A/N: I just wanted to reiterate that this is an old story that somehow got deleted from - I'm merely reposting it here, and editing a few things.
A/N: I own nothing. J.K owns everything. The words in italics refer to character thoughts or memories. There is a bit of a non-linearity in terms of timeline in this chapter - there's a time lag between Hermione's PoV and Harry's PoV.
Bygones and Now
Hermione Granger still sat at the table, her mind awhirl, working things out. The meeting, however, was not yet over.
McGonagall glanced at each Order member in turn before continuing, "Several of you may be surprised at the fact that Harry Potter – or at the very least, an individual resembling him – has, of late, resorted to the Dark Arts.
"Bearing this in mind, the Order withdraws all previous orders to capture Harry Potter on sight. It is, quite obviously, too dangerous. And I personally suggest that we stop looking for Harry Potter altogether, instead devoting all our resources to finding Lord Voldemort's base of operations."
Hermione was not as surprised as she thought she would be – nonetheless, that niggling feeling that they were all abandoning Harry persisted.
McGonagall continued, as if she had read Hermione's mind, "I… do not want to abandon Harry. And yet, in times of war, priorities must be… enforced; we cannot waste more time on such matters, however difficult it may be for some of us.
"For we are losing this war."
There were murmurs around the table.
McGonagall sighed. "Indeed", she repeated firmly, "We are losing this war. We've lost important locations all over England. Europe is virtually under siege - we cannot expect any help from the other Ministries. Only three crucial locations are left to us unscathed – Diagon Alley, Hogwarts Castle and the Ministry of Magic.
"Now, before this discussion segues into a debate of our status in this war, I would like to mention another curious event, which took place this morning… an event that I confess I'm incredibly reluctant to part with, in light of what I said earlier. But in the interests of full disclosure, I met Mundungus Fletcher."
Several people at the table smirked. McGonagall's lips thinned.
"Or rather, Mundungus sought me out. He was released from Azkaban at around four in the morning today and he seemed rather keen on meeting me, as evidenced by the fact that he practically accosted me on my way to the grocer's at six in the morning. He seemed to be extremely shaken – more shaken than is common for those who reside for a month in the higher reaches of Azkaban, where dementor presence is slim. Anyway, after much… persuasion… Mundungus eventually handed over a memory of his own."
She twirled her wand again. The Pensieve glowed for a moment, before it once more settled to a shimmering silvery-white. Another memory began to play out on a hazy rectangular screen atop the bowl.
Mundungus shivered violently… just as he did every Saturday evening when the one of the few dementors that chose to remain at Azkaban made their routine, weekly inspection of his section of the prison. The dementors that had chosen to stay behind were mostly older ones – the ones that chose to remain at a place where they were assured of regular food than hunt for prey in the service of the Dark Lord.
Suddenly, he heard a small scuffle near the door to his cell block. Mundungus tensed. Was the Dark Lord trying to free some of his faithful Death Eaters who had once been miraculously snagged by an increasingly inept Ministry? Mundungus shook his head. No, he was placed in the regular wing. Most of the Death Eaters were placed in the high security wing at the East End of the island. No fool in his right mind would try to free the morons in his wing. Then, a few guards ran past his cell. Mundungus leaned towards the bars, only to see the warden of his block sprint past him.
"The East End is under attack!" the warden exclaimed suddenly, "All of you… MOVE!"
Mundungus smiled as the guards rushed past his cell, this time in the other direction. So the Dark Lord was trying to rescue his faithful.
Five minutes passed, then an explosion shook the entire island. Mundungus heard an inhuman roar in the distance. His heart sank. The invaders had brought a giant with them. With luck though, the giant would not make an appearance near their end of the island. Some of the other prisoners, however, were not so hopeful. The two men in the cells adjoining his were screaming and pleading for help.
"The fools," muttered Mundungus, "Their voices will draw the giant right towards us."
Following his muted outburst though, everything seemed to fall silent at once. The very air seemed to grow still around Mundungus and his cell bars creaked ominously as he felt a powerful magic seep into his cell. And then…
"I'm pleasantly surprised, Mundungus… apparently, you do have a functioning brain up in that bald head of yours."
It took a minute for Mundungus to register that the voice had come from inside his cell. He whirled around with a gasp, his heart thundering in his chest. A cloaked figure stood near the far wall, leaning casually against it with its arms crossed andits face shrouded in shadows that the torches in the prison corridors could not quite vanquish.
"Who… are you?" Mundungus rasped as he retreated from the cloaked figure, which cocked its head nonchalantly at him, "I… I am not a Death Eater…"
"That much… is painfully obvious," the figure said smoothly, in a spine-chilling voice that sounded strangely familiar and distant at once.
The figure straightened and pushed off the far wall, walking towards him.
And Mundungus stared into the face of Harry Potter, illuminated in all its harsh glory by the flickering torchlight from the prison corridor.
Mundungus slumped to the ground. "Harry?" he said blearily, " 'Ow did you get in?"
Harry drew closer to Mundungus. His face hardened as he hissed, "Trust me, Dung, I've infiltrated far more dangerous… locales… than the low-security wing of a wizarding prison."
Mundungus realised that the attack, which had drawn away all the guards that usually hung around his cell, must have helped Harry in getting in.
"Harry," Mundungus rasped, "Yeh should go. There's Death Eaters 'round."
"Do not lull me with your concerned tone, Mundungus," Harry snarled, "It won't work. I need to know a few things."
" 'Nethin' fer yeh, Harry," Mundungus stuttered, his Cockney accent worse than ever.
"Among the Black heirlooms you stole, Mundungus, there was a locket with the letter 'S' carved on its face. Where is it?" Harry snarled, holding out his wand. Mundungus was thrown back against the wall.
Mundungus gasped, playing for time, "I… I don' know what yeh're talkin' 'bout, Harry…"
Harry physical slammed Mundungus against the wall, grasping his neck firmly with a single hand. Mundungus was taken aback by the boy's sheer strength – both physical and magical.
"Do not waste my time, Mundungus," Harry snarled, "Answer… and you'll live to see your freedom from this hellhole."
Mundungus' face steadily acquired a deeper shade of blue as Harry's arm constricted his throat with inhuman, wiry strength. In desperation, the self-proclaimed goods appropriator choked out, " 'Tis buried… near the tree… outside my house…"
Harry released Mundungus from his stranglehold. The thief slumped to the floor, breathing heavily. When he looked up again, Harry Potter was holding out an envelope to him. The younger man bent down until he met Mundungus' petrified gaze squarely.
"Give this… to the Order," Harry rasped in his cold, eerie voice, "They need to take a look at the contents of this envelope."
Mundungus closed his trembling fingers around the rough fabric of the envelope, and gasped out, "Why?"
Harry paused.
"Why me?" Mundungus repeated.
Harry smiled, his lips twisting tightly as they surveyed Mundungus' trembling form. "Because you were the easiest Order member to find."
Mundungus looked at the envelope. There were no markings upon it.
And when he glanced up again, Harry Potter had vanished.
There were renewed murmurs around the table at Number 12, Grimmauld Place, as the Order viewed the memory.
McGonagall cleared her throat loudly. "I visited the place Mundungus mentioned - the tree outside his house - this afternoon. And I happened to find several of Sirius' family heirlooms. However, I did not see any locket matching Harry's description in the memory we just saw. I can only assume Harry retrieved it for a specific reason."
She peered at each of the members in turn, and her eyes came to rest on Hermione and Ron at the end of the table. "Do any of you know why Harry was after this locket?"
Ron looked over at Hermione nervously, who slowly shook her head.
McGonagall leaned back in her chair and sighed. "I don't know what the boy's doing, but I do hope he is helping us win this awful war."
Alastor Moody suddenly stood up. Every head at the table turned to face him. "Before we go any further," he said, in his characteristic harsh voice, "I would like to make a confession."
Hermione and Ron both tensed – she had just about had enough of revelations about Harry Potter today.
"Kingsley Shacklebolt was not the last person to see Harry Potter before he vanished," Moody said with a morbid chuckle.
"It was me… I was the last Member of the Order to see Harry Potter before he vanished for seventeen whole months."
Severus gasped in pain and his vision swam as he strove to rise from the spell that had taken him by surprise.
He rose unsteadily to his knees and waited for the world to come into focus once more as he groped blindly for his wand, which had fallen to the ground in the fray. Eventually, after a few heart-stopping seconds, where he breathlessly awaited a deadly follow-up spell, his hands closed around the familiar cold wood of his wand, and Severus felt self-assurance coursing through his veins as he rose to his feet, flourishing his wand anew, ready for battle.
He turned to face the magical being that had, figuratively speaking, sucker-punched him.
And in front of him, stood Harry Potter, smiling cruelly, with his wand levelled right at Severus.
There was dead silence around the table at Moody's bemused statement. Hermione chanced a glance at the chairs to her left. Ginny's face was pale. Neville and Luna, who had been incorporated into the Order at Hermione's insistence (Ron, as usual, had hidden in a corner as Hermione argued with McGonagall for inducting them into the Order), leaned forward in their chairs. McGonagall herself looked slightly taken aback. Apparently, Moody had had kept this information close to his chest, as was common with the paranoid ex-Auror.
"I trained him," muttered Moody, "The boy stayed at my house for nearly a month and a half before he left."
"And," Remus Lupin asked, clearing his throat, when Moody just stopped speaking, "I suppose you had good reason to keep this from us?"
"Wait," Molly Weasley asked, bewildered, "You allowed Harry to leave?"
"What do you mean you trained him?" asked Ron curiously.
McGonagall held up her hand and the questions stopped. She gestured to Moody to continue. Her lips were drawn in a thin line though, and her emotions were practically unreadable to Hermione.
Moody sighed, his mouth opening in a lopsided gash, and continued, "When Potter left Hogwarts, he had certain items with him that had once belonged to… Albus. A Pensieve, and five memories from the former Mugwump himself."
Hermione's curiosity finally overcame her bewilderment. Dumbledore left his Pensieve to Harry?
Moody continued, "Potter, after he escaped from the clutches of the Order, visited my place. In fact, he apparated right into the emergency apparition room at my house – a room that is known to few, and accessible to fewer. I may have been a bit… surprised at the boy's entrance. Any doubts I may have had, though, were laid to rest after… a duel, a few curses and… well, Harry eventually managed to persuade me to view one of Albus' memories."
"And so, a month after his death, I saw Albus Dumbledore again."
Moody sighed again. "Yes, I saw Albus. He pleaded with me to let Potter stay and train. He begged me to teach him all the advanced hexes, curses and spells I knew. I could not refuse an old friend, so I trained the boy. Taught him all I thought could be imparted to him in so short a timeframe.
"And Potter responded to my training in a way that even I could never have predicted. Don't get me wrong – the boy's forte was certainly not raw magical prowess, but he learnt every spell and curse I threw at him with zeal I scarcely see… even in Aurors.
"Potter remained at my house for a month and a half, soaking in every spell like a dry sponge. He trained sixteen hours a day, and slept for four. A degree of hard work and sincerity I haven't even seen in the DMLE. Kept me on my toes, the boy did. But after a month and a half, the boy vanished. I think… that he may have had more instructions from Albus… more memories. More tutors."
Moody stopped as abruptly as he had begun and slowly took his seat at the table. Hermione had never felt more perturbed.
Why didn't Harry visit me? Why didn't he visit Ron and Ginny? We're more than just friends! Why didn't he visit me?
Hermione shook her head. Would she ever see him again?
For a moment, her mind filled with memories of messy black hair, glossy and flowing in the spring wind, as Harry rode a broom over a grassy meadow just beyond Hagrid's cabbage patch. Happier days. Brighter days. Days that she missed sorely.
Hermione's breath hitched for a moment - she needed to get away from this meeting. She needed to clear her head.
Severus sneered at the man standing before him in the middle of a clearing in the Valley of Blood.
"Ah, yes," sneered Severus, in his smooth, silky voice, "The long-forgotten hero returns from his hero's journey. Positively mythical and dramatic."
Harry chuckled ruefully. "And the hero meets an old nemesis," he rasped, his voice hoarser than Severus remembered, "A nemesis who once engineered the death of the hero's parents. Quite a dramatic confrontation indeed."
Lily. No.
Severus' sneer fell away as white, hot rage – rage that belonged to an era when the Marauders still reigned in Hogwarts – reared its head in his chest, but Severus suppressed it with his Occlumency barriers, which were already fraying at the edges. The dense forest loomed over him and the starlight illuminated their clearing faintly.
Severus sneered again. "I have to give you credit, Potter," he said smoothly, his lips twitching, "Escaping like a rabid dog from the Ministry… your rashness knows no bounds, does it?"
"Does protecting those who love me seem like such a bad idea, Snape?" Harry spat, and then, tilting his head in a dramatic fashion, said, "Oh! I forget… you've never exactly had any loved ones, have you? And the one you did love…"
Lily.
Severus snarled, his rage overwhelming his Occlumency barriers, but he took deep calming breaths once more. He muttered viciously through gritted teeth, "Did you think flight from England would truly enable you to escape the clutches of the Dark Lord?"
Potter shrugged. "Not quite," he said, staring blankly into the distance for a moment, before he looked back at Severus. He then smiled darkly and said, "I'm back after all, aren't I? I was on a… hero's journey. Or rather, a hero's sabbatical."
Severus had to smile at that, but he knew it was time to end this confrontation as Potter raised his wand at the other end.
Severus brandished his own magic. A reddish-brown jet of light, so dense it seemed solid, made its way towards Harry Potter, but the boy erected a deep blue shield, which deflected the jet of light into the surrounding gloom. Harry smiled, green eyes blazing. "Using the Dark Arts already, are we?" he taunted.
Harry flicked his wand, almost teasingly. Severus recognised the flash of red light and blocked it easily. The spell was not meant to hurt him, it was meant to tease him – Levicorpus. Harry Potter wanted to goad Severus Snape, even in battle.
If Severus was previously angry, he was now positively furious. He let his Occlumency barriers crash down, as he reached out at Potter's mind with bursts of fierce Legilimency, only to meet an impenetrable wall of hardened obsidian. Potter was smiling. "Trying to get into my mind, are we?"
Severus sneered. "I'm surprised Potter. Some skill at last."
And then, Severus felt a blast of Legilimency at the walls in his own mind. He staggered backwards. Fury - white, hot, blazing fury – now coursed through his veins. Potter was apparently insolent enough to attack his mind… the mind of the most accomplished Occlumens in England. He let his rage fuel his spells through his wand. "Crucio!" he snarled. A jet of green light made its way towards Potter, who promptly disapparated. The jet missed, and a resounding crack shook the air as the spell struck the earth behind Potter.
Severus whirled around as he sensed the boy behind him, raising his wand. But he turned too late.
A golden thread of magic struck him in the stomach. Severus' felt his heart stop momentarily as he realised that he had just been struck with an Anti-Apparition Spell.
Out of sheer frustration, Severus growled out the first spell that came to his mind, "Serpensortia!"
The rage pulsing through him seemed to take form, as a snake sprouted from his wand tip, writhing and hissing fiercely. The snake's eyes glowed like embers in the dark as it made its way towards Potter. Severus chanced a glance at the boy.
Potter was smiling.
And then, Severus remembered. His heart plummeted. Potter is a Parselmouth.
"A pitiful mistake for a self-proclaimed, accomplish duellist," Potter sneered.
Severus tried to banish the snake, but his spell was deflected.
Then Potter hissed at the creature.
The snake turned abruptly and attacked its caster. Severus retreated and tried to disapparate, but Potter's Disapparition Charm was still too strong. The snake slithered towards the former Potions Master.
Potter flicked his wand again, and the snake grew tenfold in size, until its head was level with Severus' eyes. An Engorgement Charm.
Despite his predicament, Severus wondered when Potter had become so skilled at magic. For the first time in his life since graduating from Hogwarts, Severus was about to lose a duel against a scion of the Potter Clan. And that scion was as bitter, twisted and powerful as the last of the Snapes. Severus had eventually met his match, and was losing.
Severus sent another banishment charm at the huge snake, but in vain. Potter blocked his spell with ease. Severus was now being attacked from two fronts - he sent another frantic Cruciatus Curse at Potter, but the curse missed by inches.
He whirled around to face the snake. The creature reared, its tongue flicking about wildly, face to face with him. Severus frantically raised his wand, sending every spell he could think of at the snake, but Potter blocked his spells with an electric-blue Shield Charm Severus had never seen before. Potter was almost… toying… with him.
Out of sheer desperation, as Severus stared into the snakes eyes – its fangs only a feet away from his pallid face – he cast the most powerful spell he could muster, "Avada…"
But before he could complete the spell, his wand was blasted out of his hand. The snake struck. Severus closed his eyes and flinched, anticipating the piercing pain that would course through his body when the fangs sunk into his face. He held up a hand to shield his face – an action that he knew was futile even as he performed it – and the snake… vanished.
Severus – wandless and spiteful - glared at Potter, who was standing with his wand upraised. He felt enraged at himself… for everything. For losing the duel, and for committing that abominable mistake – when he had summoned the snake – which had enabled Potter to overpower him so easily.
Potter though, merely sneered at him and twirled his wand between his fingertips.
This was it. He was about to be humiliated.
Severus' head was almost bursting with rage and frustration as he retreated from the cloaked man stalking towards him. He had to escape. There was no choice. He channelled all his emotions through his raised palms. Wandless magic was difficult – but not impossible – for Severus Snape. Bursts of fierce magic escaped his palms, but he knew it was in vain as he witnessed Potter blocking his magical outbursts with ease. Another flick of Potter's wand and Severus found himself pinned against the trunk of a gnarled oak at the edge of the clearing in the Valley of Blood.
Severus clenched his teeth and spat on the ground. He felt exhausted. The wandless magic had left him drained. He sagged against his invisible bonds.
Potter's wand was level with his eyes. Is Potter going to kill me?
Potter circled his wand, almost hypnotically, before Severus' eyes. Magical warmth seemed to bathe Severus, caressing him as he fell into the comfort of slumber. Enchanted Sleep. Through the mist that was sweeping over the confines of his mind, he saw Potter's strategy clearly for a moment. Frantically, he tried to reconstruct his battered Occlumency barriers.
An infinitesimal moment later, he fell into an enchanted sleep.
"You mean to say Dumbledore… Dumbledore asked Harry to leave?" Hermione asked, barely containing the dismay she felt at Moody's revelation.
Moody nodded, but said nothing.
"And in each of those memories, Dumbledore prescribed a tutor for Harry?" Lupin asked, his normally grey eyes turning a shade of amber.
Moody shrugged, as if to say - "I guess so."
Hermione still did not understand why Dumbledore – the same man who had told them the value of friendship and love – had asked Harry to receive training alone. She even felt a twinge of jealousy and frustration. Did Dumbledore consider them incapable of assisting Harry? Or, was the path too dangerous for them, but not for Harry?
She had beaten Harry at every point from an academic perspective.
But could she have learnt like Moody described, torturing herself for sixteen hours a day?
Or was Harry so motivated to quell his thirst for vengeance?
The answers to all those questions, unfortunately, lay in Dumbledore's grave.
McGonagall cleared her throat loudly. The murmurs at the table stopped. She continued in a brisk voice, "Despite this revelation, or perhaps because of it, I hope we have reached a consensus here. All previous orders to capture Harry Potter on sight and bring him to safety are withdrawn."
She looked around the table for confirmation. The members nodded, though a few like Lupin and Hermione remained stiff-necked.
"And now, I present before the Order the reason why Mundungus was so eager to meet me – the letter from Harry Potter."
She reached into her cloak pocket and pulled out a plain white envelope. She then unsealed the envelope with her wand and unfolded the piece of parchment that floated out.
The Headmistress of Hogwarts glanced at the letter and then at the table, took a deep breath and read out the extremely short letter to the Order of the Phoenix.
"Next attack in three weeks."
Harry looked up at the heavens, admiring the hundreds of stars twinkling down at him. The prone form of Severus Snape, lulled into an enchanted sleep, lay at his feet. Harry knelt beside Snape's body, caressing the smooth forehead of the former Potions Master.
Occlumency was not the ultimate defence against Legilimency – it was never the ultimate defence. Even the mind of an accomplished Occlumens could be invaded by a skilled Legilimens at close range, provided he were in a deep sleep and his Occlumency barriers were lowered. Meanwhile, if the Occlumens did erect his barriers before he went to sleep, his subconscious would continue to sustain his Occlumency barriers and make his mind impenetrable to mental attacks. It was one of the reasons why Snape had insisted on Harry emptying his mind before he went to sleep, back in his fifth year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
It feels like centuries have passed between then and now.
Harry could only pray that Snape had been riled up enough before he had lulled his loathsome Potions Master into an indefinite enchanted sleep. If Snape had reconstructed even a part of his Occlumency barriers before he fell asleep, it would render his mind impenetrable. Harry reached out at the man's mind with a sliver of Legilimency, and as the thread of mental magic made contact with the Death Eater's mind, Harry let out a relieved sigh.
Snape's Occlumency barriers were completely annihilated.
Harry probed deeper into the mind of the man he hated so much – a hatred that felt strangely dulled, blunted by age and experience.
Seventeen months of rigorous, harsh training in magic had left him a changed man. Only two years ago, had he defeated Snape in a duel (not a very probable supposition – his magical ability had been pathetic back then), he would have killed the man, thus alerting Voldemort of his hunt for the Horcruxes.
But he was a different man now. A loathsome creature that had killed and butchered – not just magical creatures, but beings.
He hated himself.
Harry took a deep breath, cleared his mind and bulldozed his way into the mind of the most accomplished Occlumens in the United Kingdom.
There were no gasps or faint screams at the table in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place – merely numb shock.
McGonagall looked at the table, taking a deep steadying breath, her lips drawn in a thin line. She looked closely at the members of Order, and said, "We must be prepared. If Potter's information is true, You-Know-Who will attack any of the three locations left to us – Diagon Alley, Hogwarts or the Ministry. We have to be prepared. Kingsley - take this letter and alert the Minister, though I doubt it will do much but generate more panic. The Minister may deny it, but we are losing this war – that must stop. At all costs."
Kingsley nodded at McGonagall. The rest of the members tensed.
"Alastor, Remus and Horace – stay. The rest of you – disperse. I shall inform you of the next meeting as soon as possible."
All the members seated at the table, save Slughorn, Moody and Lupin exited the kitchen. Kingsley Shacklebolt – Senior Auror – snatched the letter out of McGonagall's wand and proceeded to the Ministry.
Hermione and Ron sat quietly in one corner of the living room. Ginny, Neville and Luna were playing a game of Exploding Snap with the Weasley twins in the opposite corner. There was a palpable tension around the room, though the question buzzing through their minds was the same – How did Harry know when You-Know-Who would attack next?
Ron slowly drew closer to Hermione. "Damn!" he whispered furiously, "Harry got to the locket first."
Hermione sighed. "Yes," she whispered back, exasperated, "He got to the locket. And to think we were waiting for Mundungus to be released before we drilled him with questions."
They had never quite abandoned Harry. She and Ron had furiously searched for more information about the Horcruxes, consulting every single book in the Hogwarts Library, and the Black Library at Grimmauld Place. They had found very few clues. They suspected that the memories Dumbledore had left Harry contained at least a few hints as to where the Horcruxes lay. Or had Harry figured it all out by himself?
It had been painfully obvious who R.A.B was – Regulus Arcturius Black, Sirius' brother. However, they had difficulty finding Mundungus. And by the time they figured out where the thief was, the Ministry had sniffed him out. He was sentenced to three months in Azkaban for forgery and theft – petty crimes in these dangerous times. At times, Hermione was surprised the Ministry could focus on such mundane crimes as a war raged across Europe. Voldemort had a support base in almost every country in the continent. Britain was merely the crowning glory of his wave of conquest.
Nonetheless, Harry had got to Mundungus before they did. And he must have destroyed the Horcrux – how, she knew not. However, had he found the rest of them?
"And what about the cave where Bill saw him?" Ron asked suddenly, startling Hermione out of her thoughtful stupor, "Do you think Harry found a Horcrux there?"
"Perhaps," Hermione said, biting her lower lip thoughtfully, "I guess we'll know, sooner or later. Harry has to come back – sometime."
Ron sniggered. "Yes, and we owe him a few punches."
Hermione shook her head. "I… don't know, Ron. Harry looks so… changed."
The expression on Ron's face darkened. "I know," he said darkly, "He's using the Dark Arts."
Hermione shuddered as she remembered how the Minotaur had been torn apart by Harry's spell.
Ron looked at Hermione closely. "Do you… you think he's found all the other Horcruxes?"
Hermione looked at Ron and mustered the only answer she could think of.
"We can only hope so, Ron… we can only hope so."
Harry scanned Severus Snape's mind and disregarded the violent, abusive memories with a lack of empathy that never failed to surprise him. And at last, he discovered a memory that did not quite belong - the odd one out. He quickly dug his way through Snape's mind, towards the strangely glossy memory.
Harry had been right. Nagini's death had alarmed Voldemort - alarmed the Dark Lord enough for to send one of his most faithful to check on the condition of the Horcruxes, though Snape did not know of their significance. Harry sat immersed in thought. There was only one thing he could do - he had to modify Severus Snape's memory. Voldemort had asked the Potions Master to report back in four days. As of tonight, he had two days left. Harry had two days to modify Snape's memory and come up with a plausible alibi for Nagini's death.
He fingered the blue transporter he had given Wormtail thoughtfully, scratching his sparsely bearded chin with the other hand. And then, it struck him. It was easy to predict what Voldemort would do if he ever got his hands on the transporter. Voldemort would figure out a way to recharge the stone. And then, he would attack. The stone could be recharged in three weeks. Harry had no choice. He had to carry out his plan.
And for his plan to be effective, he had to alert the Order.
He had to seek out the last Horcrux. He had to seek out Salazar's locket.
For that he would have to meet Mundungus in Azkaban.
And Mundungus was a member of the Order.
He conjured a parchment and a quill, and wrote the shortest letter he had ever written in his entire life –
"Next attack in three weeks."
He placed the blue stone before Severus. He pulled out his wand and started on his memory modification programme.
Severus entered the Dark Lord's secret chamber. He was ahead of time. But he felt no pride… there was no space for pride in the dark recesses of his mind – more impenetrable than the Dark Lord's fortress. He felt a chill move up his spine as his Master entered the bare stone chamber. He knelt immediately and kissed the hem of the Dark Lord's robe.
"Rise, Severus," said the Dark Lord in his cold, high voice with a flourish of his hand, "And tell me of your journey."
"My Lord," Severus murmured smoothly, "The artefacts appear to have been untouched for decades."
"Let me see," the Dark Lord muttered, and pulled out his wand. Severus obediently brought the memory of his journey to the forefront of his mind. The Dark Lord murmured an incantation, and a silvery thread of memory transferred itself to the Dark Lord's mind. Lord Voldemort's eyes blurred over for a few minutes as he scanned the memory.
"I am satisfied," he said at last, "You have done well, Severus. Your memory is highly detailed – unusually so, but then again, you do have an eye for detail that is… impeccable. Lord Voldemort will reward you handsomely indeed when this war is over.
"But, I find myself curious – there was something else in this memory… something very curious. You found something else, did you not?"
"Master," muttered Severus, "I found this in the Valley of Blood."
He drew out a blue stone. Voldemort took the stone delicately from Severus' hand. His snake-like eyes lit up with an ominous red light as they scanned the stone. "Do you know what this is, Severus?"
"I would be a poor Potions Master if I did not, my lord. It is a magical transporter, capable of transporting over a hundred wizards and witches across large distances, bypassing even Anti-Apparition Charms. They were used by the ancient Romans to transport their armies over long distances. The art of making them though, is long lost to time."
Voldemort fingered the stone, his eyes lighting up wildly. "Yes, Severus," he said gleefully. Then his expression darkened. Severus felt a chill creep up over him as the temperature in the room fell a few degrees.
"Am I to take it that Nagini must have slithered over this stone?"
Severus nodded. "I am inclined to believe so, My Lord."
"And who do you think placed it there?"
Severus' dark eyes glinted in the semi-darkness of the chamber. "I took the liberty of performing a charm on the stone in order to determine the number of years that had passed since it had been created. I daresay, that the stone has remained in the same place where we housed Nagini for an extremely long time – nearly fourteen hundred years."
Voldemort looked at Severus incredulously.
"Yes, My Lord," Severus affirmed, "Fourteen hundred years. A great battle was waged in the same place, as you very well know, Master. Merlin fought the barbarians led by Wortigern in that forest. It is my belief that this stone was accidentally lost during the battle and its magical quality mutated. As a result, when it detected an enormous magical presence – Nagini – it transported her to a random location… the Valley of Blood… where she was devoured by the local vampires."
"Indeed…" muttered Voldemort, and then looked at Severus with a tight smile, "You have come up with a plausible explanation. Perhaps you are right."
"I even took the liberty of questioning one of the vampires in the Valley, my Lord," Severus said silkily, "The vampire admitted that they had devoured Nagini. It seems the Transylvanian Ministry had forbidden them from consuming the blood of the local magical creatures. They had not tasted magical blood for a very long time…"
"And when Nagini appeared," Voldemort interrupted, "They were naturally drawn to her. She was not a local magical creature, and they devoured her… consumed by their bloodlust. A satisfactory explanation."
Severus bowed.
"You have done well, Severus," Voldemort said gleefully, "Nagini's death does not matter… if the other artefacts are safe." Severus had to strain his ears to catch the Dark Lord's last few words.
"And you have discovered a priceless artefact in your… travels. This little blue stone, Severus… this little artefact is going to win us the war," whispered Voldemort ominously.
A/N: So it comes. Harry's first battle.
