Chapter Summaries

Pomona reflected on good faith and the Protagoras-Asseras dispute before Minerva invited her to visit her nephew, leaving Pomona feeling lonely after Minerva departed. Elsewhere, Georgiana ordered Brick to capture a robber alive so she could question him, but she was left facing the prisoner without knowing what to do.

• Pomona read about Protagoras and Asseras, then considered Roman law, good faith, and the ancient goddesses Fides and Dike.
• Pomona rejected Lily's belief that Severus should be grateful to James Potter for saving his life.
• Minerva visited Pomona in the library, mentioned visiting her nephew, and asked whether Pomona would go with her or to London.
• Pomona felt the library's emptiness after Minerva left and went looking for someone to talk to.
• Georgiana told Brick to bring her a robber alive so she could ask what the robbers wanted.
• Brick caught a robber and brought him to Georgiana, who stared at the prisoner unsure what to do next.

Pomona reflected on business, insurance, and the stag hunt before confronting bandits who had attacked Georgiana’s convoy. After refusing to show mercy, she used magic to kill the attackers and led the others onward, unsettled by the exhilaration she saw in some of the wizards.

• Pomona considered why Hogsmeade’s shops struggled, then reflected on the Malfoy family’s insurance business and Severus’s new London home.
• Pomona compared cooperation and competition in the stag hunt to people competing for advantage and dividing up a target.
• Georgiana explained that the bandits had surrendered after she promised not to kill them, while Brick offered to kill one who had been captured.
• Georgiana imagined herself in the bandit’s place, then used fallen leaves as projectiles and killed him.
• Georgiana advanced through the forest as vines, branches, and animals reacted to her magic, and she attacked the bandits hiding nearby.
• Georgiana saw exhilarated smiles among some of the wizards and understood her past dislike of Ilsa, the refugee with the “light of Morocco” in her eyes.

Pomona visited Snape at his dark office and followed him through an unregistered Floo connection to Spinner’s End, where she recognized his cramped, padded home. Meanwhile, Georgiana’s forces cleared a forest route, leaving their convoy with a passage forward.

• At Order headquarters, Wormtail blamed Snape for following James and the others, and Lily confronted Pomona about what she knew.
• Pomona found Snape at his office in Lamb’s Conduit Fields and brought him a beef pie, but he insisted he did not live there.
• Snape opened the curtains, showed Pomona the park view, and used an unregistered Floo connection to travel to Spinner’s End.
• Pomona followed Snape to Spinner’s End and recognized the crowded house and its padded walls.
• Georgiana ordered her engineers to cut down trees beside the post road, sparing the hawthorns, so the convoy could advance.

Pomona helped Snape clean his old family home at Spinner’s End, where their uneasy conversation ended with Snape inviting her to assist with a visitor. After wandering London alone, Pomona reflected on ambition, loss, and the danger of trusting what she had tried to save.

• Pomona cleaned Snape’s neglected house and asked about his childhood and Draco while Snape worked around her.
• Snape invited Pomona to come the next afternoon and play his assistant for a guest, but refused her suggestions to go out in London.
• Pomona left Snape in the master bedroom and later wandered around London, buying him a deerstalker hat on Baker Street.
• Pomona recalled Lily, Neville, and others as she considered perseverance, memory, and the pursuit of power.
• Pomona thought about leaving Paris behind for Spain and wondered how much suffering it would take for her to learn from the farmer’s fatal mistake of saving a venomous snake.

Georgiana studied church archives in Mons while reflecting on the medieval conflict between Philip IV and Pope Boniface VIII. She questioned whether the people targeting her meant to rob or assassinate her, and withdrew behind a closed door to be alone.

• Georgiana read translated church archives and reviewed the struggle between Boniface VIII and Philip IV over taxation and royal authority.
• She recalled arranging for three groups to carry similarly wrapped stones, including the Diamond, back to Paris.
• Georgiana wondered whether the people who had targeted her intended to rob or assassinate her because she had opposed the Louisiana Purchase.
• She recalled her dreams about Grindelwald, the metal key, the Vanishing Cabinet, and a strange city seen through a tree.
• Georgiana chose to remain alone behind a closed door, seeking peace away from the danger outside.

Pomona deciphered clues in a dream about Ravenclaw’s Diadem and reflected on power, fear, and justice. In Brussels, Georgiana refused to decide the fate of people who had tried to kill her and went with Carolan to see the Vanishing Cabinet.

• Pomona wrapped her Baker Street souvenirs as Christmas gifts and reread Sherlock Holmes’s story about the dancing men cipher before falling asleep.
• Georgiana recorded images from her dream and reasoned that the Room of Requirement’s tree might explain how Voldemort found Ravenclaw’s Diadem in Albania.
• Georgiana considered Brick’s fear of the Vanishing Cabinet and reflected on the choices and motives of Elsie and Slaney in Sherlock Holmes’s case.
• Henry Hoth asked Georgiana whether she intended to execute the people who had tried to kill her, and she told him judgment belonged to the courts.
• Georgiana asked Carolan to take her to the cabinet, and Carolan led her out of the room.

Georgiana discussed legal history and the role of equity with Carolan before approaching the chained Vanishing Cabinet. The chapter ended when a voice spoke Parseltongue and seemed to warn Georgiana as she reached for it.

• Georgiana explained legal ideas and historical examples to Carolan as they walked.
• Georgiana entered the room containing the chained Vanishing Cabinet, watched by four French wizards.
• Georgiana removed the chains and approached the cabinet, intending to open it.
• A burst of Parseltongue sounded, and Georgiana sensed it was warning her.
• Georgiana told everyone to step back, and the group formed a circle around the cabinet while Carolan asked what had happened.

Georgiana reflected on charity law, royal succession, naval policy, and the role of judges while investigating the Vanishing Cabinet. When the French wizards opened it, an arrow shot out, and Carolan entered the cabinet to discover where it led.

• Georgiana considered how charitable uses could support public needs, including naval construction and repairs.
• Georgiana reflected on the limits of royal and judicial power, contrasting principled judgment with Voldemort's result-oriented trials.
• Georgiana asked the four French wizards whether anyone had opened the Vanishing Cabinet and whether they would dare to open it.
• A French wizard opened the cabinet, and an arrowhead shot out, bounced off the wizards' protective spells, and lodged in a carriage door.
• After a French wizard climbed inside and returned, Carolan entered the Vanishing Cabinet to see where it led.

Georgiana and her wizards arrived in Berlin through the Vanishing Cabinet and searched a Nutcracker shop, where they found a frightened boy hiding in his parents’ bedroom. After the boy was caught, Georgiana became overwhelmed by thoughts of altered lives and lost love, and withdrew to his room.

• Pomona toured central London and decided to visit the Transport Museum and Opera Street.
• Georgiana and her wizards arrived in Berlin and discovered that the Vanishing Cabinet had brought them into a family’s Nutcracker shop.
• Georgiana searched the house and found signs that a boy had hidden after hearing the intruders outside.
• Georgiana had a German-speaking aide try to reassure the boy, but a wizard grabbed him as he crawled out from under the bed.
• Georgiana reflected on Merope, Tom Riddle, Elsie, and the lives ruined by intruders, then left the bedroom and lay down in the boy’s room.

Pomona followed Minerva McGonagall and Quirinus Quirrell into a hidden wizarding market and learned that Minerva had arranged for Quirrell to teach Muggle Studies at Hogwarts. Georgiana woke from visions involving Grindelwald and discovered that Kornel’s family had returned and that the Gregorovitch surname was invented.

• Pomona spotted Minerva and Quirrell at Covent Garden, followed them into Carkitt Market, and visited the Muggle Curiosity Museum with them.
• Minerva explained that she had suggested Quirrell as an intern Muggle Studies teacher because Hogwarts needed staff, while Quirrell had hoped to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts.
• Pomona recalled Quirrell’s troubled teaching history, his wish to help Hogwarts, and his return from an academic tour in Albania.
• Pomona experienced visions of a sword-wielding old man, a grieving man in Siberia, and a conversation with a teenage Grindelwald about prophecy and magical travel.
• Georgiana woke in the little boy’s room, and Carolan told her that Kornel’s parents had returned and that the family had used a Vanishing Cabinet to hide and care for his fish.
• Georgiana learned that Gregorovitch was the Polish family’s assumed surname and recognized that Jacob’s surname belonged to Polish nobles and great landowners.

Pomona and Minerva explored a magical flea market and discussed Quirrell’s attempt to imitate Voldemort’s flying spell. Georgiana visited the Gregorovitch family, arranged to buy their Nutcrackers and cabinet, and left Brick with a warning about obsession.

• Pomona and Minerva discussed Quirrell’s wandless flying spell before browsing the flea market’s shops and House-elf Placement Agency.
• Minerva told Pomona that Gregorovitch’s wand shop had once spread a rumor that he possessed the Elder Wand.
• Georgiana descended to meet the Gregorovitch family and asked to buy every Nutcracker in the shop and their cabinet.
• Kornel objected to the sale because he wanted to keep his fish, and Brick came downstairs to join Georgiana.
• Georgiana told Brick to warn everyone against letting passion or obsession corrode their good side.

Minerva and Pomona went shopping in London, where Minerva pressed Pomona about Severus and warned her to keep him from returning to the wrong path. At Hogwarts, Pomona identified a specimen among Quirrell’s collected plants as evidence he had visited Albania, while Georgiana continued examining the Vanishing Cabinet.

• Minerva changed a Cauldron Cake into a cabbage, then bought sweets and cakes with Pomona.
• Minerva questioned Pomona about visiting Severus and urged her to keep him from straying down the wrong path.
• Georgiana examined the Vanishing Cabinet and argued with Carolan about courtesy and obsession.
• Minerva, Flitwick, Dumbledore, Severus, and Pomona sorted through Quirrell’s belongings and reflected on how he had become consumed by his pursuit of Voldemort.
• Pomona recognized a Kermes Oak specimen among Quirrell’s plants and suggested Albania might have been his last destination.
• Georgiana wondered aloud where to put the Vanishing Cabinet.

Pomona reflected on obelisks and the Vanishing Cabinet’s history before Georgiana arranged for the cabinet to be sent to London as an escape route for her student. Georgiana stepped into the cabinet, leaving Duroc and Edgeworth to guard it and help with the plan.

• Pomona walked along the Thames, studied Cleopatra's Needle, and wondered whether a bomb or its transport had damaged it.
• Pomona considered the division of Saint Martin's Cloak and the Vanishing Cabinet’s history, including how Kornel had discovered its travel between two places.
• Georgiana recognized the cabinet’s triangular shape and formed a plan after a wizard emerged from it with Duroc.
• Georgiana asked Duroc to send the cabinet to her student's place in London and told him and Edgeworth to guard it against witch hunters.
• Georgiana stepped into the cabinet after Carolan reminded her to buy and pay for the Nutcracker.

Pomona wandered through London and reflected on its wartime past, while Georgiana negotiated with Rabastan Lestrange about political threats and a potential ally. Rabastan revealed that her new ally had a dancer lover, and Georgiana left furious and wanting to be alone.

• Pomona wandered near the Thames, picked up a fallen cinema ticket, and thought about wartime London and abandoned pets.
• Georgiana emerged from the Vanishing Cabinet and met Rabastan Lestrange, who asked what she truly thought and offered intelligence about her new ally.
• Georgiana explained that traces of Austrian influence needed to be erased and urged Rabastan to focus on Père Lachaise Cemetery and relocate its living residents.
• Rabastan revealed that Georgiana's new ally, a general, had a serious relationship with a dancer, though the general's wife knew nothing about it.
• Georgiana blasted a carriage apart, ordered her knight to stop visiting and deliver the cabinet to London, then left to find solitude.

Pomona reflected on death, belief, pain, and Georgiana’s own painful choices while watching the party and caring for a caged Thestral. She resolved that Severus Snape must live long enough to atone, then discovered Margarita could see Thestrals despite not being a witch.

• Pomona overheard guests arguing about the Potters’ epitaph, and Snape warned her not to eavesdrop so conspicuously.
• Pomona considered the meaning of the Potters’ epitaph and reflected on faith, death, pain, and responsibility.
• Georgiana stroked the caged Thestral and decided that if Severus died she would bury him, but if he survived she would make him keep his Unbreakable Vow to protect Draco and atone for his sins.
• Margarita asked what Georgiana was touching and said she saw a black, winged horse, revealing that she could see the Thestral despite denying that she was a wizard.
• Georgiana worried that Margarita had witnessed death and thought sadly about Padma’s misfortunes and Parvati’s good fortune.

Pomona read about Roman land reforms and veteran settlements, then discussed Severus, friendship, and changing people with Minerva. She rejected Minerva’s attempt to get her to help Severus and left the library.

• Pomona studied Roman land reforms, from the Gracchi brothers and Caesar to Augustus’s veteran settlements in Egypt and elsewhere.
• Minerva asked Pomona what she had said to Severus at a party, and Pomona replied that she had simply greeted a colleague.
• Minerva told Pomona that the parents of the girl kidnapped last term wanted an explanation, but Pomona said it was the deputy headmaster’s responsibility.
• Minerva urged Pomona to stand by Severus and change him, while Pomona argued that he first had to want to change.
• Pomona compared James’s family to Sirius Black’s and said a woman, not a mother, made a man charming, then left the library.

Pomona reflected on Roman land reform, poverty, military service, and family life before Snape contacted her about a House-elf photographed by a Muggle. She agreed to help locate the elf but left her office unsure whether she should follow through because of the punishment it might face.

• Pomona drank Butterbeer and smoked while considering how poverty, land loss, and military demands had shaped Roman citizens and families.
• Snape contacted Pomona through the Two-Way Mirror and told her that a Muggle had photographed an apparent alien.
• Snape showed Pomona a blurry photograph of a House-elf who had used magic to make the Muggle photographer float.
• Snape said the investigation was secret, declined to identify who had assigned it, and asked Pomona to find the House-elf.
• Pomona accepted the photograph but worried about the consequences the House-elf might face for violating the International Statute of Secrecy.

Pomona visited Severus in London, discussed his search for purpose, and gave him evidence about the House-elf in the photograph. She left after urging him to choose his own path, then Apparated away in high spirits.

• Pomona arrived at Severus's cluttered London apartment and found him mixing Potions among piles of files.
• Severus told Pomona he was unsure which direction to take and wanted to find evidence that Lily would see him differently.
• Pomona compared his struggle to Sisyphus's and said she no longer intended to keep living by other people's expectations.
• Pomona showed Severus the photograph of the House-elf and explained that he had used Wingardium Leviosa on a Muggle after being thrown out.
• Pomona urged Severus to choose his own path, teased him, and left the apartment.
• Pomona walked through London, then entered an empty alley and Apparated away.

Pomona brought dinner to Severus, and a visitor told him to attend the next day’s London City Airport opening ceremony because the Queen would be there. Pomona learned the site might still contain unexploded bombs and planned to shop for suitable clothes, while Severus unexpectedly offered to accompany her.

• Pomona picked up pizza and pasta from a Sicilian restaurant and returned to the flat where Severus was reading a file about a medium who had divined the Queen’s date of death using carrots.
• A middle-aged contact arrived and told Severus to attend London City Airport’s opening ceremony the next day, where the Queen would appear.
• The contact invited Pomona too, and Pomona identified the airport’s location near Victoria and Albert Dock before he left.
• Pomona warned Severus that the airport site might contain unexploded bombs from World War II, but he showed little concern.
• Pomona asked what to wear, and Severus offered to go shopping with her; she declined while saying he needed fresh air and suitable clothes.

Pomona visited a royal jewelry exhibition and turned down Gerard’s invitation to dinner, then asked Severus to help her see a special royal artifact. The chapter ended with Severus escorting her through the exhibition as her “security guard.”

• Pomona reflected on Lucius Malfoy’s busy family life and Severus’s difficult climb toward a good position.
• Unable to enter the airport area before the opening ceremony, Pomona visited a jewelry exhibition and met Gerard, who offered to guide her.
• Gerard explained the royal orb’s symbolism and invited Pomona to dinner, but she declined and asked about an orb associated with Queen Elizabeth I.
• Severus joined Pomona, teased her about Gerard, and agreed to help her see something special while they toured the exhibition.