Chapter 9 – A Horrible Truth

The portkey had brought them to the ministry in only a few seconds. The room that they had ended up in was small, barely bigger than a broom cupboard, and when they finally managed to get the door open they discovered that they were in a big office. In an overstuffed couch sat Hermione's parents. They looked pretty upset.

"Mum! Dad!" Hermione cried before throwing herself in their open arms. While they were hugging Harry noticed the two other familiar faces in the room.

"I'm glad you could get here so fast," said Dumbledore. His robe had blood splatters on it, but otherwise he looked unscathed. "There is something I need to talk to you about."

Hermione looked up. "Is it about Nathaniel?"

Dumbledore nodded. "When you told me about his eyes I remembered something that I read a long time ago. I didn't want to tell you anything without checking if my memory was really correct."

The minister for magic - Rufus Scrimgeour – picked up a thick, battered, old book from a drawer of his desk and carried it to the coffee-table by the couch. Hermione and her parents watched the book with fascinated gazes. It's cover heaved up and down as if it was breathing.

"This book is the only one of it's kind, so please be careful," Scrimgeour grumbled.

Dumbledore carefully opened the book, and showed them two pages, roughly in the middle. "Read this, and then tell me what you think," he said to Hermione.

Harry watched Hermione as she read. The further down the page she came, the paler she got. Eventually she closed her eyes and pushed the book away. "That's enough," she mumbled. "I get it." Her eyes filled with tears.

"What did it say?" Ron asked hesitantly, afraid that he might make Hermione even more upset. She shook her head, unable to say it out loud. Her mother stroked her on the back.

"Voldemort must've gotten hold of the book somehow. Or at least acquired the information that is in it," said Scrimgeour without any empathy. "As far as we know, he has only created one, but that might change very quickly."

Harry glared at Scrimgeour, the irritation clear in his face. "He has created a what?"

Dumbledore's expression was serious when he spoke. "Voldemort has created a homunculus."

Ron opened his mouth to ask what he meant, but Hermione cut him of. "Voldemort created Nathaniel," she said quietly.

Disbelief was reflected in both Harry and Ron's faces. None of them could understand how something so absurd could be true. "How is that even possible?" Harry asked.

"It's ancient magic. Very difficult and extremely dangerous. At least one person has to give up a part of himself. In this case it was Voldemort and Lucius who offered their own blood."

"Why Lucius?" asked Hermione, who seemed to have recuperated a bit.

"Vanity. Lucius had an ancestor who was a veela. Voldemort tried to cleans his blood, to acquire pure veela blood. That was his first mistake. Only pureblood humans can create the type of homunculus that Voldemort wanted."

"He claimed to be related to Harry?" said Hermione. Her tone turned the statement into a question. Harry looked as confused as she did.

"The second mistake. You have to give up a part of yourself willingly. Since Harry's blood flows in Voldemort's veins, Harry unwillingly gave a part too."

Harry looked as if he wanted to throw up by the thought of his blood inside Voldemort. "But he managed to create Nathaniel anyway," Harry muttered.

"What he wanted was a soulless slave. A body that he could take over and use as his own, but what he got was something with it's own will. To take over Nathaniel's body he needs to destroy the soul that is already in it."

"That's not possible, right?" Ron was holding a hand over his heart, as if he was trying to protect his own soul.

"Unfortunately, yes," said Dumbledore dismally. "What happens with a person who is subjected to extreme pain during a long period of time?" he asked with his eyes fixed on Harry, as if he expected him to know the answer.

Hermione answered before Harry had time to even open his mouth. "He loses his mind." Harry immediately thought of Neville's parents. They had been tortured until they went mad.

Dumbledore nodded. "Over the years, Voldemort has learned that Nathaniel would persist, no matter how much or what kind of pain he caused him." Hermione winced. The thought about all the pain and torture that Nathaniel must have went through was daunting. "That's why Voldemort let him go. I was playing right into his hands when I took Nathaniel to Hogwarts."

Harry's eyes widened. "That's why he attacked Hermione's parents! He wants Nathaniel to kill her, so that he won't want to.." his voice trailed of, suddenly horribly aware of what he was really saying.

".. live any more. Exactly." Dumbledore sighed and turned towards Scrimgeour. "If you think that he was powerful before, that is nothing compared to how strong he will become if Voldemort takes over that body. Right now Nathaniel is trying to suppress the immense power that he holds, but if it is released Voldemort has won. We won't be able to do anything to stop him."

Scrimgeour looked at Dumbledore for a long time without saying anything. He seemed to be considering his next move. "How are we going to stop him?" he finally asked.

"Kill you-know-who," Hermione mumbled. "Then he should lose his grip around Nathaniel, and Nathaniel will be free to do as he wants, right?"

"It's not quite that simple." Dumbledore almost looked sad. "If we kill Voldemort we will end the spell that keeps Nathaniel alive. If we had acted quicker, Lucius Malfoy would've been able to maintain the spell, but unfortunately that isn't possible any more."

Ron looked up with a surprised expression and asked, not completely without malice: "Has something happened to him?"

Someone shook him. Nathaniel forced his eyes open, and discovered that he was staring into another couple of grey eyes.

"Wake up!" The eyes were desperate.

"Yes?" he asked wearily. It was painful to be awoken from his soft cloud of cotton and return to a reluctant body.

"You need to come with me, we need to escape!"

Nathaniel looked lazily around. He was back at the church. To his great surprise he realised that it was Draco who stood bent over him.

"Draco," he said softly. Draco leaned closer so that he would catch Nathaniel's words. "You're a greater idiot than your father."

Draco's otherwise handsome face was destroyed by a frown. "This isn't the time to insult me. I'm trying to save you!"

"No, you're trying to take me to your father so that I may return his abilities." Nathaniel showed him a smile filled with malice, happy that he could finally take his frustration out on someone. "First of all, I can't give his magic back, and second of all, Voldemort knows you're here. Go away before he makes me kill you."

Draco became even paler than he usually was. "But.."

The air was pushed out of him when Nathaniel hit him in the stomach with his fist. "Go home, you poor wretch."

He immediately backed away, with one hand clutching his stomach. When he could breathe normally again he hissed: "You have now idea what you just did!" before leaving.

Wrong!

Nathaniel knew exactly what he was doing. With a loud groan he sat up. His jeans and t-shirt were covered with blood splashes. His lips formed a content smile. Hermione had not been home, and her parents had made it. By now she, Harry and Ron ought to be safe somewhere where Voldemort couldn't get to them.

How does it feel to lose?

Nathaniel felt Voldemort's consciousness move around among his thoughts. Voldemort wasn't happy, but there was some other type of feeling there. Malice?

I haven't lost quite yet. I have an offer to make you. Do as I say and..

Nathaniel laughed loudly when he saw the pictures that Voldemort showed him. Happy pictures of him walking around in Hogwarts like any other student, pictures of him marrying Hermione, pictures of him playing with a child that had Hermione's eyes. It was obvious that Nathaniel had managed to keep some information away from him.

Don't be ridiculous. How stupid do you think I am?

A horrible scream filled his mind. Nathaniel instinctively cuffed his ears, despite knowing that it wouldn't help. It felt as if someone was pumping air into his scull, enough to make it explode. Voldemort had done that before, many times.

As you wish, but if you think for a moment that your friends are safe, you're horribly mistaken.

The red eyes crept back to their usual corner. Nathaniel sighed. Several years ago he had sworn to never give up, never. It hadn't really had a reason back then, more than ruining Voldemort's plans, but now everything was different. He had tasted life, an normal carefree life, and he wanted more. Voldemort had misunderstood his relationship with Hermione, which wasn't weird since he lacked the ability to love. Sure, Nathaniel loved Hermione, but it was the same type of love that he felt for Harry and Ron.. And he was certainly not planning to marry Ron. It was friendship. A friendship worth dying for.

He knew he would never be able to live a completely normal life. Best case scenario was killing Voldemort and killing himself in the process, not that it mattered. If his friends were given a chance of surviving it didn't matter if he died.

"We need to do something!" Hermione exclaimed suddenly. "There has to be another way."

Harry looked up from the armchair that he was sitting in. They had been left alone in Scrimgeour's office. "There is nothing we can do. Just like the prophesy stated, I have to kill Voldemort or he'll kill me. Nathaniel will die if I kill Voldemort, but I have no choice."

"But we might be able to do something about that. I'll need to read the rest of the book, maybe it says something useful." She chided herself for not reading the whole text when she had the book in front of her, but the truth she had discovered was so terrible that she could not bring herself to continue. "If I were to learn the spell and cast it on Nathaniel he might survive even if Voldemort dies."

"Hermione," said Ron in a calm voice. He was leaning towards a wall, staring out into the air with empty eyes. "Even if you learn the spell, how are you going to cast it on Nathaniel? You know how strong he is. Warding of your spells is a piece of cake to him."

Her eyes filled with tears again. With desperation in her voice she cried: "Why have you given up? Why am I the only one who thinks Nathaniel is worth saving? I thought he was your friend too."

Harry sighed despondently. "Where's the book?"

Hermione smiled. She would save Nathaniel, no matter what it took. "Scrimgeour brought it with him. It's probably in the ministry's library for rare and dangerous books."

Ron laughed. "There's no way in hell that they'll let us in there."

After rummaging through her bag for a while, she drew out a shimmering, see-through piece of fabric. "Luckily I brought Harry's invincibility cloak!"

(Uhum.. A couple of week after writing this I discovered a pretty big mistake, one that I don't want to change since I like it and am planing to use it later in part three. Voldemort didn't mix his blood with Harry's until Harry's fourth year, which - considering that this story takes place during their sixth year - would mean that Nathaniel is only two years old. I'm simply going to pretend I didn't notice. Thanks for reading and please review!)

(Btw, I took the idea about Malfoy being related to a veela from the Draco trilogy, by Cassandra Claire. The idea about homunculus and the ouroboros symbol is from Fullmetal Alchemist.)