Chapter 10

Harry waited until the end of the dinner feast before making his move, when the students were leaving, he slipped into the crowd and made his way up to the head table.

"Professor Dumbledore, I need to talk to you about something." He said, "In your office if you wouldn't mind."

Dumbledore looked a bit taken aback, but replied, "Certainly my boy, we can head there right now."

It was a surprisingly short walk, as Dumbledore, walking fast, took several shortcuts that went straight through walls. The gargoyle jumped aside as soon as Dumbledore approached, and when they were both seated in his office Harry spoke,

"Professor, why didn't you tell me that I was the container for one of Voldemort's horcruxes?"

If Dumbledore had looked surprised before, then Harry's words downright shocked him, "How did you find out?"

"I've been doing some research," He lied, "But the important thing is why you didn't tell me."

"The reason why I didn't tell you is because I, to my immense shame, could not find a way to destroy it without killing you." Dumbledore said sadly, "If I had told you, you would've been consumed by the desire to find a solution, and your fruitless search could prevent you from having a normal childhood."

Harry was a bit angry, but though his actions were a bit misguided, Dumbledore had good intentions for him. Looking up at Dumbledore again, Harry could see that the man was very ashamed by his failure to find a solution.

"I understand the reason behind your decision, and now that I know why you did what you did, I would like to inform you that the problem has been dealt with." Harry said, before explaining how he destroyed the horcrux, though he left Katharine, Samuel, and the vault that he had gotten the potion from out of the story.

Dumbledore was crying with happiness by the end of the story, but spoke up again, "What is this Spiritual Alignment Potion you speak of, and why were you in the chamber?"

Harry anticipated the question about the chamber, but the fact that Dumbledore didn't recognize the potion that he used threw him off.

Thinking fast, Harry replied, "The Spiritual Alignment Potion was a very old medical potion that became obsolete when wand-based diagnostic spells were invented. It was used mainly to identify magical maladies, but I figured that if I had something that could kill a horcux with me, that I could end it right there."

"Fascinating, and simply brilliant!" Dumbledore exclaimed, "In all my research, I never thought to re-purpose old remedies."

"Professor?" Harry asked, "Do you know how many horcuxes Voldemort has? I know that I've destroyed two, his diary being the first, but I can't help but think that he is still alive."

Dumbledore sighed, "You are correct, Voldemort does have more horcruxes, I believe that he made a total of seven, though this is merely a guess, and my thoughts on their locations are more guesses."

"Do you know if Voldemort has a new body yet?"

"My sources tell me that he is but a shade of his former self, though I am sure he will not remain that way for very long." Dumbledore replied, "You needn't concern yourself with this, now that your horcrux has been destroyed, your involvement with Voldemort has ended."

"Understood," Harry said, though he did not believe him, there was no way that Voldemort would leave him alone after the embarrassment that Harry caused him as a child. "Farewell, Professor."

"Goodbye for now Harry, you cannot believe how much of a relief this has been for me."

Harry left, leaving Dumbledore behind whistling some merry tune.

"Katharine?"

"What?"

"Do you know of a way to get into the basement of that cottage?" Harry asked

"Why do you want to get in there? We've already established that he is a liar."

"Call me distrustful, but why should I believe you? It's your word against his, and I don't see a reason why I should trust you more, until I review the memories."

There was a moment of silence, before Katharine reluctantly said,

"It is locked with a blood seal, the keyhole is just a red herring, all you need is a bit of blood to enter."

Without another word, Harry started to head for Hogsmeade, casting a disillusionment charm on himself as he went.

Katharine was not lying about the blood seal, he cut his thumb and the door swung open as soon as he touched the knob. It revealed a set of stairs leading down into darkness, which Harry started down, lighting his wand as he went. The room was damp, small, and empty, save for a large chest sitting in the middle of the room on the floor. He opened the chest, which contained a great number of labeled vials, each filled with multiple memories.

"His letter wasn't entirely composed of lies, then." Harry said.

"So it would seem." Katharine answered shortly.

Once again, Harry made the trip to Gringotts and then back again, though this time he grabbed the Pensieve. Placing the Pensieve on the ground, he grabbed the vial labeled 1 and poured it in, as the book he had read on the subject instructed. Just as he was about to stick his head in, Katharine spoke up,

"Wait!"

He stopped, "What?"

"Um, it might be cursed, and you could get stuck in his memories."

"Well I guess that neither of you were being entirely truthful with your accounts of what happened back then."

"What makes you say that?" Katharine replied indignantly

"You and I both know that there is no way to curse Pensieves, the runes are far too powerful to be tampered with." Harry replied, "If there is something that you don't want me to see, then too bad, because I am going to look through each and every on of these memories."

He gave her a moment to reply; when she said nothing, he lowered his face to the Pensieve.

Memory #1

A teenage Samuel looked up from the papers he had strewn across his desk,

"What did you say?"

The man he was addressing sighed, "Even if you are some sort of prodigy, you really need to pay more attention when you are working."

"I'm paying attention now Gil."

"What I was asking for is an update on your progress on translating those scrolls we found in Arkoudi."

"I have made some progress, they definitely do not match any known language, and they seem to be oddly resistant to my magic." Samuel replied, "Oh, and most interestingly, the paper itself appears to be magical in nature, it does not react normally to water or fire."

Gil groaned, "Did you try to burn the only artifacts we managed to salvage after all those months our excavation team was slaving away on that accursed island?"

"Only a small scrap of each scroll," Samuel said dismissively, "but don't worry, it appears to be completely nonburnable, and water just runs off of it. This probably also explains why my efforts to translate it magically also met with failure."

"Okay, so we know that they are tougher than regular paper, but that's hardly noteworthy, after all, any mage worth his salt can make a piece of paper fireproof. You've got to give me something I can tell the chief."

"I don't think you understand, the paper is not actually paper; as far as I can tell, it is pure magic that has been forced into the shape of a scroll of paper."

Gil was starting to understand, and get excited about the implications of what Samuel was talking about, "So what you're telling me is that the physical composition of these scrolls is magic, right?"

"Exactly, this is unlike simple conjuration, where the object created is made from mundane materials."

"Okay, this is great." Gil said, leaving the dimly lit room, "But I still need to get it translated and right now, you are our best option, but if you take too long, I'm giving this project to Agnes."

"You can count on me Gil!" Samuel shouted after him, before returning to his work.

While Samuel was poring over his work, the door behind him silently opened, and a figure began to approach Samuel from behind, though none of the persons features were distinguishable, likely because Samuel never knew who this person was. The figure then clubbed Samuel with its staff, and the memory went completely black, Harry thought that it was over, but after a few moments, everything cam back into focus, and Samuel began to stir.

Samuel stood up and when he looked at his desk, he realized that all his research, including the two scrolls, were missing. He summoned his staff from where it leaned against the wall and threw open the door, yelling about a thief. Immediately, several other witches and wizards joined him, all dressed in similar brown robes.

"A thief?" One of them said, "Where?"

"I don't know, somebody knocked me out and took everything!" Samuel said frantically.

Gil pushed his way to the front of the group, "Everything? Even the scrolls?"

Samuel nodded, "We have to get after them!"

"Well, at least we should be able to track them," Gil said.

Samuel's face fell, "Actually sir, I don't know if we can."

"What do you mean?" Gil said, before coming to a realization, "You did put a trace on your research and those scrolls; didn't you?"

Samuel said nothing, but his face betrayed his answer, and Gil quickly became furious.

"I've told you a thousand times that you need to be more careful!" He roared, "You just threw away everything that we discovered on Arkoudi. Do you even know how much that expedition cost?"

Samuel shrunk back as Gil continued his verbal assault, the other people in the hallway returning to their individual rooms.

"Your arrogance has just put all of our jobs on the line!" Gil said, finishing up his tirade, "Now go to your office and stay there until I return to deal with you."

As Gil was walking off, he called back to Samuel, "You'd better hope that our trackers can find this thief, or else there is no hope for you to remain here."

Samuel slunk back into his office, downcast, and slumped heavily into his chair. There was no way that the trackers would be able to retrieve his work, the thief was probably in another country by now and without a trace to follow, it was completely hopeless. After a while, Gil returned, looking just as livid as before, though he was now flanked by two more wizards wearing gray robes and carrying staves, with swords visible in their sheathes.

"Samuel Potter, You are hereby dismissed from your post as researcher for Great Historical Confraternity of Magical Europe, and are banner form any and all GHC research stations, schools, or GHC owned sites." Gil said formally, his eyes never straying Samuel's, "You may return your robes and leave peacefully, or I will have you escorted out."

Samuel doubted that he would be escorted, thrown would likely be a more fitting word. However, he kept these thoughts to himself as he removed the outer robe that designated him as a member of the GHC and handed it to the guards. Then, picking up his staff, he walked out of his office and the GHC building, his eyes not leaving the floor. The gates opened automatically for him, and shut behind him. He knew that he would never be returning to this place, but spared one last glance back at the massive research center, which now appeared to be nothing more than a small house in the middle of the woods.

Samuel disapparated and the first set of memories ended.

"I had no idea." Katharine said, her voice softer than usual, "That's probably why he was convinced that we were just trying to steal his work, being a researcher for the GHC at such a young age is quite impressive and a serious honor, and getting dismissed like that must have really hurt him."

Harry said nothing as he retrieved the second vial, he hadn't known Samuel personally, so he really had not observations to make. He poured the second set of memories in and once again, entered the Pensieve.

Memory #3

Samuel was hiking up a narrow path cut into the side of a mountain while snow swirled around him and high winds buffeted the mountain face. He was dressed in thick fur robes and was carrying his staff. In addition to his robes, he was cloaked in a field of green shimmering magic that became more visible every time a gust would hit before fading back to normal.

Eventually, he made it up to a point where the path stopped climbing and widened until two people could easily stand side by side on it. Samuel put his back to the mountain and sat down for a moment to catch his breath. The rumor of ancient ruins secreted in these mountains seemed more believable than most, after all, somebody had to create that path, and there was definitely some magic here, as he was unable to apparate back to his camp at the base of the mountain.

Samuel continued on, he wanted to be off the mountain before night fell and wasn't entirely sure how much further he had to go. As he continued climbing, he got a bad feeling, something felt off.

Before he could act, he was lashed by a magical attack, the force of which blasted apart some of the stone around him and sent him flying. He was launched well out of reach of the path, and thrust out his staff, forming tendrils of magic that worked their way into the crags of the mountain and held firm. However, he was now swinging back towards the mountain, and only barely had enough time to shield himself again before impact.

He hung there for a moment feet against the mountain, the attack had broken his first shield, if that had not been there, Samuel was quite certain that he would be in pieces by now. Looking up towards the path, he considered his options, the magic he had used to suspend himself was holding fine, and he knew that he could probably make it back down the mountain safely. No, he decided, he had not come this far to be scared off by a single near-death experience so he pushed off of the mountain face and rapidly shortened the tendrils holding him, causing him to fly back up the mountain, his momentum carrying him past the path and into open air, snapping the tendrils.

He scanned the ground below him as he started to fall, and saw something on a ridge that stood out from the stark white snow. This was almost certainly the person that had attacked him so, as he began to draw closer to the rock, blasted the figure with enough magic to knock out a Hippogriff. Then, as he fell past the ridge where the person was, made more tendrils to catch himself before again shortening them, though much slower than before, so that he was able to climb up onto solid ground once again.

Samuel grabbed the strange wizard's staff, and bound the man, conjuring ropes to secure his feet and hands before magically reviving him. He swung his head back and forth, trying to find who defeated him while still very bleary due to being knocked out by such excessive force.

"I'm right here." Samuel said flatly, "Now please inform me as to why you decided to attack me."

"I was just following orders, I swear!" The man said fearfully, apparently he was a coward.

"Whose orders?"

"Creepy guys wearing dark green cloaks! They hired me and the boys to protect them while they explore these mountains."

"Have they found anything?"

"Yeah, they set up camp around the other side of the mountain and sent me out to watch the path."

"What did they find?"

He shook his head, "I don't know! The boss just sent us out here and said that none of us were allowed near this tent they had set up."

Samuel threw the mercenary's staff off of the ridge, and said, "I suggest you leave this mountain at once, if I catch y

ou following me, I will kill you."

As he was walking away, he caused the ropes to disappear. Samuel began to head in the direction that the man had indicated. As he got closer and began to see the light of the camp, he wrapped himself in magic that offered no protection from spells, but made him completely invisible to the naked eye.

Samuel knew that his footprints would still be visible, so he stayed a good distance away from the camp. There were eight people that he could see, walking about or standing around the fire. There were three large tents arrayed in a semi-circle around the fire. Samuel figured that there could be any number of people in those tents, so he would have to be extremely careful. A short distance away from the fire and other tents was a smaller tent, big enough for perhaps two people. Walking closer to the camp, he could start to make out what they were saying.

"Why are we still here?" One of them said gruffly, "We've taken them where they wanted to go, and its not like anyone is going to find them up here."

One of the mercenaries who was walking around came over to the fire as well, "We are still here because the gold that they promised, not a small amount mind you, would only be delivered after they safely reached the base of the mountain again."

"How long is that going to be?" The one who first spoke moaned.

"As long as it takes them to complete their business."

"What is their business anyway?" Another mercenary asked, "all six of them have been in that tiny tent for days now. How do we know that they haven't gone back down without us?"

"It doesn't matter what they are doing, and I know that they are still there."

"How do you know that, boss?"

"Because I talked to them you idiot!"

Samuel looked over at the small tent with renewed curiosity, it would probably be big enough to just barely cover the entrance. He carefully began to sneak over to the tent, he did not have to be quiet, the wind muffled the sound of his movement easily enough. The tent had protections, he was almost certain of that, so he began to probe it with magic, just enough to tell him if there was something there, but not enough to trigger anything. Sure enough, there were several layers of dark magic surrounding the tent. They were strong, but whoever created them was not a master, and so Samuel started to unravel them, starting with the outermost layer first.

It took several minutes, but luckily none of the mercenaries seemed keen to move away from the fire, so he was left undisturbed as he finished his careful work. When the last ward was removed, he moved the tent flap to the side and slipped in.

The tent had not been magically expanded, it was just there to cover a circle of stone in the ground. Samuel's pulse quickened; after so many years of fruitless searching he had finally found it, the entrance to the fabled city of Lakmane. There had been many stories of its existence, a great under ground city that once inhabited by a people whose magic was so powerful that they could move the stars in the sky, make the sun go dark, and split mountains with but a thought. The stories of their abilities were many and varied, though Samuel was certain that most were exaggerations.

The circle itself was nothing much to look at, it had probably been covered with intricate designs at one point, but these had long since faded away. The circle, though heavy, moved easily enough and allowed for an opening that was just big enough for a person. The passageway was long and went down rather steeply; it would be cramped for a large person, but Samuel was quite thin and relatively short for his age, so he fit easily.

The passage eventually opened up into a larger room, and Samuel could see light through an opening in the walls. Standing up straight, he walked to the opening and saw a long hallway, with floating lights periodically placed along it, revealing plain stone walls. He walked along as quietly as he could, not dropping his invisibility magic and came to a large door that was made from a dull gold and without any sort of design. Samuel pushed to door open, his staff at the ready, revealing a room that was similar to the hallway in that the walls, floor, and ceiling were made of stone. However, surrounding the room on the walls was one continuous design and, though it appeared to be nothing but a random collection of lines to Samuel, there were six wizards in green robes intently studying different parts of the wall. They had apparently been alerted to his presence, even though the door had been completely silent, because they spun around as one, staves flying to their hands.

Samuel readied his own staff, and created a powerful person shield as they launched their attacks. Waves of brilliant magic pushed him backwards and out of the room, but his shield held. One of the wizards pointed his staff at Samuel, a lance of magic forming at its tip, and said, "Leave now or we will be forced to kill you."

The wizard's voice was weird, it was a sort of raspy gargle that chilled Samuel to his bones. The wizard's face was still shrouded in darkness, even though the light coming off of he magical lance should have been enough to illuminate it.

Samuel said nothing, and stood his ground, even though there were six of them, he would not give up so easily.

"You will regret this."

The wizard blasted the lance at Samuel, who used his magic to shut the door to the room. The lance made it through, as expected, but by the time it reached him, it did not have enough power to pierce his shield. The wizards flung open the door and resumed their attack. Samuel was able to neutralize, dodge, or redirect almost all of their attacks, and the ones that got through were absorbed by his shield. He knew he could not keep this up for long however, and needed to go on the offensive. Releasing a shock wave of magic that made the wizards stumble and momentarily cease sending magic his way, Samuel leapt towards them, spinning his staff and releasing two thin, incredibly sharp discs at two of the wizards, one of whom was able to dodge, while the other lost his head. His enemies recovered quickly, but with one less, and Samuel now in the midst of them, their attacks were less effective, as they had to worry about hitting each other.

Samuel was able to kill another two of them in short order; they really weren't especially skilled combatants. A powerful swing of his staff sent another crashing into the wall, unconscious. The fifth fell with a deep slash across his midsection. The final standing wizard, the one who had launched the lance at him earlier, put some distance between the two of them and began to attack wildly, blasting magic in Samuel's general direction, but with no finesse or focus. These attacks were easily absorbed by his shield which he had restored to it's full strength. Samuel sent tendrils of magic along the ceiling which deprived the man of his staff, something that any wizard in his right mind could have stopped.

"Who are you?" Samuel demanded as he approached the disarmed wizard.

"Heh, heh, heh" The wizard laughed, "He said that you would be too much for us."

"Who said that?"

"The master, the one who walks behind the shadows." The man replied, before letting out another raspy laugh. Then, he, along with the other wizards that Samuel had defeated, appeared to deflate before his eyes with smoke coming out from under their hoods. Samuel was disturbed, somebody had known that he was coming here, yet according to the mercenaries, they had already been hear for a few days, which was longer than Samuel had even considered this mountain as a possibility. The way that they disappeared was also quite strange; were they even dead?

He returned to the room that he had first encountered them, there was a table in the very middle of the room, and on it was a small closed box. A careful magical examination of the box revealed no traps or defenses, so he opened it up and drew out a small eyepiece. Putting it on, Samuel's jaw dropped at how different the room looked around him. Instead of the indecipherable designs that wrapped the room before, there was what now looked like a series of maps, all closing in on one single location, though he could not tell what the location was, as he did not recognize the language that was used to label the maps.

Samuel conjured several blank papers, as well as a quill, which he used to roughly record the maps that he could see. When his work was done, he stored the maps and the eyepiece in a satchel that he had concealed in his robes.

Memory #3

Samuel swore quietly as he downed a shot glass of some sort of rum. He was so close to finding Lakmane. He had spent three years trying to translate those maps to no avail, he was certain that he would be able to do it in a matter of days if he had access to the GHC's resources. However, he could not just ask them for access, he was sure that they would just steal his maps and take all of the credit themselves. But he could not just give up on this quest, if he found the mythical city, his reputation would be restored, people would forget about his mess-up all those years ago with the Arkoudian scrolls.

He sighed a stood up, leaving the Muggle inn behind, it was much easier for him to get a drink in muggle establishments because nobody recognized him. Apparently the failure of the Arkoudi expedition had cost a lot of people a lot of money, and he was the GHC's scapegoat; combine that with the famous Potter name, and almost everywhere he went in Magical Europe, people recognized him.

He had never been to close to his family, he was on good terms with all of them, but it had been many years since he had seen them, he took the GHC's offer to work with them without a second though and hadn't once gone home. Samuel thought about returning several times after the GHC had dismissed him, but always decided against it; he wanted to be a famous researcher when he finally saw them again, not some failure that had messed up the biggest find of the century.

He turned up a dirt path leading out of the town, and became acutely aware that someone was following him. He knew that there had been someone behind him as he was walking away from the inn, but this was strange, it was unlikely that they were going the exact same way as he was, after all, London was in the complete opposite direction of where this road was leading. As far as Samuel knew, there was essentially nothing along this road for many miles.

Samuel walked out a bit more before turning suddenly into the woods on the side of the road and, as soon as he was hidden from the road, turned invisible and waited. He was not taking any chances, there had been several attempts on is life as of late, usually assassins hired by the wizards that he had fought in the map room, though sometimes it would be wizards wearing the same type of robes themselves. He had discovered nothing more as to who their master was, and had long since given up trying to question them.

That being said, he did not want to just attack somebody because he was paranoid that they might be following him, so he decided to see who this person was. They burst into the woods, looking like just any other farmer, at least until a staff appeared in their hand and they started using magic to search for him. He didn't give this one a chance, and knocked him flat on his back with a sudden magical attack which also sent the assassin's staff spinning into the woods, before he bound him and left. He didn't usually kill the normal assassins, unless they seemed particularly evil, and they didn't often try to come after him again after being taken down so easily.

"Wait," The man said, "I'm just a courier, I have a message for you."

That got Samuel's attention, "A courier you say? Now why didn't you just approach me on the street?"

"The person who sent the message said that I should wait until you were alone." The courier said, "Top-secret, that's what he said."

"Well, lets have it then." Samuel said impatiently, it was unlikely that this man was lying, no real assassin would have started searching for him before even shielding themselves.

The courier looked at him, "It's in my bag. But I can't exactly get at it currently."

Samuel did not unbind him, instead, he reached out with magic and opened the courier's satchel before withdrawing envelope. After checking it for curses, he opened it.

I know the ancient language of Lakmane. We can help each other.

Come to the Iron Door Inn as quick as you can.

Samuel was almost tempted not to go; this could very easily be a trap, but why would a wizard select a crowded location like the Iron Door if they wanted to kill them. So, without another moments hesitation he unbound the courier and disapparated.

He was able to apparate to a location just outside of London, and made haste to the inn. When he arrived, he realized that he did not exactly know what he was supposed to do, so he bought a pint and sat in a corner table.

He watched people come and go for almost an hour. Though he started to feel as though this was nothing more than a prank, as far as he knew, nobody knew about the maps that he had found other than the strange cult that he was battling, so he remained seated.

The innkeeper suddenly announced, "I have a message here for someone named Samuel Potter."

That was strange, the innkeeper had been visible the whole time, and nobody had given him a message, or done anything more than order drinks as far as Samuel could see. Nevertheless Samuel got up and walked to the bar, "I'm Samuel Potter."

"Right, here you go." The innkeeper handed him a note.

Attic room immediately.

Samuel proceeded up the stairs and when he came to the attic room, he readied his staff and knocked on the door. It swung open almost immediately, revealing an extremely frightened looking man.

"Potter?" He asked

Samuel nodded, "And you are?"

"Digsby, Peter Digsby." He answered hurriedly, "We must be quick, the Cult of Tyne can't be far behind."

"Cult of Tyne?" Samuel asked, "Those wizards with green cloaks?"

"Yes, nobody knows what they actually call themselves, but the laniatum excubiarum call them that because they seem to be the most active near the River Tyne."

"Right, now, you said that you now the Lakmane language?"

"No, I don't know it myself." He responded, "But the one who sent me here, he knows it."

"Then why didn't he come here himself?" Samuel demanded, becoming very suspicious.

"He can't return the England, they'd hang him!"

"Who's they? The Cult?"

"No, the laniatum excubiarum would." He said, "Look, he just said to give you these."

Peter thrust a book into Samuel's arms, before continuing on.

"He said that these would help you find him, now get out of here! The Cult wants you, not me!"

The door was slammed in his face, and as he turned to go back down the stairs, he heard from the barroom the unforgettable voice of one of the cultists. The innkeeper replied with something, but Samuel could not make out either partie's words. He threw the book into his satchel and, using magic to open unlock the door, pushed his way into the nearest room on the second floor.

He vaguely heard the voice of an angry person as he sprinted through the room and flung open the balcony door before jumping down onto the street. He then took off along one of the cobbled streets in no particular direction, just trying to get as far away from the Iron Door as quickly as possible.

End