I have Seen Your Heart and It Is Mine
Albus Dumbledore looked down the short, neglected path with disdain. The hedges that shielded the shack at the end of it from view were overgrown and weedy, leafy tendrils spread across the path and broke under each step, and the air was silent. It was as if there had been no life in this area for many years, as it was marked with the scent of Dark Magic.
Trudging down the weathered trail that he had, until now, only seen in memories belonging to Bob Ogden, he rounded the bend. Now that it was in sight, Dumbledore took notice of the dilapidated home for the first time. It looked much the same as it had in those old memories, although it was completely overrun by vines. Hanging from the door were the limp remains of an old snakeskin. There were only a few scales left on that rusty nail, and had Dumbledore not seen the memories he would not have known what it was.
Stepping up to the old house, he extended his hand carefully. He had no knowledge of what Tom would do to protect the Horcruxes, or even what this one would be. The only example he had seen thus far was the diary, and that had simply been left on a bookshelf with the Malfoys for at least eleven years.
Closing his eyes he began muttering every countercharm he could think of to disable protections around the hiding place. Obviously there would be no Fidelius Charm, but any of the common hexes that harmed interlopers would be present, along with some of the rarer and nastier curses that Tom would have learned after Hogwarts. Satisfied that he had eliminated any major outside protections that he could think of, he rounded the shack a number of times, searching for a secret means of entry.
Coming up with nothing but a faint magical energy at the door, he examined it closely. As he passed his wand over where the snake used to be, the old, dead snake appeared. For a moment, it remained motionless. Without warning, it slithered into a position so that it would be eye level with the old wizard and spoke.
"Let only He who is of blood purest enter here. Let only He who is of blood noblest enter here. Let only the Heir, in his infinite glory enter here. Only He can speak to me, and only He knows the secrets of this House."
Dumbledore blinked as the snake relaxed. He turned for a second, thinking. The snake had spoken in its own tongue, and he was truly glad he had taken the time to learn to understand the language. To enter, it appeared he had to speak the secrets of the shack in Parseltongue. He readied his tongue and readied his mind to slowly walk him through the task of speaking the words he knew by sound, and then he replied.
"The great Lord Voldemort owns this House and the secrets contained therein, for it is his ancestral home, the home of the Gaunts, who were the descendants of Salazar Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four."
Smiling as he recalled Tom's predilection for the grandiose, he watched as the snake disappeared, and the door swung open. The room inside was coated with dust, and broken pottery lay neglected at the base of a table, into which a knife was stuck. The rest of the place was unremarkable. Examining the kitchen, he found nothing that he would consider a candidate for the Horcrux. He did have an idea as to what it was, but he could never be sure. The diary, after all, had nothing to do with the Malfoys, and so he may not have hidden the ring in the shack.
Taking his time in the sitting room, crawling on his hands and knees trying to find any loose floorboards, Professor Dumbledore found nothing yet again. He went off to one of the doors in the four-room house, and found a small sign that said Morfin, Merope. Merope's name had been crossed out. With a sigh, he opened the door. There was a single bed, untouched in roughly fifty years. The scratches, the many deep scratches in the headboard were still, unfortunately, as evident as the bloodstains that marred the sheets. Swiftly checking the bedside table for anything and only finding another knife, this one still covered in old, dried blood, Dumbledore left this sad, pitiful excuse for a room.
He crossed the tiny space that separated the last room from the room marked Marvolo, Mufrid. Opening the door, he knew he would find success in this room. Tom shared a name with his grandfather. Clearly, especially in light of the memory he had taken from Morfin, Marvolo's room would be the only one in this place that he would entrust a portion of his soul.
There were no scratches in the headboard, no bloodstains on the sheets. It was as clear as day that the room had been unvisited in nearly fifty years as well. Strolling over to the bedside table, the dust exploding under his steps, he gestured his wand toward the cabinet, knowing that the Horcrux lay just inside. With a flick of his wand, the cabinet opened, and he peered inside. There it was; the ring that had been passed down through generations until it had managed to find its way to the last heir of Salazar Slytherin.
And then he saw it. It was completely plain to see, and he wondered at how he had missed it in his viewing of Ogden's memories. The symbol of the Deathly Hallows rested on the black stone in that ring, that black stone that was the key to his atonement. The Resurrection Stone, set into a ridiculously ornate ring, had Dumbledore transfixed. Without hesitation, he placed the ring on his finger, and he regretted it immediately.
The ring shrank, constricting his finger, and all the while Albus could feel long-suppressed memories being brought to the surface. Hatred, disgust, anxiety, fear, and every other possible negative emotion coursed through him. Jealousy; that Aberforth had not been the one left to raise a rambunctious younger brother and a magically disabled sister. Fear; that he may not be able to contribute much longer in this world to keeping Tom's reign of terror in check. Hatred; hatred for himself, because he knew in his heart that he had been the one to kill Ariana, that he had been the one to kill his dear little sister.
Weighed down by this, Albus somehow managed to find his way out of the shack, and Apparated back to The Hog's Head. Taking a broom he had left there before he had gone to Little Hangleton, he flew toward the castle, besieged with worry and dread. He made his way toward his office as quickly as possible, and his chest felt heavier with every step as he breathed. He could feel his heart racing, and on his finger he felt a separate, inhuman heartbeat.
The stone gargoyle leapt aside to grant him entry, and once he was inside, he prised off the ring, casting it across the room. His head cleared, and his mind returned to him. Never, not ever, would he live through those horrible memories again. He opened the glass case that contained the Sword of Godric Gryffindor, and he took it in his trembling hands. He closed his right hand over the hilt, except for the finger the ring had rested on. That finger was black, dead, and he could see the death spreading from the tips of his other fingers. He raised the sword above the Stone and began to swing it down.
A voice echoed from the Stone, a voice at once familiar and unknown to Dumbledore. "I have seen your heart, Albus Dumbledore, and it is mine."
Albus stood still, in mid-swing.
"I have seen your dreams, and I have seen your fears. All that you wanted when you were young is now happening, and everything you now dread shall come to pass. Thrust into manhood, completely unready... Thrust into a friendship by your own arrogance, a friendship that stripped you of all you cared for... Chosen second by the sister you valued over your own life..."
From the spot on the Stone bearing the symbol of the Deathly Hallows raised two figures, one with long hair and beard, hiding his spectacles, the other a young girl, clasped on the shoulder by the older man. "Ariana," Albus sobbed, the sword now at his side, three of his fingers having succumbed to death's warm embrace.
"What do you want, Albus? Have you finally found it in you to care for Ariana? While you were off with Grindelwald, she and I would sit together. We laughed at your attitude, your holier-than-thou beliefs, and your presumption. We never laughed, though, at your..." Riddle-Aberforth trailed off, his hand still on the ghostly visage of Ariana.
"We never laughed at your neglect, big brother!" Riddle-Ariana screeched, her normally deep, blue eyes turning a shade of vivid red. "Why, oh why did big brother ignore me today, Aberforth? Why, oh why did big brother forget to feed us dinner, Aberforth? Why, oh why did big brother kill me, Aberforth? Was it because of his new friend? Was it because he's so in love with Grindelwald that he's forgotten about us? Why would he need us when he's got Grindelwald the Great, Grindelwald the Beautiful, Grindelwald the Love of His Life?" the visage mocked, bringing Albus to his knees as he cried from guilt.
"We never needed him, little sister. He never helped us, and he only got in the way. I was nice to you. I made sure you were fed, and helped you keep your magic under control so nothing bad would happen." Riddle-Aberforth put on a most horrid display of comforting his sister, knowing that every word would dig into Albus. In the background of the office, if the lighting caught it just right, the faint outline of a sixteen year old boy was starting to form.
"I've always loved you best, Aberforth. Big brother probably doesn't even like me enough to be jealous, but I don't mind. I always hated him," she mocked as the two shadowy visages hugged. The outline of the boy was starting to fill in, and a completely transparent Tom Riddle stood in the office as Dumbledore stood, incensed, and raised the sword, in his left hand; all five of the fingers on his right hand were dead now, and the decay was spreading to the rest of his hand.
He swung the sword, cracking the Stone down the middle, and a horrible wail of pain came from behind him. The horrible visions of Ariana and Aberforth had vanished, and Albus Dumbledore watched with fear as a vision of Tom Riddle slowly broke apart behind him. Once the soul piece had vanished, he picked up the ring and laid it on his desk, along with the sword. Pinching some Floo Powder in his left hand, and frowning at his right, he tossed it into the grate of his fireplace. The flames turned emerald green, and he stuck his head in and shouted "Severus Snape's Office!"
Within moments he was looking into the office of the school Potion's Master, who was just walking into the room. On seeing Dumbledore's head in the fire, he walked over and asked "Is there anything you need, Professor Dumbledore?"
"As a matter of fact, there is, Severus," Dumbledore said without the usual twinkle in his eye or subtle joking manner. "If I remember correctly, when you give your speech to the first year students each year, you tell them that you can bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death. I wonder, Severus, could you possibly do that last one for me?"