By headupintheclouds
A/N: MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR SPOILER WARNING! Seriously, disregard this story if you haven't FINISHED HBP!
Harry took the snake's neck in his hands and strangled it. Gasping and hissing for all it was worth, the snake refused to die. Finally, pulling out his wand, he used it to restrict Nagini's breath until she went limp in his own hands, the life leaving her. Then he stole into the night, having vanquished the second to last Horcrux.
He returned to the house in Godric's Hollow that his parents once inhabited, but was now populated with himself, Ron, and Hermione.
He swiftly climbed the stairs, avoiding his friends, and drifted to an uneasy sleep, as the final Horcrux was not unearthed yet. At the end of his conscious thought stream lay one final question: Did Voldemort know that he only had two remaining horcruxes?
The next morning, he went downstairs later than usual to find Hermione and Ron sipping coffee while perusing the newspaper. Hermione's brows furrowed, and Harry decided to make himself known. He yawned loudly, and both heads turned toward him, Hermione's a bit reluctantly. "'Morning," he said, pouring himself some coffee, not bothering with milk or sugar.
"Sleep well? Did you finish it last night then?" Ron asked, not bothering to find out about Harry's slumber.
"Yeah, it was surprisingly easy… I'm just glad that killing a living horcrux isn't considered murder, or at least not for our purposes. It was hard, both to know that the poor snake could have been totally innocent, and because I didn't feel like I was killing off Voldemort. She put up a fight, too," Harry explained a little groggily, and a kind of naïveté was absent, that had been present the night before.
"So there's only two left…" Hermione mused, deep in thought.
"Yeah," Harry shrugged, searching his mind. He reflected on the mysterious R.A.B. and recalled the letter. "Actually…"
Hermione looked up, a worried glint in her eye. "Actually what?" she prodded.
"Well, there's two left assuming…" he trailed off awkwardly.
"Assuming? Assuming? I thought we hunted down and destroyed all but ONE." Hermione exploded. "Except for Voldemort, f course."
"Well, there may be another one." He told them about the note from R.A.B. "So there's two more, but only if R.A.B. didn't destroy his. Otherwise we may be on a wild goose chase."
"But you said that we only had to find one! How are we supposed to find something, when we DON'T know who R.A.B. is, or whether he-"
"-or she." Interjected Ron, who had kept quiet the entire time.
"Yes, yes. Or she, IS? We can't assume it destroyed. Was there any indication of how old the letter was? A time period would help our research. Or… ANY clue as to what the Horcrux may have been?"
Well, it had to have fit in the basin," Harry said slowly, searching his mind for any betrayal as to size or shape. "I can't think of anything… Can't we just assume it's destroyed?"
"Most certainly not! If he couldn't destroy it in the cave, then it must have been obtrusive… or awkward… or incredibly well protected, even inside the basin… or perhaps it was indestructible… or he was worried about some kind of time constraint… or it..." she trailed off, unsure.
"This R.A.B. seemed to know he was going to die, and I doubt he would've left the Horcrux sitting somewhere while he expected to die…" Harry said thoughtfully.
"Regulus Alphard Black." Ron said, grinning manically.
"WHAT?" asked Hermione. "You don't honestly think Voldemort would put part of his soul in another human?" She said, looking at him incredulously.
"No, no," he said, frowning slightly. "R.A.B."
"Oh, of course, I thought of that ages ago, but it seems so… If he started to falter in his allegiance to Voldemort, wouldn't he have been killed on the spot? And he couldn't very well be untrue behind a part of him, now could he?"
"I guess…" Ron said dejectedly.
"Hermione, can I speak to you for a moment?" Harry asked, gesturing her out of the room.
"Of course," she said, scooting out of her chair and following him into the hall.
"Remember when we talked about those times when you hurt Ron without intending to?" Harry asked pointedly.
"Yes, I…. Oh dear… that was one of them wasn't it?" she asked, her face falling.
Harry nodded, and Hermione turned sharply on her heel, directing herself back into the kitchen.
"Ron, I'm so sorry… you effort was valiant, I got… carried away… what happened?" she asked, finally looking up to see Ron's face. It had grown uncharacteristically white, and a look of horror had crossed his face. He stared straight ahead, seemingly too scared to speak.
"What happened?" she burst again, rushing over to his side, gently placing her hand over his, which rested on the table.
"Harry, what did you… say… about the final horcrux?" Ron asked slowly, scared of the answer.
"Well, Dumbledore said it was likely that he collected something of all of the Founder's, which would leave us with Gryffindor's item to find," he stated.
"Something of Gryffindor's… did he have any… ideas?" Ron asked, hoping that Dumbledore had abounded in them.
"Well… no. Just something that belonged to Godric. The only thing I could think of was Godric Gryffindor's sword, but I don't know how he could've gotten his hands on that." Harry said, looking curiously at his friend.
"Wasn't the Sorting Hat Gryffindor's?" Hermione asked carefully.
"Well, yeah…" Harry agreed. "But I don't know how he could've gotten his hand on that, either."
"Well, I can think of something that else that belongs to Godric Gryffindor," said Ron sadly.
"What?" Harry and Hermione cried in unison, confused by Ron's reluctance.
Finally taking his eyes off the wall in front of him and letting them land on his friend, who still occupied the doorway, Ron said quietly, "You, Harry."
A/N: Yeah, there's more to come… I'm sincerely hoping that in the real series, Harry isn't a Horcrux, but that definitely could happen. It would be a major plot twist.