Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling, I am just playing in her world
Counting Eggs
Voldemort left the Gaunt shack cursing. Three of his means of immortality were gone. Even if they hadn't been destroyed, his enemy had them behind lockdown wards. He had found the cave had no locket, and the shack he had just discovered had no ring. He knew how Malfoy had caused his diary to be destroyed. At the time he had thought it bad luck. For sure he punished Malfoy but had believed the reports from everyone claiming the Potter boy a brash stupid idiot Gryffindor. He had accepted Potter as a fool that dived into trouble head first with no thought. What if the boy was cunning enough to hide his intelligence? He was actually Slytherin enough to act the Gryffindor clown.
He had already lost out to gain the lockdown wards relying on Snape's information that it had to be Potter that the lockdown wards had raised upon. Plainly his potion master could not provide clear unbiased information when it came to involve Potter. Look how Potter managed to always survive his attacks by apparent luck and the skin of his teeth. However, if the boy was in realty a master of manipulation, was gifted in intelligence, and wisely cunning enough to hide in the shadows. Appear as no threat, to be completely underestimated, and then strike when his enemy was turned and not ready. The prophecy had stated that this baby was coming with the power to destroy him.
Would a brash idiot be capable of hindering and stopping him at every turn? He was the greatest Dark Lord in history. He was immortal. No the far more logical conclusion was that Potter had hoodwinked Malfoy and Snape. He had got them emotionally compromised and played at the competitive nature of each. So they would provide him false data. Yes, Potter kept surviving because he had believed the erroneous information. In reality a boy in their second year of Hogwarts had cunningly tricked the memory of his near Hogwarts graduate self.
Potter had made his memory within the diary believe the boy was a dumb fool, and from that first time underestimated Potter probably learned of Voldemort's horcrux. He had been hunting them for four years. That was why he was able to capture the best protected and hid horcrux by the end of his sixth year. He needed to check Bellatrix to ensure the one he had given to her to protect was still safe.
However, seen as the two he thought best protected were gone. He needed to check on the one inside Hogwarts first. Potter had spent six years at the school. If he could find these two, while still a child, during summers that from shared thoughts of the Dursleys he knew offered little spare time for the boy to look. He could much more easily have found the one hidden at Hogwarts. No the boy's thought luck was ending because he knew the truth. He would not underestimate his enemy again.
Apparating to the Malfoy estate that he had shanghaied and occupied as if it was his own he briskly entered and seeing Crabbe demanded he find Bellatrix, Lucius, the Carrows and his executioner McNair, for an immediate meeting. After getting them he wanted Crabbe to have Burke available for when their meeting ended. He headed to what had been the Malfoys' ballroom, but was now his throne room. Finding Snape still waiting he told him to leave and return with the potions he needed first thing tomorrow. He was far too angry to risk punishing his potion master when he like as not could kill him. He would need to be careful he didn't lose it on Malfoy too.
Thankfully he had only moments alone prior to the requested lieutenants arriving. Looking first to Amycus and Alecto Carrow, as the siblings worked best together, "You will lead a group of at least six death eaters. Bellatrix and Malfoy you will each lead two more groups. McNair I want you to make a team that will drive the acromantular colony in the forbidden forest, at Hogwarts.
"The four of you will with your three teams attack Hogwarts from other sides. I recommend you don't get too close to McNair's group. You will begin the attack in twenty minutes. Each of you will send a stinging hex through your mark when you start the attack. If needed send a second signal of the crucio if you have to break off the attack for some reason. The reason better be good or you will suffer my displeasure. I am fine with seventy-five percent casualties on my side. McNair your team is expendable. Now go!"
After they left he headed toward the door to save time as he had little to say to Burke. As the wizard entered he spoke. "We are going to your shop."
Heather was blissfully asleep when she thought she heard Dumbledore's voice. "Harry, Harry, wake up Harry!" She sat up in the Black's master room and disentangled herself from Luna who'd grabbed a pillow over her head to not be woken. Finding her wand beneath her own pillow she cast. "Lumos." She didn't see anyone in the room.
"Oh, Hermione, playing with polyjuice again I see. Nice orange I am sure Ron will like the color to match his favorite quidditch team the Chudley Cannons. Anyway I thought Harry would use this room when I was informed by Phineas he was at Grimmauld Place. Can you get him quickly?"
"Headmaster?" Heather tried to get the sleep out of her eyes. Was that the headmaster in a picture frame? This was for sure an odd dream. She felt Luna trying to pull her back into bed and a disgruntled noise from Hermione's direction.
"Hermione, Hogwarts is being attacked I need Harry now!" Dumbledore began but now joining the orange neko Hermione was an ash white with black tipped neko Hermione. The ash white one identified herself as Hermione and informed him the original orange was Heather, whom used to be Harry. There was a third neko human in the bed as he could see a tail to match Hermione's angrily waving out of a pile of bedding. The third, probably Ron, obviously was the bedding hogger and not happy with being disturbed. He was quite happy the three of them had found a way to get together. Though he had never had much interest in the female form to each their own he guessed. Hermione seemed to have awoken while Harry, though starting first was still more than half asleep.
"I have a few things in my office you must get. I was going to have my will enable some of these things to come to you, but I can't let Voldemort get them or the other items too. Phineas kindly let me enter his picture and had told me that Harry has elves that have been popping between Grimmauld and Hogwarts. He also told me of the lockdown wards so this is a great base for you three. Let Ron know when he wakes up too. Anyway Harry could you get all your elves to pop to the headmaster's office of Hogwarts. I will direct them from my picture there.
Voldemort waited fifteen minutes since he got the last signal of a stinging curse and told the crone Burke had provided to enter the vanishing cabinet. The interior lit with spell light and on opening the door the crone was gone. He re-closed the door and waited until the spell light was illuminated once more from around the door frame and the crone opened the door and came back.
"It is a room of junk, piled floor to ceiling as far as I can see. Most is broken but there are brooms, books, furniture. If you want more detail you'll need to use his pensive over there as I couldn't see anything worth calling out." The crone informed him. She had been pressured into using the vanishing cabinet and not daft enough to not know she could die. Evidently she was the guinea pig for this experiment and having survived hoped she could now leave with her daughters. She wasn't going to ask why Voldemort wanted to visit a junk storage room.
"That will do, release the three of them Burke. As I said here are your galleons." Voldemort informed the crone and handed over a small pile of coins. Burke relocked the door after the three witches had left.
"I will be gone for a few minutes." He then stepped into the vanishing cabinet and closed the door. Re-opening and stepping out into the room of hidden things.
He calmed down when he saw his horcrux. He had been increasingly nervous but the diadem was present. It was exactly where he had left it, and his horcrux was undamaged. Voldemort picked it up and moved to the exit door. He propped it open with a nearby box and crossed the hallway to look down on the grounds through the window. He smiled at the chaos below.
The warders that had been working on Hogwarts wards were dying, killed by curses or slain by the giant spiders. The outer sections of the school were in ruins. Walking to the seventh floor's closest stair well from the room of hidden things he pointed his wand at the main floor beneath him and cast fiendfyre. Voldemort smiled reveling in his power as he swept the cursed flames into the opening that led down into the dungeons. It was intoxicating to watch the animal shaped flames climb toward the second floor while they raced and gambled with each other along the corridors of the first.
Backing toward his propped door he willingly released control of the spell. He felt it hungering to reach the seventh floor to burn the creator that had deliberately lost control of them. However, he was already closing the door to the room of lost things and heading back to use the vanishing cabinet before the flames got half way between the fifth and sixth floors.
On return to Burke's shop he signaled through Burke's mark to end the attack. Barely acknowledging Burke he was on his way back to Malfoy manor right after. His prize was hidden but safe with him. Now he had to think of a better hiding spot.
"Harry, Voldemort has cast fiendfyre I need you to allow the Hogwarts house elves through your wards bringing the prior headmasters' portraits and other essential things that must not be lost." Dumbledore told Heather.
Heather started calling house elf names that could enter the wards as the ones arriving provided new names. She had quickly decided that all the portraits were going up in the attic. She had given up getting the headmaster to call her Heather. At least he had stopped calling her, 'Harry my boy' but he refused to use the female pronouns for her along with any name but Harry. Claiming that 'he should honor his parents with the name they gave him'. It didn't help that having been hurt last evening with the locket that had not wounded Harry. She had been questioning whether she had made herself weaker by embracing the new female version of herself. Wondering if perhaps she no longer had the power the prophecy had given Harry to defeat Voldemort. Being so worried already she didn't need the possibly justified recriminations from Dumbledore.
She knew you weren't supposed to think ill of the dead but the headmaster was quickly approaching the limit of Heather's tolerance. The disappointment he had showered upon her when he found out the third bed mate wasn't Ron was unneeded. Luna had given up pretending to sleep as the Hogwarts invasion on their abode had caused the surplus flood of items from their now overstuffed suite to spill out into the rest of the fourth floor. The headmaster would not let the topic that Harry should be with Ron go.
Belaboring how Ron was the thing Harry feared losing the most in the tri-wizard tournament. Refusing to listen to Heather screaming that it was Dumbledore who chose Ron not her. Heather had no idea how the headmaster thought that Ron and Harry would be good for each other. Sure he had been Harry's best mate. However, she knew that she had no interest while Harry. That lack of interest had not changed now that she was Heather. If anything since the whole word association game, Ron she realized was a good mate to goof off with, but not a best mate. Hermione and Luna were her best mates, and girlfriends.
Well she had got more than rather annoyed when Dumbledore ignored her opinion. However, it had taken Luna and Hermione joining in before Dumbledore allowed the subject of Ron to be shelved, currently. Heather knew he didn't believe them and was bidding his time to attack once more on this issue later. So as soon as they had rescued everything they could, all portraits were heading to the attic. She couldn't believe she had thought she missed the headmaster. She plainly needed her head examined.
Unfortunately, even with the topic of Ron dropped the headmaster immediately found something else to push her buttons on. It probably didn't help that he had immediately started harping on the male pronoun within the prophecy and that 'he' would likely have to be Harry to fulfil it. Considering how previously he had said she didn't need to have the prophecy dictate her life, but as Voldemort cared about it she couldn't ignore it. She could see the new tune and question if Dumbledore's greater good was also for Heather's greater good.
She was sure that Dumbledore had never planned to allow her to escape the prophecy. He was likely worried she had found a way to negate it. I mean she could hang out behind lockdown wards with Luna, Hermione and their parents and let the wizarding world destroy itself. It had more than once attacked her. Why did she have to bail them out? She was rapidly approaching the point of finding paint thinner to use on his portrait when it arrived. She had forgotten how angry the old coot could get her.
Voldemort was imagining the headlines in tomorrow's paper. Hogwarts was gutted, ruined, destroyed. He had Nagini and the diadem safely beside him. He knew that even with just these two he was immortal. The loss of only seven low level death eaters was worth the fear that would cripple the wizarding world. He had planned on having to accept greater losses than the seven. It was a total victory. The so called safe Hogwarts destroyed in less than an hour. Let the wizarding world panic. He Lord Voldemort would be an immortal god deciding who would live and die.
"Bellatrix the item I gave to you for safe keeping. You do have it safe, yes?"
"My Lord the cup is still safely stored in my vault in Gringotts." Bellatrix replied from her bowed position.
Voldemort wondered where to keep his three horcrux. Should he make three more? Could he make more? It might have been that he made his sixth, the snake, just after he had regained a body that had made it so much more painful to make than the earlier ones. Or he might have reached the limit of the number you could make. If Malfoy hadn't squandered the diary for an attempt of political gain, that even failed, he would have only been down two not half of them. The snake should stay beside him but what of the diadem and cup?
Suddenly realizing that he had 'crucio'd' Malfoy for an unknown length of time he dropped the curse. He didn't want to lose the political savvy of Lucius as an asset within the Ministry halls. Even if his son was as cunning as his father, which he didn't appear to be, the younger Malfoy would never accomplish the same results because no one would respect a young child like they would an experienced adult.
Nagini slithered forward. "Dinner?" she hissed hopefully.
"Not now he still has some use for me left." Voldemort hissed back.
"Bellatrix I want you to bring the item I gave you back to me. It better not be damaged." He told her. Voldemort noting the manic devotion within her eyes felt slightly disturbed that she was not adequately cowed. At least the rest of the death eaters were sufficiently fearful of receiving the same punishment Lucius got.
"I also want all my death eaters here at ten in the morning. Bellatrix get your sister to take care of her husband. Now leave me." Voldemort headed for the master suite to get some sleep.