The cold, biting wind off the Firth of Clyde was Hermione's only companion. The mist swirled around her, tasting of salt and defeat. The Black Lighthouse, moments ago a tangible fortress, was now nothing but a ghostly impression, a void in the space it once occupied. Lysander Grindelwald, Ira Riddle, and Harry's son, Lucien—all had vanished, leaving behind only the chilling resonance of ancient, potent magic.
Hermione stood utterly still, her wand clenched, her mind racing at a hundred miles an hour. She replayed the scene: Lysander's calm, deliberate rhetoric, his calculated unveiling of the decoys, Lucien's terrified yet decisive act of collective disillusionment. She had been played, expertly and precisely.
Her first instinct was to panic, to unleash every detection charm she knew, to scour every inch of the air and sea. But she forced herself to breathe, to think. Panic was a luxury she couldn't afford. Lysander wanted chaos. She had to deny him that.
She started by casting a series of advanced counter-charms, attempting to unravel the layers of disillusionment Lysander had employed. But the magic was too deep, too interwoven with the natural elemental energies of the place. It was like trying to catch mist in a sieve. The Black Lighthouse was not merely invisible; it was un-there.
Next, she tried a powerful Temporal Resonance Charm, hoping to detect a recent magical jump—a Portkey, Apparition point, or even another Portal Rune. Nothing. Lysander had covered their tracks flawlessly. They hadn't just moved; they had, for all intents and purposes, ceased to exist on any conventional magical map.
The full weight of Lysander's words crashed down on her: "He will redefine magic, who will tear down the old walls of prejudice and bring about a new order. An order where magic is wielded, not hidden. Where power is understood, not feared." And, "Where the threads of time are thin, and the echoes of Dumbledore's past are loudest."
Hermione felt a cold dread begin to solidify in her stomach. Dumbledore. Always Dumbledore. Even in death, his shadow stretched long, orchestrating events from beyond the grave. The Third Prophecy. Lysander wasn't just a rogue; he was Dumbledore's consequence, fulfilling a part of the grand plan that Harry and she had never understood.
Her comms device, charmed to connect directly to the DMLE, suddenly crackled to life, pulling her sharply back to the present.
"Head Auror Granger! Report immediately! We've got multiple active targets, all high-level Potter signatures, scattering across the entire Scottish coastline! What is going on?!" Auror Dawlish's voice was frantic, bordering on hysterical. "They're everywhere! One just Apparated out of a Muggle fishing trawler near Oban, another blasted through a derelict castle tower in the Highlands, a third just triggered a Level Four perimeter ward near… near your cottage!"
Hermione closed her eyes, a sharp stab of pain piercing through her. Cho. The decoy. It was working.
"Dawlish," Hermione said, forcing her voice to be steady, authoritative. "Confirm these are Potter signatures. Are there any other magical echoes present with them?"
"Yes, ma'am! Strong Potter signatures, all of them! And some kind of residual Dark Arts energy with each jump, but it's dissipating too fast to identify a caster!" Dawlish replied, completely misled. "It looks like the whole group has fragmented, perhaps the main target split off, or they're trying to overwhelm our sensors."
"It's a diversion, Dawlish," Hermione stated, her voice grim. "They are not the main targets. They are magical constructs. Phantoms. Chasing them is a waste of resources."
A beat of stunned silence on the other end. "Phantoms? Head Auror, we're talking about dozens of high-level Potter signatures! Ministry protocols dictate full pursuit!"
"Override protocols," Hermione snapped, her authority absolute. "Recall all Aurors from pursuit of these phantom signatures. Deploy them to establish a full, impenetrable perimeter around the entire Scottish coastline and its inland borders. Every portkey, every Apparition point, every registered port and airfield—seal it. Nothing in, nothing out. I want this country on lockdown. The real targets are not these decoys. They are a single group, consisting of Lysander Grindelwald, Ira Riddle, and the boy, Lucien. They vanished from this location. They will attempt to leave the country. Find them."
"But... but Head Auror, the decoy near your cottage—"
"Is just that, Dawlish. A decoy. I repeat: disregard all phantom Potter signatures. Focus on a complete lockdown." Hermione cut the connection, not waiting for Dawlish's bewildered protest. She knew the Ministry bureaucracy would grind slowly, but she had to buy herself time.
Her eyes swept across the vast, empty expanse of the sea, then back towards the distant, hazy land. Lysander's mention of "where the threads of time are thin" gnawed at her. He wasn't just talking about a hidden base. He was talking about something far more dangerous, far more fundamental.
She had to find Cho. Cho was the only one who held the real answers. The identity of Lucien's father. The origin of the potion. The true extent of the deception.
Hermione disapparated again, not towards the decoy trail in the south, but directly back to the now-abandoned cottage. She needed to retrieve any scrap of information Cho might have left behind. Anything that would explain the unbearable questions swirling in her mind.
Interesting fact: The word "Disapparate" was invented by J. K. Rowling in the Harry Potter books to describe a form of teleportation from one place to another, but in derived usage it often means just to disappear completely.