Chapter 7
The three of them spent the first couple of weeks back in the future playing catch-up in their classes, which fortunately did not take as long as Hermione had feared. This was helped along considerably by Umbridge's lack of teaching skill.
Harry's temper snapped during a particularly frustrating double lesson with Umbridge, which earned him a detention to be served that night. In spite of the unpleasant start to the day Harry and Hermione managed, with minimal persuasion and to their great relief, to acquire from Professor Dumbledore a permission slip which would be valid for the entire school year for the Restricted Section.
Harry found himself dragged to Madam Pince's desk by an eager Hermione, who was practically bouncing on her toes as she handed the note to the exceedingly suspicious librarian. Madam Pince practically examined the note under a microscope, turning it this way and that and clearly hoping it was a forgery, but eventually she had to give up and allow the two of them entry.
Hermione immediately dove into the Charms section while Harry headed for the shelves dedicated to magical objects. Every time he found a reference to an interesting or potentially useful item, he made a note of the book title and the page number on which it could be found. He paused to read through a chapter dedicated to two-way mirrors, and thought, Something like this might be useful when we're planning anti-Voldemort tactics! Especially if we could link more than two mirrors together.
Eventually the sun set and the time of Harry's detention arrived. He warily made his way to Umbridge's office and knocked. After a moment, her sickly sweet voice invited him in. When he entered, Umbridge handed him an evil-looking long, black quill with an unusually sharp point.
"I want you to write, I must not tell lies," she told him quietly, with a look in her eyes that was very reminiscent of Einon's.
"Er, Professor, I don't have any ink," Harry said, mystified.
"Oh, you shan't need it: this is a very special quill," Umbridge told him with a smirk.
Still confused and now wary, Harry sat down on the other side of her desk and touched the quill to the sheet of parchment already waiting for him. At the very first stroke in the 'I' he gasped. It felt like someone was slashing his hand open with a scalpel, and blood welled up in the cut. He glanced at Umbridge, who had a disturbingly please smirk on her face, and thought better of complaining. When he looked back down at the page, Harry noticed the blood forming the vertical stroke of the 'I'. This is not going to be fun! he thought, taking a deep breath.
For the next torturous hour he wrote that sentence over and over, his cut hand healing only to be sliced open again. Finally Umbridge called a halt and told him to present his hand. On seeing it, she looked vaguely disappointed, but dismissed him.
Harry managed to leave the room in a controlled manner, but as soon as he was sure he was out of earshot he ran for it, clutching his still-throbbing, if apparently unblemished, hand. Eventually he found himself in the Entrance Hall, with the front door practically beckoning him. With barely a thought, Harry stepped out and made for a nice dark spot away from the castle lights.
He sat down on the grass somewhere between the castle and Hagrid's hut, and drew his knees up. After a few minutes something made him look up, and he saw…
Stars! Harry realised. The Dragon's brighter than usual. Almost immediately he felt better and his hand seemed to throb less and less, until finally he realised it no longer hurt at all. The pain had been replaced by a feeling of peace and safety, almost as strong as the tranquillity he had felt upon waking under Draco's wing in Avalon.
Eventually Harry realised it was dinner time and picked himself up. A final glance at the Dragon left him with a powerful feeling of encouragement, almost a compulsion, to tell McGonagall or Dumbledore about his detention, and especially Umbridge's sadistic behaviour.
He tracked McGonagall down after dinner, following her into her office. "Professor," he started, "I just finished detention with Professor Umbridge." He felt like spitting out the name but managed to refrain. "Do you know what that entailed?"
"No, Potter, but I'm sure you'll enlighten me," McGonagall responded.
"She has this long, thin, black quill which she made me use to write lines. Every time I used it, it cut the sentence into my hand and then healed it over. It used my blood for ink," he added.
McGonagall exploded. "What!? She's using a Blood Quill on students? Come with me, Potter. We need to take this to Professor Dumbledore!"
Encouraged by Harry reporting Umbridge's detention methods, several other students, including a few first years, came forward with their own stories. Soon the parents also heard about it, and within two days, Umbridge was arrested and Fudge was under close scrutiny by the majority of the parents of Hogwarts students.
On the evening after Umbridge's arrest Harry once again made his way outside to watch the stars. The Dragon still shone brightly, and Harry only felt slightly silly as he bowed to the constellation and murmured, "Thank you." One of the stars in the Dragon's head twinkled.
Several months later, Voldemort started sending Harry visions of the Department of Mysteries, which he mostly ignored. When those visions suddenly included images of Sirius being tortured, Harry dug out the mirror Sirius had given him a few months before.
"Sirius?" he asked. "Are you there?"
After a moment Sirius's face appeared in the mirror. "Right here, pup. What's wrong?"
"Voldemort's trying to get me to go to the Department of Mysteries by making me think you're there and in trouble. I think there's something there he wants," Harry told him.
"Go let Dumbledore or McGonagall know," Sirius advised him.
"Alright," Harry acquiesced, "But please don't go anywhere."
"I won't," Sirius promised him.
Harry stuffed the mirror in his pocket and went off in search of the aforementioned members of staff.
The next morning, the arrival of the post owls was shortly followed by a great deal of surprised shouting. Harry joined several of his classmates in reading over the shoulder of the nearest person with a subscription to the Daily Prophet. The headline read:
He Who Must Not Be Named Returns
There was also a smaller headline at the bottom of the front page:
Peter Pettigrew Alive – Sirius Black Cleared Of All Charges
Harry was stunned. Even as Ron, Hermione and Ginny mobbed him, shouting and laughing, he just stood there in awe. "Read that one aloud!" Ron told Neville, whose paper they were standing over.
"Yesterday afternoon Aurors were stunned to find Peter Pettigrew, who was thought dead after the events of October 31st, 1981, alive and well and serving He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Pettigrew, who upon discovery attempted to escape by transforming into a rat, was interrogated under Veritaserum and revealed a shocking truth: it was he, not Sirius Black, who was the Potters' Secret Keeper while they lived under Fidelius, and it was he who told the Dark Lord where to find Harry Potter and his parents, James and Lily Potter. Director of Magical Law Enforcement, Amelia Bones, apologised publicly for this miscarriage of justice and has cleared Black of all charges," Neville read. "Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge has made an announcement regarding this turn of events to the Wizengamot, making Black's innocence internationally known."
Just then, Professor McGonagall strode up to the Gryffindor table. "Mr Potter, Professor Dumbledore would like to see you in his office after breakfast," she told Harry.
"Yes, Professor," said Harry.
By some miracle, when the conversation in Dumbledore's office involved the revelation that Harry was destined to kill Voldemort or die trying, Harry managed to keep control of his temper and avoid shouting. The fact that he had, in this reality, avoided watching Sirius die might possibly have had something to do with it.
One year to the day from their return to the future, Harry started awake and was out of bed like a shot. He barely paused to pull his uniform on before making a beeline through the castle to Dumbledore's office. The gargoyle only delayed him for a moment, and soon he was skidding to a halt in front of Dumbledore's desk. "I just had another dream about Voldemort!" he gasped.
"Please have a seat, my boy," Dumbledore told him, "And tell me everything."
Harry did as he had been asked. "Sir," he added after a moment's pause, "Now that we know what to look for, could Hermione and I have another permission slip for the Restricted Section? I think I might've seen a reference to horcruxes in one of the Old English books."
"Of course," Dumbledore acquiesced. "I trust you will not misuse it."
On his way back to the dorms Harry ran into Hermione, who had clearly been looking for him. "Ron said you ran out like something was chasing you," Hermione commented on seeing him. "What's wrong?"
"We need to go back to the library," Harry told her. "I had a dream last night – I think I have an idea of how to interfere with Voldemort's plans."
Once in the Restricted Section, after having returned to the dorms for his research notes, Harry cast "Muffliato! I don't want anybody hearing anything," he explained. "I had a dream about Voldemort and heard his thoughts. He was thinking about something called a horcrux, and I think I remember seeing something about those in here, last year."
After perusing the Objects shelf for a moment Harry pulled down a few of the books mentioned in his notes. Behind one of them, at the very back of the shelf, he found one entitled 'A History of Horcruxes', written in Old English. "Hah!" he exclaimed. "This might just be it!" That one was also added to the stack.
Just before Christmas, while Harry, Hermione, the Weasleys, and various Order members were at Number Twelve, that Harry noticed a sign on one of the upstairs bedroom doors:
Do Not Enter
Without the Express Permission of
Regulus Arcturus Black
After staring at it for a long moment, Harry wondered, Could that be RAB? And should I ask Sirius, or Kreacher? He thought for another moment and then went to hunt down Hermione and Ron. "I think I've found RAB!" he told them after finding them in his and Ron's room. "Regulus Black's initials match! Kreacher!" he called.
The mad elf popped in, resolutely saying nothing.
"Kreacher, do you know anything about Regulus Black stealing a locket belonging to Voldemort from a cave by the sea?" Harry asked him.
Kreacher stared at Harry for a long moment and then threw back his head and wailed, a long, heartbroken sound. "Oh, the locket, Master Regulus's locket, Kreacher failed his orders!" He started banging his head on the nearest solid object, which was the small table on the landing.
"Kreacher, stop!" Harry told him. "What orders? Tell me!" he ordered the elf.
And the entire story came out, amidst gasps for air and the occasional wail.
"Is that the locket in the kitchen cupboard?" Hermione asked.
Kreacher wailed again and popped away.
Harry exchanged glances with Ron and Hermione, and then trooped down to the kitchen. Fortunately Mrs Weasley was not in the kitchen and there was no-one to keep them from removing the locket from the cupboard.
"We'd better get this to Dumbledore," Harry told the others.
"I think he's coming later today," Hermione mused. "We'll have to try and catch him alone then."
That evening Dumbledore was flabbergasted to be presented with Slytherin's locket, and predictably asked, "How did you find it?"
"RAB was Regulus Black, and Kreacher knew where it was: he put it in the kitchen cupboard," Harry told him.
Upon returning to Hogwarts in January and having already destroyed the locket, Harry made a beeline for the library. Maybe there's some sort of summoning spell or locator that could help in finding the horcruxes, he mused. Once again, he consulted the Restricted Section, paying extra close attention to any books written in Old English.
Approximately an hour of searching yielded a fairly simple location spell, which Harry decided to try out. "Ábeþece horcrux!" he cast.
The spell led him to the corridor outside the Room of Requirement. I really need to find that horcrux, he thought, pacing the length of the corridor. When the door failed to appear, Harry changed tactics. I need the room of lost, forgotten or hidden items.
The door materialised. Good. Harry entered the room and recast the spell, which indicated something further in. After about five minutes of weaving between stacks of ancient textbooks, piles of clothing and mountains of broken potion phials, Harry finally came across a bust with a silver crown-like object perched on its head. His wand pointed directly at the crown, which Harry picked up and stuffed in his pocket. I'd better get this to Dumbledore, he thought.
One cut with the sword of Gryffindor later, Ravenclaw's diadem – for that was what it was – was a pile of scrap metal.
"He might have hidden a horcrux at the orphanage," Hermione mused. "There's always the Purloined Letter principle." When Harry, Ron and Dumbledore all looked at her blankly, she explained, "Hiding something in plain sight. If it's obvious enough, nobody would think to look there because it's so obvious."
The next day was a Saturday, and Harry, Ron and Hermione met Dumbledore in his office. "This is a Portkey," Dumbledore told them, holding up a blank sheet of yellowed paper. "Touch it and we may be on our way."
Once they were all in contact with the Portkey Dumbledore activated it and they found themselves at the gates of a square building surrounded by high railings, suspiciously unchanged from the way it had been decades previous. Dumbledore looked at it for a moment and said, "I believe it is enchanted to be invisible to Muggles."
Harry drew his wand and cast once again: "Ábeþece horcrux!" His wand pointed at the orphanage. "Guess you were right, Hermione."
The horcrux turned out to be hidden in a small cupboard in room 27, which Dumbledore identified as having been Tom Riddle's room. "And I think that might be Helga Hufflepuff's Cup." He drew Gryffindor's sword and handed it to Harry.
"No, I think Hermione should do the honours," Harry deflected, passing the sword to her.
Hermione swung the sword down on the Cup, which was cleaved in two with a terrible shriek. "Good riddance," Hermione commented.
"How many horcruxes do you think there are left?" Ron asked.
"Let's try the spell again," Hermione suggested. Harry cast it, and only received one indication, in the direction of Little Hangleton.
"Does this mean there's only one?" Harry wondered.
No-one had an answer, and they left shortly after.
The next few months passed relatively uneventfully, but at breakfast on May Day, Snape burst into the Great Hall and headed straight for Dumbledore. No-one heard exactly what he said, but after a moment Dumbledore stood. "Your attention, please. We have just received word that Lord Voldemort is planning an attack on Hogwarts and is already approaching the castle. Prefects, please escort everyone below sixth year to their dormitories. Anyone sixth year and up who wish to assist with the defence of the castle may do so."
The lower years left the Great Hall in record time, and after about ten minutes Dumbledore cast something. Harry assumed he was activating whatever protections existed for the dorms. He also cast a Patronus and instructed it to inform the Order of the impending attack.
Later, when Voldemort and his Death Eaters arrived, they were met by the entire Hogwarts staff, virtually everyone in sixth and seventh year who was not a Death Eater, and the full complement of Order members. Harry surreptitiously cast the locator charm. His wand pointed straight at Nagini, who was riding on Tom's shoulders like a demented boa.
Voldemort directed Nagini to start killing students, and Dumbledore stepped right up to him. "As the Muggles say, only over my dead body, Tom," he told his old student.
While Voldemort was distracted, Harry, Ron and Hermione chased after the snake. "This one's mine!" Ron announced.
Harry nodded and handed over the Sword of Gryffindor. "Have at it, mate!"
Ron neatly beheaded the snake, and Harry cast the charm again. This time, the wand just spun in endless circles. "Guess that means he's out of horcruxes," Harry commented and turned around to look for Voldemort.
He saw the Head Death Eater cast the Killing Curse at Dumbledore, who crumpled in a boneless heap. "No!" Harry shouted. He ran forward to engage Voldemort in a duel, which predictably resulted in Priori Incantatem.
While Harry and Voldemort were otherwise occupied, Neville crept up behind Voldemort and caught him in the back with a Blasting Curse. Voldemort joined Dumbledore on the ground, and Harry yelled, "Ron! I need the sword!"
Ron ran over as quickly as possible, dodging hexes, but just after he handed Harry the sword he was caught by a badly aimed tripping jinx and fell, hitting his head.
Harry spun and promptly stabbed Voldemort in the chest, and then beheaded him for good measure.
Sorry this update took so long! Real life and the dreaded Writer's Block interfered, and breaking the thumb of my mouse-hand certainly didn't help.
It should be just the epilogue now, and that's already half done. 'Course, having said that… *knock on wood*
