It only took a few hours to find an answer. Hermione had found a potion in One Thousand Magical Potions and Their Uses that was well-documented to successfully restore memories by imbibing them. The catch was that the memories had to belong to the owner — people had tried to imbibe others' memories with no success. But it was a simple potion, its brew time under two hours, and Draco confirmed that they had all the ingredients at the Manor.

Draco jumped to his feet once she found it, expecting she'd want to brew it right away. But she told him to wait.

Even if Lucius hadn't hinted he'd know the instant Draco tried to leave the property, she wasn't sure it was the right time. She was so close to figuring out the tattoo potion. There was a certainty in her blood, like Harry's confidence when he was close to a Horcrux. She'd begun dreaming about watching the letters vanish from her skin. But she needed more time.

The Dark Lord was still watching his followers, and Edinburgh was still closed. It was an enormous risk for Draco to go there once, let alone twice. If she was able to crack the tattoo antidote quickly, she reduced the risk by half. He could kill two birds with one stone — give Charlotte her memories back and give her the directions for the tattoo antidote to pass to the True Order.

When she explained why they had to wait—"It's safer for you"—Draco tugged her to her feet and kissed her until everything was lost to her except for his lips against hers.

Early the next morning, Draco received word from Lucius that his "grounding" was up. The Dark Lord had recently asked about his recovery. There were rumors that a band of True Order fighters still remained in the U.K., and he was to join half a dozen other Death Eaters in a mission to snuff them out. He was to leave the day after next.

She hadn't been able to speak when he first told her, staring out the window as he assured her it was only for two weeks. He told her it would be far less dangerous than Switzerland. He might come back even sooner, if the Dark Lord was satisfied that the True Order had run back to France. She tried to take comfort in what he was telling her, but saying goodbye to him again was a bitter pill to swallow.

He kissed her slowly on the morning he had to leave, pressing her into his mattress and sliding his thigh between hers. She rocked against him as he pinned her hands and sucked at her skin. Only when she was begging him did he push into her, swallowing her moans as he played with her breasts, and biting down on her shoulder as he rolled their bodies together.

After he left, she Occluded for half the day before focusing her mind on the tattoos. She had several ideas for the potion that she was ready to try, so she took her notes down to the laboratory and set to work. The first task would be to recreate the inky potion the Lots had ingested or been injected with, and test it on a mouse. Once she was confident she'd gotten the potion correct, it would be easy to create an antidote.