DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling.
~ Guiding Light ~
(based on "Gifts" by The Rose in Death's Garden)
[in the 45th year since the Rebirth of Our Dark Lord]
"What is it?" the child asked, awestruck, reaching uselessly toward the high shelf upon which the tiny jar was perched.
"Faerie glass," the monster answered in a voice hoarse with disuse.
The child turned shining eyes toward the dark corner where the firelight didn't reach. Her sight could not pierce the shadows but she had been taught that it was polite to look at your interlocutor during a conversation.
"Isn't that really rare?"
"Supposedly. Although I've owned two of them in my existence."
"What's the light inside it, though? It doesn't look like a firefly or a wisp."
"It's a shard of someone's soul."
"It's a horcrux?" the child inquired, with not a single hint of revulsion. She had been raised on tales of dark magic and horror, and as such had little sense of fear toward subjects which many people would find unpalatable.
"No," the monster rasped. "Faerie glass is made to contain a light source. A piece of soul extracted in hatred would fail to emit light."
The child possessed enough knowledge to be aware that the opposites of darkness and hatred were light and love, and enough sense not to speak her thought process aloud in the monster's presence.
"Whose soul is it?"
"Your grandmother."
~oOo~
