Potter47
Three
The Slytherin Locket, or:
The Apple and the Snake
Harry Potter walked back and forth and back and forth and back and forth in front of the wall that was really a door pretending to be a wall that was concealing the Room of Requirement, and he thought very hard upon a single image:
The Slytherin Locket.
Or more precisely, the Slytherin Locket as it appeared upon the cover of the British Adult Edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
When he was finished with his forth-and-back walking, Harry flung open the door (that had recently appeared in the aforementioned wall) and started inside.
The rest of the gang followed behind him--or rather, the rest of the group, for it seemed rather unlikely for Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Luna to act very much like a gang.
"Where are we, yo?" said Luna, entering the Room, eyes wide.
"It looks like... Grimmauld Place," said Harry.
"But that's nonsense," said Hermione. "Clearly the Slytherin Locket could not be in Grimmauld Place... that would make no sense whatsoever and would be thoroughly unforeshadowed."
Harry, Ron, and Ginny stared at her. Luna was busy practicing her "gangsta" pose in a nearby mirror.
Hermione laughed nervously at the stares.
"Or I could be wrong..." she added bracingly.
"Look!" said Ginny, pointing to the glass cabinets against the wall. "It's the locket!"
The rest of the group scurried over to the cabinet.
"By golly, you're right," said Ron. "We must be right bloody stupid not to have noticed the big shiny 'S' when everything else in here says 'B'..."
"Yeah, well, I was distracted that summer," said Harry defensively.
"Oh yeah," said Ginny, "that year was your first foray into emo..."
Harry shot her an annoyed, if slightly depressed, glare.
"Seriously, Harry--" began Ginny.
"Sirius..." moped Harry, interrupting...
Ginny ignored him: "You're being a bad influence," she said. "You're supposed to be a hero--a role model--an example for the rest of the world. But the way you're acting, the next thing you know, everyone'll be all depressed, trying to be like you. How would you feel if all the heroes started being emo, hmm? What would the world have come to if we have an emo Spiderman?"
"Spiders!" shrieked Ron, scuttling behind Luna and using her as a human shield.
"Don't be stupid Ron," said Ginny, "I just said--"
"Spider!" shouted Ron again, and Ginny looked around.
A ginormous (which is apparently not a word, but is anyway) acromantula had popped into existence, guarding the glass cabinet that held the locket.
"SPIDER!" shouted Ginny, scuttling behind Harry and using him as a human shield. In turn, Harry scuttled behind Hermione, and Hermione scuttled behind Ron--the group now rather resembled a human centipede. Or a conga line. Or a conga line assembled of the disembodied segments of a centipede.
Luna, at the front of the line, shook her head sadly. "Fo shizzle, it's only a little spider," she said. Then she left the conga line behind her, and started towards the spider, cooing.
"I'm going to name you Junior, yo," said Luna, petting the spider under the chin.
"Junior!?" shouted Ron. "I certainly hope there's no Sen--"
Ron had intended on saying, "I certainly hope there's no Senior," but he did not have a chance to finish, for quite suddenly, there was no Junior either. Standing just in front of the cabinet in its place was none other than Severus Snape, looking more than a little unhappy, and more than a little unfriendly.
"I would appreciate it," he said, measuring his tones quite carefully, "if you would refrain from stroking my chin, Miss Lovegood."
Luna looked at him for a minute and slowly seemed to realize that he was not in fact still a spider. Then her eyes widened, and she jumped back into the centipede.
As she rejoined it, Harry stepped out of it, wand raised towards Snape.
"You killed Dumbledore!" he shouted. "On page 606!"
Snape smirked. "Actually, it was page 556," he said, "or, I believe, 596 in the American edition."
"MURDERER!" shouted Harry, brandishing his wand like a grown person might brandish a Wii remote--rather flailingly, to say the least.
"Indeed," said Snape, quite businesslike. "However, I must inform you that while I brutally murdered Dumbledore by sending him careening off a tower, I only did so on his own explicit instructions."
"Sure you did," said Harry, brandishing still more flailingly. "What kind of a raving lunatic would instruct somebody to send them off a tower--"
He paused, thinking of Dumbledore.
"Welcome back to the Order, Snape," said Harry, patting him on a shoulder. Snape raised an eyebrow.
"Don't touch me," he said.
"Of course, professor," he said. "My apologies."
Snape smirked once again. "That's better."
The Half-Blood King knocked purposefully upon the door--the very door which had, over a year before, been knocked upon by Narcissa Malfoy. That was rather irrelevant, but true nonetheless.
"Coming!" said a nervous, squeaky sort of voice.
The door swung open to reveal Wormtail, but as Po had never met Wormtail, it merely revealed a small, pathetic, nervous-looking, ratty sort of man.
"Hello," said Po, "I'm looking for--"
"Your name?" inquired Wormtail suddenly.
"Po," said Po. "Po Turforti-Seén."
"Well, thank you, Po," said Wormtail, "but your Half-Blood Prince is in another castle."
Po blinked.
"Drat. Where is he?"
"Well, he doesn't tell me very much about his plans," said Wormtail, "but from what I gather, he is at Hogwarts, waiting in some obscure version of the Room of Requirement in his animagus form, on the off-chance that Harry Potter will show up in search for the Slytherin Locket contained in the Room-of-Requirement-duplicate of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place." He paused, and then added: "That's in London."
Po blinked.
"Er, thanks," he said.
"Anytime," said Wormtail cheerily. "Let me know if you find him--he said he was going to bring me home McDonald's and I'm getting pretty blasted hungry."
"Will do," said Po, and he departed for Hogwarts.
"Now that you're here, Potter," said Snape, "it is time to open the locket."
"Are you sure that's wise, Professor?" said Hermione. "Couldn't it be dangerous?"
"Of course it could." He reached within the glass cabinet, pulled the heavy locket out from inside, and held it out in front of him. The group gathered around. He continued: "It is most certainly going to be dangerous, as this locket contains a fragment of the Dark Lord's soul. It is likely one of the most dangerous things any of us will ever hold in our hands. In fact, this locket is so mysterious, and full of such mysterious magical energy, that upon opening it, the world may never be the same again."
The six of them held their breaths. Harry reached forward and took the locket from Snape, and without another thought, flipped it open. A shiny, black rectangle slipped out of the locket and into Harry's other hand.
They blinked, in unison.
"It's..." said Harry, eyes wide. "It's an iPhone!"
"I should have known," said Snape to himself. "What else would be full of such dark magic..."
"Oooh, it's shiny..." said Luna.
"Can I touch it, Harry, can I...?" said Hermione, with bated breath.
"Quiet," said Snape. "Nobody is going to touch it," he said.
The group let out a sigh, as one.
Suddenly--causing everyone except for Luna to jump nearly a foot in the air--it rang.
Harry gulped. It continued to ring.
"Go on," said Snape. "Answer it."
Harry hesitated, and then, finally, gathering up all his strength... he answered it.
"Hello?" he said.
The others watched unblinkingly as a small, high-pitched sound emitted from the phone at Harry's ear. It continued to speak for a minute, and then, finally, Harry spoke once again:
"I'm sorry, we're not Lenny's Pizza--you've got the wrong number," he said, and hung up.
Another collective sigh, this one of relief.
"Well, that was--" began Ron, but at that moment, something entirely unexpected happened:
The iPhone rang once again. Everyone jumped again, including Luna this time, who jumped quite nimbly into Ron's arms as though she wasn't scared at all, and had merely planned it that way.
"Hello?" said Harry, again.
This time they could all hear the voice on the other end quite clearly.
It was Lord Voldemort.
"Hello," said Lord Voldemort. "I'd like a large cheese, a medium meat-lover's, and a small Hawaiian... and on the cheese, I'd like some extra cheese, and pepperoni on the side. Do you understand? Oh, and I'd love to try some of your scrumptious-looking Cinna-sticks..."
"Erm," said Harry, "I'm sorry. You've got the wrong number."
"Oh, drat," said Lord Voldemort, and he hung up with a click.
"Quick," said Snape, "we've got to destroy it."
"You're right," said Hermione.
"I know," said Snape.
"But how do we destroy it?" said Ginny.
"How about we smash it?" suggested Ron.
"That'll never work, Ron," said Hermione. "The warranty covers that--they'll give you a new one over and over and over if it breaks... perfect choice for a Horcrux, when you think of it..."
"Then what do we do...?"
"I have an idea," said Luna.
The others went silent.
She grabbed the phone out of Harry's hand and began fiddling around on it. She brought up the Google Earth program, and entered "Hogwarts."
The screen went into a sort of panic, and at once, the phone blew up in a puff of smoke, having realized that indeed, there was something it could not do.
"Brilliant," said Ron, grinning.
"So how many Horcruxes do we have left?" said Luna briskly.
"Um... well, there was the ring, and the diary, and now the locket, so that's three. So there are three left."
"Then let's get Horcrux-hunting, yo," said Luna, and she led the way out of the Room of Requirement.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
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