemort had let slip — not to Kevin, but in a way Kevin had been positioned to reconstruct. The Diadem had been hidden there once. If Helena knew that, and if she'd been watching the school long enough to track its movements—
He filed it. Not yet.
In a chamber beneath Malfoy Manor, the atmosphere was the specific kind of silence that forms when a room full of people have collectively decided that breathing quietly is their best survival strategy.
Voldemort sat at the head of the long table and said nothing.
He had been saying nothing for several minutes. The Death Eaters arranged on both sides of the table — Draco and Lucius among them, two of perhaps twenty present — studied their hands, their laps, the grain of the wood. The empty seats were visible reminders of the year's various losses.
The ring was gone. Nagini was gone. Two Horcruxes, in a single afternoon.
The diary had been lost to Lucius's spectacular mismanagement in second year.
His locket had vanished from the coastal cave — apparently some time ago, the precise timeline still unclear — and had been destroyed.
Four of seven.
"Draco."
Draco's head snapped up. The correct response to being addressed unexpectedly in this room was immediate, complete attention.
"...Yes, my Lord."
"I instructed you to deliver cursed objects into Kevin's possession. Into Dumbledore's possession." Voldemort's voice was the temperature of deep water. "This has not occurred."
"...I tried. Kevin identified the attempt before—" Draco's voice dropped below audible.
"You did not try." A pause. "You chose not to."
Voldemort raised his wand.
Lucius stood.
Every instinct he had was screaming that this was a fatal error. He stood anyway.
"My Lord." He kept his voice steady through considerable effort. "The fault is mine, not Draco's. Kevin and the Headmaster have both identified Draco as a potential source. Any approach he makes is intercepted immediately. I take responsibility for the intelligence failure."
He met Voldemort's gaze. Did not look away.
Voldemort regarded him for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
Neither Lucius nor Draco found the smile reassuring.
"Of course," Voldemort said, with the pleasant tone of a man gracefully accepting a correction. "A task too complex for a student. Very well, Lucius." He settled back. "The assignment is yours now. Kill Dumbledore, or kill Kevin. One or the other."
Lucius said nothing. His face had achieved the blankness of a man who has realised the word yes is the only option and is assembling it with care.
"Draco." Voldemort's attention shifted, and with it the entire weight of the room. "I have a different task for you. In Hogwarts, there is a room — the Room of Requirement. It changes to fit the need of whoever finds it. There is something of mine in there, from a long time ago. A diadem. You will go and retrieve it."
Draco stared. He had no idea what a diadem was. He had no idea how to find a room that didn't remain constant. He understood, with absolute clarity, that the only word he was allowed to say was the same word his father was currently assembling.
"Yes, my Lord."
Voldemort folded his hands.
The Diadem was the most exposed of what remained — sitting in an enemy stronghold, known to a ghost who might be persuaded to talk if approached correctly, one Horcrux Dumbledore's people might locate by working from the right direction.
He needed it retrieved before they found it.
And Lucius — well. Lucius had stood up for his son. That was touching. He would be given a task that reflected the full weight of that touching gesture.
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The bonus chapter is written. It is READY. It sits in the dark waiting to be released into the world — and only your powerstones hold the key. Do not let it wait any longer.