September 1 (continued). Most important to know:
1) I'm a horcrux. Dumbledore knew it as soon as he knew that Riddle was making them. Has known it all the while. Planned to get me killed by Riddle, only way to keep him dead for good, as we see now. He tried to sugar-coat it, the old bastard. If things had turned out as he planned, and Riddle had given me the death blow, I might maybe perhaps could have survived because of blood protection he was keeping alive by having taken my blood. How good of you to be looking out for me that way, sir. That's gone now, obviously, burned off in the cauldron. Some of my mother's magic. Hadn't thought of that, that I was destroying a bit of my mother.
2) Snape was on our side. He killed Dumbledore at the old bastard's own request, to cement his position with Riddle, because Dumbledore was dying anyway after putting on the ring horcrux; the withered hand was only the start of it, it was going to spread and kill him within the year, so Dumbledore saw the opportunity to have Snape become a perfect spy, nobody would doubt him again. Thought of all those times I asked about the hand and he blew me off. He was – Snape was on our side because of my mother. He had loved her all his life, been childhood friends, jealous of my dad obviously, lost her completely when he got in with the Death-Eater wannabes of his class and called her a "mudblood." But frantic when he realized the prophecy, the part of the prophecy he carried to Riddle was pointing her as a target, offered himself to Dumbledore to try to save her. Plan was for him – Professor Snape – to tell me I was a horcrux when we had killed the others. What a marvelous, ingenious, delicate plan. Turned to **** immediately, of course, could have turned to **** in a million other ways too, even if I hadn't found out I could control Riddle, but still, how ingenious! I can still imagine Dumbledore with smile and twinkling eyes congratulating himself on coming up with it.
3) The wand – Dumbledore's wand – that landed on my desk a few months ago, that is "The Elder Wand" of legend, legend I know nothing about because of course I didn't grow up with wizards.
I'm just now remembering Dumbledore saying to me, after the DOM raid and Sirius dying, recounting the story of my life and why had done this and not that and said this and not that... anyway, one statement jumps out at me now, that at least with the Dursleys I hadn't grown up as a "pampered prince." Yes, he tosses me in the desert and fourteen years later he congratulates himself that I haven't drowned. Should have known then what a self-satisfied egotist I was looking up to, being taken in by.
So, the wand. Children's story says the three Peverell brothers outwitted Death and he gave each of them a gift, collectively "The Deathly Hallows." There's this wand, "The Death Stick," the unbeatable wand, which can only be passed on to the one who defeats its previous owner. Yes, Hermione, you have spotted the apparent contradiction there. Me too. But according to the wandlore, anyway, I became the wand's master because I defeated Draco, who had defeated Dumbledore when he disarmed him at the tower. Defeated Draco along with the rest of the death-eaters at Malfoy Manor, of course.
And, it seems, I also now possess the two other hallows: the invisibility cloak was passed on down the Peverell line, which became the Potter line. That was the last hallow, and the second was the resurrection stone, which can call up the dead, and that is what was in the ring which Riddle made a horcrux, and which Dumbledore left to me.
That was the story the portrait told me, not in that order, pretty much the reverse order – there's good news (you are the master of the hallows), there's bad news (you've got to die in order to finish Riddle), and there's really bad news (you're a murderer). By the time he got to the end I couldn't control myself any longer, so when it asked me "is there anything else I can tell you, Harry?" I couldn't think of anything useful it could tell me and I couldn't – didn't want to take anything from him even if he had it, so I cast Incendio on it with the elder wand. Went running out and ran right into McGonagall, Professor McGonagall, who could see the smoke coming out of the office and screamed – when she got in and saw what had happened, that dear Albus' portrait had been incinerated – she screamed, came back out and cried "What have you done, Potter? What have you done?" at my back as I was running, halfway down the hall, loud enough to alert everybody in the castle. I just couldn't stop and explain, couldn't talk about it to anybody, not even you guys. Just had to get away.
The big problem, aside from what to do with the horcrux in me, is the mental connection between me and Voldemort. I don't feel like I can do again what I did then, take him over. I can't project the feeling, 'my mother and father would be proud of me,' when I've killed my mother's first friend. Don't think I can produce any kind of 'patronus thought' right now. And if I can't, can I keep him at bay if he turns the tables and comes after me? Could he possess me?
I'm writing this now at Grimmauld Place, and I asked Kreacher not to let anybody in. Can't see anybody right now, can't talk to anybody, I feel like I wouldn't want to have anything to do with anybody who wanted anything to do with me, anybody who could still stand me after what I'd done. And right now I'm not any good to anybody, or to the cause, or to the wizarding world, or to the people I love, who love me back because they don't know what I am. I'm not up to getting rid of Riddle, and if the prophecy is right, that means . . . I don't even want to write down what that means.
So I'd better start trying to put myself together.
I was going to send Hedwig with a letter telling everybody what happened when I realized, oh, she's at Hogwarts. So I told Kreacher that after I finish the letter with all the info, up to here – I mean, all the stuff I've just written today, all the info that Dumbledore gave me, the old bastard – he should take it to Ginny, in private, and she can tell Ron & Hermione. God knows what kind of story is flying through Hogwarts now. It's probably safer this way, less chance it could get intercepted. I don't even know if that matters now, because who would be plotting what?
And as soon as I said that, the obvious answer occurred to me: the Ministry might still be trying to keep an eye on me. And I'm not going to tell Scrimgeour any of this, or the DMLE or DOM. I know what's the first thought that will come into the head of some of them if they knew. And when I do talk to Ginny, and Ron and Hermione, and I'll have to let Remus and Tonks-Lupin know and McGonagall too – when I do talk to them, I'm sure they're all going to be frightened that I'll do the stupid noble thing and look to do exactly that, kill myself to destroy the last horcrux. You don't need to worry about that for a long while, guys, because knowing that was what Dumbledore was aiming at makes it the last thing I'm going to do.
[Pause]
Yeah, that didn't come out right.
I meant, aside from it being very literally the last thing I would do, that I have no intention of doing it, that even if I did think about doing it I would feel so much like spiting the old bastard that I would try my best to live to a hundred. Have to add that to the letter. I'm sure Kreacher won't complain about being a messenger; I fulfilled Regulus' dying wish, so I can do no wrong.
Sept. 2. Should have known that wouldn't work. About three minutes after sending Kreacher out to make contact, he comes back: with Ginny.
Me: "Kreacher, I told you not to let anybody in."
Her: "I told him I was the one who actually destroyed the locket, so he couldn't refuse me."
(Kreacher looks at me, like he's trying to look guilty but not quite succeeding.)
Me: "Well, I don't want to talk to anybody now."
Her: "Well that's rather stupid of you, because I'm probably the only one you know who has some real experience with finding out you've done something horrible, and thinking, 'Oh, God, what have I done, how can I live with that?'"
I'm struck dumb, again, for a while.
Me: "I'm sorry. I guess I forgot about that, again. So what's your advice?"
Her answer to that question was to put her arms around me. No more details except to say it didn't go too far beyond that, because neither of us thought this was the time. I don't know how we could know what was for real and what was, "I've got to show him" and "I can't let her down."
And even if we love each other, that doesn't get us to a happy ending, does it?
Back to the facts. Everybody went spare after I left Hogwarts. Instant rumors about how I had gone dark, was possessed by Voldemort's spirit, or had gone mad, which I guess isn't too far off. The going mad part. And there's no real way to counteract that, because I'm certainly not about to let the truth come out. People would really be destroyed, if they knew it wasn't really over, we'd all been lying to them, old Voldie wasn't entirely gone after all. Ginny says she, Ron, Hermione will all figure out some way to fudge it. Not the top priority. The top priority now is to take steps against being possessed, now that I don't have the mental strength to do it to him, and I guess I will need to let some people help, but I don't want too many people to know. For the obvious reasons. Is there some kind of fail-safe magic that would prevent it, like the spell Scrimgeour told me about – probably made it up, but maybe it could be done – where if someone's mind is tampered with, they die? If I can't find something like that, I don't even want to go mentally searching, to see if he's found another host.
One piece of actual advice Ginny gave me was that since I had the resurrection stone, I should use it to talk to Snape, to Professor Snape, tell him how sorry I was. I think I will do that, but not today. And not tomorrow, I don't think. Some time. And maybe he would know about a fail-safe spell, maybe he had one himself. Being a spy under Riddle, he had so many secrets to protect, might have made sense to have that as a fallback. Maybe I'll talk to him sooner rather than later. Sounds really weird, saying that, that "I'll talk to him." Because he's dead. I killed him.
Sept. 3. I went back over this diary, looking for all the times I was fawning over Dumbledore, the gratitude, the reverence, towards "the Professor." Tried to cross it all out, but the diary won't let me. Got furious, thought of burning the whole thing up with the Elder Wand. Caught myself just in time.
Sept. 4. The dream last night was that I was the new Dark Lord, killed Dumbledore (who was still in the flesh), sat on my throne, smiling to myself, then had a friendly conversation with Tom, who was in my head.
"The strange thing is," I said, "I know I should be fighting you, I should be horrified at all this, but I'm not. How do you account for it?"
"I think you know the answer to that, Harry."
"Because this is what I really want, to get back at them?"
"Of course. And you were never really 'light' in the first place, you just convinced yourself of that."
"I suppose you're right."
"Well then, Harry, shall we go to Azkaban and break the prisoners out? We could resurrect Bella as well..."
And at that point, in the dream, it comes to me that something really horrible is happening, I start resisting, and I wake up.
Sept. 6. I talked to Professor Snape. I turned the stone, and he appeared: solid but almost in black-and-white. He waited, still and unsmiling, for me to speak first.
"I'm so sorry. I was wrong about you. You were a g-..."
I was trying to say "You were a good man," but I couldn't get it out. Snape finally spoke.
"If you are trying to say I was a good man, you will not be able to say it. You cannot lie to the dead, and we cannot lie to you. I was not a good man. I was vain and hypocritical and cruel. I escaped my own just punishment but then abused my authority in order to punish others. I did try to redeem myself from the worst of my crimes."
"Did you? Did it all – everything you did to try to bring down Riddle, did that redeem you?"
"We are not allowed to speak of that."
"You did love my mother."
"Yes, I did."
"Do you see her now? Has she forgiven you?"
"We are not allowed to speak of that. One day you will know."
There was a ghost of a smile with that, and I couldn't tell for sure whether it meant he was trying to offer a kind of consolation to me, or whether it meant he felt a touch of satisfaction at the thought that "one day" I would die. Crazy, but I think I prefer the latter; it would mean that his real self was still there, even in death. His real, miserable SOB self.
"And me," I asked, "can you forgive me?"
"I can. If you vanquish the Dark Lord."
I could understand that. I may have been hoping for something more... immediate? unconditional? but I do understand Professor Snape's putting that condition on his forgiveness, and the more I think of it, the more right it seems.
He didn't know anything about the horcruxes or how they worked, whether having one – being one – made me more in danger of possession, or whether or how Riddle could be brought back again, given a body like he was through the ritual after the third task. He only told Pettigrew about it, how to do it, after Pettigrew found him in Albania. "He," Riddle, that is. If he had told anybody else, it would have been Bellatrix, or someone he judged equally loyal. Snape remembers Malfoy whining to him at one point about why was Voldie so angry about nobody having helped him during the years he was apparently gone, what did the dark lord expect from them; that is, Malfoy didn't know anything about how Riddle could have been brought back.
We ought to double check among the prisoners, whether anybody was aware of any other ritual. Don't think he can use the same one a second time, since the Ministry has cremated and scattered every bone which might have belonged to a Riddle or Gaunt. And maybe I'll have to call up Bellatrix. If the dead can't lie, it would be like having her as a prisoner under veritaserum. Wouldn't be quite so intolerable if I thought of it that way.
He didn't know about any fail-safe spell, so that's probably a dead end; if Snape didn't know it, it probably doesn't exist. I'm still going to see if anybody does know, or if such a spell could be constructed.
The last thing Professor Snape asked for surprised me: he wanted me to call up Dumbledore, to give him the opportunity to apologize and for me to forgive him. He seemed to think it was only fair, that if I expected him to forgive me, I should be able to do it for Dumbledore. I said I didn't know if I could do that, not just yet anyway.
Sept. 7. Called on Bellatrix. She knew nothing about the ritual. I didn't feel like keeping her around either to gloat about her being dead, or to hear her rant like Auntie Wallburga, so I sent her back immediately.
Sept. 8. Called on Regulus. I thought perhaps he would know something more about horcruxes, but he told me that all he knew he gathered from the book Secrets of the Darkest Art, which Hermione had already shown us.
Kreacher got a chance to say goodbye to the master he loved, so it was certainly not a waste of the hallow.
Sept. 9. Called on Herpo the Foul, inventor of the horcrux. He hardly had anything human-looking in his eyes, answered questions as if the words were just being forced out of him by magic and he had nothing to do with them anymore. Of course he had come up with a way to restore the soul fragment to a body, the horcrux would have served no purpose if he hadn't. The indispensable elements of any act of necromancy are blood and death, but there are oh so many variations on this, such as... I stopped him after he had listed four of them, couldn't stand listening. Not much point setting them down here either, because there are just too many of them to anticipate, to give us any chance of preventing it if he knows – if Riddle knows more methods. We just have to assume he does, that he could eventually come back in human form, or sort-of-human form; enough to wield a wand, which is the whole point really.
Asked him whether I would be more in danger of possession, since there was a piece of Riddle in me, if the Riddle-wraith, the last substantial piece of him, ever got stronger. Answer was yes. There is a natural attraction between fragments, which is part of how the whole disgusting business works. It's just damned lucky for me that he never was in my head long enough to feel that he had a 'soul-mate' there, because he could have used it as a kind of anchor to lodge himself in me.
And it really is a disgusting business, beyond the fact that it requires murder. The soul fragment that you're sending into the container actually has to pass through the departing soul of the victim, absorb some kind of life force from it. It's like rape added to murder.
So, this is my life now: bringing back the dead so I can prevent someone from bringing back the dead.
Sept. 10. Open house day. I was going crazy here, so I told Kreacher to let people come. So everybody came. In age order, Ginny, Luna, Neville, Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Fleur, Bill, Tonks, Remus, Molly, Arthur, Hagrid and McGonagall. Lots of tears, lots of hugs, lots of instruction not to be too hard on myself, lots of scolding for going hermit on them.
That came out much too sulky and dismissive. It was good to see everybody, and I am grateful for the way you're all supporting me. I'm not going to recount the conversations, though, because the diary isn't for that, and anyway the diary would go to one of you who did the talking and hugging and all, so what's the point?
We still don't have a way to get the horcrux out of me, and Professor McGonagall is certain that if Dumbledore knew of any other way to do so without killing me, he would obviously have told me. I'm sure she's right. And that being the case, we don't know what to do if and when Voldemort finds another snake to inhabit. I asked about the fail-safe protection spell, explained how Scrimgeour mentioned it or maybe bluffed about how it guarantees that I would die if possessed, and everybody jumps up and screams and scolds and forbids me ever ever to say anything about this again, but I'm completely out of patience with this condescending "now don't you worry about that everything will be fine I tell you, fine" crap. Even from Ginny. I just can't stand the idea that I might be his instrument for snatching life from the jaws of death.
But then Remus brought up the prophecy: if I die when Riddle tries to get to me, and the wraith escapes, he still might eventually find a way to get back to full strength and make more horcruxes, and then the only one with the power to vanquish him would be out of the picture.
Don't know what the hell to do about this.
Sept. 12. Had a mad idea, almost went through with it. If the dead can only speak the truth, I could call up someone – doesn't really matter who – and start asking for answers to the problems, like "Is the way to avoid being possessed X?" and if the answer is no, I try "So should I do Y," ... et cetera. Obvious problem is that you have to have some kind of idea of what the answer is before you can try it out; you need to have the hypothesis before you do the experiment to test the hypothesis, like we learned in school.
("Scientific Method in Magical Necromancy": That would be a guaranteed hit, wouldn't it, at the next conference of the ICW?)
So I thought I could get around that problem by doing something like Twenty Questions, I would start by trying to say "Does the answer lie in a charm," and if that gets a yes, go on to "does the answer lie in a light charm," and if not then I try saying "is it a dark charm aimed at the one fearing possession," if not, "a dark charm aimed at the one doing the possessing," and keep going, keep narrowing it down.
Then it occurred to me, why stop there? I could use this not only to get out of my predicament, I could pretty much obtain any knowledge at all, if it worked.
Which led me to come down hard, kind of smack myself in the face, because that was just crazy. There couldn't be a simple way to get any answer to any question, that just can't be the way the universe works, and if I tried it I would be like those people in fables, like the fisherman and his wife, who get a magical gift and just try to go further and further and further with it until it all blows up on them. I can't lead myself down that path. If I start whispering to myself "I am the Master of Death, and by the Power of Death I will know All Things," that's the road to madness and destruction. There is no master of death, it's nonsense even to talk about it.
Or maybe I knew, immediately, with such certainty and conviction, that I can't do that sort of thing because only the Master of Death knows that there is no such thing as the Master of Death.
I'd better stop talking about this.
Sept. 15. Called on Dumbledore.
So strange to see the man, physically whole now – the withered hand is restored – and he's half-smiling half-crying at me and some of what was left of my rage and resentment seemed to melt away, almost.
I just started by asking, "Why?"
And he said, "I had convinced myself that destroying Tom was all that mattered."
So I said, "No, that can't be right. You can't ever point to something and say that this is the only thing that matters."
"I do realize that, Harry. And I am – and was – sorry."
I paused, and didn't really know what else there was to say. It was something like the reverse of my conversation with Snape. "I was wrong, I know that now, and I can't take it back or make up for it," but I was hearing it instead of saying it. I didn't want to let it go at that, so I asked him, "Was I just a weapon, then?" Maybe because I somehow wanted to hurt him back for the way he hurt me – can you hurt the dead, can they be hurt that way? – or because I still badly wanted to hear him deny it, because he was still so important to me.
"No; I used you, but I still loved you while I was using you."
"I was the more deceived."
I had no idea where that came from, that phrase, and Dumbledore said it was a side-effect of holding the resurrection stone, that at times I would draw knowledge from the realm of the dead without any conscious awareness of the who what and where.
And as I talked more to Dumbledore, I came more and more to see that here was another man who just didn't know what the hell to do about this, even after being a great and powerful wizard for a hundred years. And there really wasn't anything to tell him, or ask him, except that I was able to say that I forgave him, and I'm glad I was able to say it truthfully. So much of the refusal even to think of forgiving him at first had to be a way of deflecting the guilt from myself to him: it was all his fault for putting a target on Snape and setting him up for me to shoot him, not mine for doing the shooting. (You see, Hermione, I'm not so entirely clueless about how this sort of thing works.) I guess that realization has settled in. Now it's a matter of earning Snape's forgiveness, the only way I can.
Sept. 17. Another open house day. Some further conversations with you guys about how I might still fight back against any invasion, if Riddle makes his way back. No need to repeat here. (And again, I'm skipping over a lot of personal stuff in this diary for reasons already stated, like how you agreed to go back to Hogwarts without me, etc.)
Sept. 18. Bitten by Riddle-snake if this diary gets to you come to #12 ask Kreacher where the snake is it should be bottled and stunned flooing to St. Mungos now.
Sept. 19. I was awakened by the pain of the bite, about 1 AM yesterday, and the snake started talking to me, "You can't kill me, but I can kill you, I'll kill you Potter," then he lunged again, got me a little, but I had my wand in my hand by then and stunned it. It got me on the leg, both times. Lower left leg.
I don't think he's really all there; I mean, I don't think Riddle is fully himself, fully in charge of the snake, it may be that he's still relying on the reptile brain and instincts. He doesn't really sound like, talk like, this immensely powerful and knowledgeable dark wizard, he sounds like a stupid, hissing snake looking to kill something that's going to snatch a rat away from it. Maybe it takes a while after possessing something before he can recover himself.
I told Kreacher to put the snake in some glass container and seal it, and I flooed to St. Mungos. It hurt, but not terribly; not as bad as a bludger, for example. The healer saw me immediately, asked me what kind of snake, and I didn't know but I gave a description and he said it must be an adder. "Unluckily for you, that's the only poisonous snake in the British Isles; luckily for you, it isn't really all that potent, not enough to be fatal unless you have an allergy, which I don't think is the case here because you'd probably be in a lot worse shape now if you did."
So, count my blessings: at least I'm not living in Australia. Because then Riddle could have picked any of about thirty-seven creatures that would have had me down and out for good with one bite.
I'm fine, healers took care of the bite and administered the anti-venom, no problem really. I'm back at #12. The snake was re-stunned and re-re-stunned, not sure how long I have to do this or how often, not sure whether to tell everybody that Riddle is back in snake form. Problems either way.
It must still be able to flee in wraith form, so there's no point in killing the snake. It might just flee in wraith form as soon as it awakens from the stunning, so it can come back and try again as another snake. It must have been probing the house for an underground entrance point for a while. Probably found me the same way I found him, through the connection. And that's a scary – a very troubling thought. OK, a scary thought, no point in denying it since I can't cross it out anyway.
How much has Riddle read in my mind? Does he know I'm a horcrux? Can't, he wouldn't have tried to kill me then, would he? Maybe he would, if he's still fanatically occupied with the prophecy, and thinks with me gone he can't be killed, he'll just work his way up from snake to human like he did last time, then make more horcruxes. Can he, or has he reached his limit? Nobody to consult on this question, either in this world or the next, because nobody ever tried to make six/seven before he did. So for now, stunning spells and more stunning spells until I figure something out. If I knew how to make Draught of Living Death, maybe that would be the answer. Assuming it works on reptiles, especially on possessed reptiles. I could ask Snape. "Say, Professor, I understand that if you add an infusion of wormwood to powdered root of asphodel..."
But even if I had the recipe, it would be too hard to make on my own, and then I'm back at the question of whether to tell anybody else. I really don't want to, because then everybody pours in here and it becomes a 24-hour suicide watch for the rest of my life. And they wouldn't be entirely wrong to worry about that, because I'm already thinking about setting up a magical "dead man's switch" where the bottom of the jar I've got the snake in would be cut away and then re-attached to the sides by a sticking charm, then the bowl is put over a cauldron full of instant-acting poison or something, so if I die the charm stops working and the snake gets immediately dumped in the cauldron. Shouldn't be too hard, with all the crap you can find at #12.
But I don't want it to come to that. Don't want it come to asking someone to put that fail-safe spell on me either. If I ask, it will make people ask questions about why I'm thinking about this now, and before you know it it all comes out about the snake.
Damn it, it might come out anyway. I should have asked the Healer to make a magical vow not to tell anybody about it, because if it gets out that Harry Potter was bitten by a snake, there are plenty of people who will jump to the right conclusion, and not just everybody at the Burrow, not just everybody on our side. Do Healers' vows of confidentiality go that far anyway? I might not have much time if they don't; things might be taken out of my hands very soon.
If it comes out through the Healer, or if I just tell people in the Order, eventually it will get back to the Ministry, and somebody will try to take over the care and feeding of the Riddle-snake, and... it won't end well. If they do snatch it, there will be somebody, some unmarked follower or sympathizer, who'll find out and free the snake. And it all starts over again.
And if I keep it here by myself, eventually I'll slip up with the stunning charm, Riddle will wake up, maybe stronger, maybe strong enough to attack me through the connection. And I still don't know if I have what it takes to drive him back, because I still can't think that my parents would be proud of me, after what I did, even if I don't feel quite as awful and worthless as I did a couple of weeks ago, and I can't think right now of any other kind of 'patronus thought' that will let me control it, him.
I guess I have to think of it, then. Think of the dead-man's switch and the fail-safe spell. But there's something whispering to me, saying not only that I don't want to die, but that trying to vanquish Riddle by suicide just wouldn't work, for reasons I can't express. I know this might just be my life-wish manipulating me, my subconscious making me think that this is a message coming to me because I'm master of the deathly hallows and that gives me some sort of instinct about the ways of death. I know that might be it, but I can't ignore it. I think the whisper is telling the truth: that's not how the prophecy could be fulfilled.
If he somehow wins, possesses me, then he becomes the master of the hallows. He has the elder wand. He can do what Dumbledore worried about with Grindelwald, use the resurrection stone to raise a zombie army. And –
I will not, ever, ever let him put one finger or one scale on my dad's cloak.
I didn't really want to do this, I didn't really want to face my parents, but I have to call on them; I need to know if there's anything they can tell me, anything they can say to me –
I know what to do. This ends now.
A/N For the next and final chapter, I will be dropping the diary format and returning to traditional 3rd-person narration.
