Operation Homeward (A Harry Potter Fanfiction)

Eight

Update for week May 10 through May 17.

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"What do you mean it's all gone?" demanded Lily to Albus, clutching The Tales of Beetle the Bard so tightly her fingers ached.

"Exactly what it sounds like, Lily," said Albus exasperatedly. "We logged on and all that was there was the piece of the video we watched."

Lily felt the bubbling urge to chuck the book hard enough to knock someone out. Judging by the wary looks on Teddy, Albus, and James's faces, her inclinations were visible in her demeanor. She took a few calming breaths, recalling the reason she'd smothered her pride and come to check up on their progress: the evidence that the very book she'd wanted to throw held.

"Did you find something, Lily? In Beetle the Bard?" asked Teddy carefully, yet with a hint of hope.

The disappointment at the hard drive's failure ebbed into excitement as she nodded. "Yes. Sort of. I couldn't figure out what the the second tab said, so I decided to look ahead." She flipped to the third tab, where yet another sentence was underlined, this time in The Warlock's Hairy Heart, and showed it to them:

Having transferred his greatest treasure to the deepest dungeon, he gave himself over to a life of ease and plenty, his comfort the only aim of most servants.

Harry's third annotation was scrunched on the side:

What's even funnier is when those haunting things of the past coincide. 7th year, and the roles were reversed.

James blinked once at Lily. "It looks like the same kind of gibberish from before."

"It's not," said Lily and Teddy in unison. Lily's heart swelled with hope and pride at his show of support and understanding. Naturally, she could always count on Teddy, at least, to have some brains.

"The second and third annotations are linked," explained Teddy, his eyes - still green like before - wide as the realization dawned on him. "They have to be. The third specifically references the second. It's a continuation." He flipped back to the second tab. "Look. 'Funny how the past comes back to haunt you, isn't it?' And then" — he flipped back to tab three — "it says, 'What's even funnier is when those haunting things of the past coincide.' The two annotations connect to one another."

James scratched the back of his head, causing Lily's irritation from before to rise up again. "I still don't see what that has to do with anything."

Albus, who had been quietly watching in awe until then, sighed heavily and jabbed a finger at the top of the page, where the heading The Warlock's Hairy Heart could be read. "If this was a regular annotation, there's no way those two phrases - from two different stories - would connect like that." His brow furrowed. "It has to be a clue or hint of some kind."

"Oh."

Teddy reached out to gently take the book from Lily and started leafing through the pages. "How did I not see it before?" he murmured to himself. "It was staring me plain in the face."

Well, thought Lily savagely, if you hadn't been so hell-bent on the idea that Dad was gone, perhaps you wouldn't have shut down so quickly.