The school year wound down in the Ravenclaw common room, where Callum asked the others what they meant to do over the summer. Otto invited them all to his family estate again, and when Callum asked to come along, Otto agreed. Before leaving Hogwarts they climbed the divination tower to visit Fredrickson, now hung beside Sir Cadogan and delighted to see them, and they finally coaxed Callum into attuning to the Ring of Unyielding Ward. He managed it.
Wanting somewhere safe to keep the ring, they asked Hagrid for a mokeskin pouch. He had none, warned that they were rare, and pointed them (reluctantly) toward Wiseacre's or Borgin and Burke's. The party rode the Hogwarts Express to Diagon Alley, found neither shop stocked, and paid to join both waitlists. Otto covered it from his Gringotts vault, where the goblin banker warned that his father would have to be told about the withdrawals.
At Noxley Hall Callum gaped at the size of the place. They met Nettle, Otto's gentle old house-elf, who fussed over them warmly while Finlay kept angling for pear mead. Slipping into Arthur's study, the party learned the Floo family guards its powder recipe jealously: those who come close to the secret tend to die in strange ways, and Edward Floo now heads the powerful line. Among the papers they also found a Daily Prophet opinion piece sympathetic to pure-blood replacement theory. Arthur returned mid-search and bristled, but Otto played it off as curiosity about the Floo network, and his father brightened, hopeful his son was warming to the family trade.
That night the Noxleys hosted a rare full-family dinner: pheasant, fish for the pescatarian Caoimhe, and an extravagant dessert. Otto's mother, a painter and collector, urged Caoimhe to pursue her art ("now art is an area where a Muggle-born can really shine, I think") and offered her studio. The parents told the children to be ready for a gathering in a few weeks, with important guests including Thaddeus Mordaunt and Edward Floo.
When the pouch finally arrived from Borgin & Burke's, the party collected it and returned to prepare for the party, where they were expected to greet guests. They found Floo a genial drunk with a love of Bordeaux, and overheard him warn that the price of Floo was climbing and that Arthur should buy more soon for "all his projects." As the wine flowed and Floo tired of their prying, Bridget was sent to fetch something "from the vault." Invisible, Caoimhe followed her to a hidden door in the trophy room and watched her hand a small object to Arthur, who passed it to Floo. While Finlay and Otto distracted him, Caoimhe picked his pocket clean.
In their rooms they found the prize: a small, staggeringly valuable red diamond. That evening they crept out to plant it in the grounds as though Floo had dropped it, and when Nettle appeared, Otto covered by asking him to search for a lost notebook. Later they heard Arthur shouting at Nettle, demanding to know where he had found it. Caoimhe slipped out invisibly to look and found the old elf staring right at her; Nettle vanished, then reappeared atop her, demanding to know who the intruder was, until Otto ordered him to let the stranger go and ask no questions. Nettle hesitantly obeyed.