Believe that Magic Works (5/10) - R/Hr - PG-13
Title: Believe that Magic Works (5/10)
Author: shocolate
Pairing: Ron/Hermione
Words: 3600
Rating: PG-13
Written for sugarandginger’s Definitive Ron/Hermione Year Seven Novella Challenge
As the Trio set off on their search for the Horcruxes, Ron finally accepts that he wants to look after his two best friends in completely different ways
Chapter 5 : Fangs For The Memory
****
"That's so unfair!" I gasped and Hermione gave me a Look.
"Yes, Ron," she said. "Things really should go our way, just because we're the good guys."
"Well, yes," I said and Harry snorted. "What?" I demanded.
He smiled at me and shook his head. "I love your simple outlook on life," he said.
"Are you calling me simple?"
"Maybe," he laughed.
Hermione frowned at us, but Harry untangled himself from her arms and sat up straighter.
"You're right, Ron," he said.
"See?" I said to Hermione and she tutted.
"Yet again, life has crapped on me - I should be used to it."
"Oh, Harry," she started, but I interrupted her.
"No. No 'oh, Harry,' Hermione. He doesn't need hugs, he needs a plan." She glared at me. "I, on the other hand," I continued, reaching for her and pulling her into my lap, "need hugs."
She settled in my arms as I addressed Harry again. "So, what time does the Hog's Head open today?"
"I really don't care," he replied. "We're going there now. I'd have gone straight there if I hadn't had to come and get you two."
"Oh," said Hermione and bit her lip, obviously moved that he'd thought of us first.
I met Harry's eyes and there was a bit of a Moment going on and Hermione sniffed.
"Yeah, well," I said, blinking quickly myself. "I just wish you'd given us another ten minutes alone together."
Harry snorted and Hermione slapped my arm. "Ten minutes?" she scoffed. "Aren't I a lucky girl?"
"More like five, and I don't want to know," Harry laughed.
oOoOo
Harry waited while Hermione and I changed into robes and we Apparated to Hogsmeade. It was already dark, and the streets were deserted as we cautiously approached the Hog's Head down the shadowy side street.
The windows were so grimy that we could see nothing inside, just the vague flickering light from old candles.
"Let me go in," I asked Harry, putting my hand on his arm.
Harry frowned at me.
"Look, Harry, there'll be all sorts of weirdoes in there - and no one from the Order looking out for us. I just don't think the famous and missing Harry Potter should walk straight in."
He looked pained, but sighed and nodded, taking a step back into the shadows with Hermione.
I was slightly wrong-footed, as I really hadn't expected him to agree so quickly, but I pushed the door open and sidled inside. The room was as dirty and dark as I remembered; there were various sinister looking characters lurking in dark corners and I tried hard to swallow past my dry throat as I approached the bar.
I'd only been waiting a few moments when the thin and elderly barman shuffled out from the back room. He didn't look at my face, but wiped a filthy rag over the counter and grunted vaguely in my direction.
"Butterbeer," I muttered and he finally looked up, obviously only expecting hard drinkers to brave the cold and their hangovers tonight.
He groped under the counter for a bottle and thumped it on the counter in front of me.
"Two Sickles," he said.
I passed over the money and he palmed it swiftly. "We need to talk to you," I said as he started to turn away.
"We?" he asked, deliberately looking around the room behind me, to demonstrate I was utterly alone.
"My friends are outside," I said, trying to sound confident. "Is there a back door to this place? We need to talk to you in private."
He looked me up and down and shrugged. "Tell Mr Potter to come around the back," he murmured, letting out a bark of laughter at my stunned expression.
I decided I was useless at this undercover business, but at least the rest of the pub's patrons were unlikely to have recognised me.
Picking up my drink, I slunk out the door into the darkened street and looked for Harry and Hermione, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up as a clot of shadow moved towards me.
"What happened?" Hermione asked.
"That was quick, Ron. Did you persuade him to talk to us?" asked Harry.
"Uh, sort of."
"Sort of?"
"All I said was, 'can we talk?' and he said, 'tell Mr Potter to come around the back'." I shrugged.
Harry laughed. "You're such a good Second, Ron," he said.
"Hey, we're in, OK?"
Hermione shook her head at the two of us and led the way down the narrow alleyway beside the pub. There, at the end was a narrow doorway, slightly ajar.
Harry reached for her hand and pulled her back. "I'm going first," he whispered, pushing the door open.
It opened with such a clichéd creak that I swallowed a laugh. No door actually creaks like that - I made a mental note to tell Fred and George and have them whip up some kind of Creaking Charm.
Harry stepped cautiously inside and Hermione and I fought briefly over who would follow him, until she stamped firmly on my foot and pushed past me. Deciding to guard them both and bring up the rear, I followed.
Inside, Aberforth was sitting at a grimy table in the filthiest kitchen I had ever seen. Deep gouges on the tabletop were filled with something dark and moist that glistened slightly in the light of the single candle in a wax-encrusted candlestick.
I made a mental note never to eat in the Hog's Head. And to send Mum here if I ever lived long enough to get my own place and she complained about the state of my kitchen.
The candle cast sinister shadows on Aberforth's face and left the rest of the kitchen in darkness.
Harry had obviously decided that, not only was it being done for effect, but that it wasn't particularly effective, because he took a chair opposite our host and twirled his wand absently in his fingers.
"Aberforth," he said, nodding at the old man.
"Ah, Harry, I wondered if you knew who I was," Aberforth said gently. "You know, my brother told me all about you. He was very proud of you"
"Really?" Harry said levelly, but his wand stilled.
"Really," Aberforth nodded. "All last year he told me how you had grown up."
"And what else did he tell you, last year?" Harry asked.
"I don't follow."
"Did he tell you where he went when he left the school?"
Hermione and I glanced at each other and I felt her tense beside me. Maybe Professor Dumbledore had confided in his brother? Maybe we wouldn't be alone on this Quest?
Although Aberforth would make a strange father figure, Hermione still thought Harry needed one. I thought otherwise; I'd told her that Harry was fine with Remus as a much older brother figure, and my dad to go to if he had any problems. Hermione had scoffed at the idea of my dad giving Harry The Talk, and I really hoped that Remus or Sirius had already done it, for Harry's sake, but mainly for Ginny's. We'd all had to sit through Dad's speech about plugs and sockets.
"I know he was looking for something," Aberforth was saying. "But he never mentioned what it was."
"Pity," Harry said quietly. "Because he could be alive today if he had."
Aberforth went still in the flickering candlelight. "What is that supposed to mean?" he demanded. "Are you saying I failed my brother?"
"Not at all," Harry replied. "If he'd been less secretive, then maybe we would have been able to help him. To save him."
"What could I have done that would have affected his relationship with Snape?" Aberforth asked and the three of us flinched.
We were always so careful not to use that name. Harry made a strangled noise in his throat and I put my hand on his shoulder, feeling his muscles tense and then relax under my touch. "It needn't have come to that," he muttered. "If he'd told you what he was looking for, what he needed, he may never have had to leave the school that night; there would have been no opportunity for Death eaters to invade the school."
"No more talking in riddles, Harry," Aberforth said and Harry jumped, but the use of the name seemed accidental. "What did he need from me?"
"A locket," Harry said simply.
Aberforth frowned. "Why on earth did he need a locket? And what makes you think I could help?"
"The why was between Professor Dumbledore and myself," Harry said and I couldn't help but be impressed. Was that really my scrawny little best friend? I had rarely seen him as the Chosen One, had rarely seen him accepting his fate. "I believe you bought a locket from Mundungus Fletcher last year," he continued. "I'd like to know what you did with it."
Aberforth looked genuinely surprised. "I… I still have it; it's upstairs," he said. "It's heavy, I hoped it was solid gold because I couldn't open it."
"Get it for me," Harry said.
"It's worth a bit of money," Aberforth objected. "I can't just…"
"I'll pay you, if that's important," Harry interrupted, calmly. Aberforth met his eyes for a moment, but clearly decided that it wasn't important, because he nodded abruptly and pushed his chair away from the table.
He disappeared into the shadows and through another ridiculously creaky door.
Harry sagged in his seat and we sat on either side of him, Hermione putting her arms around him.
"Honestly," she said, "this sinister act is just ridiculous." And she flicked her wand, lighting candles all over the room and a cheerful fire in the cavernous and filthy fireplace.
Harry and I laughed aloud. "Something profound about the darkness just being an absence of light, Hermione?" I asked, grinning at her and she snorted at me.
"Nothing profound," she sniffed. "It was just annoying me."
The door in what was now a well-lit corner of the room burst open and Aberforth was framed in the doorway, visibly wrong-footed at not being able to make a dramatic and creepy entrance from the shadows.
He sent us a filthy look and stomped across the room back to his seat.
"Wait," Hermione said, as he reached out to place something on the table between us. "Scourgify."
Now that the table was clean enough for her, she gestured for Aberforth to continue.
Very grumpily he shoved the locket at Harry, sat back and folded his arms across his chest.
Harry let out a breath I didn't know he'd been holding and I felt the tension drain out of him so abruptly he'd have fallen if he weren’t already sitting down.
I put my hand on his arm and felt him trembling. I squeezed gently and he took a shaky breath.
He slowly reached forward and touched the locket.
The locket he'd last held eighteen months earlier, in Sirius's house.
Before Sirius died.
Before Dumbledore died.
"It doesn't open," Aberforth muttered.
Harry ran his finger down the ornate snake engraved on the front and softly hissed at it.
Even I jumped, though of course I'd heard him talk Parseltongue before, and Hermione twitched. Aberforth leapt from his chair as the locket clicked open to reveal something black and oily and smoky coiling inside it.
"Shit, Harry, don't just open it like that," I gasped, moving back from the table.
"Harry," Hermione said warningly and Harry casually reached for the locket and snapped it shut.
"Just take it," Aberforth said, ashen faced. "I don't want to know what that was. Just take it and go."
Harry wrapped the locket in a handkerchief and put it in his robe pocket.
He stood up and we followed suit. "Thank you," he said simply and Aberforth grunted as we left.
"Well, now what?" Hermione asked as we walked back up to the main street. "What are we going to do with it? Do we keep them in a cupboard until we find them all, or do we destroy them as we go along?"
"And how do we destroy them?" I asked, looking warily at Harry.
"Yeah. Look at what happened to Dumbledore's hand when he destroyed the ring," Harry said, nervously.
"Well, you weren't hurt when you destroyed the diary," Hermione pointed out.
"Well, where are we going to find a Basilisk fang?" I scoffed. "I suppose we could try and get one of Aragog's brood to bite it!"
They stared at me.
"Ron!" Hermione gasped.
"I love it when he does that," Harry said.
"What?" I asked.
"Could it work?" Harry breathed.
"We could try," Hermione said, biting her lip.
"What?" I demanded.
"Aragog's venom!" Harry said. "Professor Slughorn milked a bottle-full at the funeral, remember? It looks like the old Felix Felicis was working out even better for me than we realised!"
"So, up to the school?" I asked, looking at my watch. It was barely eight o'clock.
"To the school," Hermione nodded.
"Yup, it's still early. People'll still be up," I said and Harry jumped.
You could see that he had forgotten that there would be anyone at school - that Ginny would be at school.
"So, we just walk into the school and go straight to Professor Slughorn's office?" Hermione asked.
"Unless anyone intercepts us." Harry shrugged. "We're allowed to come and go as necessary - but I'm sure Professor McGonagall will realise we're there."
Taking a deep breath, Harry nodded at us both, and we Apparated to the gates of Hogwarts. Hermione tapped the padlock with her wand and the chains snaked out of the way, allowing the gates to creak open. They clanged closed behind us and she tapped the padlock once more.
Chains and security once more intact, we set off up to the school. Harry looked nervously at the remains of Hagrid's cabin as we passed, stomping grimly up the lawns. Hermione hurried after him, reaching out a hand that I captured, shaking my head. She shook me off and followed Harry.
We opened the doors into the Great Hall which was, thankfully, empty, and hurried up the staircases to the teachers' offices.
"What if he isn't in?" Hermione asked and Harry shrugged.
"Then we'll find him," he said. "Honestly, Hermione, we know our way around the place pretty well, don't we?"
"And, if he's out, we'll go see Ginny - she has the Map!" I said cheerfully and Hermione glared at me.
Harry rapped smartly on Professor Slughorn's door, with Hermione at his shoulder and I lagged back, hiding behind them both. Not only was Professor Slughorn unsure of my name and had never invited me to a Slug Club meeting, but the only time I'd been in his rooms before I had been first drugged and then poisoned. I'm not sure I'd made a good impression.
The door opened, revealing Professor Slughorn in a brocade housecoat and tasselled hat. It was good to see him flourishing, while the rest of the Wizarding World fell apart. He flushed when he saw Harry and stood back, beckoning us inside.
"Harry," he said, jovially. "And Miss Granger, and Mr Weasley. Please, be seated." He and Harry took armchairs facing each other; Hermione and I sat beside each other on a violently purple sofa. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Harry looked slightly taken aback. Hermione and I looked at each other and she raised her eyebrow. Professor Slughorn had to know we weren't at school anymore; had to have realised that Harry was completing Professor Dumbledore's work.
He was the only other person who knew about the Horcruxes. Even if all he knew was that Riddle had wanted to create them. He must have put two and two together.
"Something to drink?" he asked us, and I know I paled. "No, no, maybe not. Well, Harry, what can I do for you? Always happy to help the Chosen One!"
Hermione frowned, but Harry was happy to play on Professor Slughorn's love of fame.
"I was hoping you still had the Acromantula venom I helped you collect last year," Harry said, pleasantly.
Professor Slughorn looked shiftier. "Venom?" he blustered. "Oh, I don' t know that I have any Acromantula venom, my boy. Very rare, very dangerous to obtain."
"Professor, I know you had it. If you have used it or sold it just tell me and we will be on our way," he made to stand.
"Oh, let's not be hasty, my dear, dear boy," Slughorn said. "I believe I know the substance you have in mind." He got to his feet and crossed to a locked cabinet, stepping surprisingly nimbly around the ornate furniture.
Returning to his seat, he placed a small crystal bottle on the low table between Harry and himself.
"Why on earth do you need Acromantula venom, Harry?" he asked.
Harry took the package out of his pocket and unwrapped Slytherin's Locket, placing it beside the bottle.
"It's beautiful," murmured Professor Slughorn, unconsciously reaching for it. "Such delicate work, is that a… a snake?"
"It belonged to Salazar Slytherin," Harry said calmly and Slughorn twitched, gazing greedily at the priceless relic.
"But where did you find such a thing?" he murmured.
"That's not important," Harry said. "We have come here so you can help us destroy it."
"Destroy it?" Slughorn gasped. "But why?" he lifted his eyes to Harry's and I saw realisation hit him. "No, not a Horcrux? How can it be? Where on earth did you find it?"
"This is what Professor Dumbledore and I went to find, on the night he was murdered," Harry answered, simplifying our journey more than a little. "And now it has to be destroyed."
Slughorn stared at it. "How would the venom destroy it?" he asked.
"Well, Harry destroyed a Horcrux when he was twelve, professor," Hermione said conversationally and Slughorn turned to her in amazement. "He stabbed it with a Basilisk's fang, so we thought we'd try Acromantula venom on this one." She smiled at his mottled face.
"A Basilisk fang?" he blustered. "Where on earth would a twelve-year-old boy find a Basilisk fang?"
"Well, he had to kill the Basilisk first, admittedly," I said, straight faced.
Slughorn looked back and forth between Harry and me, as if waiting for the punch line to a joke he didn't understand.
"Right," said Harry briskly, obviously having had enough of me and Hermione fangirling him. He leant forward and whispered at the snake and it shuddered and the locket clicked open once more.
"Parseltongue?" Slughorn gasped.
"Chosen One," I gushed and Harry glared at me, but Slughorn looked suitably impressed.
We all looked inside the open locket and Slughorn gasped. The black oily stuff was writhing and pulsing and it would have been disgusting enough, even if I hadn't known that it was a piece of You Know Who's soul.
Slughorn sat far back in his seat and Hermione tensed beside me and I put my arm around her.
Harry looked ridiculously unconcerned until tendrils of black smoke started reaching blindly out of the locket, groping across the surface of the table like tiny snakes, and the temperature in the room dropped dramatically.
Then he snatched up the crystal bottle and worked the stopper free. Pausing with it poised over the writhing thing, he looked at us. I felt Hermione shrug and bit my lip. Surely he wasn't going to blow up the castle based on a shrug?
Well, yes, apparently he was, because he carefully tipped one drop of venom onto the thing inside the locket.
There was a cloud of smoke, a hissing sound and a burning smell and the tendrils thrashed in apparent agony. Hermione practically crept into my lap and I held her tightly as Harry carried on calmly dripping venom into the smoke.
A cold wind swirled round the room and the candles guttered, throwing even eerier shadows on the twisting mess that was shrinking away from the venom.
All the heat in the room was being sucked into the thing and Hermione shivered in my arms. Slughorn and Harry were staring at the nightmare on the coffee table, but I buried my face in Hermione's hair and held on tight as the thing screamed. I saw a flash of blinding light through my closed eyelids, heard a loud cracking noise and the room went dark.
I was splattered head to toe with something icy cold and I tentatively unwound myself from Hermione and she found her wand and whispered, "Lumos."
The candles came back on and my eyes desperately sought Harry.
He was still sitting in his armchair, covered in black slime. He clumsily took off his glasses and blinked slowly, stunned green eyes in his filthy face.
Harry looked down at the table between us and his eyes widened.
The locket was destroyed, and the coffee table split in half. Both were covered in sludge.
A speechless Slughorn took off his hat and looked at the dripping tassel. He brushed ineffectually at his slimy housecoat.
I laughed, slightly hysterically, but what do you say when you're covered in a layer of You Know Who?
Well, Hermione knew, of course. "Tergeo!" she said, pointing to each of us in turn, and cleaning away the icy slime. "Reparo," she said to the table.
Harry put his glasses back on and the four of us sat and blinked at each other. "Harry," I breathed.
"My dear boy," whispered Slughorn, looking round his chilly room.
"Thank you, Professor," Harry said, standing and pocketing the destroyed locket.
"Anything I can do, don't hesitate to ask," Slughorn muttered faintly.
Hermione hauled me to my feet and we took our leave, slipping quietly out into the corridor.
oOoOo
Author: shocolate
Pairing: Ron/Hermione
Words: 3600
Rating: PG-13
Written for sugarandginger’s Definitive Ron/Hermione Year Seven Novella Challenge
As the Trio set off on their search for the Horcruxes, Ron finally accepts that he wants to look after his two best friends in completely different ways
Chapter 5 : Fangs For The Memory
****
"That's so unfair!" I gasped and Hermione gave me a Look.
"Yes, Ron," she said. "Things really should go our way, just because we're the good guys."
"Well, yes," I said and Harry snorted. "What?" I demanded.
He smiled at me and shook his head. "I love your simple outlook on life," he said.
"Are you calling me simple?"
"Maybe," he laughed.
Hermione frowned at us, but Harry untangled himself from her arms and sat up straighter.
"You're right, Ron," he said.
"See?" I said to Hermione and she tutted.
"Yet again, life has crapped on me - I should be used to it."
"Oh, Harry," she started, but I interrupted her.
"No. No 'oh, Harry,' Hermione. He doesn't need hugs, he needs a plan." She glared at me. "I, on the other hand," I continued, reaching for her and pulling her into my lap, "need hugs."
She settled in my arms as I addressed Harry again. "So, what time does the Hog's Head open today?"
"I really don't care," he replied. "We're going there now. I'd have gone straight there if I hadn't had to come and get you two."
"Oh," said Hermione and bit her lip, obviously moved that he'd thought of us first.
I met Harry's eyes and there was a bit of a Moment going on and Hermione sniffed.
"Yeah, well," I said, blinking quickly myself. "I just wish you'd given us another ten minutes alone together."
Harry snorted and Hermione slapped my arm. "Ten minutes?" she scoffed. "Aren't I a lucky girl?"
"More like five, and I don't want to know," Harry laughed.
oOoOo
Harry waited while Hermione and I changed into robes and we Apparated to Hogsmeade. It was already dark, and the streets were deserted as we cautiously approached the Hog's Head down the shadowy side street.
The windows were so grimy that we could see nothing inside, just the vague flickering light from old candles.
"Let me go in," I asked Harry, putting my hand on his arm.
Harry frowned at me.
"Look, Harry, there'll be all sorts of weirdoes in there - and no one from the Order looking out for us. I just don't think the famous and missing Harry Potter should walk straight in."
He looked pained, but sighed and nodded, taking a step back into the shadows with Hermione.
I was slightly wrong-footed, as I really hadn't expected him to agree so quickly, but I pushed the door open and sidled inside. The room was as dirty and dark as I remembered; there were various sinister looking characters lurking in dark corners and I tried hard to swallow past my dry throat as I approached the bar.
I'd only been waiting a few moments when the thin and elderly barman shuffled out from the back room. He didn't look at my face, but wiped a filthy rag over the counter and grunted vaguely in my direction.
"Butterbeer," I muttered and he finally looked up, obviously only expecting hard drinkers to brave the cold and their hangovers tonight.
He groped under the counter for a bottle and thumped it on the counter in front of me.
"Two Sickles," he said.
I passed over the money and he palmed it swiftly. "We need to talk to you," I said as he started to turn away.
"We?" he asked, deliberately looking around the room behind me, to demonstrate I was utterly alone.
"My friends are outside," I said, trying to sound confident. "Is there a back door to this place? We need to talk to you in private."
He looked me up and down and shrugged. "Tell Mr Potter to come around the back," he murmured, letting out a bark of laughter at my stunned expression.
I decided I was useless at this undercover business, but at least the rest of the pub's patrons were unlikely to have recognised me.
Picking up my drink, I slunk out the door into the darkened street and looked for Harry and Hermione, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up as a clot of shadow moved towards me.
"What happened?" Hermione asked.
"That was quick, Ron. Did you persuade him to talk to us?" asked Harry.
"Uh, sort of."
"Sort of?"
"All I said was, 'can we talk?' and he said, 'tell Mr Potter to come around the back'." I shrugged.
Harry laughed. "You're such a good Second, Ron," he said.
"Hey, we're in, OK?"
Hermione shook her head at the two of us and led the way down the narrow alleyway beside the pub. There, at the end was a narrow doorway, slightly ajar.
Harry reached for her hand and pulled her back. "I'm going first," he whispered, pushing the door open.
It opened with such a clichéd creak that I swallowed a laugh. No door actually creaks like that - I made a mental note to tell Fred and George and have them whip up some kind of Creaking Charm.
Harry stepped cautiously inside and Hermione and I fought briefly over who would follow him, until she stamped firmly on my foot and pushed past me. Deciding to guard them both and bring up the rear, I followed.
Inside, Aberforth was sitting at a grimy table in the filthiest kitchen I had ever seen. Deep gouges on the tabletop were filled with something dark and moist that glistened slightly in the light of the single candle in a wax-encrusted candlestick.
I made a mental note never to eat in the Hog's Head. And to send Mum here if I ever lived long enough to get my own place and she complained about the state of my kitchen.
The candle cast sinister shadows on Aberforth's face and left the rest of the kitchen in darkness.
Harry had obviously decided that, not only was it being done for effect, but that it wasn't particularly effective, because he took a chair opposite our host and twirled his wand absently in his fingers.
"Aberforth," he said, nodding at the old man.
"Ah, Harry, I wondered if you knew who I was," Aberforth said gently. "You know, my brother told me all about you. He was very proud of you"
"Really?" Harry said levelly, but his wand stilled.
"Really," Aberforth nodded. "All last year he told me how you had grown up."
"And what else did he tell you, last year?" Harry asked.
"I don't follow."
"Did he tell you where he went when he left the school?"
Hermione and I glanced at each other and I felt her tense beside me. Maybe Professor Dumbledore had confided in his brother? Maybe we wouldn't be alone on this Quest?
Although Aberforth would make a strange father figure, Hermione still thought Harry needed one. I thought otherwise; I'd told her that Harry was fine with Remus as a much older brother figure, and my dad to go to if he had any problems. Hermione had scoffed at the idea of my dad giving Harry The Talk, and I really hoped that Remus or Sirius had already done it, for Harry's sake, but mainly for Ginny's. We'd all had to sit through Dad's speech about plugs and sockets.
"I know he was looking for something," Aberforth was saying. "But he never mentioned what it was."
"Pity," Harry said quietly. "Because he could be alive today if he had."
Aberforth went still in the flickering candlelight. "What is that supposed to mean?" he demanded. "Are you saying I failed my brother?"
"Not at all," Harry replied. "If he'd been less secretive, then maybe we would have been able to help him. To save him."
"What could I have done that would have affected his relationship with Snape?" Aberforth asked and the three of us flinched.
We were always so careful not to use that name. Harry made a strangled noise in his throat and I put my hand on his shoulder, feeling his muscles tense and then relax under my touch. "It needn't have come to that," he muttered. "If he'd told you what he was looking for, what he needed, he may never have had to leave the school that night; there would have been no opportunity for Death eaters to invade the school."
"No more talking in riddles, Harry," Aberforth said and Harry jumped, but the use of the name seemed accidental. "What did he need from me?"
"A locket," Harry said simply.
Aberforth frowned. "Why on earth did he need a locket? And what makes you think I could help?"
"The why was between Professor Dumbledore and myself," Harry said and I couldn't help but be impressed. Was that really my scrawny little best friend? I had rarely seen him as the Chosen One, had rarely seen him accepting his fate. "I believe you bought a locket from Mundungus Fletcher last year," he continued. "I'd like to know what you did with it."
Aberforth looked genuinely surprised. "I… I still have it; it's upstairs," he said. "It's heavy, I hoped it was solid gold because I couldn't open it."
"Get it for me," Harry said.
"It's worth a bit of money," Aberforth objected. "I can't just…"
"I'll pay you, if that's important," Harry interrupted, calmly. Aberforth met his eyes for a moment, but clearly decided that it wasn't important, because he nodded abruptly and pushed his chair away from the table.
He disappeared into the shadows and through another ridiculously creaky door.
Harry sagged in his seat and we sat on either side of him, Hermione putting her arms around him.
"Honestly," she said, "this sinister act is just ridiculous." And she flicked her wand, lighting candles all over the room and a cheerful fire in the cavernous and filthy fireplace.
Harry and I laughed aloud. "Something profound about the darkness just being an absence of light, Hermione?" I asked, grinning at her and she snorted at me.
"Nothing profound," she sniffed. "It was just annoying me."
The door in what was now a well-lit corner of the room burst open and Aberforth was framed in the doorway, visibly wrong-footed at not being able to make a dramatic and creepy entrance from the shadows.
He sent us a filthy look and stomped across the room back to his seat.
"Wait," Hermione said, as he reached out to place something on the table between us. "Scourgify."
Now that the table was clean enough for her, she gestured for Aberforth to continue.
Very grumpily he shoved the locket at Harry, sat back and folded his arms across his chest.
Harry let out a breath I didn't know he'd been holding and I felt the tension drain out of him so abruptly he'd have fallen if he weren’t already sitting down.
I put my hand on his arm and felt him trembling. I squeezed gently and he took a shaky breath.
He slowly reached forward and touched the locket.
The locket he'd last held eighteen months earlier, in Sirius's house.
Before Sirius died.
Before Dumbledore died.
"It doesn't open," Aberforth muttered.
Harry ran his finger down the ornate snake engraved on the front and softly hissed at it.
Even I jumped, though of course I'd heard him talk Parseltongue before, and Hermione twitched. Aberforth leapt from his chair as the locket clicked open to reveal something black and oily and smoky coiling inside it.
"Shit, Harry, don't just open it like that," I gasped, moving back from the table.
"Harry," Hermione said warningly and Harry casually reached for the locket and snapped it shut.
"Just take it," Aberforth said, ashen faced. "I don't want to know what that was. Just take it and go."
Harry wrapped the locket in a handkerchief and put it in his robe pocket.
He stood up and we followed suit. "Thank you," he said simply and Aberforth grunted as we left.
"Well, now what?" Hermione asked as we walked back up to the main street. "What are we going to do with it? Do we keep them in a cupboard until we find them all, or do we destroy them as we go along?"
"And how do we destroy them?" I asked, looking warily at Harry.
"Yeah. Look at what happened to Dumbledore's hand when he destroyed the ring," Harry said, nervously.
"Well, you weren't hurt when you destroyed the diary," Hermione pointed out.
"Well, where are we going to find a Basilisk fang?" I scoffed. "I suppose we could try and get one of Aragog's brood to bite it!"
They stared at me.
"Ron!" Hermione gasped.
"I love it when he does that," Harry said.
"What?" I asked.
"Could it work?" Harry breathed.
"We could try," Hermione said, biting her lip.
"What?" I demanded.
"Aragog's venom!" Harry said. "Professor Slughorn milked a bottle-full at the funeral, remember? It looks like the old Felix Felicis was working out even better for me than we realised!"
"So, up to the school?" I asked, looking at my watch. It was barely eight o'clock.
"To the school," Hermione nodded.
"Yup, it's still early. People'll still be up," I said and Harry jumped.
You could see that he had forgotten that there would be anyone at school - that Ginny would be at school.
"So, we just walk into the school and go straight to Professor Slughorn's office?" Hermione asked.
"Unless anyone intercepts us." Harry shrugged. "We're allowed to come and go as necessary - but I'm sure Professor McGonagall will realise we're there."
Taking a deep breath, Harry nodded at us both, and we Apparated to the gates of Hogwarts. Hermione tapped the padlock with her wand and the chains snaked out of the way, allowing the gates to creak open. They clanged closed behind us and she tapped the padlock once more.
Chains and security once more intact, we set off up to the school. Harry looked nervously at the remains of Hagrid's cabin as we passed, stomping grimly up the lawns. Hermione hurried after him, reaching out a hand that I captured, shaking my head. She shook me off and followed Harry.
We opened the doors into the Great Hall which was, thankfully, empty, and hurried up the staircases to the teachers' offices.
"What if he isn't in?" Hermione asked and Harry shrugged.
"Then we'll find him," he said. "Honestly, Hermione, we know our way around the place pretty well, don't we?"
"And, if he's out, we'll go see Ginny - she has the Map!" I said cheerfully and Hermione glared at me.
Harry rapped smartly on Professor Slughorn's door, with Hermione at his shoulder and I lagged back, hiding behind them both. Not only was Professor Slughorn unsure of my name and had never invited me to a Slug Club meeting, but the only time I'd been in his rooms before I had been first drugged and then poisoned. I'm not sure I'd made a good impression.
The door opened, revealing Professor Slughorn in a brocade housecoat and tasselled hat. It was good to see him flourishing, while the rest of the Wizarding World fell apart. He flushed when he saw Harry and stood back, beckoning us inside.
"Harry," he said, jovially. "And Miss Granger, and Mr Weasley. Please, be seated." He and Harry took armchairs facing each other; Hermione and I sat beside each other on a violently purple sofa. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Harry looked slightly taken aback. Hermione and I looked at each other and she raised her eyebrow. Professor Slughorn had to know we weren't at school anymore; had to have realised that Harry was completing Professor Dumbledore's work.
He was the only other person who knew about the Horcruxes. Even if all he knew was that Riddle had wanted to create them. He must have put two and two together.
"Something to drink?" he asked us, and I know I paled. "No, no, maybe not. Well, Harry, what can I do for you? Always happy to help the Chosen One!"
Hermione frowned, but Harry was happy to play on Professor Slughorn's love of fame.
"I was hoping you still had the Acromantula venom I helped you collect last year," Harry said, pleasantly.
Professor Slughorn looked shiftier. "Venom?" he blustered. "Oh, I don' t know that I have any Acromantula venom, my boy. Very rare, very dangerous to obtain."
"Professor, I know you had it. If you have used it or sold it just tell me and we will be on our way," he made to stand.
"Oh, let's not be hasty, my dear, dear boy," Slughorn said. "I believe I know the substance you have in mind." He got to his feet and crossed to a locked cabinet, stepping surprisingly nimbly around the ornate furniture.
Returning to his seat, he placed a small crystal bottle on the low table between Harry and himself.
"Why on earth do you need Acromantula venom, Harry?" he asked.
Harry took the package out of his pocket and unwrapped Slytherin's Locket, placing it beside the bottle.
"It's beautiful," murmured Professor Slughorn, unconsciously reaching for it. "Such delicate work, is that a… a snake?"
"It belonged to Salazar Slytherin," Harry said calmly and Slughorn twitched, gazing greedily at the priceless relic.
"But where did you find such a thing?" he murmured.
"That's not important," Harry said. "We have come here so you can help us destroy it."
"Destroy it?" Slughorn gasped. "But why?" he lifted his eyes to Harry's and I saw realisation hit him. "No, not a Horcrux? How can it be? Where on earth did you find it?"
"This is what Professor Dumbledore and I went to find, on the night he was murdered," Harry answered, simplifying our journey more than a little. "And now it has to be destroyed."
Slughorn stared at it. "How would the venom destroy it?" he asked.
"Well, Harry destroyed a Horcrux when he was twelve, professor," Hermione said conversationally and Slughorn turned to her in amazement. "He stabbed it with a Basilisk's fang, so we thought we'd try Acromantula venom on this one." She smiled at his mottled face.
"A Basilisk fang?" he blustered. "Where on earth would a twelve-year-old boy find a Basilisk fang?"
"Well, he had to kill the Basilisk first, admittedly," I said, straight faced.
Slughorn looked back and forth between Harry and me, as if waiting for the punch line to a joke he didn't understand.
"Right," said Harry briskly, obviously having had enough of me and Hermione fangirling him. He leant forward and whispered at the snake and it shuddered and the locket clicked open once more.
"Parseltongue?" Slughorn gasped.
"Chosen One," I gushed and Harry glared at me, but Slughorn looked suitably impressed.
We all looked inside the open locket and Slughorn gasped. The black oily stuff was writhing and pulsing and it would have been disgusting enough, even if I hadn't known that it was a piece of You Know Who's soul.
Slughorn sat far back in his seat and Hermione tensed beside me and I put my arm around her.
Harry looked ridiculously unconcerned until tendrils of black smoke started reaching blindly out of the locket, groping across the surface of the table like tiny snakes, and the temperature in the room dropped dramatically.
Then he snatched up the crystal bottle and worked the stopper free. Pausing with it poised over the writhing thing, he looked at us. I felt Hermione shrug and bit my lip. Surely he wasn't going to blow up the castle based on a shrug?
Well, yes, apparently he was, because he carefully tipped one drop of venom onto the thing inside the locket.
There was a cloud of smoke, a hissing sound and a burning smell and the tendrils thrashed in apparent agony. Hermione practically crept into my lap and I held her tightly as Harry carried on calmly dripping venom into the smoke.
A cold wind swirled round the room and the candles guttered, throwing even eerier shadows on the twisting mess that was shrinking away from the venom.
All the heat in the room was being sucked into the thing and Hermione shivered in my arms. Slughorn and Harry were staring at the nightmare on the coffee table, but I buried my face in Hermione's hair and held on tight as the thing screamed. I saw a flash of blinding light through my closed eyelids, heard a loud cracking noise and the room went dark.
I was splattered head to toe with something icy cold and I tentatively unwound myself from Hermione and she found her wand and whispered, "Lumos."
The candles came back on and my eyes desperately sought Harry.
He was still sitting in his armchair, covered in black slime. He clumsily took off his glasses and blinked slowly, stunned green eyes in his filthy face.
Harry looked down at the table between us and his eyes widened.
The locket was destroyed, and the coffee table split in half. Both were covered in sludge.
A speechless Slughorn took off his hat and looked at the dripping tassel. He brushed ineffectually at his slimy housecoat.
I laughed, slightly hysterically, but what do you say when you're covered in a layer of You Know Who?
Well, Hermione knew, of course. "Tergeo!" she said, pointing to each of us in turn, and cleaning away the icy slime. "Reparo," she said to the table.
Harry put his glasses back on and the four of us sat and blinked at each other. "Harry," I breathed.
"My dear boy," whispered Slughorn, looking round his chilly room.
"Thank you, Professor," Harry said, standing and pocketing the destroyed locket.
"Anything I can do, don't hesitate to ask," Slughorn muttered faintly.
Hermione hauled me to my feet and we took our leave, slipping quietly out into the corridor.
oOoOo