There are many monsters in the world humans inhabit. The ones envisioned in the minds of children, hiding under beds, in closets, or just around the corner. There are the ones that hide under the guise of trusted friends, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. And there are the ones hidden in the shadows, worlds away, building plans to cause imminent demise, just for the sake of doing so.

But it is not the monsters Without that are the most dangerous.

It is the monsters Within.

---

Tom Riddle was many things, but he was not a delusional individual. He hesitated at calling himself a man because, in many ways, he was no longer a man.

The realization of that fact had caused a compounded effect upon the self-styled dark lord. Tom Riddle didn't begin walking down the path Lord Voldemort now found himself tumbling down, with the intention to become immortal. Tom Marvolo Riddle loved knowledge, and he had simply been pursuing the probability of immortality. And that led to searching for the possibility of it. And then that led to testing it for himself.

Power corrupts.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

There is no power greater than power over death, in the minds of many. And as much as he loved to consider himself different from the "idiot masses", Tom Riddle found himself deeply routed in that frame of mind as well.

One horcrux became two.

Two became four.

Four became six.

Voldemort allowed his mind to wander away from the horcruxes he had created, and drift to the ones he had left. For what was, once, mattered not. What mattered was what was left.

One was lost in the process of restoring him to existence after the death he suffered on that infamous night in the waning moments of October.

Another destroyed by the same young boy because of the idiocy of Lucius in slipping the very first horcrux into the hands of the young Weasley girl. Said actions eventually leading to its destruction by the Potter child, ironically in the same place it was first created.

Another lost at the hands of Albus Dumbledore the same year of the man's demise. This allowed a dark smile to slide across Voldemort's reptilian face as he reminisced about it.

But that smile was soon wiped off as he thought back about the locket. The treachery…

Voldemort's dark red eyes seemed to cloud over as he considered the locket. He could still feel it sometimes, but not directly. It was like some kind of feedback, as if the locket wavered in and out of existence, or would gather enough energy to send a beacon out, and then be rendered silent until it was able to bide more power to repeat the action.

This disturbed Voldemort a great deal.

Three Horcruxes gone.

One dying.

One by his side.

And the other…

---

The average person was much too oblivious, or too caught up in anything they were doing, to make notice of what scampered along their peripheral. Yes, Harry had learned this fact of human nature from his relatives. Many a night he would need to steal away into the pantry to retrieve something to quiet the deafening roar of his belly, and often times it would be the time that his aunt would wander down the stairs.

Petunia Dursley held a lot of secrets. Harry Potter knew most of them.

Hidden in the bottom of the fruit bowl, beneath the apples, the oranges, and the mound of grapes, was a pack of cigarettes. Under the guise of the apple juice container, sat a fairly large amount of whisky.

It was an ingenious set up, even Harry had to admit. The rotund mass of his cousin, and the mountainous blob of his uncle both avoided fruit or fruit-products as if making contact with them would cause them an outbreak of the plague.

It had been on such a night of hunger in which he snuck out of his room to locate something edible, when the events of the previous night had struck. One moment he had just taken an apple and was in the process of rearranging the fruit bowl so its presence would not be missed, and so the presence of the cigarettes wouldn't be revealed, and the next moment a searing pain shot through his head, as if it had been pierced by a white-hot blade.

His mouth was dry.

His eyes were watering.

He was hyperventilating…but his body felt like it was suffocating.

And all he could focus on was the voice echoing back and forth through his mind, telling him that it needed to be ended.

Harry shook himself mentally to stop that path of thought. He hadn't time to dwell on his inadequacies in losing a battle within his own mind, when he held home-field advantage. He felt weak and he refused to feel that way again, ever.

With determination he continued his march down the Alley, keeping close to the furthest walls, hiding in plain sight, and for the most part passing completely unnoticed.

Those that did notice him thought nothing of him, all except for one, who sat casually braiding strands into her hair, and watching him pass. Her companions thought nothing of her watching him, as they assumed she was staring blankly again, watching something none of them could see.

And in effect, she was.

---

Fenrir Greyback narrowed his eyes as he observed the street before him. His nose was working overtime, as his eyes tried to locate what his other senses told him was before him. He was searching for something, and although he knew it was in front of him, everything his eyes spoke to his mind told him there was nothing there.

"More of these confounding magicks!" Fenrir grumbled to himself, pacing back and forth knowing he needed to find a way onto the property.

"Devlon, to me." Fenrir ordered, and the man stepped up next to Fenrir. "Tell me what you know of magic that can remove buildings from plain sight." Fenrir sniffed, "My eyes tell me nothing is there. But the scent…"

Devlon had grown up in magic. In fact, the man had, at one point, been a Ravenclaw, so infatuated with learning that it stayed with him even as the more base instincts of his transformation molded him a new personality after his Turning. The man would often still be found indulging in a book, and many believed it was why Fenrir and Devlon worked in tandem so well. Devlon was the sense to Fenrir's rashness, and the intellect to the other man's brawn.

"If your senses tell you it's there, then it really is, and all the magic is doing is disguising it. Probably simply a mash-up of charms designed to hide the property visually, confuse anyone who wanders onto the property into leaving it, and then removing the memory of every having stumbled on it from their minds. In short, if you walked from the lawn of number 10 to the lawn of number 14, and the property being hidden was in-between, then upon leaving said hidden property, you'd have forgotten you were ever on it, thus thinking you had simply walked from 10 to 14 and that there was nothing between them."

Fenrir's mind wrapped around what he had just been told, and he thought of how to get around it. "So what you are telling me is, if I were to attempt to approach the property on my own power, I would immediately be under the power of the spell, causing me to leave it again, and then forget I'd ever approached it?" Devlon nodded. "I have an idea."

---

Nymphadora Tonks padded along the front room of Number 12 Grimmauld Place. Remus was in the kitchen finding them something to eat, as Tonks curled up on the couch and flicked the magical radio to a station playing smooth music. The candles had been lit, and it was their one day for the next few days of being alone together. Remus had switched his shift, his turn for watching Harry, with another Order member in order to have that night with Tonks, as she would be going off on assignment soon.

Tonks was just smiling as Remus entered the threshold to the sitting room with the two plates in his hands when the door was impacted and splintered. A shower of wood shards sprayed across the sitting room, and a form tumbled in before rolling gracefully to its feet.

"Ingenious idea, whatever the magic is that hides this place. But easily broken." Fenrir turned around and leveled his sight on the now empty doorway for but a moment before turning his eyes to Remus. "Too bad all it takes is someone to throw you at the property, making it so you can't turn around and wander off, and it's absurdly easily broken. Complete luck I didn't slam into the side of the building, I must say."

As he spoke, Devlon's form came flying toward the door, propelled by another of Fenrir's pack as they stood outside the property. Devlon caught the top of the doorframe, flipped himself over as he entered, and jumped off the wall just above the door to land next to Fenrir, as to slow his acceleration. Devlon's eyes immediately went to Tonks, who had her eyes locked on Remus as if looking for an answer, but her hand was also sliding along the couch toward where her wand had been left. He bared his teeth at her, and she flinched instantly.

"Do not worry, Lupin. We come simply to talk." Fenrir paused for a moment, before narrowing his eyes and allowing a sinister grin to slide across his face as his eyes made an almost imperceptible flick toward Tonks. "For now."

---

Hermione looked around nervously and she walked down the pathway. She was heading down the Alley, mentally trying to compile a list of every apothecary she was aware of, either in Diagon or Knockturn, and therefore not looking directly in front of her. She collided with another form, and was sent sprawling to the ground. She looked up immediately to find the form she had run into gazing down at her almost inquiringly. His head was cocked to the side, as if appraising her as she sat on the ground, leaning back as if trying to move further from his gaze.

Which confused her, considering it was, "Harry?"

Harry nodded once, lazily at her, before his eyes wandered away from her and scanned the Alley, almost as if he was looking for something, but had no idea what it was. Suddenly his eyes set, and again, his head tilted to the side as he observed whatever it was. Hermione followed his sight the best she could, and found the forms of Luna Lovegood and Ginny Weasley. Ginny was yelling at Luna, it could be seen simply from her body language, while Luna sat calmly on the crate beneath her. She would respond with something that visually barely even registered as talking, calm and likely very airy words that would set Ginny off even more.

Harry observed this, but as Ginny stormed off in a rage, with Ron following behind her, Hermione noticed two things. One, Harry's eyes didn't follow Ginny away as the former girl expected them to. And two, during the whole argument, Luna never looked at Ginny. No, Luna stared straight forward, and seemingly, straight at Harry. Luna tilted her head the same way Harry had, as if considering him as much as he seemed to be doing the same to her.

Hermione pulled herself to her feet, and simply stood there, unsure of what to say, or if she would somehow be intruding if she interrupted whatever the moment going on between them was. It was significant, even if she didn't realize how so, but she felt both that she was intruding by watching whatever it was, but also that she needed to be a part of it because it was something that had meaning.

"Harry?"

Harry didn't look at her, continuing to stare forward, but straightened his head and leaned it forward, as if it would help him see further as he gazed at Luna. "Hermione?"

"What are you doing, Harry?"

Harry considered the question for a moment, before making an almost unnoticeable nod to the person he was eye-locked with. "Moongazing." Was all he said, before he turned, nodded once to her, and headed back the way he came. And Hermione was left with many questions. The most pressing of which was, "What was Harry doing in Knockturn Alley…"

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