Chapter 21
Mom,
You won't believe what just happened. Hagrid won himself a dragon egg in the village last night. We keep trying to tell him to send it to Romania, that he lives in a wooden house, but he won't listen to us. On other news, we found out that Dumbledore is guarding something at the school, Hagrid told us that it has something to do with Nicholas Flamel, but that's all we know, do you know what he was famous for?
Still having fun,
Elizabeth
Heather read the short letter, and nearly stopped in surprise. Voldemort already had the information about Fluffy, that wasn't supposed to happen until after Christmas, and yet Voldemort was speeding things up with gaining this information now. Why he didn't have Quirrel try to get the stone from Gringotts was a mystery to her still, but she needed to speed up on getting the Horcruxes. She would visit the school tomorrow, and take the diadem, and the stone with her. She would give it back to the Flamels, they should keep it with them, but she would leave a fake in its place so as to keep Voldemort there.
--------
The next day came all too quickly for Heather and Sirius. They left Nathan with Lily and James, and went up to the school. Upon arriving in the Headmaster's office, they explained to Dumbledore their plan to start taking care of Voldemort, and that one of the Horcruxes was in the school at this very moment.
"Which one is it?"
"Ravenclaw's Diadem, he brought it here the night he asked you for a job, after asking the Grey Lady where it was. I'm going to try and destroy the Horcrux without ruining the diadem, and let you put it on display."
"Won't Tom become suspicious?"
"We'll make it seem like someone had found it and recognized it for what it was and brought it to you."
"A graduate student perhaps?"
"Possibly, not any of us though, he would become suspicious at that." Heather said, "I think he may know that I know where I came from now. Then again, he believed that he was the only one who found the Room of Requirement."
"And now?"
"Sirius, take a book and think of a place to hide your book, once inside look for the diadem, you remember what it looks like right?" Sirius gave shook his head, "I'll help you and then we will be going to go talk to Hagrid, and Headmaster, you really should move the stone soon, Hagrid gave up how to put Fluffy to sleep on accident." She turned away from the aged headmaster and left the room with her husband to go find the relic. It took them about a half an hour as they seemingly ran in Quirrel at every corner, and needed to get away from him. Even as they moved away from him the final time, she thought she heard a voice saying that he needed to get to that room. They picked up the pace and quickly entered the room.
"I don't want Professor Quirrel in this room." She thought three times, sure enough, not too much later she heard Quirrel approached the room. She hoped Sirius would find the relic soon, and then they could get out of here. She heard a shout and was blown forward by the shake of the wall.
"Sirius, find the damn thing already." She called out.
"It would help if I knew what it looked like." He replied.
"Keep focused on keeping him out I'll find it." She took off down an isle in the cathedral-like room. She ran as quickly as she could as she turned corners, the memory of finding it in her previous life guiding her way. However, it wasn't there. She searched nearby, hoping it would be there. In fact it wasn't anywhere near there.
"But . . ." she thought, "Where is it then?" She knew the room wouldn't wield its secrets that easily. "Sirius, it has the inscription 'Wit beyond measure is Man's greatest treasure. It's kind of yellowed with age, have you seen anything like it?"
"No, do you think he could have been coming here to hide it?"
"No, he wouldn't have hid in Albania with one of his Horcruxes. If it had been there he would have used it to bring himself back somehow, merging and then splitting again. No its here, just . . ." She looked around the area, "not right where I remember it." She scanned the many bookshelves that lined the corridors. Suddenly a glint of light caught her eye. She looked up on top to see a sliver of silver curving back to meet another piece of silver. "Someone must have knocked it down before, it's up on the bookshelf here. Descendo." The bookcases fell over and she rushed to grab the diadem before it was lost beneath the shelves. Just as she grabbed it however, the bookcase fell on top of her.
"Heather, sweetie, you okay?" She tried to move and felt a sharp pain in her lungs. Shit, she thought I broke a rib, back to the hospital for me, and I just got outta there. The last thing she remembered before blacking out was the pile of junk on top of her moving.
----
"Look she's coming around." A familiar voice said.
"I told you she didn't need to be sent to St. Mungos. I'm perfectly capable of treating broken ribs here in the infirmary."
"Alright, Alright, I'm just kind of protective of my sister." her brother's voice stood out. She opened her eyes to see white, and St. Mungos was not this white.
"You're in the Hogwarts Hospital Wing." She turned her head to see the speaker. Her husband was sitting to her right holding her hand, looking like he hadn't slept the previous night at all. She pushed herself up only to be forced back down by Madame Pompfrey.
"No you don't young lady, you just had a punctured lung, don't you be getting any bright ideas, trying to argue with me . . ."
"Will just land me in here longer, I know Poppy. You had James in here god knows how many times due to failed pranks." The matron gave her a that's right look that she always gives her patients when they actually say something that is what she is thinking. Of course, Heather was actually speaking from experiencing Poppy Pompfrey's wrath in her past. "Besides I was only trying to sit up, I don't feel like walking." Everyone else in the room let out a small chuckle. They knew of her hatred of hospitals, well, maybe it was a phobia of staying in them for too long.
"You are stuck here until you are good enough to go home Mrs. Black." Heather put on a pouty face that really did not fit well with her age, "That will not work on me now dear. You are much to old to be pulling that kind of trick." The chuckles became full-blown laughter and Heather threw the group dirty looks.
----
"Master, how goes the progress?"
"The old fool watches me more each passing day, as if he knows I'm there. I will have to wait until he leaves the school. It will not happen when he is here."
"The Blacks milord?'
"Leave them, it is bad enough that the Potters somehow survived. We have nowhere near the manpower to fight them as they are. Lucius, do nothing more, at least until I give you the signal."
"Yes, milord." Voldemort turned away from his servant and pondered on why he couldn't get into the Room of Hidden Things earlier. He had been the only one of his generation to find it. He had taken care to cover his tracks even when he had gone back to hide the diadem. Had the girl retrieved her memories? If so did she truly know where the Horcruxes were. He ought to double check the protections, just to make sure, but not in this body. Oh how he yearned for a body of his own.
---
A/N: I hope you all like the Voldemort scene at the end. Sorry it took so long, I've been busy moving and such and just barely found the time to finish it. I don't know how long it will be before Chapter 22 will be up.