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In the cave, by the glow of her wand, Hermione put the water bottle Sirius Black had emptied earlier back into her pouch. Allen waved a hand, restoring the marks clawed into the Island in the Lake by the Inferi's withered talons to their original state, doing his best to erase and conceal any traces that someone had been there or that the Inferi had moved about.

Across the pitch-black lake, at the distant entrance to the cave, the towering figures of the Death Knights loomed faintly as they stood guard at the mouth. Under their control, those pallid, twisted-limbed Inferi splashed back into the lake. The dark water was filled with ghastly white heads and hands, and with their sunken, sightless eyes open, they were gradually swallowed by the lake and the darkness.

Hermione watched those Muggle Inferi, her eyes following their figures as she saw them walk into the lake and slowly vanish into the black, icy water.

"Hermione, wait a moment. Once I send the boat back to where it was, we'll go home. It really is a bit too damp and cold here." After clearing away the traces near the Stone Basin, Allen glanced at Hermione, then turned toward the small boat they had ridden in on, which was resting quietly to one side. "Once I send the boat back, let's head back. It is a little too damp and cold here. Sorry, I meant to bring you out to relax..."

"I'm fine, Allen. This was good. It's just that reality outside the books has left me a little at a loss, but..." Hermione shook her head. "Regulus, You-Know-Who, Muggles... these real circumstances are things you can never truly feel just by reading books..."

"It will change... More precisely, we're already changing it. In Candlekeep, the