It was a frosty January morning when the students returned from their christmas break, rejoining those who had elected to remain at the castle over the holiday, and immediately upon entering the castle, Hal was beset by an extremely excited professor Vector who was brandishing the winter edition of transfiguration today. The short woman fired off questions at the sixth-year, demanding to know every single detail of his work and the paper that he had written.

Over the last year or so, Hal had been working on an incredibly complex arithmancy project which involved forming a representative model of magic in complex euclidean n-space, as well as equations that described with great accuracy the way in which the magic seeped out of that space and into realspace. The scope and application of the work was mind-blowing, at least to one who knew what they were talking about, as it enabled the use of the more conventional and developed muggle brand of mathematics to finally predict things about the magical world, allowing enchanters, healers, and spellcrafters to complete their work with greater precision and with far fewer mistakes.

As classes resumed, the four of them found themselves having to work for the first time to keep their heads above the water, in that every class was harder, and every teacher was setting more and more work as the year went on. A great number of their fellow sixth years were struggling, and many of them had received detentions or other such punishments for not completing their work. Professor Snape was one of the harshest teachers that there was in terms of punishment, but none could fault his teaching ability.

There was, therefore, a great deal of hype built up around the first Quidditch game of the new year, as it would see the defending champions of Slytherin go up against the rising stars in Gryffindor. Even Susan was excited about the game on the morning in question, and was decked out in red and gold, even going so far as to magically recolour half of her hair to be gold, and the other half to be crimson rather than her usual deep reds. Hal smirked as he talked trash to Harry in the entrance hall before they went down to the Quidditch pitch, something which drew almost as much interest as the actual game itself, with a great ring of people surrounding the two quidditch captains all jeering and throwing light hearted insults of their own.

It was all in good fun, however, as the two boys embraced before they headed out to the pitch, the red of Harry's robes contrasting neatly with the green of Hal's. The cheers of the crowd filling the stands could be heard by both teams as their captains gave a last minute tactical talk, as well as a motivational speech. The latter was wholly unnecessary as the crowd was having a motivational effect on the players by itself.

Harry kicked off the hard ground as the game began, searching for the snitch and watching for plays that he could break up or help out with. He wasn't too hopeful of their chances, which was why he needed to catch the snitch fast. Sure, Peakes and Coote were good, but the Slytherin chasers were nearly unstoppable with Hal leading them. Harry also had very little faith in Ron, his keeper, who'd had an awful time of it when the Slytherins shot insults and barbs at him in the corridors and classrooms. Sure enough, Slytherin were rocketing ahead, and were already up by twenty points, due to several incredible shots by their beaters and a few stunning goals from Hal. Ginny seemed almost as good as Hal, but not quite, missing out on a few plays due to her less massive frame and slightly more hesitant nature on a broomstick.

Play continued in a similar fashion for nearly an hour, by which point Slytherin had pulled ahead by one hundred and twenty points, with Ginny playing her heart out to try and keep up with Hal. Suddenly, Harry saw the snitch and raced off after it, closely pursued by Malfoy. The golden fleck in his vision took a sharp turn, and Harry followed it into a dive, remaining neck and neck with his opponent. The stadium quietened as the two seekers closed in on the tiny ball, before Harry's hand closed on it in triumph, with Draco's fingers shutting around thin air a fraction of a second later. The crowd roared, as Gryffindor had beaten the current champions by a margin of only ten points. Harry smiled not at the victory, but at the mental image of Hal's eyebrows the next day after he coloured them red and gold due to their bet.

( | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | )

"Katie!" called Harry as he saw her make her way into the main hall on her first day back at the castle after spending time in st Mungo's. She stopped and waited for him to reach her, looking resigned but pleased to be back at Hogwarts.

"How have you been?"

"Actually, I could probably have come back last week, but the healers wanted to do observation on me. Thank you for what you did, with Hal and Daphne too; the healers said that I would have likely died if you hadn't done what you did for me. And before you ask, no, I don't know who cursed me." Harry looked past her, and saw Malfoy rushing out of the hall, and his scar prickled.

Harry found himself in the bathroom on the second floor, watching Draco sob into a sink as Myrtle hovered over him.

"I know what you did, Malfoy."

A grunt followed his statement and Harry deflected a stream of light away from himself. He returned in kind, his spell obliterating the mirror and half of the row of sinks behind Malfoy. Water began to pour onto the floor as the destroyed sink spewed out water at an alarming rate. Malfoy shot several more jets of various colours at Harry, but all of them were avoided and resulted in no more than fist-sized holes in the wall behind him. The water underneath the two boys began to steam as raw and crackling magical energy filled the room as the pace of their duel increased. Harry was surprised by Draco's talent at duelling, and surmised that he received lessons from an expert, perhaps Snape. Harry slipped in the water that was now uncomfortably hot, and immediately found himself under indescribable pain, and drew blood from his lip as he fought the urge to scream out. His head was scalded by the heat of the water, and he shakily aimed his wand at Malfoy as he channeled the spell, and fired off a spell recently taught to him by Dumbledore.

Now it was Malfoy's turn to fall, as lacerations had opened up all over his body. Vitreous humor leaked down his face as his left eye had been ruined by the invisible sword, and blood began to diffuse out into the water. Harry shifted onto one knee and gestured with his left hand, summoning Malfoy's wand into it. He tried to stand, but found that his legs were shaking so badly that he was unable, and the door to the bathroom burst open, admitting Snape and Dumbledore. Snape immediately rushed over to Draco and began to close his wounds. Dumbledore helped Harry to his feet before he moved over to aid Snape. Dumbledore murmured softly as he moved his wand, causing the mixed blood and humor that covered Malfoy's face to slide back into his eye, which closed up behind the fluid mixture. Harry cooled the water on the floor with a wave of his wand preventing the two teachers from suffering burns as they healed the still prone boy on the floor. Harry waved his wand again and vanished the now blood-free water from the floor, and dried off his robes. As the pain from the cruciatus curse faded, he became increasingly aware of his other ailments, such as the lancing pain through his ankle and the burns spread across the entire reverse of his body.

Dumbledore rose from tending to the boy on the floor, and glanced over at Harry, before flicking his wand at the boy. Harry's ankle gave a loud crack as the pain vanished, and his blistered back felt cool and light as though the injury was a few weeks old. The man wordlessly held out his hand, and Harry placed both wands into it. Dumbledore forced each wand to recount the last few spells cast with it, raising his eyebrows when he saw the scale of curses that the wands revealed, and only stopping when Harry's wand spat out a contraceptive charm. The man let out a chuckle before he spoke.

"Well, you're not going to be punished for this. You were merely defending yourself after all. I will ask that you pay for the sinks and mirrors that you ruined, but apart from that you were acting in pure self defence. As for mr Malfoy, he will be punished, but likely panicked when you confronted him. The fact that you were capable of cursing him even under his own curse tells me that his heart wasn't in the curse; that he didn't truly mean it but that it was reflexive."

Harry's mouth fell open at Dumbledore's words, and he turned on his heel and left the bathroom to go to his first lesson of the day.

( | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | )

"Look, he cursed Katie. His reaction to seeing me talking to her basically proves that." Harry was seated under an old oak tree beside the lake in the first of the springtime sunlight, talking to his three confidants.

"I'm not saying I disagree with you, but what would the purpose of that be? What does he hope to achieve?" Susan spoke from her position with her head on Harry's lap, twirling her wand idly in her hand.

"Perhaps…" began Daphne, "Lucius failed miserably towards the end of last year, and Voldemort was very unhappy at his failure. Perhaps Draco is being used to punish Lucius?" Hal walked away from the tree that he'd been leaning on, hands clasped behind his back as he thought.

"That seems unlikely. If it was the case then he would have a mark."

"He does have a mark," Daphne suddenly said, before blushing and clarifying, "Parkinson and her lot were discussing him, and her and Draco's activities came up. Knowledge is power, and so I didn't not overhear them talking. They talked about a tattoo of his on his left arm, and whether they would still… enjoy his company."

"Parkinson doesn't seem like one to share though," mused Susan, before being interrupted by Daphne's snicker.

"She's not. She is very jealous of him as they are betrothed, but he seems keen on getting as much experience as he can before he leaves Hogwarts and has to commit to her." Hal cleared his throat.

"Either way, it would seem that his job was to harm someone or destroy something, that's the only reason I can think of for him using the necklace. Who would his target be?"

"Harry?" suggested Susan, but Harry shook his head.

"If it had been me, Katie would have just given it to me in the pub, or on the way back to the castle. It can't be Hal either, for the same reason."

"Could it be Slughorn? Voldemort was trying to recruit him for a long time and obviously can't be happy that Dumbledore got to him first," Susan suggested.

"Voldemort wanted to punish Lucius, and Draco might actually succeed if Slughorn was his actual target. I think it's Dumbledore." Hal spoke, looking out over the mirror smooth surface of the lake reflecting the pale rays of the sun.

"Draco disappears for long periods of time, too. He's lost weight, and looks like he isn't getting any sleep. Last year he took joy in bullying the younger Slytherins, but now he doesn't seem to care, or maybe he's just too tired to care anymore," Daphne joined her boyfriend, "I think he's trying to fix something, but I couldn't tell you what it is."

"Hang on, we're being stupid," said Hal, "Pinky!" Hal's house elf appeared with a crack.

"What can Pinky do for yous?"

"Pinky, I have a very important job for you. I want you to follow the Malfoy heir when he is awake, and note where he goes, and with whom. Do not be seen, do not put yourself in danger to do this, but if you can find out what he is trying to fix, or where it is, then I would be very happy."

"Pinky can do that sir!" and with a crack she disappeared from sight, and then with another, more muffled crack, her shadow vanished too.

( | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | )

Harry's lessons with Dumbledore had accelerated in pace, and he would return from them nearly three evenings per week physically and magically exhausted. The others didn't mind too much, as they knew that if Harry wanted to stand a chance of defeating Voldemort he would have to become incredibly powerful. Hal and Daphne were duelling each night in the room of requirement, and these duels lasted until one of them was too exhausted to continue, as Hal's blistering offence ran headfirst into the unmoving defence that Daphne offered. These duels still usually ended with Hal's victory, but only because he could out-last Daphne due to his greater raw magical power.

It was in a rare quiet moment that Pinky returned, reporting that while she couldn't be sure of what Draco was fixing, but that it was certainly in the room of requirement, as she had seen him entering with 'a variety of students' waiting outside to perform guard duty. Harry had looked the most worried about that, as he was unsure about what Draco would need to fix if he was inside the room, as it would certainly be something complex and no doubt deadly. The four of them resolved to discover what it was that the room turned into for Draco, and Susan began constructing requests that could possibly get the room to reveal the secret to them.

So it was that after nearly a month of trying out various phraseologies and ways of speaking to try and gain them access that they finally managed to enter the room.

"I need to find where it's hidden," thought Hal,

"I need to find where it's hidden," he paced back down the hall,

"I need to find where it's hidden." Hal turned to face the smooth stone, and grinned as a small door appeared set back into the limestone. He coughed, and Daphne, Harry, and Susan hurried over to him, before they entered the doorway.

A vaulted room, so large and tall that the roof and opposite walls could not be seen, was spread out before them, without the layer of dust that you might expect the items to have covering them. Harry's jaw dropped, the vastness of the room meant that they were very unlikely to find any specific object in the room unless the room wanted them to. They split off into pairs, with Hal and Daphne heading left while Harry headed down the right path with Susan.

Hal's eyes were like saucers as he practically span around looking at all of the things that had been stored in the room presumably by students and staff members. Many rusty-looking tools and cauldrons were present, along with hundreds of books and clothes. Hal would occasionally grab an object from one of the mounds, and so far he had collected a complete set of incredibly rare volumes on combat magic, as well as two enchanted goblin-forged daggers. He was in the process of taking a vial of what he said was manticore venom from a mildewed cupboard when Daphne let out a soft exclamation.

"You alright?" he asked, stowing the lethal liquid safely in an unbreakable lockbox.

"Hal, come and look at this. Is this thing what I think it is?" Hal came over to find Daphne levitating an ornate goblin wrought silver tiara, set with opals that glittered through all of the colours in the rainbow. Hal ran a finger over the tiny script engraved into the bottom.

"Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure," he breathed.

"It's Rowena's, isn't it?" Daphne spoke with the same tone of reverence as Hal had used. Hal touched the silver once again, and pulled his hand away sharply with a yelp.

"It's cursed, someone's defiled this artefact," he pulled the mirror from his pocket, and breathed Harry's name into it, before he shot crimson sparks into the air from his wand, "Harry, Susan, you'd better come here, we've found something huge."

They waited, still looking at the diadem, before a crashing sound grabbed their attention, and they saw Harry and Susan jump form the top of a pile of junk and land at their sides, using a well timed cushioning charm to prevent injury.

"Touch it, Harry, I want a second opinion." said Hal, and Harry stretched out a finger and brushed the surface of the pristine metal. He withdrew his hand with a shocked expression.

"That's Voldemort's, I knew I felt his presence somewhere around here. He's made that crown into a horcrux."

"That's not just any old crown. That's Ravenclaw's diadem, a priceless artefact from a full millennium ago, and better enchanted than any artefact ever was before, or has ever been since." Daphne spoke in a harsh tone, as though berating Harry for his lack of knowledge. Harry pulled out his wand.

"I'm going to destroy it."

"Hell no, it's far too valuable to ruin like that." Hal responded, flicking his wrist and pointing his own wand at Harry. Susan raised her own, and Daphne's wand tip appeared, pointing straight between the eyes of Susan.

"Hal, come on, it's tethering the snakey bastard to life, we'll have to destroy it somehow." Harry said, placatingly.

"You know I'm not about to let you do that," Hal snarled back at him.

"What's happening to you? Why are you doing this?" Susan frowned as she spoke, the tip of her wand wavering slightly but still pointed firmly at Hal.

Harry grunted, and his spell slammed into a shield with a pearlescent quality to it, causing a sound like a great bell, and the spell flew off into a pile of hidden things to the left. Susan shot a jet of flame from her wand, which also impacted the shield and rebounded. Harry and Susan rolled in opposite directions to avoid the flame, giving Hal all the opportunity that he needed to quite literally return fire. Harry's jaw dropped as the black flames billowed from Hal's wand and surged across the empty space towards him, and he barely managed to fling up a shield between himself and the rolling fire. A building sound like nails on a chalkboard or keys on a violin e-string could be heard, unsettling all involved, but the sound was the least of their worries as the ferocious duel continued.

Harry finally managed to dispel the fire, and shot a series of golden beams towards Hal, who turned to avoid the first few, and absorbed the others into the tip of his wand, before releasing them as a burst of violet light towards Susan, who dropped to the floor to avoid the no-doubt lethal attack. Daphne capitalised on her prone position on the floor and the girl was flung back by a bombarda curse, and hit her head on the corner of a heavy dark wooden cabinet that stood in the middle of a cleared area. She crumpled to the floor. Harry's eyes turned to a silvery hue as his rage overtook him, and the area around him crackled with energy as he shot spell after spell towards them. Daphne shielded the both of them from the spells, allowing Hal to continue his own assault with jets of purple that precisely matched his own glowing eyes. Suddenly, one of Harry's spells broke through the barrier, striking Daphne's wand and causing her to scream in pain as she fell back. Her wand had exploded in her hand after it absorbed Harry's curse, and her hand had been shredded by the force of the pure magical energy that had flowed out from the epicenter of the explosion. Hal snarled as his own spells came thicker and faster than before, and his eyes were blinding suns of purple light. Harry dodged as many spells as he could, and deflected the rest.

Harry waved his wand, causing a chest of drawers to fly out from the pile of junk and barely miss Hal, causing him to have to reset his aim and buying Harry a few precious milliseconds. Harry shot a jet of light at Hal, whose wand arced up impossibly fast to deflect it, and it impacted the diadem sitting where it had been dropped at the start of the fight. The diadem flew up into the air at the impact, and Hal shook his head as though he had surfaced from under a great body of water. The crown crashed to the floor, landing in the small pool of blood that was dripping from Daphne's ruined hand, and the note that was heard throughout the entire fight rose to a crescendo.

"Avada Kedavra"

A jet of green from Hal's wand hit the diadem, and the note cut off abruptly. Harry lowered his wand and turned to see Hal's face which was white like a sheet.

"I'm so, so sorry. We'd been near that thing for at least fifteen minutes before you got here. I bet that's why it turned to blows."

"Look, I knew it wasn't you when you objected to destroying the horcrux. You hate him almost as much as I do." Hal smiled weakly at his friend's words, before he turned to Daphne who had lost consciousness and squatted down beside her. Hal moved his wand in a twirling pattern, and the stump at the end of her wrist began to grow, forming into the shape of a hand. Hal then removed a small bottle of skele-gro and fed her half, before pouring the rest over her hand. He then put the mottle down and poured drops of dittany over the raw flesh, which caused pink skin to form over the bare flesh, sealing the skele-gro inside. Daphne shifted uncomfortably in her sleep as fragments of bone formed inside the flesh, and Hal once again moved his wand over her hand, muttering softly as the old tendon met up with the new, and nails grew from the ends of her new fingers.

Susan's aid was far simpler, Harry just repaired the fractured skull with a flick of his wand and a murmured incantation, before he checked for concussion and then revived her. She gasped as she awoke, sitting up rapidly before looking queasy and propping herself up on her elbows. Harry pressed a kiss to her forehead and stalked over to the diadem. He picked it up and flooded his magic into it, detecting no trace of Voldemort's magic, and inspecting the varied enchantments placed upon the item. Harry grinned as he saw the elegance and mastery of the enchantments upon the piece of jewelry, and placed the crown on his head, grinning at the heady sense of wisdom that it imparted to him. Hal looked over at him and snickered.

( | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | )

A few months passed, and Daphne's wand was replaced by a beautiful commissioned piece made of dragon's blood wood, and with a core comprised of a basilisk's heartstring- something only made possible by the killing of the basilisk that had petrified her in her second year. That heartstring had then been soaked in manticore venom, and was therefore especially powerful when it came to offensive and defensive spells. Daphne's magic had grown stronger and stronger for each hour that she used the new wand, and Hal had theorised that the wand which had been made especially for her, rather than merely choosing her, had formed an unusually close bond with her very magic, and had unlocked some of her potential to a greater degree than her old wand, which would serve to explain why it was better than her previous one. Her repaired hand was not faring nearly as well, despite the near-perfect work that Hal had done. A healer who was an expert on hands had taken a look at it and had said that the work done was some of the best that he'd ever seen a person do, topped only by his own repairs, but that such a repair job would naturally feel strange for a long time after it was done simply due to the fact that it was such a big thing to replace an entire hand. At least Hal had made it look just like it had used to.

Harry was getting nervous because, despite his best efforts, Slughorn would not give him the memory. He had even cornered him after class one day, joking about Ron's love potion incident the week before, but the man had quickly made his excuses and nearly ran out of the classroom.

"I think you should use it, the felix felicis that it, Harry. I get that it feels dishonest, but Dumbledore said that this memory was the key to defeating Voldemort. Surely this is worth it." Susan argued whenever he brought it up, and Harry agreed with her. Harry had taken a measured sip of the potion, something that he thought would give him around five hours of luck, and had been instantly overcome with a burning desire to comfort Hagrid over the death of Aragog, who had died earlier that day. Hagrid had tearfully informed Harry of the event at the breakfast table, but Harry hadn't planned on going until he'd drunk that sip of golden potion.

Harry was walking down beside the greenhouses when he saw Slughorn standing with his head and an arm through an ajar window on greenhouse three, snipping the leaves of a venomous tentacula plant. Harry decided that it was necessary to tie his shoelaces and squatted down to do so, noticing a galleon on the floor next to his right foot as he was down there. Slughorn extricated his head from the window and jumped when he saw Harry.

"Merlin's beard, Harry, you frightened the life out of me!"

"Sorry professor, I was just on my way to see Hagrid when I realised my shoe was untied. His acromantula died this morning, you see, and he's very upset so I thought I'd go and console him." Harry made to carry on walking.

"Harry! You can't possibly go down there on your own! I'm going to come too, to supervise you."

"If you want, Sir."

"Also, if the beast died only recently I may be able to collect a sample of the venom, it sells for two thousand galleons per litre and the teacher's wage isn't the best…" Slughorn trailed off in thought, before hurrying after Harry who had just disappeared around the corner of the greenhouse.

Shortly, they came upon Hagrid's hut, and found the half-giant sobbing outside, with a huge grave sitting open and waiting to receive the enormous spider that was curled up and on its back. Hagrid walked over to them and bent to one knee to wrap Harry in a hug. Harry felt the man's entire body shake in time with his sobs. Slughorn used the opportunity to collect the acromantula venom from the huge spider's body. Hagrid released Harry just as the potions master came back, a masterfully disguised smirk on his face as he schooled his features into a somber mask. Hagrid laid the spider into the grave that he'd dug, and then Slughorn spoke.

"Goodbye, Aragog, king of the arachnids. Though your body may decay, your spirit will linger on in the hearts of those to whom you brought joy." They spent a surreal minute in silence punctuated by Hagrid's sniffles, before Harry waved his wand and the earth softly laid itself over the spider's body. Another flick and grass sprouted from the earth, along with a few daisies and a rough granite headstone. Hagrid broke into fresh sobs as they moved into the cottage, with Slughorn producing two large bottles of elvish wine along with three glasses from somewhere.

Slughorn and Hagrid drank nearly a bottle between them, and Harry even refilled the bottles silently a couple of times before Hagrid fell into a slumber and began to snore.

"Death's an odd thing, wouldn't you say, Sir?" Slughorn started at his words.

"Yes, it is always upsetting when one that we love dies, especially if it is before their time."

"You knew my mother."

"Yes, and when I heard of her death I was most distraught. She had been my absolute, all time, favourite student, and to see a life like hers go to waste… She gave me a fishbowl, you know. I found it on my desk filled to the top with water, and with a single lily petal floating on the surface. As soon as I touched it, it sank and as it sank it turned into a goldfish. On the night she died, I came downstairs and instead of my fish I found a lily petal, withered and blackened by age. That was when I knew." Slughorn's eyes were filled with tears, and one broke out and cut a path down the man's cheeks. Slughorn suddenly looked very old, and very tired.

"My mother did not die for nothing. Her death was not wasted. She gave her dying breath to protect me from Voldemort. She refused to stand aside, to allow him to kill me."

"S-stop."

"You know why Voldemort came after me? There was a prophecy. That's why my parents died, that's why Voldemort still hunts for me. I have to be the one to kill him, but to do that I need to know what he knows. I need to know what you told him all those years ago, professor." Slughorn looked very small; like a man who had been broken utterly.

"P-please"

"My mother did not die for nothing, but if I can't kill voldemort then that will be what she'll have died for. Nothing. I need to know how, professor."

"If it is truly the only way… Don't think worse of me when you see it." Slughorn pressed his wand to his temple, and pulled it away, tapping the silver strand into a spare vial from his waistcoat pocket.

"Thank-you, sir. Maybe we'll stand a chance now."

( | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | )

Harry ran through the castle, skidding to a halt at the gargoyle guarding the entrance to Dumbledore's office.

"Pear drops!"

Harry took the stairs three at a time, and knocked on the door, hearing the voices within become silent immediately.

"Enter!"

Harry opened the door and saw Dumbledore sitting behind his desk, a look of great fatigue on his face.

"Sir, I got the memory!" all traces of tiredness vanished from Dumbledore as he immediately got to his feet.

"Excellent, shall we review it now?" Harry nodded, then tipped the silvery substance into the pensieve and touched it with his wand and then his hand to enter.

Harry was standing in Slughorn's office, watching Slughorn talk to a younger version of Tom riddle. This time, Harry noticed the ring on his middle finger.

"It's called a horcrux."

"School project is this?" asked the younger Slughorn, knowing full well that it was not.

"Not exactly. I came across the term while reading and I didn't really understand the concept."

"Well the general idea is that you split your soul, and then separate one of the fragments and hide it in a separate and protected container. The purpose is that you can be slain, but you will not die unless that separate container is also destroyed, but you must understand that such a half life is pretty unimaginable for most. Very few would choose it."

"But what I don't understand is can you only split the soul once? Wouldn't it be more secure to split it many times, say into seven pieces?"

"Merlin's beard, Tom! Isn't it bad enough to imagine the murder of one person, let alone six? Besides, you can't split the soul indefinitely. Once it reaches a certain fraction, the whole thing becomes critically unstable and vanishes. That happened to Evelyn the unwise around two hundred years ago, she tried to make a horcrux from every killing she did, but once she got to thirteen, she wasted away magically. She was killed just a week later by an auror who stunned her, but without any magic to protect her she was slain instantly."

"Thank-you, sir, I believe I understand now." Voldemort had an insane grin on his face, but Slughorn didn't see it because he was facing the fireplace.

The memory faded, and Dumbledore slumped into a chair.

"This is beyond anything I imagined. Seven, when I'd first theorised three or four."

"Sir, if you don't mind, I think that at least two of them have already been destroyed. That diary was certainly a horcrux, and nobody's seen his snake for over a year now."

"At least three, actually, I paid an arm and a leg for one over the summer." Dumbledore smirked at his joke, lifting his dead hand to show Harry, before producing the ring that Voldemort had been wearing in the memory. "Additionally, I believe I've found another. Of course, you'll be welcome to come with me to find it when the time comes, if you want to."

"I'd want to. I need to be able to find and destroy them if I'm ever going to stand a chance against the man himself."

"That you do, Harry."

( | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | )

Mere weeks passed until Harry received a note from Dumbledore, telling him to come immediately. Harry stood from his position on the second most comfortable chair in the library and kissed Susan before making his way to Dumbledore's office. He drank the rest of his luck potion on the way, well aware that he would need it if they were going after a horcrux, as Voldemort wasn't going to leave it unguarded. Harry made his way into Dumbledore's office, and the man looked up sharply at him.

"Good, now if you're going to come with me on this, you need to do exactly as I say."

"Of course, sir."

"Harry, I mean whatever I say. If I say 'fight', you fight, if I say 'hide', you hide, and if I were to say 'leave me to die and save yourself', then that is what you must do. I doubt that I need to express to you the danger that we are about to brave."

"I'll do what you say, sir."

"Excellent. Now, I'm sure you remember the memory of my first visit with Tom. We will be visiting the site of his tormenting of those two muggle children on a trip to the seaside, I have found a cave which reeks of magic, and so I put the pieces together."

A short while later, Harry found himself on a spire of rock rising from the sea, following Dumbledore through a narrow channel filled with water, and into a cave set into a cliff face. Harry dried himself off, and shivered. Dumbledore had been truthful when he had said that the place reeked of magic, as Harry could feel the oppressive waves of Voldemort's enchantments coming off of the very walls around him. Dumbledore had halted in front of an innocuous looking wall and was waving his wand over it, before he muttered a soft curse. Dumbledore retrieved a small knife from his belt and made a cut on the back of his cursed forearm, wiping the blood over the rockface before he sealed up the incision and walked through. Harry followed him, taking note of the vast expanse of water, as smooth as glass and darker than coal, with a soft green glow coming from an island in the middle of the lake. Harry flicked his wand.

"It's freshwater, sir."

Dumbledore frowned, continuing along the walkway that led around the side of the lake, before abruptly stopping.

"Harry, do you feel anything in particular here?" Harry cocked his head and reached out his hand, stopping when he felt a light tingling on his palm. Harry tapped his wand on his hand, and a thick green chain appeared clasped within it, stretching down into the depths of the lake. Dumbledore smiled widely at him.

The chain pooled by Harry's feet with a loud clanking sound that pierced the silence of the cavern, and slowly but surely a boat appeared from the depths. Harry clambered in, holding the wooden craft steady to aid Dumbledore. As soon as the headmaster had entered the boat, it began to drift swiftly across the surface of the water, leaving twin lines in its wake which disturbed the otherwise mirror flat surface of the water.

Shortly after this, they came to the island that they had seen from the bank of the lake, a craggy structure that rose steeply from the water, with a basin in the middle from which the green glow emanated. Dumbledore walked over to the basin, and saw that there was a potion within. He began to wave his wand wordlessly over the cream-coloured potion, his frown deepening the longer he remained at the task. He flicked his wand and a crystal goblet appeared in his hand.

"No, Sir, surely you can't mean to drink that!"

"It cannot be vanished, parted, siphoned away, be made harmless, or otherwise neutralised by any means that I can think of. I can only conclude that it must be drunk." He dipped the goblet in, and poured it out on the ground, but before it even hit the rock it reappeared back in the basin. Dumbledore refilled the cup.

"Wait, Sir." Harry conjured his own cup, filled it, and placed it on the ground.

"Ah! Ingenious!" said Dumbledore, but the potion in Harry's cup once again vanished and reappeared in the basin.

"Oh well. Ensure I continue to drink. To your health, Harry!" Dumbledore drained the cup and the jovial smile faded instantly from his face. He dunked the cup back in the basin and drained it again, and again, his eyes closed. By the fifth goblet of potion, he was shaking all over. The crystal goblet fell and shattered on the floor, and Harry picked his own cup off of the floor, filling it with the glowing potion and lifting it to his headmaster's lips. Dumbledore drank the potion dutifully, but after he had finished he screamed out in pain.

"Not them, not them, hurt me!" Harry filled and refilled the goblet, feeling the metal scrape against the stone bottom of the basin.

"Sir, just a little more."

"Gel! Stop! Please not them!"

"This will help, sir," said Harry, and Dumbledore drank like a man dying of thirst, before crying out. "Last one, then it's all over."

Harry grabbed the locket that he knew to be fake (as the real one had already been destroyed) from the basin, pouring the last half-gobletful of the potion out onto the ground, now not caring if it reappeared.

"Harry, water." Harry conjured a stream of it into the goblet, but it vanished when he tried to lift it to Dumbledore's lips to drink. Harry conjured another goblet, but the same issue occurred, and then Harry realised why they were in the lake, and how exactly he could get water, as Voldemort had designed it that way. He walked to the edge of the island, lying down on his stomach to reach the water, and carefully collected a gobletful of the water. Immediately the surface of the lake began to boil and froth, and Harry hurried back to Dumbledore, tipping the water into the man's mouth as inferi clambered onto the island.

Harry twirled his wand around himself, summoning forth a great thick stream of fire that twisted and whipped around him and Dumbledore, but still the mindless magically reanimated corpses staggered towards him in incredible numbers. Dumbledore was leaning heavily on Harry's shoulders as they staggered towards the small boat. Dumbledore summoned his own stream of fire which weaved in and around Harry's, thinner but hotter, and they glided swiftly across the lake which was filled with floating bodies, and burning ones, as well as inferi still shambling towards them. Harry could have sworn that one of the less decomposed ones looked like Sirius, and his flame faltered when he looked at the maggot-ridden flesh that was so similar in appearance to that of the family that he never really had. Harry's face set in anger, and from his wand burst forth creatures of flame which leaped from inferius to inferius, devouring all. Dumbledore raised an eyebrow tiredly at his display of silent dark magic, but didn't mention anything as Harry helped him out onto the side, supporting him with an arm around the older man's shoulders. Harry wiped some blood from a grazed knee onto the entranceway, and stepped out into the freezing air where he conjured a chair and a blanket, which he wrapped around Dumbledore. A new goblet and a jug of water appeared beside the chair, and Harry gave Dumbledore a hand with drinking the cold liquid until the man could do it himself.

They swam back through the narrow channel, and as soon as Harry felt the presence of the wards lift he clasped his hand more tightly around Dumbledore and twisted through space into the equally cold air of Scotland.

( | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | )

Dumbledore staggered, and Harry barely managed to catch the man. He looked up to the castle and his jaw set, as he saw the snake and skull emblem of Voldemort's design hanging over the castle like a noxious cloud. Harry flicked his wand, and seconds later his broom appeared beside him. He pulled Dumbledore onto the broom, then mounted it behind him, kicking off and accelerating as fast as he could. As they drew closer, Harry began to hear explosions that rocked the castle, and he saw flashes of light through some of the windows. Harry landed on the viewing platform of the astronomy tower, and rushed towards the door, stopping and looking back towards Dumbledore when he heard voices on the stairs. Suddenly he found that he couldn't move, and that he had taken on the precise shade and texture of the walls behind him. The door opened suddenly, and Draco appeared in the threshold.

"Expelliarmus!" he cried, and Dumbledore's wand flew across the room and landed in Draco's free hand. The boy threw it to the side, where it clattered next to Harry's feet.

"Draco, my boy," said Dumbledore, supporting himself against the wall, "you don't have to do this, Draco."

"Shut up. You know nothing."

"I know enough Draco. Let me help you, I can hide you from him."

"And my mother? Would you hide her? How would you even do that when she is currently right beside him? He would kill her as soon as he learned any hint to tretchary, so no, sir, I do have to do this. I have no choice."

"There's always a choice, Draco." Dumbledore spoke softly, sliding a little further down the wall.

The door opened again, and Dolohov appeared in the doorway, flanked by the twin Carrows, and followed by Greyback.

"Ah, Fenrir, so good to see you. I take it you are no longer waiting for the full moon to prey on children?"

"You know me, old man, I constantly crave the taste of the young and supple." The werewolf ligked his lips gruesomely as he spoke, and flexed his fingers to show off the yellowed talons that curved from the tips.

"Delightful." Dumbledore was now sitting on the floor with his back resting against the wall. Snape swept into the room, glancing around and pausing when he somehow saw Harry through the disillusionment.

"I've created a ward scheme that ought to hold them for some time, but we must be quick."

"Well, Draco, finish the job and we'll be gone." Dolohov spoke in a deep voice that bordered on a growl, but Draco's wand was held loosely in his hand, not quite pointing at Dumbledore, who had risen to his feet when Snape entered the room.

"Severus, please." For the first time, Dumbledore sounded broken, and his quiet pleading with Snape was what scared Harry the most. Harry felt the familiar thrill of danger as the man stepped forwards.

"Avada kedavra." Snape's voice was more resigned than triumphant, and Harry swore that he saw a look of relief pass over Dumbledore's face as the enchantments holding him in place broke. Dumbledore's body fell back over the railing around the tower, and sailed down to the ground far below.

"We must leave now. Come." Dolohov rumbled, nearly running from the room, followed by the other death eaters. Harry shook himself and followed as quickly as he could.

Below the astronomy tower, the castle was in chaos, with thick clouds of dust filling the air and angry jets of light piercing the fog. Shouts and screams punctured the air, and the castle rocked periodically from explosions that reverberated throughout. Harry ran after the pack of death eaters as they ran out towards the entrance hall. Harry shot spells at them from his wand, but all of them seemed to miss or be deflected, and so Harry followed them. Harry sprinted out of the castle, running past Hal, who was surrounded by a ring of corpses all clad in the dark robes of death eaters, and over the grass littered with fragments of bone and giblets of flesh. Harry ran past Hagrid's smouldering ruin of a hut, and watched powerless as Snape and the other death eaters reached the treeline and vanished. A shout of rage and frustration burst out of Harry, and the trees nearest to him immediately withered and died. The grass around him in a ring was blackened and dead looking, with his burst of magic, and the sky appeared to darken while his shout lasted.

After a time, Harry didn't know how long, Hal appeared next to him, and sat on the withered grass next to Harry.

"They attacked not long after you left, maybe half an hour. The teachers and the older students tried to defend, but… You know how it goes when the untrained fight. Fortunately, the order of the phoenix showed up after maybe fifteen minutes, followed closely by the aurors, but there were so many of them. Daph and I tried to defend the entrance hall, and we did a good job, but a small group of them flanked us. Daph and Susan split off from me to protect the dormitories along with the teachers, while I held back the tide.

"They had werewolves, Harry. We're so lucky it's not a full moon otherwise we'd have lost a lot more people than we did. As it was, we lost twelve students and professor Vector," his voice broke as he spoke of his favourite teacher's death, "They knew you'd gone. That's why they attacked; to prepare an ambush for your return. Dumbledore-"

"Dumbledore's dead." A moment's silence passed between the two wizards, stretching out and enveloping them in its suffocating embrace.

"That's… Unexpected." A phoenix landed on the grass before them, and trilled a soft and comforting note, nudging Hal's hand with its large beak. Hal idly retrieved a vial from a pocket of his robes, and Fawkes dripped tears into it, filling it halfway before the huge bird clicked at them and took flight, filling the air with a haunting melody that spoke of a lifelong bond forever ripped apart.

"Everything's going to change now." said Harry, not requiring an answer. "I'm not coming back here next year. I'm going to find the last horcrux and end this once and for all. If I die in the process, then I will die, but this goal is worth my life's price."

"You don't seriously think I'd let you go alone, do you? You know that Daphne and Susan would never forgive you. Come to think of it, I wouldn't forgive you. Spend the summer with me, try and relax. It's likely the last chance you'll get to properly relax until the bastard's dead." Hal wrapped his left arm around Harry's shoulders to reassure him. Harry nodded once and wiped his eyes angrily.

"Voldemort's going to die, and I'm going to be the one that does it."

AN

This chapter is both my longest, at 8200 words, and my largest departure from canon yet. Admittedly, I haven't actually made that many departures from the original storyline, but in this one I had to justify my older choices and come up with ways for things to play out roughly the same despite all of the differences.

I'm unsure about how to continue the story from here on out, as there will likely be very little canon-like events, other than the battle for Hogwarts, which was too important to simply be ignored. I have some ideas for possible continuation after the death of Voldemort, but we'll see how it plays out.

Roughly 4% of people who have viewed my story have followed and/or favorited it, and so I'm quite happy with those figures. I'd have written even if nobody read it, but the fact that i have even a small audience makes it more rewarding.

Anyway, if you want to have some input into the story then leave a message or review and I might take it into account, provided it doesn't conflict too much with my current ideas.

/AN