FIC -- Inevitable 48: Pieces of You
ZOMG an Inevitable update!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Inevitable Forty-Eight: Pieces of You
by Mhalachai
Note: In which I compress most of HBP into about 2,000 words! Previous chapters here.
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"Stop Voldemort?" Harry repeated, stunned. "How?"
Dumbledore turned the ring around in his fingers, staring into its depths as if it held all kinds of secrets. "It was something that I have wondered about, dreaded, for a very long time, but never had any proof."
"Do you have the proof now?" Harry asked. His heart was pounding in his chest. If Dumbledore knew a way to stop Voldemort, then everything was going to be all right. Right?
Dumbledore let out a weary sigh. "I do." He set the ring down on the desk, then pulled a long, thin box out from a drawer. "Do you recognize this?" he asked as he opened the box and held it up for Harry to see.
Harry stood and leaned over the desk, looking intently at the object in the box. A heavy silver chain and locket glinted in the lamplight.
Frowning, Harry said, "It looks a bit... I can't remember."
Dumbledore laid down the locket. "It used to reside in the Black house."
Of course! Harry remembered now. That's why the locket looked familiar, he'd seen it in one of the cabinets when he'd been helping the Weasleys and Sirius clean at No. 12, Grimmauld Place, a long time ago. "So it belonged to Sirius's family?" Was this supposed to help them stop Voldemort?
"This locket did not belong to Sirius's family, Harry," Dumbledore said. He stared at Harry over his half-moon glasses, suddenly looking very old. "It belonged to Salazar Slytherin."
Harry's breath caught in his throat. "One of the founders of Hogwarts?" he asked, although he wanted to kick himself a moment later. How many Salazar Slytherins could there be in the wizarding world?
"Yes." Dumbledore held up the cracked ring again. "This belonged to a family knows as the Gaunts, the last remaining descendants of Salazar Slytherin. Specifically, to a wizard named Marvolo Gaunt."
Harry's eyes grew wide. He didn't know the man Dumbledore was talking about, but he knew that name. "But that's Voldemort's grandfather! The Tom Riddle in the diary, he said he had his muggle father's name and his wizard grandfather's middle name!"
"That is correct."
Too wound up to sit still, Harry paced across the room to Fawkes's perch. The phoenix trilled a greeting before going back to his preening. "Why was Salazar Slytherin's locket at the Black house?" Harry asked. "And what's with the ring? What is so important about them?"
Dumbledore waited until Harry had turned away from Fawkes's perch. "It is in these objects that Voldemort has hidden parts of his soul," Dumbledore said mildly.
Harry nearly walked into a table. "He what?"
Ignoring the incredulous tone in Harry's voice, Dumbledore stood and went to a trunk along the stone wall of the office. "There is a deep and ancient magic that allows a wizard to split his soul," Dumbledore said, emotion creeping into his voice for the first time. He was angry, Harry realized. Very angry. "It is never spoken of, has been hidden from view for centuries."
"Then how did Voldemort learn about it?" Harry demanded.
"Pride." Dumbledore straightened up, holding something in his hands, something Harry couldn't quite see. "Another's pride is what led Voldemort to this knowledge. Years ago, this happened, but its malignant touch grows more and more with each passing day."
As Dumbledore returned to his desk, Harry tried frantically to wrap his brain around all that he'd just heard. Voldemort had split his soul? Into the ring and the locket? But then how did Dumbledore have these objects?
Harry sank back into his chair, his knees suddenly feeling weak. From the way the headmaster had been talking, splitting your soul probably wasn't an easy thing.
"How did Voldemort split his soul into two pieces?" Harry asked.
Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "Why do you say two pieces?"
"You said it was into the ring and the locket," Harry said slowly.
Instead of responding, Dumbledore lifted the object in his hands and laid it on the desk. Harry blinked at it a few times before he realized what he was seeing.
"The diary!" Harry exclaimed, gripping the arms of chair so hard the wood cracked. "Tom Riddle's diary!"
His head was swimming, with new information and half-forgotten fragments of memory. Voldemort had put a sixteen-year-old version of himself into the diary, the phantom Tom Riddle had said, back when he had been trying to kill Ginny Weasley in the Chamber of Secrets. Harry had thought at the time that it was just memories in the diary, but if what Dumbledore was saying was true...
"Voldemort put a piece of his soul in that thing?" Harry said weakly. "How?"
Dumbledore pulled out his wand and waved it at Harry's chair, fixing the shattered wood. "These are Horcruxes," he said. "Objects that hold part of a soul. With a Horcrux, the person can never really die when the body is killed. They just... exist."
"Like Voldemort did after he killed my parents." Harry felt sick.
"Indeed." Dumbledore paused as Fawkes fluttered over to the desk and settled on a silver perch. "You know the ghost, Moaning Myrtle?" Harry nodded. "She died when Voldemort first opened the Chamber of Secrets. For years, I thought her death was an accident."
"Wasn't it?"
"No." The word fell like a stone into the silence. Even the portraits were quiet, listening to Dumbledore's tale. "The creation of a Horcrux needs a death, a murder. Young Myrtle's was the first."
"Of how many?" Harry asked. He didn't want to know. He wanted to be somewhere else, doing something else, not listening to how Voldemort was killing people, for no other reason than chopping his soul into little pieces. Listening to this made him feel tired, like once he knew, he'd never be able to rest again.
"What do you know of numerology?" Dumbledore asked, stroking the top of Fawkes's head.
"Why?" Harry asked, sick of these words games.
"There is great power in numbers," Dumbledore said. "Some things are repeated a number of times, to gain more power. With death magics, there is a certain power in the number seven."
"Seven," Harry repeated dully. "Voldemort split his soul into seven pieces."
"I believe so, yes."
Harry stared at Dumbledore. "Voldemort killed people to split his soul into seven pieces. Let me guess, we can't kill him unless we find all those seven pieces?" He flung his hand at the objects on the desk. "We've got these three here, what about the rest? Rowena Ravenclaw's hairpin? An old shoe? Better yet, how about a grain of sand on a beach!"
His voice rose until the last words were shouted. The portraits on the wall muttered amongst themselves, but Harry didn't pay attention to them.
"It is interesting that you mentioned Rowena Ravenclaw," Dumbledore said, ignoring the outburst. "Once I realized that this locket belonged to Slytherin, I began searching, for other objects. I found that a young Voldemort, when he was known as Tom Riddle, had a certain interest in objects that had once belonged to the founders of Hogwarts."
"So all we need to do is find three other objects belonging to the other three founders of Hogwarts, that have pieces of Voldemort's soul in them, and then destroy them," Harry said sarcastically. "Then figure out where the rest are, then kill Voldemort. Right. Easy."
"Harry," Dumbledore chided, but Harry didn't want to hear it.
"What do you expect me to say?" he demanded, leaning forward in the chair. "How wonderful it is that we know all this? How brilliant it is that Voldemort killed people to make himself invincible? That he might just well be invincible?"
"I expect only honesty from you, Harry. Nothing less."
Harry dropped his head into his hands. This was insane. Facing Voldemort was one thing. Facing him when Harry would never be able to actually kill him was a very different game.
Not a game Harry corrected himself. There are no rules and no safe areas in this. If I'm going to do it, I can't ever stop.
What would Anita do? Harry tried to imagine Anita sitting here, having been told that Olaf had broken his soul into several pieces to make him harder to kill. She'd probably be yelling more than he had, but he didn't think that she would consider stopping, even for a second.
Right. Harry lifted his head and met Dumbledore's gaze. "So where do we begin, sir?"
The corners of Dumbledore's mouth crinkled up into a tiny smile. "At the beginning," was all he said. "If you could again tell me how you destroyed Tom Riddle's diary, we will see if we can determine how to destroy the other Horcruxes."
Harry slumped down in his chair and proceeded to tell Dumbledore the story of facing the ghost of Tom Riddle's diary in the Chamber of Secrets. When he got to the part about how Fawkes had cried on his wound, healing him with phoenix tears, Dumbledore sat up straight. "Phoenix tears," he mused. He looked at Fawkes, who trilled softly. Harry felt his tension vanish with those delicate notes.
"Can we use that to destroy the Horcruxes?" Harry asked.
"We will see," Dumbledore said. Fawkes shook himself, then flew up to the top of a bookcase. "I suspect that each must be destroyed in its way. With the diary destroyed, and the ring broken, that leaves us with the rest. But not tonight."
Harry stood up and paced around the office, restless with sitting still for so long. "Does that mean that the locket is still a Horcrux?"
"It does."
Harry ran his fingers idly over a spindly silver instrument on a table. "Where are you going to put it while we try and figure out how to destroy it?" He was just curious, but something about Dumbledore's sudden silence sent a prickle down Harry's spine. "You're not going to keep it here," he said, turning back to Dumbledore.
"It would be best if you did not know their exact location, Harry, in case--"
"You can't keep those things here!" Harry exploded. "If Voldemort wants them, and he finds out they're here, he's going to come!"
"Hogwarts is the best protected place in the British Isles," Dumbledore said. There was a warning in his voice, but Harry was too angry to heed it.
"This place is full to the brim with little kids!" Harry said with a growl. He and his beast were equally angry. "Maybe the seventh years might be able to hold off a Death Eater attack, but what about the first years? If Voldemort attacks, he's not going to do it with a handful of Death Eaters like at the Ministry!"
"I have made my decision," Dumbledore said, finality in his voice.
Harry concentrated on breathing, trying to temper the anger and fear roiling about in his chest. Adults were supposed to protect kids, not put them in harm's way. Kids like Reece, without any idea of how to protect themselves... simple levitation charms and being able to turn a match into a needle wouldn't save them. Would he be able to start up Dumbledore's Army again, to teach defence skills to the younger children?
"Harry," Dumbledore interrupted his thinking. "Please, sit down, we have much more to discuss."
Mutinous thoughts in his heart, Harry grudgingly returned to his chair. His eyes fell on the silver locket. "How did you figure out that was a Horcrux?" he asked, curiosity winning over anger.
Dumbledore closed the box on the Horcrux and slid it back into a drawer. "It was only after Mundungus Fletcher was killed by Bellatrix Lestrange, over the summer," he said. "We found this among his possessions."
Harry clenched his jaw. He didn't want to think ill of the dead, especially someone who'd been killed by the eternal pain curse, but he'd known Mundungus Fletcher had been nicking Sirius's stuff, and was suddenly angry all over again.
"For a time, I speculated that Bellatrix was sent after Mundungus because of the Horcrux, but his possessions were untouched. It looks as if he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time," Dumbledore said.
"She does tend to kill people like that," Harry said. He had to work to keep his voice even, as he remembered Anita screaming on the darkened forest floor; the sight of Clay's lifeless body... Bellatrix's half-eaten corpse.
"But no longer," Dumbledore said softly. Harry pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes as Dumbledore continued, "About her death, Harry..."
"It was my fault," Harry said in a rush. "But I'm not sorry. She killed Sirius and Clay and Nigel Spencer and she tried to kill Anita and Jamil and Suzanne." He folded his glasses up and rested them on his knee, thinking hard. "Does Voldemort know she's dead?"
Dumbledore folded his hands on the desk. "It is a certainty."
"The Dark Mark?"
"Yes."
Harry stared at a spot of dirt on the edge of his robe's sleeve. "Are the people in St. Louis going to be in danger because of that?" he asked. "If Voldemort finds out what happened?"
"I do not think so, but one can never be certain," Dumbledore said.
Harry fiddled with his glasses. "Maybe I should let Anita know, if she's going to be in any danger."
"If you wish."
"What, no cautions against telling the muggles about magic?" Harry asked, unable to help himself.
"I think we both can agree that Anita Blake is no ordinary muggle," Dumbledore replied.
Nine tiny chimes sounded from somewhere in the room. Harry hadn't realized it was so late. "Neville said, on the train, that everyone thinks necromancers are evil," he said. "Do they?"
"It is a common viewpoint," Dumbledore admitted.
"Just as Parselmouths are usually seen as evil?" Harry pressed. "Or like kids with vampire fathers?"
Dumbledore's gaze seemed to bore into Harry. "Are you wondering about your mother?" he asked.
Sometimes, Harry hated how Dumbledore seemed to read his mind. "Yeah, maybe I am," he said defensively. "How would you feel, if you find out that your dad would have hated your mum, if he knew who her father was?"
Fawkes swooped down from his perch to land on Harry's shoulder. The phoenix rubbed his head against Harry's cheek. The beast in Harry recognized the gesture as comfort, even if it came from a animal unlike his own, and settled down.
"You do not give James enough credit," Dumbledore said gently. "He loved Lily, and he loved you. Knowing of Damian would have surprised him, but he would have reconciled that knowledge with his love."
Fawkes trilled, a soulful, melancholy tune so heart-breaking that Harry felt tears burning in his eyes. "Thanks," he muttered, reaching up to touch the bird's head.
Dumbledore waited for a few moments, then asked, "Harry, do you no longer need your glasses?"
"Huh?" Belatedly, Harry realized that he was still holding his glasses. "Oh, right." He shoved the glasses back on, displacing Fawkes to his knee.
"Another change from the werewolf?"
"Something like that," Harry said. "I mean, I really didn't shift, the other night. It's just, not everything's the same."
"I see." Dumbledore seemed pleased by that, but Harry wasn't sure why.
"But Reece," Harry said as Fawkes fluttered away. He didn't want to question Dumbledore's decisions, but he had to know what was going to happen to the young werewolf, in a month's time. "Is he going to be okay with everything here?"
"Yes, he is. I visited his family before his uncle would allow Mr. Trevelyan to attend Hogwarts." Dumbledore stood and walked to a table Harry hadn't noticed before, that held several small glasses. "Would you care for some hot chocolate?"
"Tea, if you have it," Harry said automatically. The thought of hot chocolate at this time of night made him a little queasy. While Dumbledore poured from a waiting teapot, Harry looked around the office. Things were the same as they had been the many times Harry had been here, with dozens of mysterious objects on tables, bookshelves full of ancient tomes, portraits of all the former Hogwarts headmasters gracing the walls.
Several of the portraits nodded at Harry as his gaze drifted over them. One portrait, however, glared at Harry as they made eye contact. "Really, consorting with necromancers and werewolves," sniffed the portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black, former headmaster and Sirius's great-great-grandfather.
"I thought you'd approve of making friends with powerful people," Harry snapped back. "Especially that sort."
"One doesn't make friends with werewolves, boy," the portrait retorted in its thin, weedy voice. "One simply delays being eaten."
Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Dumbledore approach, but he didn't take his eyes off the portrait. "Shows what you know about werewolves then, doesn't it?" Harry said, smiling wide enough to show his teeth.
Dumbledore silently handed Harry his tea, and Harry quite deliberately turned away from the portrait. While Dumbledore moved back to his side of the desk, Harry had a sudden thought.
"Are there any portraits of my parents, sir?"
"No, there are not," Dumbledore said, not making any sign that he found the question at all strange. "Even though James was from a family that typically had portraits done when a son or daughter graduated from Hogwarts, he always found a way to avoid the sitting. He said it made him think too much of dying."
"How about Sirius?" Harry asked, trying to keep his voice casual.
"Sirius left his family's home as soon as he could. He held even less store in portraits."
"Right," Harry said, surprised at how much it hurt. Even if it wouldn't be them, just a picture that talked like them, it still might be nice. Or maybe it would make things worse, Harry didn't know.
Taking a sip of his black unsweetened tea, he tried to drag his mind back to the problem at hand, of Voldemort and the Horcruxes. "How did that locket get to the Black house?" Harry asked. "You'd think they'd have put it somewhere special, not in that dirty old cabinet."
"One would think that, yes." Dumbledore took a sip of the amber-coloured liquid in his glass. "Something is not right about the situation, of how this locket came to be in the Black house, and later in Mundungus's possession." He shook his head. "But what I do know, Harry, is that I can rely on you on this matter now. This is not the way I would have chosen to tell you this information, but we are running out of time." He stared into his glass. "Many things have had to be changed."
Harry fidgeted in his seat. "What are we going to do to find the remaining Horcruxes?" he asked. "Is there some--"
Dumbledore held up his hand, cutting Harry off. "These are all matters that can be dealt with at our next meeting," he said. "It is getting late, and you need to be back in your dormitory before curfew."
"But sir--" Harry tried to protest.
"We will meet again in a few days, if that is all right with you," Dumbledore said. Harry knew he was being placated, and he had to swallow his annoyance to nod. "Very well. Before you go, I have something for you."
The Headmaster stood and walked to one of the bookcases that lined his office. Harry craned his neck, trying to see what sorts of titles were on the shelves, wondering what books Dumbledore would have hidden up here.
"Here we are." Dumbledore returned with a dusty old book, which he handed to Harry. "Talking of your father and Sirius reminded me that you might like this book."
Curious, Harry looked down at the cover of the book. The golden script was almost rubbed off the cover, and it was with great difficulty that he read the title out loud. "Most Mysterious Tales of the Animagi?" He looked up at Dumbledore. "What's this? A book on Animagi?"
"More specifically, a book on how to become an Animagus," Dumbledore said, his eyes regaining that old familiar twinkle. "It takes the most gifted of wizards years to even attempt the first transformation, so I have no qualms about giving you this book at this stage, for some extra reading."
Harry's stomach lurched. Him? Become an Animagus like his dad? Like Sirius?
"But I will tell you what that book does not, Harry," Dumbledore continued. "There are spells, meditations, trances, but all the preparation comes down to one thing: The wizard needs to accept the animal he will become."
Harry ran his fingers over the leather binding of the book, not sure what do say.
"No matter what that book says, Harry, the hardest part of the exercise, all of the training, is part of letting the animal overcome the human part of the mind. Once a wizard accepts the animal, he is very close to becoming an Animagus."
"Is that so?" Harry said, his mouth strangely dry.
"It is," Dumbledore said. "Now, you should return to your dormitory. I will see you in a few days."
"Right." Harry climbed to his feet. His head was spinning. All he wanted to do was to sit down and read this book right now. Could he be an Animagus? Like his dad and Sirius? Would the animal he already held inside of him prevent him from becoming an Animagus, or would it make it easier?
"And Harry?" Dumbledore said as Harry was in the doorway. "This evening, bringing Miss Weasley to discuss her potions book. That was a very wise decision."
It seemed like so long ago, that Harry and Ginny had walked up to Dumbledore's office together. "She was worried," Harry said, then stopped himself. "With good reason, too."
Dumbledore nodded. "Good night, Harry."
"Good night, sir," Harry said, heading for the revolving staircase. The door shut behind him, and soon he was walking though the hallways of Hogwarts, heading for Gryffindor towers.
Two days, Harry thought as he quickly shrunk the book and shoved it deep into a pocket. Two days until I see Dumbledore again, and I can ask him more about being an Animagus--
Harry stopped dead in his tracks in the stone corridor. He distracted me! Harry realized. Dumbledore didn't want to talk about the Horcruxes anymore and so he gave me this book on Animagi and I fell for it! He felt like kicking himself. How stupid could he be?
Good mood gone, Harry stormed silently along the hall. He was almost at Gryffindor tower when his senses prickled as he approached a corner. Not sure why, he slowed to a near-stop and made sure he had a clear grab at his wand.
Moments later, Snape whipped around the corner. He started slightly when he saw Harry standing there, waiting, but he covered his surprise with a snarled smirk. "Why are you out so late, Potter?" he spat. "Out past curfew on your first day back?"
"I was just seeing the Headmaster," Harry said. His annoyance with Dumbledore, mixed with his customary dislike for Snape, stirred the animal that lurked in his body. Harry suddenly felt stronger, more agile, and more than willing to attack an enemy.
Snape smiled coldly. "That will be five points from Gryffindor for being rude to a teacher," he said. "Shall we go for ten?
Harry glared at Snape. Did he know about the Horcruxes? He was a spy for Dumbledore, Harry knew, but did that go two ways? Would Snape tell Voldemort that there were pieces of the Dark Lord's soul hidden in Hogwarts?
A suit of amour at the other end of the hall exploded in a shower of metal. "Peeves!" Snape shouted, attention momentarily diverted from Harry. Taking the opportunity, Harry ducked around the teacher and ran around the corner, away from Snape and the temptation for violence.
I can't attack a teacher, even if it is Snape! Harry thought, trying to wrest control from the animal. The danger's supposed to be gone, because I didn't become a werewolf!
Running up three flights of stairs took an edge off his anger. By the time he reached the Fat Lady's portrait, Harry decided that he should see if his Occlumency would stop him from reacting like this. He had a three-hour Defence Against the Dark Arts class with Snape on Friday morning. If a thirty-second confrontation in a corridor set him off, all kinds of bad things could happen in class.
"Monk's Hood," Harry panted to the Fat Lady. She looked him up and down, then swung the portrait open without a word.
Great, I'm pissing off portraits too.
Even so late, the room was still full of students wound up from their first day of classes. Harry spotted Ginny and Hermione bent over a book at one of the tables.
"Harry!" Hermione said as Harry dropped into a chair beside them. "How was your meeting with Dumbledore?"
"Fine," Harry lied. Should he tell Hermione about the Horcruxes? Part of him wanted to, but he knew that she'd tell Ron. Perversely, Harry didn't want Ron to know anything about this, not while he was still acting like such a prat.
The look Hermione gave him indicated that she didn't believe him. "We were just going over some potions work," she said.
"Don't suppose you know why silver would affect the Draught of Living Death?" Ginny asked, not looking up from her parchment.
"Not really." Harry shifted around in his chair. He no longer wanted to look at the Animagus book that Dumbledore gave him. Not right away, anyway. He watched Ginny's quill scratching over the parchment, and out of nowhere came an idea. "What kind of living death?"
"What do you mean?" Ginny said, finally raising her head.
"Living dead like zombies, or living dead like vampires?"
"Why?" Ginny asked, but Hermione was already digging in her book bag. Pulling out a library book, she flipped pages frantically.
"Like vampires more than zombies," Hermione said excitedly. It looked like Hermione was as smart as ever, Harry thought, amused.
"Silver can hurt a vampire," Harry explained to a confused-looking Ginny. "A silver bullet can kill a young vampire, where a lead bullet won't do any more than piss it off. With zombies, silver doesn't do anything; you need cold steel to deal with it."
Ginny stared at him. "How do you know this?" she demanded.
"Just stuff I learned over the summer," Harry said with a shrug.
"Here it is!" Hermione interrupted. She dropped the book on the table. "This section, here!" She bent over the pages, oblivious to Harry. Ginny gave him an apologetic look, then leaned closer to Hermione to read.
Harry leaned back in his chair and watched as they began arguing quietly over something in the text. The normal scene, with the sounds of the common room in the background, soothed him, and he made himself turn his thoughts back to the meeting with Dumbledore.
Maybe there's a reason he didn't want to talk more about the Horcruxes, Harry admitted grudgingly. Maybe he had to meet someone. Or maybe he didn't know any more, and he didn't want to admit that.
And it was rather decent of the man to give him that book on Animagi. He didn't have to. Maybe after Harry went up to his room, he could take a look in that book, see if he could become an Animagi. Like my dad.
What kind of animal might he become? Various animals flitted through his mind, big ones like lions and tigers and leopards. Nothing seemed to fit, though, until he remembered the way the wolves moved at the Lupanar on the night of the full moon. The image stuck in his mind, of Jason and Richard and Sylvie and all the pack, of fur and claws and sharp wicked teeth.
"Are you still studying?" Ron's voice interrupted Harry's pleasant daydream. The redhead had come up behind Hermione's chair. "It's been hours."
"We've got a lot to work on, Ron," Hermione said, a bit irritated.
Ron clenched his jaw, and his eyes slid from the open books on the table to where Harry sat. "You don't seem to be helping."
The undercurrent of anger in Ron's voice set Harry on edge. He hadn't forgotten Ron's angry and ugly accusations from earlier in the day, nor the demand to stay away from Ginny. He didn't see why Ron was so angry at him, and for no reason.
Harry stood in a fluid motion, which put him facing Ron. He had to look up to meet Ron's glare, but the height difference didn't really matter. He wanted to hurt Ron, like Ron was hurting him. He could, too, say something that would rip Ron apart, leave all his jealousies and fears on the floor for everyone in the common room to see. Harry knew his best friend better than anyone, and he knew how to hurt him the most.
They were just words. Looking up into Ron's angry eyes, Harry knew he could destroy their friendship, could hurt Ron as much as Ron seemed intent on hurting him.
Harry turned around and walked away without a word.
... to be continued
Inevitable Forty-Eight: Pieces of You
by Mhalachai
Note: In which I compress most of HBP into about 2,000 words! Previous chapters here.
~~~~~~~
"Stop Voldemort?" Harry repeated, stunned. "How?"
Dumbledore turned the ring around in his fingers, staring into its depths as if it held all kinds of secrets. "It was something that I have wondered about, dreaded, for a very long time, but never had any proof."
"Do you have the proof now?" Harry asked. His heart was pounding in his chest. If Dumbledore knew a way to stop Voldemort, then everything was going to be all right. Right?
Dumbledore let out a weary sigh. "I do." He set the ring down on the desk, then pulled a long, thin box out from a drawer. "Do you recognize this?" he asked as he opened the box and held it up for Harry to see.
Harry stood and leaned over the desk, looking intently at the object in the box. A heavy silver chain and locket glinted in the lamplight.
Frowning, Harry said, "It looks a bit... I can't remember."
Dumbledore laid down the locket. "It used to reside in the Black house."
Of course! Harry remembered now. That's why the locket looked familiar, he'd seen it in one of the cabinets when he'd been helping the Weasleys and Sirius clean at No. 12, Grimmauld Place, a long time ago. "So it belonged to Sirius's family?" Was this supposed to help them stop Voldemort?
"This locket did not belong to Sirius's family, Harry," Dumbledore said. He stared at Harry over his half-moon glasses, suddenly looking very old. "It belonged to Salazar Slytherin."
Harry's breath caught in his throat. "One of the founders of Hogwarts?" he asked, although he wanted to kick himself a moment later. How many Salazar Slytherins could there be in the wizarding world?
"Yes." Dumbledore held up the cracked ring again. "This belonged to a family knows as the Gaunts, the last remaining descendants of Salazar Slytherin. Specifically, to a wizard named Marvolo Gaunt."
Harry's eyes grew wide. He didn't know the man Dumbledore was talking about, but he knew that name. "But that's Voldemort's grandfather! The Tom Riddle in the diary, he said he had his muggle father's name and his wizard grandfather's middle name!"
"That is correct."
Too wound up to sit still, Harry paced across the room to Fawkes's perch. The phoenix trilled a greeting before going back to his preening. "Why was Salazar Slytherin's locket at the Black house?" Harry asked. "And what's with the ring? What is so important about them?"
Dumbledore waited until Harry had turned away from Fawkes's perch. "It is in these objects that Voldemort has hidden parts of his soul," Dumbledore said mildly.
Harry nearly walked into a table. "He what?"
Ignoring the incredulous tone in Harry's voice, Dumbledore stood and went to a trunk along the stone wall of the office. "There is a deep and ancient magic that allows a wizard to split his soul," Dumbledore said, emotion creeping into his voice for the first time. He was angry, Harry realized. Very angry. "It is never spoken of, has been hidden from view for centuries."
"Then how did Voldemort learn about it?" Harry demanded.
"Pride." Dumbledore straightened up, holding something in his hands, something Harry couldn't quite see. "Another's pride is what led Voldemort to this knowledge. Years ago, this happened, but its malignant touch grows more and more with each passing day."
As Dumbledore returned to his desk, Harry tried frantically to wrap his brain around all that he'd just heard. Voldemort had split his soul? Into the ring and the locket? But then how did Dumbledore have these objects?
Harry sank back into his chair, his knees suddenly feeling weak. From the way the headmaster had been talking, splitting your soul probably wasn't an easy thing.
"How did Voldemort split his soul into two pieces?" Harry asked.
Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "Why do you say two pieces?"
"You said it was into the ring and the locket," Harry said slowly.
Instead of responding, Dumbledore lifted the object in his hands and laid it on the desk. Harry blinked at it a few times before he realized what he was seeing.
"The diary!" Harry exclaimed, gripping the arms of chair so hard the wood cracked. "Tom Riddle's diary!"
His head was swimming, with new information and half-forgotten fragments of memory. Voldemort had put a sixteen-year-old version of himself into the diary, the phantom Tom Riddle had said, back when he had been trying to kill Ginny Weasley in the Chamber of Secrets. Harry had thought at the time that it was just memories in the diary, but if what Dumbledore was saying was true...
"Voldemort put a piece of his soul in that thing?" Harry said weakly. "How?"
Dumbledore pulled out his wand and waved it at Harry's chair, fixing the shattered wood. "These are Horcruxes," he said. "Objects that hold part of a soul. With a Horcrux, the person can never really die when the body is killed. They just... exist."
"Like Voldemort did after he killed my parents." Harry felt sick.
"Indeed." Dumbledore paused as Fawkes fluttered over to the desk and settled on a silver perch. "You know the ghost, Moaning Myrtle?" Harry nodded. "She died when Voldemort first opened the Chamber of Secrets. For years, I thought her death was an accident."
"Wasn't it?"
"No." The word fell like a stone into the silence. Even the portraits were quiet, listening to Dumbledore's tale. "The creation of a Horcrux needs a death, a murder. Young Myrtle's was the first."
"Of how many?" Harry asked. He didn't want to know. He wanted to be somewhere else, doing something else, not listening to how Voldemort was killing people, for no other reason than chopping his soul into little pieces. Listening to this made him feel tired, like once he knew, he'd never be able to rest again.
"What do you know of numerology?" Dumbledore asked, stroking the top of Fawkes's head.
"Why?" Harry asked, sick of these words games.
"There is great power in numbers," Dumbledore said. "Some things are repeated a number of times, to gain more power. With death magics, there is a certain power in the number seven."
"Seven," Harry repeated dully. "Voldemort split his soul into seven pieces."
"I believe so, yes."
Harry stared at Dumbledore. "Voldemort killed people to split his soul into seven pieces. Let me guess, we can't kill him unless we find all those seven pieces?" He flung his hand at the objects on the desk. "We've got these three here, what about the rest? Rowena Ravenclaw's hairpin? An old shoe? Better yet, how about a grain of sand on a beach!"
His voice rose until the last words were shouted. The portraits on the wall muttered amongst themselves, but Harry didn't pay attention to them.
"It is interesting that you mentioned Rowena Ravenclaw," Dumbledore said, ignoring the outburst. "Once I realized that this locket belonged to Slytherin, I began searching, for other objects. I found that a young Voldemort, when he was known as Tom Riddle, had a certain interest in objects that had once belonged to the founders of Hogwarts."
"So all we need to do is find three other objects belonging to the other three founders of Hogwarts, that have pieces of Voldemort's soul in them, and then destroy them," Harry said sarcastically. "Then figure out where the rest are, then kill Voldemort. Right. Easy."
"Harry," Dumbledore chided, but Harry didn't want to hear it.
"What do you expect me to say?" he demanded, leaning forward in the chair. "How wonderful it is that we know all this? How brilliant it is that Voldemort killed people to make himself invincible? That he might just well be invincible?"
"I expect only honesty from you, Harry. Nothing less."
Harry dropped his head into his hands. This was insane. Facing Voldemort was one thing. Facing him when Harry would never be able to actually kill him was a very different game.
Not a game Harry corrected himself. There are no rules and no safe areas in this. If I'm going to do it, I can't ever stop.
What would Anita do? Harry tried to imagine Anita sitting here, having been told that Olaf had broken his soul into several pieces to make him harder to kill. She'd probably be yelling more than he had, but he didn't think that she would consider stopping, even for a second.
Right. Harry lifted his head and met Dumbledore's gaze. "So where do we begin, sir?"
The corners of Dumbledore's mouth crinkled up into a tiny smile. "At the beginning," was all he said. "If you could again tell me how you destroyed Tom Riddle's diary, we will see if we can determine how to destroy the other Horcruxes."
Harry slumped down in his chair and proceeded to tell Dumbledore the story of facing the ghost of Tom Riddle's diary in the Chamber of Secrets. When he got to the part about how Fawkes had cried on his wound, healing him with phoenix tears, Dumbledore sat up straight. "Phoenix tears," he mused. He looked at Fawkes, who trilled softly. Harry felt his tension vanish with those delicate notes.
"Can we use that to destroy the Horcruxes?" Harry asked.
"We will see," Dumbledore said. Fawkes shook himself, then flew up to the top of a bookcase. "I suspect that each must be destroyed in its way. With the diary destroyed, and the ring broken, that leaves us with the rest. But not tonight."
Harry stood up and paced around the office, restless with sitting still for so long. "Does that mean that the locket is still a Horcrux?"
"It does."
Harry ran his fingers idly over a spindly silver instrument on a table. "Where are you going to put it while we try and figure out how to destroy it?" He was just curious, but something about Dumbledore's sudden silence sent a prickle down Harry's spine. "You're not going to keep it here," he said, turning back to Dumbledore.
"It would be best if you did not know their exact location, Harry, in case--"
"You can't keep those things here!" Harry exploded. "If Voldemort wants them, and he finds out they're here, he's going to come!"
"Hogwarts is the best protected place in the British Isles," Dumbledore said. There was a warning in his voice, but Harry was too angry to heed it.
"This place is full to the brim with little kids!" Harry said with a growl. He and his beast were equally angry. "Maybe the seventh years might be able to hold off a Death Eater attack, but what about the first years? If Voldemort attacks, he's not going to do it with a handful of Death Eaters like at the Ministry!"
"I have made my decision," Dumbledore said, finality in his voice.
Harry concentrated on breathing, trying to temper the anger and fear roiling about in his chest. Adults were supposed to protect kids, not put them in harm's way. Kids like Reece, without any idea of how to protect themselves... simple levitation charms and being able to turn a match into a needle wouldn't save them. Would he be able to start up Dumbledore's Army again, to teach defence skills to the younger children?
"Harry," Dumbledore interrupted his thinking. "Please, sit down, we have much more to discuss."
Mutinous thoughts in his heart, Harry grudgingly returned to his chair. His eyes fell on the silver locket. "How did you figure out that was a Horcrux?" he asked, curiosity winning over anger.
Dumbledore closed the box on the Horcrux and slid it back into a drawer. "It was only after Mundungus Fletcher was killed by Bellatrix Lestrange, over the summer," he said. "We found this among his possessions."
Harry clenched his jaw. He didn't want to think ill of the dead, especially someone who'd been killed by the eternal pain curse, but he'd known Mundungus Fletcher had been nicking Sirius's stuff, and was suddenly angry all over again.
"For a time, I speculated that Bellatrix was sent after Mundungus because of the Horcrux, but his possessions were untouched. It looks as if he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time," Dumbledore said.
"She does tend to kill people like that," Harry said. He had to work to keep his voice even, as he remembered Anita screaming on the darkened forest floor; the sight of Clay's lifeless body... Bellatrix's half-eaten corpse.
"But no longer," Dumbledore said softly. Harry pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes as Dumbledore continued, "About her death, Harry..."
"It was my fault," Harry said in a rush. "But I'm not sorry. She killed Sirius and Clay and Nigel Spencer and she tried to kill Anita and Jamil and Suzanne." He folded his glasses up and rested them on his knee, thinking hard. "Does Voldemort know she's dead?"
Dumbledore folded his hands on the desk. "It is a certainty."
"The Dark Mark?"
"Yes."
Harry stared at a spot of dirt on the edge of his robe's sleeve. "Are the people in St. Louis going to be in danger because of that?" he asked. "If Voldemort finds out what happened?"
"I do not think so, but one can never be certain," Dumbledore said.
Harry fiddled with his glasses. "Maybe I should let Anita know, if she's going to be in any danger."
"If you wish."
"What, no cautions against telling the muggles about magic?" Harry asked, unable to help himself.
"I think we both can agree that Anita Blake is no ordinary muggle," Dumbledore replied.
Nine tiny chimes sounded from somewhere in the room. Harry hadn't realized it was so late. "Neville said, on the train, that everyone thinks necromancers are evil," he said. "Do they?"
"It is a common viewpoint," Dumbledore admitted.
"Just as Parselmouths are usually seen as evil?" Harry pressed. "Or like kids with vampire fathers?"
Dumbledore's gaze seemed to bore into Harry. "Are you wondering about your mother?" he asked.
Sometimes, Harry hated how Dumbledore seemed to read his mind. "Yeah, maybe I am," he said defensively. "How would you feel, if you find out that your dad would have hated your mum, if he knew who her father was?"
Fawkes swooped down from his perch to land on Harry's shoulder. The phoenix rubbed his head against Harry's cheek. The beast in Harry recognized the gesture as comfort, even if it came from a animal unlike his own, and settled down.
"You do not give James enough credit," Dumbledore said gently. "He loved Lily, and he loved you. Knowing of Damian would have surprised him, but he would have reconciled that knowledge with his love."
Fawkes trilled, a soulful, melancholy tune so heart-breaking that Harry felt tears burning in his eyes. "Thanks," he muttered, reaching up to touch the bird's head.
Dumbledore waited for a few moments, then asked, "Harry, do you no longer need your glasses?"
"Huh?" Belatedly, Harry realized that he was still holding his glasses. "Oh, right." He shoved the glasses back on, displacing Fawkes to his knee.
"Another change from the werewolf?"
"Something like that," Harry said. "I mean, I really didn't shift, the other night. It's just, not everything's the same."
"I see." Dumbledore seemed pleased by that, but Harry wasn't sure why.
"But Reece," Harry said as Fawkes fluttered away. He didn't want to question Dumbledore's decisions, but he had to know what was going to happen to the young werewolf, in a month's time. "Is he going to be okay with everything here?"
"Yes, he is. I visited his family before his uncle would allow Mr. Trevelyan to attend Hogwarts." Dumbledore stood and walked to a table Harry hadn't noticed before, that held several small glasses. "Would you care for some hot chocolate?"
"Tea, if you have it," Harry said automatically. The thought of hot chocolate at this time of night made him a little queasy. While Dumbledore poured from a waiting teapot, Harry looked around the office. Things were the same as they had been the many times Harry had been here, with dozens of mysterious objects on tables, bookshelves full of ancient tomes, portraits of all the former Hogwarts headmasters gracing the walls.
Several of the portraits nodded at Harry as his gaze drifted over them. One portrait, however, glared at Harry as they made eye contact. "Really, consorting with necromancers and werewolves," sniffed the portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black, former headmaster and Sirius's great-great-grandfather.
"I thought you'd approve of making friends with powerful people," Harry snapped back. "Especially that sort."
"One doesn't make friends with werewolves, boy," the portrait retorted in its thin, weedy voice. "One simply delays being eaten."
Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Dumbledore approach, but he didn't take his eyes off the portrait. "Shows what you know about werewolves then, doesn't it?" Harry said, smiling wide enough to show his teeth.
Dumbledore silently handed Harry his tea, and Harry quite deliberately turned away from the portrait. While Dumbledore moved back to his side of the desk, Harry had a sudden thought.
"Are there any portraits of my parents, sir?"
"No, there are not," Dumbledore said, not making any sign that he found the question at all strange. "Even though James was from a family that typically had portraits done when a son or daughter graduated from Hogwarts, he always found a way to avoid the sitting. He said it made him think too much of dying."
"How about Sirius?" Harry asked, trying to keep his voice casual.
"Sirius left his family's home as soon as he could. He held even less store in portraits."
"Right," Harry said, surprised at how much it hurt. Even if it wouldn't be them, just a picture that talked like them, it still might be nice. Or maybe it would make things worse, Harry didn't know.
Taking a sip of his black unsweetened tea, he tried to drag his mind back to the problem at hand, of Voldemort and the Horcruxes. "How did that locket get to the Black house?" Harry asked. "You'd think they'd have put it somewhere special, not in that dirty old cabinet."
"One would think that, yes." Dumbledore took a sip of the amber-coloured liquid in his glass. "Something is not right about the situation, of how this locket came to be in the Black house, and later in Mundungus's possession." He shook his head. "But what I do know, Harry, is that I can rely on you on this matter now. This is not the way I would have chosen to tell you this information, but we are running out of time." He stared into his glass. "Many things have had to be changed."
Harry fidgeted in his seat. "What are we going to do to find the remaining Horcruxes?" he asked. "Is there some--"
Dumbledore held up his hand, cutting Harry off. "These are all matters that can be dealt with at our next meeting," he said. "It is getting late, and you need to be back in your dormitory before curfew."
"But sir--" Harry tried to protest.
"We will meet again in a few days, if that is all right with you," Dumbledore said. Harry knew he was being placated, and he had to swallow his annoyance to nod. "Very well. Before you go, I have something for you."
The Headmaster stood and walked to one of the bookcases that lined his office. Harry craned his neck, trying to see what sorts of titles were on the shelves, wondering what books Dumbledore would have hidden up here.
"Here we are." Dumbledore returned with a dusty old book, which he handed to Harry. "Talking of your father and Sirius reminded me that you might like this book."
Curious, Harry looked down at the cover of the book. The golden script was almost rubbed off the cover, and it was with great difficulty that he read the title out loud. "Most Mysterious Tales of the Animagi?" He looked up at Dumbledore. "What's this? A book on Animagi?"
"More specifically, a book on how to become an Animagus," Dumbledore said, his eyes regaining that old familiar twinkle. "It takes the most gifted of wizards years to even attempt the first transformation, so I have no qualms about giving you this book at this stage, for some extra reading."
Harry's stomach lurched. Him? Become an Animagus like his dad? Like Sirius?
"But I will tell you what that book does not, Harry," Dumbledore continued. "There are spells, meditations, trances, but all the preparation comes down to one thing: The wizard needs to accept the animal he will become."
Harry ran his fingers over the leather binding of the book, not sure what do say.
"No matter what that book says, Harry, the hardest part of the exercise, all of the training, is part of letting the animal overcome the human part of the mind. Once a wizard accepts the animal, he is very close to becoming an Animagus."
"Is that so?" Harry said, his mouth strangely dry.
"It is," Dumbledore said. "Now, you should return to your dormitory. I will see you in a few days."
"Right." Harry climbed to his feet. His head was spinning. All he wanted to do was to sit down and read this book right now. Could he be an Animagus? Like his dad and Sirius? Would the animal he already held inside of him prevent him from becoming an Animagus, or would it make it easier?
"And Harry?" Dumbledore said as Harry was in the doorway. "This evening, bringing Miss Weasley to discuss her potions book. That was a very wise decision."
It seemed like so long ago, that Harry and Ginny had walked up to Dumbledore's office together. "She was worried," Harry said, then stopped himself. "With good reason, too."
Dumbledore nodded. "Good night, Harry."
"Good night, sir," Harry said, heading for the revolving staircase. The door shut behind him, and soon he was walking though the hallways of Hogwarts, heading for Gryffindor towers.
Two days, Harry thought as he quickly shrunk the book and shoved it deep into a pocket. Two days until I see Dumbledore again, and I can ask him more about being an Animagus--
Harry stopped dead in his tracks in the stone corridor. He distracted me! Harry realized. Dumbledore didn't want to talk about the Horcruxes anymore and so he gave me this book on Animagi and I fell for it! He felt like kicking himself. How stupid could he be?
Good mood gone, Harry stormed silently along the hall. He was almost at Gryffindor tower when his senses prickled as he approached a corner. Not sure why, he slowed to a near-stop and made sure he had a clear grab at his wand.
Moments later, Snape whipped around the corner. He started slightly when he saw Harry standing there, waiting, but he covered his surprise with a snarled smirk. "Why are you out so late, Potter?" he spat. "Out past curfew on your first day back?"
"I was just seeing the Headmaster," Harry said. His annoyance with Dumbledore, mixed with his customary dislike for Snape, stirred the animal that lurked in his body. Harry suddenly felt stronger, more agile, and more than willing to attack an enemy.
Snape smiled coldly. "That will be five points from Gryffindor for being rude to a teacher," he said. "Shall we go for ten?
Harry glared at Snape. Did he know about the Horcruxes? He was a spy for Dumbledore, Harry knew, but did that go two ways? Would Snape tell Voldemort that there were pieces of the Dark Lord's soul hidden in Hogwarts?
A suit of amour at the other end of the hall exploded in a shower of metal. "Peeves!" Snape shouted, attention momentarily diverted from Harry. Taking the opportunity, Harry ducked around the teacher and ran around the corner, away from Snape and the temptation for violence.
I can't attack a teacher, even if it is Snape! Harry thought, trying to wrest control from the animal. The danger's supposed to be gone, because I didn't become a werewolf!
Running up three flights of stairs took an edge off his anger. By the time he reached the Fat Lady's portrait, Harry decided that he should see if his Occlumency would stop him from reacting like this. He had a three-hour Defence Against the Dark Arts class with Snape on Friday morning. If a thirty-second confrontation in a corridor set him off, all kinds of bad things could happen in class.
"Monk's Hood," Harry panted to the Fat Lady. She looked him up and down, then swung the portrait open without a word.
Great, I'm pissing off portraits too.
Even so late, the room was still full of students wound up from their first day of classes. Harry spotted Ginny and Hermione bent over a book at one of the tables.
"Harry!" Hermione said as Harry dropped into a chair beside them. "How was your meeting with Dumbledore?"
"Fine," Harry lied. Should he tell Hermione about the Horcruxes? Part of him wanted to, but he knew that she'd tell Ron. Perversely, Harry didn't want Ron to know anything about this, not while he was still acting like such a prat.
The look Hermione gave him indicated that she didn't believe him. "We were just going over some potions work," she said.
"Don't suppose you know why silver would affect the Draught of Living Death?" Ginny asked, not looking up from her parchment.
"Not really." Harry shifted around in his chair. He no longer wanted to look at the Animagus book that Dumbledore gave him. Not right away, anyway. He watched Ginny's quill scratching over the parchment, and out of nowhere came an idea. "What kind of living death?"
"What do you mean?" Ginny said, finally raising her head.
"Living dead like zombies, or living dead like vampires?"
"Why?" Ginny asked, but Hermione was already digging in her book bag. Pulling out a library book, she flipped pages frantically.
"Like vampires more than zombies," Hermione said excitedly. It looked like Hermione was as smart as ever, Harry thought, amused.
"Silver can hurt a vampire," Harry explained to a confused-looking Ginny. "A silver bullet can kill a young vampire, where a lead bullet won't do any more than piss it off. With zombies, silver doesn't do anything; you need cold steel to deal with it."
Ginny stared at him. "How do you know this?" she demanded.
"Just stuff I learned over the summer," Harry said with a shrug.
"Here it is!" Hermione interrupted. She dropped the book on the table. "This section, here!" She bent over the pages, oblivious to Harry. Ginny gave him an apologetic look, then leaned closer to Hermione to read.
Harry leaned back in his chair and watched as they began arguing quietly over something in the text. The normal scene, with the sounds of the common room in the background, soothed him, and he made himself turn his thoughts back to the meeting with Dumbledore.
Maybe there's a reason he didn't want to talk more about the Horcruxes, Harry admitted grudgingly. Maybe he had to meet someone. Or maybe he didn't know any more, and he didn't want to admit that.
And it was rather decent of the man to give him that book on Animagi. He didn't have to. Maybe after Harry went up to his room, he could take a look in that book, see if he could become an Animagi. Like my dad.
What kind of animal might he become? Various animals flitted through his mind, big ones like lions and tigers and leopards. Nothing seemed to fit, though, until he remembered the way the wolves moved at the Lupanar on the night of the full moon. The image stuck in his mind, of Jason and Richard and Sylvie and all the pack, of fur and claws and sharp wicked teeth.
"Are you still studying?" Ron's voice interrupted Harry's pleasant daydream. The redhead had come up behind Hermione's chair. "It's been hours."
"We've got a lot to work on, Ron," Hermione said, a bit irritated.
Ron clenched his jaw, and his eyes slid from the open books on the table to where Harry sat. "You don't seem to be helping."
The undercurrent of anger in Ron's voice set Harry on edge. He hadn't forgotten Ron's angry and ugly accusations from earlier in the day, nor the demand to stay away from Ginny. He didn't see why Ron was so angry at him, and for no reason.
Harry stood in a fluid motion, which put him facing Ron. He had to look up to meet Ron's glare, but the height difference didn't really matter. He wanted to hurt Ron, like Ron was hurting him. He could, too, say something that would rip Ron apart, leave all his jealousies and fears on the floor for everyone in the common room to see. Harry knew his best friend better than anyone, and he knew how to hurt him the most.
They were just words. Looking up into Ron's angry eyes, Harry knew he could destroy their friendship, could hurt Ron as much as Ron seemed intent on hurting him.
Harry turned around and walked away without a word.
... to be continued