One man unto another

"Potter, may I have a moment of your time?"

The request sounds awfully familiar, like a catchphrase straight out of Rufus Scrimgeour's handbook on political meetings. Even the tone used while making the request doesn't differ much from the one the old Minister used. Harry knew better. There's a tremendous difference between Minister Scrimgeour and Minister Shacklebolt and it all had to do with Shacklebolt and what he'd been doing the last couple of years.

Nevertheless, the impressive Auror that Harry had met when he was fifteen wasn't the same man addressing him now. This man had risen fast within the ranks of the Ministry these last couple of days, taking up the mantle of Minister of Magic by the virtue of being the only capable man left in the government's structure that wasn't the least involved with any nefarious deeds. It must be a difficult job, Harry considered. The position hardly was any better than the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts and it wasn't like there was an actual curse involved with being the Minister.

"You may," Harry replied, imagining why the Boy Who Lived could be of use to the man. Glancing at the rather crowded infirmary of his former school, he suggested: "It might be better if nobody hears what we're going to talk about."

Shacklebolt frowned, then nodded. "Will you do the honors or should I?"

After a moment of indecision, the younger wizard grabbed the Elder Wand from his bedside table, quickly casting several spells and wards insuring their privacy. It wasn't perhaps the best idea he could've had as exhaustion forced him to sit back. He heaved a sigh. That little sequence took more out of him than he thought it would.

"You haven't recuperated yet from the Battle?" Shacklebolt questioned, leaving the obvious even though it's been four days and nearly every Healer in the country is here unsaid.

Harry smiled wryly. "I doubt that'll happen anytime soon. The Healers are keeping me here for the moment." He chanced a look at the rest of the room, taking in the sight of numerous teenagers going through the last effects caused by long-term, frequent Cruciatus abuse. "But truthfully? There's not an awful lot they can do. I know it, they know it. They're just procrastinating reality."

Shacklebolt hummed thoughtfully, a hint of distant worry seeping through, eliciting a stare from the bed ridden man. The former Auror was one of the few people the seventeen year old knew of whom exuded such a natural air of confidence and capability. Maybe that was due to the man's height, it might come from the other's attitude. It probably were both of these characteristics combined with a more superficial, yet important element: Kingsley Shacklebolt was black. The combination of black, tall and confident made for a more powerful image compared to any other. No Caucasian man could pull off Shacklebolt's presence. Even Voldemort, Harry realized, paled in comparison.

"I wanted to request your assistance in rounding up any of the remnant Death Eaters. They need to be properly questioned and judged, I figured your experience could benefit our efforts greatly. I don't want a repeat of the failures in the eighties. Seeing you now however..."

Harry jerked his head understanding. Proclaimed of a bad reputation, working with the Ministry, preventing the next Malfoy or MacNair from escaping their fate, those were the kind of things that made him think of joining the Auror Corps back in fifth year.

"If I could, I would..." He briefly closed his eyes. It didn't feel like any of his previous dreams would ever become a reality, all he could do was hope. And perhaps make sure at least the biggest bastard of Voldemort's followers was on the wanted list? "Tell me, do you have Yaxley in custody?"

"The son, yes," Shacklebolt affirmed. "Is there anything peculiar I should know about him?"

"The older Yaxley, I don't remember his first name, was one of the major players. He's the one who put Thicknesse and numerous others under the Imperius. Without him, I doubt the Ministry ever would have fallen in enemy hands."

The Minister sat back in his seat, a contemplative expression showing through his usual mask of indifference. "I'll make him our top priority then."

"Good."

A silence followed. Harry spent the time by observing the other man. The Ministry of Magic and by extension wizarding Britain was in good hands, he decided. After all these years, inadequacy and pretension could finally make way for competence and sincerity. At least in that, perhaps this last year wasn't the worst to happen to wizards and witches. The other side had their opportunity to prove their worth, many seemed to find the conservationists' efforts lacking, few could honestly confess to liking the previous regime. Lessons had been learned; the future was calling.

He was curious though. "Have you never wondered, sir, what it was all about, all those mysterious games Dumbledore used to play?"

Shacklebolt considered the question. "Frequently, yes. Are you saying that you will finally reveal what Albus and you were doing, the things you've been doing since August?"

He nodded. "I won't tell you everything," he warned, sparing a glance at the infamous Death Stick, "because some of it remains rather sensitive. I will give you the gist of Voldemort's situation and why you might send your goblin liaisons to Gringotts to prevent a possible goblin rebellion from breaking out."

That certainly caught the black man's interest.

"I'll have to tell you about what kind of man Voldemort was before I go into any of that." He paused for a moment, sipping from the glass of water every patient had on their bedside table. "Voldemort was... an ambitious man. Bastard son to a Muggle and a near Squib, his greatest if not only fear was death. When he went to Hogwarts in the forties and learned magic from reliable and less reliable sources, he discovered a phenomena called a Horcrux. Are you familiar with the term?"

Shackelbolt shook his head.

"Basically, a Horcrux is a vessel of a soul, a piece of a soul in fact. It's an abomination of magic, requiring murder for its creation. When a person creates a Horcrux, they split their soul in half and store the split off part in an object of their choosing. As long as that object isn't destroyed, that person literally can't die, because the Horcrux will always keep the rest of the soul among the living."

An expression of dawning comprehension was forming on the ex-Auror's face.

"Voldemort created his first Horcrux at the age of sixteen, the object in question was an empty diary. Lucius Malfoy had it in his possession for a long time until he "gave" it to Ginny Weasley when I was twelve. I suppose you must've heard about what went on at the school that year?"

"The events hardly were a secret to the rest of the world," Shacklebolt responded. "And I think I remember something about a diary from a conversation I had with Arthur in the summer of 1995. You destroyed it, didn't you?"

"I did," he acknowledged. "Nearly died doing so as well. Anyhow, you'd think that having made one Horcrux, Voldemort would have been satisfied? Well, I did tell you the man was an ambitious fellow. He ended up creating seven Horcruxes in total. One was the diary, the second object he perverted was the family ring of his maternal family, the Gaunts. They're actually very distant relatives of mine, can you believe it? Of course there's centuries of difference between the Gaunts and the Potters, so that's something to be glad of." He paused. "I'm getting off track, no?"

"You were talking about the second Horcrux."

"Right, the Gaunt ring. Dumbledore located that one in the summer of 1996. There was a curse on it, which would have killed the headmaster swiftly if it hadn't been for Snape's potions skills."

"Are you implying what I think you're implying?" Shacklebolt inquired.

"Snape was the most rotten person I know of, but he did have a couple of... redeeming qualities. They aren't much in comparison to the bad deeds that can be ascribed to him, but he did keep Hogwarts from becoming the next Auschwitz like what the Carrows imagined." A disturbed look crossed the other's face. Harry chuckled. "Potter's first law: No matter how fucked up a situation is, it could have been a lot worse.

"Moving onto the third, or possibly fourth Horcrux created – I'm not one hundred percent certain about the timeline on those. That was a Slytherin heirloom, a golden locket with some diamonds and other frivolous stuff the founder must've liked on top. Regulus Black stole it in 1979 and store it in Grimmauld Place. Unfortunately he was killed before he could destroy it. Dumbledore and I went looking for that one the night he was murdered, only found out about Regulus stealing it in August. We were staying in the old headquarters, you see. Fletcher stole that locket when he was pilfering the place after Sirius's death. Sold it to Dolores Umbridge."

"Umbridge was possessed by Voldemort?"

Harry shook his head. "We stole the locket from her somewhere in September or October, I'm not sure when exactly, my mind's a bit murky when it comes to that time. When we infiltrated the Ministry under Polyjuice and caused some chaos, that's when we stole it. I doubt Umbridge was influenced by the locket though. She's got that natural disposition towards being a bitch a lot of women lack."

The Minister hummed neutrally, neither agreeing, but certainly not disproving.

"The fourth Horcrux was a Hufflepuff heirloom, a cup. Voldemort got the Lestranges to store it in their family vault. We made a deal with an excommunicated goblin: he would help us get the cup, we would give him Gryffindor's sword after we dealt with Voldemort. As far as I know, it's the only method of destroying a Horcrux. He betrayed us though and we had to catch a ride on a dragon to escape Gringotts, with the cup in our possession of course."

"The goblin broke the deal first?"

"Yes, he did."

"Then I don't think we should expect a rebellion from those quarters."

"You're sure? Too bad. I bet it would've looked good on my resume."

"You're already in the history books," Shacklebolt said, "but I suppose that if you really caused a goblin rebellion, you'd really get blasted into eternal fame if Binns keeps on teaching History."

Harry stifled a grin. Maybe the old ghost would finally learn his name if that were the case. He cleared his throat. "The next Horcrux was another founder heirloom, he had some kind of fetish going for that quartet: Ravenclaw's infamous diadem. It was hidden here in Hogwarts and destroyed during the Battle.

"The sixth Horcrux was Nagini."

"Longbottom took care of that creature," Shacklebolt nodded. "So what was the seven Horcrux?"

"That's where things get complicated," Harry murmured. "When Voldemort attacked my parents' cottage in Godric's Hollow on the 31st of October '81, he planned on created his sixth Horcrux by murdering me. He killed my mother and did whatever spellwork's required for creating a Horcrux. When he needed the required murder to happen, he cast a Killing Curse towards me. My mother's sacrifice however interfered with that part. Voldemort essentially used his own murder to create that Horcrux, but because he wasn't corporeal when the piece of his soul split off, his soul went to the closest living presence in the room, me.

"I don't know when Dumbledore figured that out, but it mustn't have taken long. Over the years that followed, he devised a plan to deal with Voldemort and his Horcruxes even if all he had to go on were suspicions and extrapolations. I suppose you are aware of all of the adventures I've gone through at Hogwarts?"

Shacklebolt confirmed that he did in fact know about those.

"For Dumbledore, my first year was a test, to see whether I was influenced by the Horcrux within me or not. I sincerely doubt that he manipulated all of the events and players of the game he played with the Philosopher's Stone, but he certainly took advantage of the situation. I don't know what the deal was with my second year, but he took a backseat on that issue and decided to see what kind of reactions that minimal interference on his part would lead to. I'm just guessing, but that's how it seems like looking back. He could have done more, should have done more, but didn't."

Shacklebolt hummed thoughtfully. "I can see why you would think like this. I'm just wondering what this has to do with the Horcruxes."

"I'm getting there," Harry mentioned, "I just want you to realize that everything I've done and gone through has been influenced by Dumbledore to get me to the point of walking into that clearing several days ago with the intent of dying. Because if I died, then the Horcrux would be gone as well and anybody would have been able to end Voldemort's life."

"If you are supposed to be dead, then why are you alive right now?" Shacklebolt mused aloud.

"Because Dumbledore started to care," Harry answered. "He wanted me to live through that encounter. So he made some modifications to his plans, introduced an entirely different subject in the playground." He paused. "I'm not going to expand on that. There's too much temptation and danger involved. It's for the best if this is one myth to die a silent death. Let's just say that whatever was involved, it allowed me to confirm my earlier nickname of Boy Who Lived, well lived... That's perhaps too strong a word."

"That's right, your health. Forgot about that for a moment. Can you tell me what's wrong, now that you've explained all of this?"

Harry frowned and glanced at the sun peaking through one of the tall windows of the infirmary. "Imagine, for a moment, that the soul grows like a tree: starting from a tiny seed at birth to a full-grown, yards high tree at the end of a person's life. In 1981, the equivalent of my soul wouldn't account for much as far as trees go. Imagine then that to a living soul, a Horcrux would be like some kind of disease infecting an otherwise healthy tree. As the years go on and the soul grows, so will the disease infiltrate more and more of the tree. Then one day, the disease disappears completely and quite suddenly: the tree is healed, but the soul that's left behind? A hollow tree, that's what it would look like. Healthy on the outside, but rotten and dying within."

Shacklebolt frowned, trying to picture the description. What his mind came up with wasn't encouraging.

"Removing the Horcrux," Harry said, "left behind gaps and holes in who and what I am, scars and scratches that will take a lot of effort to undo, let alone heal. Maybe I'll live, maybe I won't."

"I think I understand," Shacklebolt cautiously expressed. "I hope you realize that I won't have any choice but to give you an Order of Merlin for what you've done."

Harry sighed. "I suppose there's some ceremony involved with that?"

"A very elaborate ceremony," the Minister acknowledged. "I'll make sure however that that will be the only occasion you must be exposed to the public eye."

"I'd appreciate that," Harry smiled in relief.

Shacklebolt glanced at his watch briefly. "I should check how things are going in the Ministry; we're invading Azkaban tonight. Hopefully we'll recover everybody that got sent there. Unfortunately, I recently found out that the Unspeakables had free reign of the place. I fear for what we might find."

Harry nodded, his mind going back to the many documentaries his uncle made him watch as a young kid. The concentration and extermination camps of the Nazis featured a lot in those. The last Potter scion feared that when it came to experimentations, Muggles and wizards were entirely too human.

"If the Aurors need help gathering the Death Eaters," he eventually suggested, "Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom should be up to the task."

"You're sure about those two?"

"In this endeavor? Certainly." He thought about them for a moment and about what Shacklebolt was asking him. "Anything else would depend on the task. Neville's reliable. Ron knows most of what went on this year. Hermione of course knows everything up until my confrontation with Voldemort. She's out of the country at the moment though."

"I'll keep it in mind."

The Minister rose from his seat, inciting Harry to disable the spells surrounding them, exhausting him all over again. He laid back in his bed, his eyes tracing Shacklebolt's path out of the infirmary. Once his company officially left the hospital wing, he looked upwards and started counting the ceiling tiles for what felt like the five hundredth time in his life.

An absurd, slightly ridiculous thought crossed his mind at that moment. Counting Tiles would make for a good title for an autobiography. Which made him wonder whether Worple, who brought that vampire to Slughorn's gathering last year, would still be interested in writing a biography about him.

Note: Once upon a time this conversation resided in The Vault, a collection of odds ands ends I kept on this site. Principally speaking, there is more to this story. As it is, I believe this conversation can stand on its own for now. Au revoir, mes amis!