The letter Ben had gotten in response didn't have much to go on, but it was vaguely reassuring all the same. It had convinced him that they could take a break from visiting the types of places likely to sell abortion potions, at least for the moment — if Melody had one of those potions, she wasn't going to use it yet. He still had no idea where she was, or even where to start looking for her, but now that the worst was off the table for the moment they had time to regroup. He could send her an owl and ask where she was, when she was coming home, if she wanted to talk. If this was a fake pregnancy, she ought to respond to that sort of thing, because it would be exactly what she wanted. Even if it wasn't a fake pregnancy, Ben thought there was a good chance she would respond — if she had not taken a potion yet, then she was not so far gone that she would not be willing to talk about this. And after he sent a letter, they could look around the house to see if there was some clue as to where she'd gone.

Art was still with him, because after everything Ben had revealed that afternoon it was not as though Art was just going to leave; not when they still didn't know where Melody was. They flooed to the Swallowbury home (since his conversation last night with Aldous where the London flat had first been brought up, Ben had ceased thinking about it as his home) and encountered a rather unexpected sight. Melody, sitting right there in the parlor.

Luckily Ben had already stepped out of the way of the floo by the time he saw her, because when he did he just stopped in his tracks. He said nothing, did nothing — only stared.