AN: Sorry this is late! We're well off-track from where this story originally went, so it sometimes takes me a bit to pull things together in a direction I'm confident off. Your comments have been so helpful and encouraging; thanks!
Mega70021: Thanks for reading!
DramioneFever: Thanks; I wasn't sure if I was being too heavy handed or too vague. I'm glad you thought it was cute!
SydneyN: Welcome to the story! Glad you are enjoying it so far and I really appreciate your detailed feedback.
AmeliaBlackwell: Yay! Thank you!
After two more days of traipsing through libraries, Draco and Hermione agreed to work together to find information about the last item on their list. Hermione had looked a bit put out until Draco had pointed out that she had already won; now they were just jointly pursuing knowledge. Her smile at this had been positively predatory, although she'd primly informed him she would need a few days to think over what non-lethal favor she'd be calling in.
At the end of day five, Hermione finally asked the question he'd expected from her long before.
"Why do want these pieces of information if you know next to nothing about them?"
"Father had mentioned he came across some irregularities in a report at work-he works at the Ministry, you know-and asked if I could help track down some information." Draco tried to seem off-handed.
"And this report didn't detail anything else about these whorecruckses other than their relation-potentially-to Tom Riddle and his interest in relics from the Hogwarts Founders," she pressed.
"Err, no. Like I told you, there are likely six of them and they either are or are a spell on or are stored in the cup and the diadem."
"It's just a needle in a haystack then! I think I've looked through a thousand books for charms, hexes, jinxes, artefacts, or potions that even resemble that word. Your lot really need to work on standardized spelling," she huffed before continuing. "Nothing. Nary a mention. Is it even an English word? Maybe it just means 'shiny thing' in some lost language."
Draco nodded sullenly. He was feeling just as frustrated.
"Had your dad made any progress?" she asked.
"On what? On this?" Draco sputtered. "No, that's why he, er, handed it off. Not quite important enough for his time-writing legislation and such takes precedence you know."
In his head he added, as does torturing Muggles, anyone who disagrees with him, and acting as a loyal sycophant to the Darkest wizard of all time. But Hermione definitely didn't need to know that.
"I guess that makes sense. I just don't even know where to look next!"
Draco didn't respond; he didn't either, and time was running out for him to report to the Dark Lord.
That night after dinner, Draco stopped his mother. He'd exhausted all the traditional research channels he and Hermione could think of and come up with nothing. At this point, he didn't even know if their obsessive question to find out about these hoarkruxes (he'd been trying to spell the word differently in his head once Hermione had pointed out the spelling could have been wrong; he hadn't even considered it and didn't dare tell her he'd only heard it verbalized. There is only so much idiocy Hermione Granger can tolerate, and Draco was fairly sure he'd already used it up) was worthwhile. But then he'd see Potter's exhausted face and his earnest description of what they knew so far replaying in his mind. It had to be something important. Something that Potter had been able to find out.
"Mum? I have a question. A pretty embarrassing, personal one." Draco started, using his code for 'please don't tell Father' with her.
"Of course, my dearest. What's your embarrassing, personal question?"
"Have you ever heard of a Horkrux?"
The tall blonde matriarch of the Malfoy clan paused and pursed her lips.
"It rings a bell, but I can't say for sure. If I were pressed, I'd say I'd encountered it in my Ancient Studies Course. Taught by a lovely French woman, Sandrine de Fontaine; she was fired at the end of the year. Dumbledore was furious with her for some reason I never found out; he never even hired a replacement. She was ancient then, I doubt she's still alive…" she trailed off and sighed.
"I'll try to think on it more, but it's an obscure word if anything. Maybe a part of a myth?"
Draco nodded politely and thanked her, before impulsively rushing forward to hug her. This whole ordeal was slowly turning him into bloody Hufflepuff! The tiny voice in the back of his mind whispered if that was what this was, being a Hufflepuff wasn't all bad.
"Do you fancy a day trip to France?" Draco asked.
"With you? Not really," Hermione replied without looking up from her book.
"To follow a lead about the hohercruxes?"
Hermione's head snapped up. "Really? Of course! That's not a day trip, Draco. That's… part of our mission!"
She stood up abruptly. "When do we leave?"
A half-hour later they'd taken an (illegal and ill-begotten) international Portkey to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, just outside of Paris. Sandrine's daughter, according to the French ministry official who'd been only too happy to assist a Malfoy when Draco had floo called that morning, lived in a posh wizarding community that had popped up in an old Muggle castle there.
The yellow sunlight dappled the verdant, perfectly trimmed grasses outside town as they walked towards the immense, blonde stone building. Draco thought the architecture was rather new and pretentious, but he chose not to say anything to Hermione, who looked charmed and delighted by their surroundings. Really, he should be as charmed; these last days had been relative bliss-no summons from the Dark Lord, their only worry whether the next book would contain a useful nugget of information. But the stain that the reason why they wanted that information and the strain of keeping it all to himself… it marred the sunlit day better than than any clouds.
A short while later, they had entered the place through a side-door with strong Muggle repelling charms and walked through a decadent hallway to Suite 405, Eloise de Fontaine. Draco rapped on the door, which after a moment creaked open. A pair of brilliant, bulbous green eyes peered through the crack.
"Young Mister Malfoy, I presume?" Her voice was reedy and thin, like she had forgotten to speak but was rather breathing the words. Her vowels betrayed a thick French accent that would have put that Delacoeur's girl to shame.
"Yes, Madame de Fontaine. We appreciate so much your taking the time to talk with us," he said, bowing formally.
The door creaked farther open, allowing Draco and Hermione to enter.
"Enchantée de faire votre connaissance," Hermoine murmured when she had entered. Draco started in surprise; Granger knew French? She'd deleted all her friends, most of her experiences and managed to keep a language somewhere in that brain?
The shock must have shown on his face, because she shot him a triumphant grin as she chattered with the woman, who seemed much happier to see them now that they spoke in her mother tongue, in incomprehensible French.
"Malheureusement, mon… ami ne parle qu'anglais. We should switch back," Hermione laughed. Draco tried hard to make sure his smile didn't melt into a pout. This was his lead and she'd already managed to outdo him!
"Thank you, Hermione. Madame de Fontaine, my mother took a course at Hogwarts from your mother, many years ago…"
"Ah, yes, 'ogwarts. Ze place zat fired her so... so rudely. She was forced to come live with me when it happened, you know? Ze firing." The wiry woman looked like she held Draco personally responsible for this action.
"Yes, of course. Educators are so rarely valued as much as they are worth," Hermione agreed. "After your mother was forced out, they never even offered a course in ancient languages and traditions! It's egregious, really. Draco and I have been doing some independent study, but, well, we are no experts and wanted to make sure our curriculum is of high quality. Draco's mother reminisced fondly of your mother's class, so we hoped you might have some of her old course materials to help us?"
Draco hoped he masked his look of shock. Hermione Granger, happily spinning a web of lies to a woman she'd just met. And her little fiction had prettily charmed the woman, who was rifling through her bookshelf. Hermione looked incredibly smug, so he avoided making eye contact with her.
Mme. de Fontaine shuffled back over to them, holding out a sheaf of papers tied with a string.
"She burned all ze rest. I sink zese are ze… programme of study and some of ze notes. I 'ope it allows you to study it. She would 'ave been 'happy zat 'er work is appreciated."
"We can copy these and return this to you," Hermione offered, but the woman shook her head.
"Non, it was 'ard enough to prevent 'er from burning it all after she came back. She would razer two young students 'ave 'er work. Especially ones who studied under Dumbeldore. It would be an insult to him, I zink," she smiled conspiratorially at the pair.
"Thank you, Madame! We are very much looking forward to our studies," Hermione gushed.
The woman herded them towards the door and bid them goodbye before shutting the door noisily behind them.
"I found it," Hermione breathed. Her voice sounded almost awestruck.
Draco shot out of his chair. They'd been going through all the books referenced in Sandrine la Fontaine's notes. The nifty Ravenclaw spell hadn't been much of a help, given that they didn't know what a hoorkruks was to imagine it. So they'd spent the better part of two days slogging through old tomes about the batty wizards in Ancient Rome, Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, Greece… the educational standards at Hogwarts had declined if this used to be the sort of material they covered. Maybe Dumbledore had fired her for torturing students with too much reading.
"Herpo the Fowle, at the height of his power, made a horcux using the Darkest of magicks in an attempt to ensure his immortality. Current scholars disagree as to the methods he used to make a horcrux, but the commonly held belief is that he used an event of great magical power to cleave a portion of his soul and then, using rituals scholars have heavily debated (see T.N. Copeari's treatise on Fowlest Magicks and S. Slughorn's volume on The History of the Quest for Eternal Youth) attached the soul fragment to this object," Hermione read aloud. Draco felt his breath founder in his lungs. An artifact that made someone immortal? Artifacts that made the Dark Lord immortal. That is why they sought these horcruxes; that is why when he'd referenced focusing on killing the monster instead of focusing on horcruxes the daft duo seen through his disguise! He felt his thoughts click into place like the tumblers of a lock under a well cast Alohomora.
The Dark Lord had horcruxes. Plural.
He was invincible, several times over.
The daft duo was chasing after items to make him killable.
Hermione kept reading, her features squished into a moue of distaste, "The efficacy of his horcrux remains unclear. Herpo lived, by some accounts, to the ripe age of 207 and by others 346.9. He descended into what contemporaries described as 'full-blown, underwear-on-head, snake-skins as clothing, speaking only made-up languages' levels of insanity. Despite his infirmity, or perhaps because of it, he made a number of advancements in the Dark Arts, namely the breeding of the first Basilisk and the publication of the first Parseltongue dictionary.
"Some sources rumor it was his Basilisk which eventually killed him, although, like his time of death, this is unsubstantiated."
Draco barely heard the rest of what she read. The insane part fit, if they were looking to symptomatology. Obsession with snakes too. Really, the Dark Lord had perhaps gone a bit far in his homage to old Herpo.
Immortal. Somehow, the thought of the Dark Lord living forever was far worse than the horrors Draco endured. He thought of the pressure from his father to please their master, the way it had poisoned Draco's childhood and nearly killed him several times over. He imagined being forced to enact such a legacy on his son, and his son on his grandson… for every generation for all of time.
"Draco." Hermione had the audacity to snap her fingers in front of his face to break him from his reverie. "You still in there?"
"Just contemplating the implications of terribly dark wizards having the capacity to live forever," he snipped back.
"I asked whether you thought this Tom Riddle was implicated in trying to make horcruxes. Or hunt them. Maybe that Borgin shop was a front for this?" she mused.
"I'm pretty sure the wizard making horcruxes isn't a half-blood orphan named Tom Riddle who won a commendation for saving others at school. Your theory about his hunting them might be right… but he just disappeared off the face of the planet, right?"
She nodded. "So, we're done?"
She sounded vaguely disappointed. Draco agreed with the sentiment: the whole world was done.