Rosenkol was not such an odd elf after all, Harry had come to realise. He loved his master and was willing to do just about anything for him. If Petri were to give him clothes, he would be devastated. And he was sensitive to human kindness and cruelty. The whole time Harry had disliked Rosenkol, he had failed to consider the elf as a person, too put-off by his strange appearance and prickly demeanour. But any person would object to a talentless newcomer taking all the attention of a loved one. Rosenkol had been jealous of Harry.

Harry rather thought that Rosenkol could have as much of Petri's attention as he wanted; as far as Harry was concerned, it was a bad thing. Petri, however, seemed to disagree, because he really was teaching Harry things now, drilling him in what seemed like pointless magical theory every moment of every day with strange urgency. Harry could see where Rosenkol was coming from. The elf got relegated to a reluctant teaching assistant. Somehow, they managed to bond over their shared unhappiness with the situation.

Living in a tent on the run had not improved Petri's character at all, and if anything, had changed it for the worse. Paranoia, of the incredibly excessive sort, was now the rule. They had moved their tent six times already for no reason. Petri seemed convinced that, at any moment, aurors were going to barge through the dense undergrowth, blast open their protection circle, and give them all the Dementor's Kiss.

Harry had believed him for about a week, during which he had remained holed up inside the tent, terrified of even sticking his head outside for fear crossing the spell perimeter, before it soon became evident, in Harry's opinion, that nobody was after them at all.

And why would they be? Petri had been dealing in illegal dark magic, but now that he was gone pursuing him was surely pointless and a waste of time, especially as the business was not continuing. Petri continued to insist that Lucius Malfoy would be looking for Harry, but Harry didn't see any reason for that to be the case. Maybe the man had been interested in him while he had been right there, but to care enough to hunt him down now? Harry didn't see what use Malfoy could possibly have for him.

It hadn't been two weeks before Petri had driven himself mad and demanded that the whole matter of Harry's identity be dealt with post haste.

Thus Harry, Rosenkol, and Petri stood in an intimate triangle in the middle of the tent's parlour. They had rehearsed this earlier, to make sure Harry didn't botch it up, but it was honestly really easy. Petri was doing the majority of the hard work, which was the actual magic part.

His wand started in the air a little above Harry's head. He looked very serious, and Harry was reminded of an orchestra conductor he had seen once on the telly, baton raised very stilly, as if he were balancing the music on the tip and would drop it all if he moved a moment too soon. Petri slashed diagonally, narrowly missing Rosenkol's wrinkled forehead, and Harry took it as the cue to begin.

"Rosenkol," he said, fighting the urge to clear his throat. No extra sounds. "Can I trust you?"

"You can," said the elf, his bulbous black eyes staring straight into Harry's. Eye contact was important. Petri's wand swirled in unerring circles above them.

"Will you keep my confidence?" asked Harry. Petri's hand stilled.

"I shall," said Rosenkol. The wand burst into motion again.

Harry swallowed. His head was swimming with the pressure of the great sweeps of Petri's wand, each motion like a jarring, heavy blow. "This is my secret. I am Harry Potter."

At once, the pressure disappeared, and Harry's eyes suddenly felt too big for his head. He clutched at his forehead, and was alarmed to feel wetness between his fingers. He stared at the bright smear of blood on his hand.

Petri flicked his wand at Harry, and then once again. He felt some kind of tingling, but it could have been his imagination. A frown came over Petri's face.

"Your scar," he said. "It's bleeding."

"You can't heal it?" Harry asked, knowing that it was uncharacteristic of Petri to state the obvious. Or perhaps it wasn't so obvious. The scar was almost as old as he was, from the car crash—no, from the Dark Lord, apparently, and it had never been more than a wicked (or hideous, if you asked Aunt Petunia) artefact. It had certainly never bled before. Unable to stop himself, Harry pressed his hand to it again, and confirmed that it was still bleeding.

"It's a curse scar," Petri said, sounding entirely unconvinced by his own excuse.

Nodding anyway, Harry asked, "Did the fidelius work?"

Petri sneered, and Harry flinched in reflex, realising that it was probably unwise to question a Master Enchanter's charmwork. In his defence, it was Petri who had been going on and on for days about how difficult and finicky the charm was, and Harry had seen him actually practicing the wand movements when he thought no one was looking.

"It worked," Petri said. Harry wanted to ask how he knew, thought better of it, and then was spared the need when Petri waved his wand and summoned a handheld mirror, which zoomed precariously past Harry's face. Petri caught expertly by a protruding knot on its wooden frame. He turned it so Harry could see and asked, "What do you see?"

Harry peered into the mirror and, to his astonishment, did not find his reflection standing next to Petri. "I'm gone!"

"Idiot boy, it's a foe-glass. It shows your enemies, not you," Petri said, scowling. Harry wasn't sure what to say to that.

Staring up at him from the mirror, wearing an identically menacing expression, was Petri's reflection, clear as day.

Petri sighed deeply. "You see me, don't you?" He tossed the mirror like a frisbee, and it miraculously landed back in its place on a shelf. "I'm hardly your enemy."

Even as he said this, Harry was convinced more than ever that in fact, Petri was his enemy, and had been ever since the making of the horcrux. Funnily enough, he didn't feel anger or hatred, exactly, as he would have naively expected enmity to feel like. There was just festering apathy, like Petri wasn't a person, but just something standing in his way. In his way to what, he wasn't sure.

Harry noticed that he had awkwardly failed to respond, but just as he was grappling for something to say that wouldn't get him hexed, Petri said, "Lucius Malfoy is back in the shadows. We are safe. You are safe."

He put a hand on Harry's shoulder, unexpectedly. Harry almost pulled away, except that there was something genuinely fatherly about the gesture that bewildered him. Was Petri really trying to rebuild the trust he himself had admitted had been made impossible, even unnecessary, between them by the Unbreakable Vow? Maybe it was some new game.

Petri gave him a little push to turn him toward the door, and then walked past him. "Come. Now that we are safe, we can begin your proper education in the Other. What you can take care of today you do not delay to the morrow."

By this, Harry figured he meant that there was no time like the present, so he followed wordlessly, still a little puzzled by Petri's sudden good humour. Maybe the threat of Lucius Malfoy really had been worse than Harry had appreciated.

Harry hurried through the tent flap that served as a door before it could fall and hit him in the face. Petri's long stride traversed the hallway in seconds and Harry was scrambling to keep up. Petri stopped at the last flap, which led to his study, and held it open in wait.

The tent was way too massive, Harry thought privately, as he thanked Petri in reflex and stepped inside. In fact, it was bigger than Petri's actual flat had ever been. He didn't understand why people didn't just live inside tents all the time, or why Petri hadn't enchanted his home to be bigger, or at least more comfortable.

"You'll need your wand," Petri said.

Harry reached into his robe pocket and rummaged around a bit, but the familiar stick was not there. "Sorry, I think I left it in my room."

Petri sighed, but his cheerful mood thankfully did not evaporate. "A wizard must always be with his wand. Well? What are you waiting for? Go get it."

Harry found Rosenkol in his room, holding up his wand and levitating all the furniture at once.

"Hey, that's mine," Harry protested. Rosenkol didn't even flinch, but a moment later, he dropped the wand, and all the furniture with it. Something cracked loudly. Harry cursed, but then Rosenkol raised his hand, snapped once, and the room was back in perfect order.

Rosenkol backed away from the wand like it had suddenly turned poisonous. Harry paused as he bent down to pick it up, wondering if maybe the elf had done something to it, but then dismissed the thought. Rosenkol had his weird habits, but he wasn't a practical joker, and besides, Harry thought that they had come to an understanding. He hoped so, anyway, if that fidelius charm was supposed to have meant something. He grabbed the wand and shoved it in his pocket.

"What were you doing anyway?" he asked the elf.

"Rosenkermermmrm," Rosenkol mumbled.

"What?" Harry wondered why he was being so evasive.

"Rosenkol was practicing," the elf said more clearly.

"Practicing what?" Harry asked.

"Magic," was the unenlightening reply.

Harry scowled. "With my wand?"

"Wizardling has lessons to be getting to, doesn't he?" Rosenkol asked in an abysmal attempt at avoiding the subject, except that he had a point. Harry didn't have time for this.

"Whatever," he muttered, returning to the study where an impatient Petri was standing over an open trunk.

"There you are. What took you so long?" he asked as Harry entered.

"Rosenkol had my wand," he said, figuring that it wouldn't hurt to mention it. He didn't quite care if the elf got in trouble.

Petri just brushed it aside, however. "This again," he said. "He thinks it will make him more powerful. If you don't want him using your wand, then you should keep better track of it. Now come on, get inside."

Inside? Harry soon realised that Petri meant the trunk. He moved closer, and saw that in fact it looked more like a trap door, with a ladder leading down into darkness, than a portable case. It had obviously been thoroughly expanded.

Awkwardly, he turned around and dropped one foot inside, waving it around until it caught on a ladder rung with a clang, and then manoeuvred the rest of his body into place so that he could lower himself without getting stuck. The ladder wasn't as long as he had expected, and the room less dark than he had thought. A row of clear jars on a counter against the back wall each contained a bright, consistently cyan fire that seemed to burn nothing – Harry was pleased to recognise them as bluebell flames, one variant of the fire-making charm.

With a thump, Petri landed heavily on the ground behind him, evidently having foregone use of the ladder. With a jab of his wand the ladder seemed to collapse in on itself until it formed a grille over the entrance, and the trunk lid slammed shut.

"The workshop is in the back," he said, walking past Harry and ducking through a heavy velvet curtain which Harry hadn't noticed. He followed hastily, and found himself crammed into a small vestibule of sorts with Petri, just in time to see the man withdraw a thin silver knife and make a deep cut in his forearm. Petri pressed his wounded against the wall and smeared his blood onto the stone.

The wall briefly blazed silver with the outline of a doorway, before fading again. Petri had already exchanged the knife for his wand and healed his arm. Then he walked straight through the wall.

Harry hesitated for a moment, wondering if he would have to repeat what Petri had just done, but his fears were laid to rest as he reached out and found that, despite looking as solid as ever, the wall provided as much resistance as thin air.

"Why didn't you use that other spell?" Harry asked as he came through the wall. The room on the other side was stone and hexagonal, and lit all around by torches with bluebell flames. Petri stood in front of a tall, intricately carved stone slab at the centre of the room, which apparently served as a table. He shot Harry an unimpressed look, and he quickly tried to elaborate, "I mean, for your blood. You cut yourself." He gestured vaguely, glancing to Petri's arm.

"It's an injury-based ward, the Markowski Trap," Petri explained. "Blood alone is not enough."

"Trap?" Harry asked.

"You cannot recover while inside, and you cannot leave without injuring yourself again," Petri said.

Harry frowned. "But you healed yourself before going in, so what's the point?"

"The ward is for enemies, not myself. It can be a nasty surprise. Enough. You are years away from designing permanent wards. The task today is special animation."

Petri motioned for Harry to join him at the table. Harry saw that there was a blank leaf of parchment in front of him, and a very large, motionless spider on top. He recoiled a little, wondering if it was dead. He did not have to wonder for long.

"Avada Kedavra!" Petri incanted with surprising intensity, jabbing his wand violently. A horrible rushing sound and a hauntingly familiar flash of green light robbed Harry of his breath. He had seen that light before, in his dreams. He always used to think it was the light from a traffic signal during the car crash, but he knew better now. It was a sicklier colour, green for death, not life.

The spider tipped over onto its back, legs curled up.

"That was the killing curse," Harry was surprised to hear himself say. Petri, too, looked rather surprised at his knowledge.

"Yes. Doubtlessly you are wondering why I cast the killing curse on a spider. That was to kill it without injuring it at all. Unfortunately, the killing curse is the only spell that can manage such a feat. You will be bringing it back to life, a far easier task."

"Easier?" Harry repeated a little incredulously.

"You feel comfortable with the general animation charm?" Petri asked, ignoring his disbelief. Harry nodded. After mastering the colour-change charm, Harry had moved on to the levitation charm, which had a very finicky swish-and-flick wand movement that took him days to get right. The swish-and-flick was, apparently, the beginning and end movement to an entire host of kinetic charms, the general animation charm among them. Harry had been practicing making fruits walk around for the past week.

"I thought that just made things move," he said.

"Yes," said Petri, the beginnings of impatience creeping into his tone. Harry resolved not to interrupt again. "The animation charm moves things according to your will. Magic is will. Living things have their own will, and to raise the dead is to give back the will of life through magic."

This made a certain kind of poetic sense to Harry, except that he still had no idea what to do.

"You need to begin with the basic animation charm on the corpse, and then slowly remove your own will from it without ending the spell. That's the most important part," Petri said.

"Could you show me?" Harry asked.

Petri pointed his wand at the spider, gave the negligent swish, twirl, and flick of an extremely contracted animation charm, and the spider twitched and began flailing its legs desperately. He lowered his wand, but the spider continued to move, managing to right itself. It began skittering around, and was about to go off the edge of the table when Petri slashed his wand abortively and ended the spell. It tumbled over on the spot, dead again.

While admittedly amazing, Harry decided that the demonstration had shown him approximately nothing about how it was actually done, beyond what Petri had already said.

Still, Petri was looking at him expectantly, so he took out his own wand and pointed it at the dead spider.

"Locomotor," he said, swishing his wand and then beginning to spin it in a circle. He felt something pooling in his palm, where it met his wand, but it wasn't enough. "Locomotor," he repeated, and then began saying it at intervals. The spider twitched, and Harry flicked his wand, feeling the familiar sense of something connecting him to the target as the spell completed. The spider rolled to its feet, but with an air of uncertainty; Harry was still controlling it, and he wasn't sure what to make it do. It stood still.

"Pull back your will," Petri said. Harry tried not think about the spider, but this was apparently not the right move because the connection snapped and the spider crumpled, lifeless.

"I don't understand," Harry said.

"Keep trying," Petri said. "I'll leave you to it."

"You're not staying?" Harry asked, a little alarmed. Despite himself, he felt rather intimidated by the vault-like room.

"I don't expect you to succeed soon. Likely not today. I cannot help you any further, as this is a skill you must figure out for yourself. When you're done for the day, you know what to do," Petri said, reaching into his pocket and producing his silver knife again. He cut himself with only a minimal flinch, and then tossed the knife onto the table. Before Harry could voice any other kind of protest he strode over to the wall, gave it his blood, and phased through it. Harry had half a mind to run after him, but he squashed the wild impulse.

He glanced at the knife, noticing that it was completely pristine. It must be enchanted. Just thinking about cutting himself made him feel queasy. He resolved to figure out the spell before he left, because he was sure anyway that he would be spending the next day in here, and the next, until he managed it.

Five hours later, according to the time-telling spell, this resolve was wearing thin. Harry hadn't anticipated just how hungry he would be, and how badly it would mess up his focus. Lunch, just before the casting of the fidelius, felt like an eternity ago, and with every "locomotor" he incanted his stomach seemed to twist a little further.

"I know," he said aloud, glaring at his navel. He rubbed his stomach and it alleviated the pain for about two seconds, before it came back even worse than before.

The spider was still dead, and maybe a little worse for wear after having walked off the table two or three times. Harry was still disgusted by the thought of touching it, and had used the opportunity to practise the levitation charm again. Basic as it was, it was his favourite charm (out of the four he knew) just because it felt quintessentially like magic. It was proof that he was a wizard, that despite everything that had happened to him he had left the Dursleys for somewhere better.

Harry cast the animation charm on the spider again, the movements now natural to his hand after a few hundred iterations. The spider stood woodenly. He knew it wasn't alive yet, but it was still amazing, still magic.

He had the potential to learn everything that Petri had to teach, and more. He would even surpass Petri one day – and then what?

Briefly, his mind flashed to the thought of getting rid of Petri. Killing him? No, that would be wrong, wouldn't it? Ungrateful. But actually, after what Petri had put him through, he didn't think anything would be considered ungrateful anymore. He hadn't asked for this teaching.

Suddenly seized by the understanding that the things he was thinking were horrible, Harry scrambled desperately to grasp a feeling he was sure he knew like the back of his hand. Killing was wrong, totally, obviously wrong, for obvious reasons. Reasons.

It was wrong, just like being ungrateful was wrong, and being rude. No, it was different, wrong in a different way, but he couldn't remember how. He knew it was true but the reason was just out of his reach. If he just thought a little harder…

He was distracted by a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. It was the spider, and it was crawling down the side of the desk, and Harry recoiled, holding his wand out in front of him protectively. There was no need; as soon as he even thought of warding off the spider the life left it again and it hit the ground.

He had done it just then, somehow, kept the magic going without imposing his will. Was the key just to get distracted? But that was clearly not it, because he had tried that for the first two hours to no effect whatsoever. The magic always ended when he stopped paying attention. What had been different this time?

Harry animated the spider again and tried to make it crawl up the desk. This was more difficult than he had anticipated, because he had no idea what a spider needed to do in order to stay on the surface instead of falling off. He wished he could leave it up to the spider, but this wishing did nothing to give it life, so he gave up and levitated it, before resuming the animation spell.

What had he been thinking about before, when the spell had worked? Right, he had been trying to figure out why killing was especially wrong. It felt weird to even think about it, because it was just one of those facts he knew, like he knew the world was round and two plus two made four. So why was it so hard to understand it?

Glancing at the spider from the corner of his eye, Harry confirmed that his spell had failed sometime in his moment of thought, and it lay there pathetically. He exhaled sharply in frustration. It didn't count as success if he only managed it that one time and couldn't do it again. The point was to learn the spell properly.

His stomach growled.

Impulsively, he grabbed the knife, but then he was faced with the actual prospect of cutting himself and he dropped it again. He wasn't ready to give up just yet.

He was about to cast the spell again, but decided that trying the same thing over and over again was probably not the way to go about it. He had done it once. It wasn't what he had been thinking about that mattered, because he had tried that. But what had been so special about that attempt?

Thinking about it a while longer did nothing, and, even more frustrated, he cast the spell again, jabbing the wand a little too harshly. The spider fell over, and its legs twitched wildly. Shocked, Harry lost his grip on the spell again. It had moved on its own again. Why?

His emotion, Harry realised. Well, frustration he had in spades. He tried again, and the spider flailed about again, but once it managed to right itself it stood placidly, no matter how annoyed Harry got at it.

Eventually, he was too tired to keep trying, but that only made the prospect of giving up worse, because he didn't even have the energy to face the thought of opening the wall. It didn't feel worth it.

He sat down on the floor and leaned against the side of the table. The carvings of strange faces dug into his back, but at least the stone was a comfortable temperature, and not nearly as cold as its appearance suggested. He wondered if Petri would come back if he stayed here too long. What if he starved to death?

Then he berated himself for being silly. He knew how to get out. It wasn't as if he was actually trapped. He just didn't see the need to leave yet. If he were actually starving, and not just "starving," as his stomach helpfully reminded him with a painful twist, he could do something about it.

He fell asleep to that cheerful thought.

When he woke up with a horrible cramp in his neck, there was a tray with a few slices of bread and a bowl of cabbage soup on the table, next to the parchment with the spider, which looked a little dried out. Never had he been so happy to see one of Rosenkol's bland, uninspired attempts at cooking. He grabbed the spoon and brought the bowl closer to himself. It was still warm. The tasteless cabbage broth relieved his parched throat. His stomach renewed its demands in earnest, and he wolfed down the breakfast in a matter of minutes.

More refreshed than he had expected, he set to his task again, eager to escape the awful room with something to show for it. However, he found the spider rather resistant to moving on its legs today. He imagined that spending so much time being dead was not really conducive to its health.

Harry shook his head to try to redact the nonsense that had just passed through it. He was going mad.

He heard footsteps behind him, and whirled around with some horror. Thankfully, they were a not further indication of burgeoning insanity; Petri had entered the room.

"Er, morning, sir," Harry greeted lamely. Was it even morning?

"You'll be needing a new spider," Petri said, getting straight to the point. Harry was glad to hear it.

He was less glad when he remembered that Petri would be casting the killing curse again. There was something viscerally unsettling about witnessing the curse in action.

Petri did not produce another spider, however, and was instead inspecting the somewhat shrivelled one which Harry had been using.

"Not as bad as I expected," he said to himself. He took out his wand and cast the animation charm himself. The spider got up with apparent reluctance, but then with a few vigorous twirls of Petri's wand it seemed to regain its former lustre. Even when he released the spell, the spider looked freshly dead.

"You fixed it," Harry said with some wonder. Petri nodded.

"I'd rather avoid casting the killing curse if I don't need to," he said.

This was the first Harry remembered ever hearing from Petri that sounded like something a halfway-decent human being would say.

Then, Harry had to ruin the moment by asking, "Why not?" It made him sound like the one who was a horrible person, but his curiosity demanded to be satisfied.

Petri smiled at him in a knowing way that made his hackles rise. It wasn't as if he had meant it in a bad way.

"It's a taxing spell, with many requirements. You could cast it at me with full intent to kill right now and I might get a headache," Petri said.

Harry supposed that if it was as easy as yelling "Avada Kedavra" and jabbing a wand at an enemy, people could just use it willy-nilly, unforgivable or not, and be unstoppable.

"Would you like to study it?" Petri asked. Harry shook his head post haste. He would never use a spell like that.

That seemed like a childish reason, so Harry said instead, "Didn't you just say it's very hard? I can't even do this animation yet."

Petri inclined his head. "Quite. Tell me about your progress on animation, then."

Relieved that the topic had moved away from killing, Harry said, somewhat eagerly, "Well, I managed to do it yesterday, once. Or maybe twice, in a way. But I couldn't get it to work again."

"Explain what you were doing when you succeeded," Petri ordered, attentive.

"It, well, that is, I'm not really sure. I got distracted and then I saw that it was running around. But the second time I was really frustrated, and then it started to move on its own to get up, but it stopped moving after that," Harry said. Petri nodded.

After a moment, he said, "Your own emotion as a starting point. Interesting. What you are doing, I believe, is imparting your emotional state on the spider instead of your direct will. The spider's will does not fit well with your emotions, so you have only partial animation. It's a start, but you need to be able to pull yourself away entirely. The spider must regain its own will."

Harry nodded, seeing that that was the best explanation he was going to get. At least Petri had managed to clear up what Harry had been doing before, which was helpful, even though the next step was still as opaque as ever.

Armed with this new knowledge, he thought about what kinds of things a spider might feel, and figured that, with all the skittering about, fear or anxiety was likely.

"Locomotor," he cast, and tried to pull up the feeling of being afraid. The spider started moving, but then Harry got excited and it twitched erratically for a bit before the spell broke entirely.

"You must make sure in the end not to rely on your own emotion," Petri said. "I also advise you not to spend the night in here again. I doubt it was comfortable."

Harry nodded, and Petri made his way to the wall, producing another silver knife to cut himself with. Harry didn't understand how he could injure himself so casually. Perhaps the ability to heal himself straight away made it easier.

Eventually, Harry managed the spell, and for all that it worked and he could make it work fairly consistently, he couldn't explain to anybody how he was actually doing it. At a certain point, the process of untangling his will from the magic just clicked, and it became one of those skills which, like whistling loudly with one's fingers, theoretically had a theory behind it but ended up being a matter of personal technique.

Now there was the matter of leaving. He thought about waiting for Petri to come back and leave with him, but the prospect of being bored for an indeterminate amount of time seemed intolerable, so he mustered up his courage and grasped the knife. How bad could it be, anyway?

Armed with the thrill of success, he managed to blindside self-preservation with a quick slice to his arm, the way he remembered Petri doing it. Even though he was sure Petri would be able to heal whatever he managed to do to himself, he didn't want to sever anything vital.

The knife barely hurt going in and coming out, so thin was the blade. Then the pain came on all at once, burning, and Harry hurriedly smeared some blood on the appropriate spot on the wall. The shape of the door appeared, telling him that it had worked, and he walked through without incident.

The ladder was down and the trunk open, so he climbed up with one arm, awkwardly holding his other one out of the way. It was bleeding, but not enough that it needed to be staunched with anything, and he didn't want to get it all over himself.

Petri was seated behind his desk, reading a book, and looked up as Harry exited. He motioned for Harry to come to him, and took out his wand. He ran it over Harry's arm and the wound knit itself up and vanished without a trace. He held out his hand, and Harry remembered to return the silver knife.

"Well?" Petri asked.

Harry stared at him, confused for a moment, before he broke out into a grin. "I did it," he said.

"Congratulations," Petri said. "You've learned to restore life. Now you need to apply it to larger, smarter animals."

Harry's face fell at the thought of repeating the ordeal with the spider. Petri laughed.

"It won't be nearly as hard as the first time. And before that, I will teach you a few other charms."


A/N: People who have read the Harry Potter books more times than is healthy may recognise the blood door as the same spell Voldemort used on the entrance to the cave with the locket horcrux. I refuse to believe that it was just some cliche archway meant for intimidation, as Dumbledore insinuates. In my head-canon Dumbledore was trying to protect Harry from the awful details, and Voldemort is not incompetent but rather designed a brutal ward scheme to trap and kill anybody who entered alone. In conclusion, I spend way too much thinking about these relatively trivial things.