Progress began slowly, but grew quicker as the days passed. Hermione cracked the lightning barrier first. She got lucky with the two pages Nott Sr. had missed in Tolbrette's journal, which had almost all the steps to cast it. He'd also overlooked two pages in another journal belonging to Cephas Taylor, a Scourer who had documented his attempts to bind his livestock to the barrier. Between the two journals, Hermione had the completed steps. She'd been right that they'd based the lightning barrier on Celtic magic. They'd altered the caim, a circular ring of protection, to keep the protected within instead of warding evil spirits out.

She explored the skin brands next. It took longer — Tolbrette had spent many of the intact pages discussing where to brand his "doves," given that they might be branded several times by different owners and should remain "pleasing to the eye." But she ultimately was able to string together the steps using the same piecemeal strategy, using snippets from several journals.

The last step was uncovering the binding mechanism between the brands and the barrier. This step was trickier. It wasn't until midnight on her fourth straight day of research that she found a tiny but unmistakable Egyptian rune scribbled in the bottom right margin on a page in which Tolbrette mentioned adding two new "pigeons" and three new "doves" to his "flock." The immediately subsequent pages had been torn out.

She didn't sleep that night, tearing through the library until she located a textbook on ancient Egyptian runic enchantments. The sun was almost up when she finally located a match for the rune in Tolbrette's journal. The textbook detailed how an enchantment using that rune had been used to magically bind treasures branded with the pharaohs' names to the wards protecting their tombs.

All that was left for her was to locate magical tattoos that might serve as a substitute for the skin brands. Which meant that she could finally rest her exhausted writing hand, and read.

Late in the second week of December, on the seventh day in a row of non-stop rain, Narcissa knocked on her door. Hermione quickly hid her book on branding and tattooing in ancient Mesopotamia before opening the door.

Narcissa was thinner and paler than she'd been a month ago, but the warmth in her eyes was unchanged. Hermione welcomed her inside, joining her at the chairs near the fireplace as Mippy poured them tea. It took all of her self-control to hold in her question until the elf vanished.

"Has something happened?"

Narcissa smiled wearily, crossing her ankles. "I haven't heard anything new from Switzerland, no. But there is something that I came to talk with you about."

Hermione's mouth was dry as she watched Narcissa stir in her cream.

"I had assumed it wouldn't be a priority this year, what with a war going on… but apparently the Dark Lord thinks his loyal followers deserve some normalcy and amusement." Narcissa sighed into her teacup and turned her gaze on Hermione. "Every year, I host a New Year's Eve Gala." Hermione's eyes widened. "It's very grand, and under normal circumstances I take a lot of pride in it."