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Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters...
Now that everyone was positive their host was behind this, they decided to once more search the manor, again splitting up into pairs. They knew what to be on the lookout for now, and knew what they needed to do to be more careful. They weren't going to succumb to another attack. Not this time.
Harry and Marvolo, once more partnered together, walked through the manor, speaking quietly as they searched, and soon enough, Harry broke off mid sentence with a hiss of pain, a hand clamping down over his forehead.
"Harry?" Marvolo moved in front of him immediately, eyes narrowed. "Your scar is paining you again?"
"Yeah. Sss, dammit, what the hell is this!? Why does this keep happening!?"
They looked around, noting that they were in the exact same spot where his scar had been hurting earlier as well. So why did it only hurt in this one spot? This obviously couldn't possibly be normal!
Suspicious and curious, the two began looking around closer, and since there was nothing obviously wrong, Harry used the pain in his scar as a compass of sorts, trying to get it to sort of...direct him to whatever was causing said pain. Hey, it was better than nothing, and also actually seemed to be working, because Harry soon found something.
He came across what appeared to be a cupboard under the nearby staircase, its door a plain white, and though it looked innocent enough, his scar burned like hell as he stood beside it.
He knelt down, tried to open the little door, and realized it was locked. Well, he supposed that wasn't all that odd. He pulled out his wand and tapped the handle. "Alohomora," he intoned clearly. He heard a soft snick of the lock being undone, and once more took the handle, this time pulling the door open.
The moment he looked inside, all the air in his body left him at once.
Identical. It was identical. His breathing quickened. It was completely identical to his cupboard, right down to the doodle of a garden snake (Patrick) he had been friends with when he'd been very little. Oh, Merlin. What is this? What the hell is this!? How is this possible!? What the fuck is going on!?
No, no now wasn't the time to start panicking, Harry told himself, fists clenching. There was obviously something very wrong here, and he had to check this out. He couldn't allow himself to start freaking out and lose focus on what was clearly important.
He closed his eyes, took a few breaths, and then realized he could feel magic. Strong magic. Curious, he focused closer, and realized this magic seemed to be coming strongest from the floor. He opened his eyes and lowered down further, laying on the floor, his body half in the cupboard now, and reached out to examine the floorboards.
There were definitely spells here, he realized, and these spells were most definitely concealing something. Eyes narrowed, he took up his wand once more, and started performing a few spells he had picked up from certain possibly questionable people. Nothing worked. Nothing turned up. Nothing happened.
Annoyed, because he was one hundred percent positive that there was something here, he looked even closer, and noticed that one of the wooden floorboards was sticking out just slightly. Setting his wand back down, he used his fingers to carefully pry it up out of place. "Ha! Gotcha, you bugger," he muttered triumphantly.
He pulled the board up completely, and peered into the darkened space. It wasn't that big, much smaller than the one he had used to hide things back at Number Four. But it's smaller size made it obvious that there was something hidden down there.
A Snitch. Harry blinked. It was a Golden Snitch, that looked like every other Snitch he had seen. "Huh..." Curious, he picked it up, and the second he touched it, his scar began searing. He involuntarily cried out in pain, and dropped the small golden ball, alarmed. His yell had been loud enough that Marvolo, who had been searching the other end of the hall, had heard him and hurried over.
"Harry? Harry, what's happened?" He lowered down to his knees as Harry rose to his own, and he was startled to see that the young man's scar had begun to bleed. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, and gently pressed it to Harry's scar. "What happened here, Harry?" he asked, trying to figure out what had gone on while he'd had his back turned.
Keeping the handkerchief pressed to her forehead, Harry haltingly explained everything. He explained how the pain in his scar had led him to this cupboard, how he had unlocked it, how it looked like his own, how he'd searched it and found the Snitch. "Don't touch it!" he warned quickly as the older man reached down, having ample reason, because doing so had hurt like a fucking bitch.
Marvolo frowned as he listened, crimson eyes scanning over the little cupboard, appalled and furious to realize Harry had once slept in an identical one when he'd been a child. Telling himself to refocus, he, despite Harry's insistence, picked the Golden Snitch up. It didn't hurt him in any fashion, but he was able to feel magic coming off of it-strong magic. A type of magic that didn't belong on an object such as this.
His eyes narrowed, and he pushed his own magic into it, trying to identify it, and it took only seconds before his eyes, which had fallen shut, suddenly snapped open.
Harry blinked as he watched. "Er, Marvolo? What's wrong? What happened? Did it hurt you?" he asked in concern, eyes searching the man's face for any sort of distress or pain.
The Dark Lord looked at him, expression more serious than Harry was sure he had ever seen it. "This Snitch, Harry, is no normal Snitch."
"It-it isn't?"
"No. This Snitch is a Horcrux."
Harry's eyes widened. "A Horcrux!?"
"Yes. And if this magic in it belongs to who I believe it does, then this Horcrux belongs to none other than Albus Dumbledore himself."
"...What the actual fuck?"
That's it for now. Looking forward to reviews! Laterz!