CHAPTER 101: KNOWING THE ENEMY

Tuesday noon. Harry and Hermione were seated in twin chairs in the Headmaster's office.

"Why did you call us here, Professor?" Hermione asked.

"Because I need your advice on how to deal with the consequences of yesterday's events."

She still looked tired, Harry thought. "Why aren't Padma and Lesath here?"

"There is some hope that they might yet be saved from being heroes," Professor Dumbledore replied with a slight smile. "For you two, I'm afraid, it is entirely too late."

Hermione snorted sadly. Harry, however, fixed him with a cold glare. "Have you told all concerned parties that they are to stop murdering the remaining Dementor-victims?"

The old wizard nodded, no longer smiling. "I have passed on your request to leave them for Muggle doctors to examine, and most Ministries have agreed. As the majority of the remaining victims are now in the care of their relatives or hospitals, there is little to be won by forcing the issue regardless. Given the scale of the situation, covering up their state is as impossible as it is futile."

"How many..." Hermione began, trailing off as she didn't seem to dare finish the question.

"Worldwide, a little more than half a million people have died," the old wizard answered sadly. "And yet more are severely wounded. The brunt of the death toll did not come directly from Dementors, but rather was a result of the panic and chaos they caused. Even Britain was not spared, for, while there were no Dementors here, Voldemort has used the distraction to strike directly. It seems that in most cases, his damage was done with very little effort: emotional spells to cause panic, blasting curses, a few well-placed Confundus Charms... Although there have been some direct attacks with the Killing Curse as well."

"What?"

The Headmaster grimaced bitterly. "It appears that he did not want those living in our country to feel secure while their foreign peers were in danger, a motive in which he has succeeded quite thoroughly. Muggles in Britain were hit harder than those elsewhere in the world, at least in the total number of casualties and destroyed property. And yet, even now, the Ministry will not accept that Voldemort has returned. At least they have started taking my admonitions about our Defense Professor seriously. I suppose it doesn't signify much how they choose to name him, as long as they are equally on their guard."

Harry nodded. 'Quirrell' was easier than 'You-Know-Who' anyway.

"Meanwhile," the Headmaster continued. "The representatives of major Muggle governments who were aware of the existence of magic – that is, most of them – have stepped forward and told the world what they know. There is video footage of Dementor attacks and wizards casting spells. This is far beyond what Memory Charms can clean up. The International Statute of Secrecy is at an end."

"Good," Harry bit. "Getting rid of that was long overdue, and now maybe we can help the thousands of wounded of yesterday's disaster."

The old wizard just looked at him sadly.

"You are young in the ways of the world, Harry. Do you really believe that life would be better for Muggles if they knew of us?"

"Do you know how many people die of cancer each year?" Harry threw back.

The old wizard sighed. "Too many. Too many to be conscionable, yet also too many for us to help. Do you realize how large the Muggle world is compared to ours? And how many things they would ask of us? Most forms of cancer can be cured by magic, but the operation is far from trivial, and the handful of qualified Healers we could spare would suffice only to serve a fraction of those in need, even assuming their services are not required for other diseases at all."

"It's still better to cure some people than none!"

The old wizard shook his head. "In the short term, perhaps, but you fail to consider the next generation. Magical healing will naturally gravitate towards the richest part of the population. With a magical cure available to those who can pay for it, far less effort will be expended into finding non-magical treatments. In the long run, new development stalls, and almost everyone is worse off than they could have been without our help. Do you think the vaccines whose praise your father sang yesterday could ever have been invented while witches and wizards were still providing healing for the royalty and nobility?"

"So you're saying," Harry summarized angrily, "that you want to let people die when they can easily be saved, just to give the big pharmaceutical corporations a greater incentive to keep developing medicines?

Actually, he has a point, Slytherin pointed out. Those corporations invest in medical research because they expect a huge pay-off in the end. Whittling away on that might cause all kinds of issues. Can we get an economist in here?

"That sounds so harsh," Hermione said quietly.

"It is harsh," the old wizard agreed. "But this is the lesson history has taught us over and over. You might not have covered it in History of Magic yet, but the International Statute of Secrecy was actually preceded by many smaller, local pacts, in times when Muggles did not travel much. Thus, we have seen the same pattern many times over. Within a hundred years of the secrecy pact – when all those who have seen magic with their own eyes have either gone to their graves or been sworn to secrecy – Muggle society flourishes. With the loss of faith in the supernatural, Muggles start attempting to control the world they live in, the grasp of religion weakens, and equality between the social classes rises. The rich remain privileged, of course, but without wizards backing their claims on lands and people, they are no longer seen as inherently better than the poor. Of course some places have grown faster than others, and even now, there are still many countries left behind, but I also understand that Muggle politicians and organizations are working on that. In two centuries, perhaps, all humans might come to live a reasonable life. Or so it would have been, but for yesterday's events."

He sighed again, piercing Harry with his eyes. "Now do you see what we risk losing? What it might do, to the fabric of society, if the magical and non-magical worlds are to merge again? Because the same is known to happen in reverse. There are other tales, although fewer and older, of wizards joining a Muggle community, and invariably poverty grows over the next generations."

"That has to be avoidable," Harry argued. "We have science now, and science doesn't just turn off when you know about magic. I'm sure if we plan this and organize properly, we can avoid wrecking the Muggle world and maybe also drag the wizarding world into the twentieth century."

The Headmaster shrugged helplessly. "I'm not sure how much opportunity we will have to do that, with tensions being as they are. With the casualties we saw yesterday... It will take all our efforts to avoid descending into war. Especially here in Britain, where the people's feelings have been primed by the magical attacks last week, and where no saving grace exists in Muggle perceptions. Abroad, their opinions are mixed. There is understandable anger; Professor Snape has told me that the television shows many videos of the Dementor-attacks themselves, of the aftermaths, and, unfortunately, also of wizards killing the Dementor-victims, which the Muggles naturally do not perceive as the act of kindness it was intended to be. But even as many Muggles are giving in to fear mongering and yelling for retribution, there is also coverage of wizards doing emergency healing, and of you children casting your Patronuses. There are interviews with some of those who experienced the feeling first hand, and they mostly express the belief that you were helping them. Here in Britain, however, we do not have that counter. As all our efforts were focused abroad, the news here is almost exclusively repeating the few images of a witch or wizard doing destructive magic, along with images of the aftermath of Voldemort's attacks: the body counts, fallen buildings and heavily wounded eyewitnesses. Add to that last week's row between the prime minister and the Minister of Magic over the way we dealt with those first two attacks..."

Harry frowned. "How did we deal with those attacks?"

The old wizard looked pained. "After the Inferi attack, an enormous fire was staged to destroy what evidence there was. Most of Easingwold was burned to the ground, officially by a pyromaniac who contracted the 'virus' and went crazy. All corpses were burnt, of course, regardless of the preferences of the families. The Muggle government sent help in the rebuilding when we left, but the damage is vast, and Cornelius has been unwilling to contribute to the rebuilding, saying we have done enough. Nor could he do much to help with the backlash against the Muggle government for the rather implausible story – certainly the prime minister was not pleased with the inevitable political fallout for being forced to speak such transparent lies. In the school, over my protests, the Obliviators staged a gas leak where all the children and teachers died. I barely managed to keep them from being killed; as it is, the children and teachers in question are being kept apart under Ministry custody for the moment, and are planned to be Memory-Charmed and, in the children's case, given up for adoption in the coming years. We can return them to their parents now, but I fear irrevocable damage to our reputation has been done."

"Yes," Harry said, his eyes hard. Just what kind of unspeakable, evil morons are running our government? "So there is no time to lose. You must step forward, apologize, return those children, offer what help we can with the wounded people and damaged property, and explain just what the hell is going on. And you'd better do it now!"

"I cannot speak for all of magical Britain," the old wizard sighed. "Much less the entire world, and I would be breaking several international treaties by providing an explanation."

"Ask for forgiveness, not permission," Harry suggested.

"If I do that," the Headmaster said gravely, "my political opponents will perceive it as me making a grab for more power by setting myself up as the spokesman for our world, without even their consent. They will never stand for it, and will deliberately go against what I say. As such, it would be worse than useless: it would be destructive. And thus we bicker rather than stepping forward as I agree we absolutely must. I suppose this is one point where Voldemort was right, little though I like saying it. We suffer from not being united."

"And that is what he wanted us to conclude," Harry nodded. "He wants Britain to be united under a strong leader, and he wants me to be that leader. That's at least a part of why he did it. It's not like I hadn't seen something like this coming."

Hermione, who had been staring open-mouthedly at the two of them, spluttered at this. "Seen this coming? What?"

"You didn't tell her?" Harry asked.

The Headmaster shook his head. "Not that part."

"What part?"

Harry turned to Hermione. "You know he's been mentoring me. I'm pretty sure, from all he said and did, that he wants me to lead the country. He tried to convince me to set up this scenario where You-Know-Who returns and I defeat him, which would make me a great hero in the eyes of the magical world. Don't look at me like that, I told him I didn't want to do it. So that's why he got you sent to Azkaban, to force me to play along so I would be able to manipulate Lucius Malfoy. I still refused, so I've been expecting him to set up another scenario where I couldn't refuse to be the hero. And that seems to be pretty much what happened yesterday."

She frowned, thinking about it. "But then why would he attack in person? He could have known that you were too busy saving people on the other side of the world."

"Why indeed," asked Dumbledore, raising his eyebrows.

"I don't know," Harry confessed. "I wondered at first whether he was just setting himself up as terrifying, but then it doesn't make sense that he's mostly attacking Muggle settlements, which most people in the magical world aren't even going to care about. And yesterday, too, the casualties were almost entirely among Muggles."

"I don't think he ever liked Muggles much," Hermione said timidly.

"No," Harry agreed. "He fears them. He told me about the atomic bomb and how scientists came close to destroying the world. And then there was his Christmas... speech..." He fell silent, as he suddenly understood what Riddle was planning.

"But if he fears them, then why is he antagonizing them?" Dumbledore wondered.

"He wants war," Harry breathed. "He thinks we can win."

The pieces of the puzzle fell into place with crystal clarity. "He's terrified of what Muggles might do, intentional or not. With nuclear weapons, there's too much power in the hands of a few people, people who have never proved themselves responsible. If another world war breaks out, wizards will be annihilated along with everyone else."

"This does not explain why he would push for war," the old wizard pointed out.

"He's pushing for war in one country. The Muggle world is not united in itself, it never has been, and as you just said, all the worst aggravation has been here. There's no way a 'war of extermination' initiated by the British government, or even the European Union, would actually work: we could hide out, or flee to other countries. What's more, they couldn't really use their worst weapons against us, because magical people tend to live among Muggles – for example, the Ministry of Magic is located in London, they're not exactly going to throw a bomb on it. No, that's never what he was afraid of. What he fears is far more realistic: Muggle countries fighting each other. Several nations have been on the brink of war for decades. The cold war has pretty much ended, but all those weapons are still out there, it might be as simple as one crazy person getting elected into the wrong position to start it all off again!"

The others were staring at him, but he ignored it, and went on thinking aloud. "He's been planning this for over twenty years. Set up an evil dark lord, create a hero to fight him, have everyone swear loyalty to this hero, cause the Muggles to declare war, and then use the hero to win that war. It would really be the war to end all wars, because it would end with an eternal magical dictatorship – perhaps even a benevolent dictatorship, Muggles wouldn't need to be oppressed very much to stop them from destroying the earth; you'd just want to destroy all weapons of mass destruction and keep some oversight over military activities and potentially destructive research. Monroe was meant to be the leader whose 'light mark' everyone would take. But it didn't work out, he wasn't enough of a storybook hero, so people preferred to stand back over actively following him. And he couldn't make the Dark Lord worse, because if Monroe was seen to be the weaker party even briefly, he would lose favor in the eyes of the world. So he retired Monroe, and made the Dark Lord the most terrible dark wizard to have ever lived. He didn't make him win, but barely, so that when he set up a new hero who defeated this dark lord without any help, it would seem to everyone like a great miracle."

"You?" Hermione whispered.

"Me," Harry nodded. "I don't know whether there actually was a prophecy that he conveniently used, or whether he set that up too – he might have figured out how to manipulate the Department of Mysteries, or otherwise he deliberately had me 'defeat' him, leaving only a remnant of himself behind. But either way, he created a new hero, one who would defeat the greatest dark wizard who ever lived at one years old, who would become an icon before he ever did anything of his own, and who would then go on to do even greater things. Such a hero could gain the loyalty of Gryffindor and Slytherin alike, and might be able to unite the country if Muggles should become a real threat. He intended to be able to manipulate me, perhaps through possessing me as you hinted, Professor, or otherwise more directly, as he has done by teaching me. It is no coincidence that he came to Hogwarts this year."

"This all sounds really dark and scary," Hermione piped up, after the silence had stretched a bit, "but this is Professor Quirrell we're talking about, right? He knows that you were raised by Muggles. He probably knew that your mother was Muggleborn, too, and there was always a pretty high chance that her family would be the ones to adopt you. Why would he think you'd be willing to fight a war against Muggles?"

That was a good point, but Harry immediately realized the answer. He looked at Professor Dumbledore. "You told me once that it was your fault that I had abusive parents. Did you actually plan for that to be the case?"

The Headmaster shifted uncomfortably. "I knew already that you had a loving family at the time, or I would not have brought it up. But when I sent you to live with your aunt, I did not know for certain what the outcome would be. I hadn't seen Petunia in many years, and Lily rarely spoke of her sister. The simple truth was that I feared for your life and your future. The remaining Death Eaters might well seek revenge on you for the fall of their leader. What is more, powerful, wealthy pureblood families were already filing for your adoption, either to use your fame for their own ends, or for yet darker purposes. The claim of a direct family member, even a Muggle, would supersede theirs, especially because it would offer the possibility for blood wards, which provide the best possible protection from harm. As Lord Voldemort had killed most of those family members in the months leading up to your parents' death, that left me with only one option."

Ah. So that's why Mum's parents are dead, too.

"So you assigned me to a sister who you knew to have always been unhappy, and who had been envious and hateful of Lily during her school years," he summarized flatly. "A sister who had every reason to hate magic because it had alienated her sister from her, and had been the cause of her parents' death very recently. You thought she would mistreat me."

The old wizard looked grave. "I would not have allowed you to come to harm, for certain – the wards would stop any significant physical damage, and an old friend of mine, Mrs. Figg, agreed to move into the neighborhood to keep an additional eye on your well-being and your development. I confess that I considered it entirely possible that she would not love you, at least not from the start. I had planned to bribe or force her to take you, should it be necessary, but she did not at all protest at the request. I am really glad for how it turned out, Harry."

And Professor Snape said that he never knew that Lily had made peace with her sister. If he was Voldemort's main source about the Potters, then Voldemort would not have known either.

"Would you really have forced her?" Harry asked. It probably wasn't important, in the large scheme of things, but he couldn't just let this go. "I mean, that would not only be wildly immoral towards her, but would also have put me in a not exactly nurturing environment. Don't you have any idea what neglect and resentment in guardians can do to a child, even if they never physically hurt him?"

The Headmaster shook his head. "You might have had a rough childhood, but it would have been preferable over being given to the Jugsons, Notts, or even the Crouch or Fudge families. I could never have adopted you myself, being old and unmarried, and the Ministry does give preference to the older families in such matters."

"I guess I can sort of see why you'd do that," Harry acknowledged. He would probably have been more upset if Mum and Dad had not, in actual fact, been wonderful parents. As it was, he could imagine why Dumbledore would have preferred him being neglected over being raised like Draco, or having a convenient childhood 'accident'. "But let's look at this from the point of view of an outsider, who didn't know Mum, only the relationship she and Lily used to have. She had every reason in the world to hate and fear magic. If that hadn't been resolved, being forced to take a young wizard in the house would have been very stressful for her, and it would be entirely reasonable if she couldn't bring herself to care for, or even bare to look at me. And for what you just said, You-Know-Who killed every near relative except for Mum. That has to have been deliberate. He knew that, given the choice between having me adopted by blood purists or mistreated, you'd choose the latter."

Dumbledore's eyes widened as Harry spoke, his face showing shock.

"Which tells us something about his original plan," Harry concluded. "I was meant to come to hate Muggles, and more. Even if nothing truly bad happened, he expected that I would be neglected, mistrusted, never been cared for, nor had any role models to show me normal human relations. I haven't really studied developmental psychology very well, but I'm pretty sure that that could have messed me up in all kinds of ways. Hating Muggles is just the first, I might have ended up hating other people altogether. Or being so morally and emotionally deprived that I ended up... well, like him, I guess, never caring for anyone at all."

The Headmaster trembled a little. "Oh Merlin, what have I done? I didn't see, I didn't realize –"

Hermione shot Harry a look and carefully touched the old, gnarled hand.

"I didn't end up like that, though," Harry continued, following her cue to reassure the old man, although he wasn't entirely sure whether it was deserved. Something Quirrell had said came back to him. Heroes and villains are just different sides of the same coin. Growing up neglected and isolated was the best environment to nurture a hero, but it would also create severely broken people, maybe even psychopaths. Dumbledore might have understood the former, but he had missed the latter. "This was just what You-Know-Who expected, but in the end, everything actually turned out in the best possible way. I have wonderful parents, who willingly chose they have me, and they taught me plenty of empathy and respect for what Muggles have achieved. So, while in the future I think you really should discuss this sort of decision with someone like Professor McGonagall, there was no harm done."

The old man shook his head, looking pained. Finally, he recovered some of his composure.

"This time, perhaps, all turned out for the best, but there was another time, another child. I did not send him there, but I failed to recognize the signs..." He took a deep breath. "More than fifty years ago, I went to bring young Tom Riddle his Hogwarts acceptance letter. He lived in a Muggle orphanage. From what little I could gather at the time, it was a harsh place to grow up – not abusive, but quite devoid of love. There were simply too few staff members to bond with the children. He was also isolated from the other children, since they considered him, in their words, a 'freak'. He, I thought, deemed himself to be above them, but perhaps that was merely a response to their treatment of him." He sighed deeply. "It never occurred to me that he might simply never have learned to care for people. If it had, perhaps I would have acted differently. It might not have been too late, then, to find help for him. But instead, I merely kept his secrets, and never revealed to anyone what I learned of his home environment."

"Tom Riddle?" Harry asked, suspicion starting to dawn.

"Tom Marvolo Riddle," Dumbledore nodded. "He who would later become Lord Voldemort."

Hermione looked startled. "That name wasn't in any of the books!"

"It is not common knowledge," the old wizard replied. "Voldemort would not want it generally known that he is a half-blood – witch mother, Muggle father – a fact which, I believe, may be part of the reason why he distanced himself from his given name. I suspected the connection when I learned that Voldemort was a Parselmouth, a very rare talent which Tom had let slip he possessed the first time we met, before he knew just how rare it was. I managed to confirm the connection when Tom Riddle returned to Hogwarts to ask me for a teaching position, using a combination of blood magic and the Hogwarts wards. I did not dare reveal his identity in public, however,, as I did not have enough proof to convince any but those who would believe my word. It might damage Voldemort if I did so, but only a little; it certainly would strengthen the cultural prejudice against half-bloods and by extension Muggleborns."

Harry considered this. "Okay, I'll assume it accurate for now." Well. Plausible at least. "I'm not sure how important this could be, but I would like a full briefing on everything you know about this Tom Riddle at some point in the near future. For what you tell me, it certainly sounds like he intended for me to grow up exactly like he did, though. He must have noticed that this part of the plan hadn't worked out when he got to know me, but he works with what he has. So he's been training me, and playing on my affections to push me in the desired direction instead. Perhaps the original plan was to turn me into a small version of himself, backed by all sides of the political spectrum, leading the wizarding world through the war and then setting up a magical dictatorship because I would consider it the most sensible solution. With that not working out, the idea might be that I will have to win the war quickly in order to minimize casualties."

"This sounds like a very risky plot," Dumbledore said with a frown. "There are many assumptions, many things which could go wrong. I would not expect the Ministry to lightly give you power, for instance. You are only eleven, after all."

"I don't pretend to have the full picture here," Harry argued. "Just the rough outline. He probably has plans for all kinds of eventualities, and he'll be working in the background to steer the war into the direction he wants. Perhaps the plot spans several years, and he's trained the Hogwarts children in Battle Magic to prepare for some final battle once the magical government gets desperate enough to pass military command to me. Or he's setting magical Britain up to lose, which will set the tone for a future war in other countries. That future war will probably happen anyway, come to think of it, even if we win here. Basically, I don't know exactly what he's doing, not the details. I really have to go and think about this properly for a few hours to see whether I can figure it out. I'm just fairly sure that it involves starting a war and having me win it one way or another, and that the end point is meant to be a global magical dictatorship, where Muggle scientists are no longer a threat – quite possibly because there is a lasting peace that means there won't be a need for further wars."

"The endpoint, at least, sounds remarkably familiar," the old wizard said with a weak smile. "If what you say is true, then he is not so different from Grindelwald after all, or from those dark lords seeking to subjugate Muggles before him."

"Except that he does not necessarily seek to rule himself," Harry pointed out. "And his motivation is born from fear rather than contempt. He wants to keep Muggles from dragging the magical world along in their fall as they destroy the planet. For that purpose, he needs the control over great destructive powers – like nuclear weapons – to be out of the hands of people who have never learned to be responsible with that sort of thing. Which, given their nature, probably means destroying them all, along with the facilities where they're made."

"So he intends for a wizard to rule the Muggle world, for their own good and ours," Dumbledore nodded. "He is not killing wantonly, he does not seek the destruction of all Muggles or even those politically opposed, he merely wishes for a magical dictatorship underneath a benevolent and powerful ruler. There was a time when I would have agreed with such a goal."

Hermione gasped in shock. The old man smiled at her. "Don't worry. I got wiser. And I daresay Harry is already much better than that." He pierced Harry with his deep blue eyes. "You do seem to understand him very well indeed, Harry Potter. Much like I understood Grindelwald, once."

Harry nodded. "Yes. You thought he was my dark mirror, didn't you?"

"And is he?"

"I guess I see the point." Harry had thought about that a few times in the last week. "We think alike in many ways. Except... he's just empty. He doesn't care about other people at all. Like, he doesn't hurt people for fun, but if it helps him in some way, he doesn't mind what pain he causes either. And if he sees people doing stupid things, he just gets cynical about it, rather than trying to fix them. Or he suggests 'fixing' them with the Kiling Curse."

"Whereas your Patronus spell is, as I gather it, almost its exact opposite," the old wizard suggested.

"Yes," Harry agreed. "I guess in the end, that's what makes the crucial difference between us. I put great value on other people's lives. He cares only about his own."

"The difference, in short, is your capacity for love?"

Harry paused. He had the feeling the Headmaster had suggested something like this months ago, and that Harry hadn't taken him very seriously at the time.

"Well played, Professor. Well played."

The Headmaster just smiled and winked.

"So what do we do about this?" Hermione asked. (Harry noticed that she said we, which was good, even if she still seemed to want to rely on Dumbledore.) "It sounds like we can't win whatever we do."

"Little though I like suggesting it after what Harry just said," the old wizard said heavily. "I think we'll have to figure out how to kill Voldemort. Even if there may be alternative options now that we have some idea of what he's planning, we would want to have the possibility if the opportunity should arise."

Hermione paled. Harry just turned to business.

"For that, you'll have to tell us a bit more about how he's immortal in the first place. So far, you haven't exactly been forthcoming with information. From what little you told me, I still have hardly any idea what is going on."

The Headmaster shifted uncomfortably. "As I have told you before, my knowledge on that subject is woefully limited –"

"Maybe," Harry growled. "But even that little bit, you still haven't told me completely. For example, you mentioned some Myrtle person dying for his immortality before. That's something you didn't mention when we talked about this the last time."

Dumbledore frowned, seeming to fight with himself.

"You don't want to say," Hermione said quietly. "Is it that bad?"

The old wizard looked grave. "Yes, Hermione, it is the darkest kind of magic. But," he turned to Harry, "I confess that the main source for my reluctance is concern over your response, Harry. I know that you seek immortal life, for yourself and others, but I would not have you try this road to immortality, for that way darkness lies. You might be able to talk yourself into it, if you were to find a willing victim perhaps. You do not believe in the existence of souls, so you might fool yourself into thinking that this ritual holds no risks for you. But I am certain that it will destroy the goodness in your heart, and I fear to the utmost the consequences for the world if you go down this path."

"I promise you, Professor, I will use my best moral judgment. No, let's make that stronger. If Hermione thinks it's a bad idea for me to use whatever you're going to tell me, I won't do it, and I'm not going to do any irreversible magics without being entirely sure what effect they will have. Can you be okay with that?"

"Caw?"

Hermione fondled Xare as Professor Dumbledore gazed at her intently. Then, he reluctantly nodded.

"Very well, then. I shall tell you two all that I know, although I must ask that what we discuss today does not leave this room." He paused, waiting until they had both nodded in agreement, before resuming. "I have spoken to you before of a dark and terrible ritual, by which a fragment of the soul is torn off and chained to a worldly device. Such a device is called a horcrux. I do not know, precisely, of the arts involved in the creation of this foul thing, but I am almost certain that part of the process requires a murder. While the horcrux persists, that part of the soul will prevent the part that resides in your body from passing on. Even if the body is killed, the soul is tied to this realm by the part in the horcrux, although it is greatly weakened and will take years before regaining the strength to take possession of a host body or, with sufficient help, even to acquire a new body of its own. Voldemort has dropped hints to his servants about his immortality before, and I am quite certain that he killed Abigail Myrtle when he was still in school. As no apparent motive existed for that murder, I suspect he made a horcrux even then."

"Just because you don't know of a motive doesn't mean there wasn't one," Harry pointed out. "And if you actually knew for certain that a schoolboy had killed a fellow student, I imagine he would be in Azkaban, so could you please just give us the raw facts, and then maybe inferences afterwards?"

"Most of what I know is based on inference and guesswork, I'm afraid," the old wizard replied. "What little I know of horcruxes comes from a book I remember reading briefly during my student years before putting it away in disgust, and otherwise a collection of suggestive book passages, half-disintegrated scrolls and ancient tales passed on from parent to child. To become a powerful wizard, you have to learn to read between the lines, and this is what I have done for want of a better option. But, I shall try to do as you ask."

"So... Myrtle?" Harry pressed.

"She herself knew of no motive," Dumbledore said. "Her ghost told me as much. It took me a while to coax her into speaking of her death, however – at first she was quite preoccupied with haunting the girl who had bullied her in school. Her testimony suggested that her killer was a boy, speaking in hisses, although she never saw his face. Given how exceedingly rare the Parseltongue ability is, I am certain that the boy in question was Tom Riddle. Yet, she didn't even know him besides being aware of him as a Prefect in a different House. I suspect that, due to her isolation, she was merely a convenient target..." He trailed off, and looked grave. "Unfortunately, a ghost's testimony in court is not accepted, as ghosts can neither take Veritaserum nor be punished for lying in court, so Riddle was never even questioned over her death. At the time, I do believe he had already learned Occlumency, however, so it would not have been enough regardless."

"I see," Harry said. It wasn't very convincing evidence, but it was plausible that Riddle had used a random student as a victim in some sacrificial ritual. It didn't follow that this was an immortality ritual, but it was still worth filing away for future reference.

"What does a horcrux look like?" Hermione asked in the silence.

"I do not know of any distinguishing features. The object to be turned into a horcrux could be anything, although it might need to be something of emotional value to the owner. I suspect, given that Voldemort put a part of his soul on it, it will be something grand, but I can guess no more than that. There are certain spells to recognize a horcrux when it is nearby, but unfortunately I have no clue what they are."

Harry frowned. "And the trick to undoing the caster's immortality is to destroy the horcrux?

"Indeed," the old wizard nodded. "All my sources agree on that: when the device is destroyed, the caster is once again truly mortal. To destroy them is not easy, however; neither mundane methods nor any but the most powerful of magics will be able to penetrate a horcrux's protections. I once heard a tale of a dark wizard whose possessions were all burned after his death, yet a single painting remained untouched by the flames, a painting that exhibited a remarkable intelligence and personality. Neither swords, cutting curses, dedicated charms to remove the magic from paintings or anything else worked, until the painting was finally destroyed using fiendfyre. That, and basilisk venom, are the only two feasible ways of destruction I learned of."

Harry nodded. "But to destroy this horcrux, I presume, we need to find it. Does he need to keep it close to himself?"

The old wizard shook his head. "The only purpose of a horcrux is to bind a soul to this realm; I do not believe that there is any reason its creator would ever need to come back to it."

"Great. So it could be anywhere."

The old wizard smiled sadly. "Yes. I was hoping you might have some ideas where he could have hidden it, as you are so familiar with the way he thinks."

Harry frowned, thinking. Where would I hide something I wouldn't want anyone to find?

Something inside him shriveled up and died.

"I do. Sorry, there is no way you're ever going to find it."

"Why?"

"He actually asked me this before, where I would hide something, and the answer amused him for some reason. I don't know exactly what I came up with, but I'm pretty sure dropping it at the bottom of a non-descript piece of ocean, getting it at a random spot in the earth's core and sending it out into space were some of them. If I can think of that, then so did he. In fact –" He trailed off as another realization hit him.

Crap.

"Harry, what's wrong?" Hermione asked. "You look very white all of a sudden."

"Have you ever heard of the Pioneer Probes?"

"So you're telling me," Dumbledore summarized, looking very tired now, "that Voldemort's horcrux is probably on a trajectory out of the Solar System."

"Yes." Harry shrugged helplessly. "I think we could probably calculate its exact location, but... well, you may want to see how much wizards can help the space program."

"But when did that happen? They launched a probe to outer space before the moon landing?"

"No." Harry shook his head. "Both pioneer probes were launched in the seventies."

"But that doesn't match up! He killed Myrtle far earlier than that, and the books on horcruxes were already missing in 1960."

Harry considered. "Are we sure that there's only one?"

...

...

The Headmaster was staring at him in horrified silence. Hermione looked from one to the other as though she, too, had no idea what was going to happen next.

"If it was me," Harry continued, "I wouldn't trust my immortality to a single object that could be damaged or found or whatever. No matter how many precautions you put on your phylactery, it's never enough. But if this is the kind of thing that you can do more than once – and from your expression I gather that you don't have any knowledge indicating that it is not possible – then that seems like a pretty good idea to do, really. If you don't mind killing people, that is," he added as an afterthought.

The ancient wizard buried his face in his hands. "We are all doomed."

"Not necessarily. There might be other options than killing him, right?" Harry reminded him. "I don't know whether he has a large number of horcruxes in impossible locations. I do know that if he has found a road to immortality, that he will have done everything in his considerable power to ensure that it doesn't get destroyed. So I think we can pretty much give up on this line of thinking, and should consider something else. I guess in the worst case, we could even give him what he wants, because his ulterior goal doesn't seem to be that dark."

"Would you really do that?" Hermione whispered. "After yesterday?"

Harry closed his eyes to shut out the memories. "No. I guess I'd rather not do it. But it's an option to consider."

The Headmaster smiled wryly. "I see you have at last learned of the Phoenix's Price."

Harry looked down at his feet. If continuing to fight would cost another few million innocent lives, should he, really? Was a magical dictatorship with himself at the helm so bad as to make such sacrifices worth it?

"He taught you to lose," Hermione said quietly into the silence. "You're thinking of losing now, aren't you? Of giving up in the face of a superior foe?"

Harry looked up. She was right.

"Not yet," he said grimly. "We'll see how it plays out. His goals are somewhat aligned with mine, but I don't like his methods, and I have no intention of conquering the Muggle world. Let's not stop thinking after one setback. Perhaps we cannot kill him, but can we imprison him? If he is possessing a body, can we bind him to it?"

The Headmaster shook his head. "Everything I know of possession says you cannot. If he creates another body for himself, perhaps that would work, if he had no way of committing suicide."

"Okay. You say the horcrux is about souls. Now, I don't believe in souls, and as far as I can tell, neither does Quirrell. Are there other explanations about what it does?"

The Headmaster shrugged helplessly. "If there are, I do not know of them. But that is saying very little, since, as you know, my knowledge of horcruxes is limited."

"Right, so let's focus on the world 'soul' for now. Do we know any other magic that is said to have something to do with souls? Can you bind or... destroy..."

They stared at each other in sudden understanding.

"Well," the old wizard broke the silence eventually. "I suppose Dementors did have some purpose after all. It's a shame you just destroyed all of them."

"Which was one of his plans, of course," Harry grumbled. He began to understand what Moody had meant when he said you always ended up doing or thinking exactly what he wanted you to do or think. "I don't suppose we know where Dementors originally came from? Can we make new ones?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "They breed, when they are given enough souls. But where they originally came from, no one knows."

"All right, if we do find another Dementor, it may be an idea to keep it rather than straight-out destroy it, but otherwise, let's shelve that idea for now. Do we know of other ways to bind a soul? Or other magics, creatures or devices that somehow have 'soul' or 'spirit' in their description?"

"Possession, mainly, which is done by briefly moving your soul and magic out of your body and into someone else's – although there is some academical disagreement on that point – but this does not seem useful to our situation. Exorcism rituals cast out the possessing soul, which is contrary to what you are looking for. Otherwise, there are the resurrection stone and ghosts, but these only provide a way to interact with specific people who have already died. Killing, in particular the Killing Curse, is said to crack the soul, but I believe that this merely helps in creating more horcruxes."

"Hrmz. Well, it's worth thinking about, and I'll keep reading about possession, frustrating though all the contradictions are. I'll try to come up with other formulations that might be relevant." His stomach rumbled audibly.

"Yes," the Headmaster nodded. "But come to my office whenever you have any new ideas you wish to discuss. You are always welcome."

As they trudged back towards the Great Hall together (Hermione didn't want to use Xare for everything), Hermione looked a little bit subdued.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked. "I know it probably takes some getting used to."

"I'm not sure there was much point in me being there at all," she muttered. "All I could do was sit and listen and be completely horrified by everything the two of you were discussing."

"Well, we've been having several of these sessions. Dumbledore is used to fighting a war, so he can be very hard when he needs to be, and, well, I'm creative, you know me. But note that just because I think of stuff doesn't mean I'm going to do it. It's all about getting into a habit of coming up with good ideas, and then you can disregard the more immoral and impractical ones later. If I disregarded ideas because my brain shut off when going into that direction, then I'd miss a lot of good and perfectly ethical possibilities, and I'd be less good at figuring out what the bad guys want to do. You shouldn't blame yourself for not thinking like that, you're just not that kind of person. And you did bring up some pretty good points, actually."

She nodded, and walked on in silence.

"What's this with you being possessed?" she asked eventually. "You said something about that earlier, but I didn't really know what you were talking about."

"Oh, that. Well, Professor Dumbledore thinks my dark side is actually a possession by You-Know-Who gone wrong. Apparently dark wizards can take over other people's bodies, but normally that requires them to 'leave their own' and be fully concentrated on dominating you. But he found a story about this child who got dominated by a dark wizard who was also active at the same time. So he thinks that You-Know-Who tried to possess me by only putting a part of himself in me, and that he then accidentally killed himself, was kept alive by the horcrux, and the part of him that was possessing me sort of grew into me and became a separate part, but with no real control unless I get very angry."

She frowned. "A part of him? Like, a part of his soul?"

He stood stock still. That hypothesis made an awful lot of sense. Of course Riddle had multiple horcruxes. He didn't give a damn about human sacrifice. He had so many that he could afford to take some risks with one of them, and turn a vulnerable object like a human into a horcrux as well. A horcrux could be something as simple as a full backup of your mind at the time of making it; Harry's dark side had no will of its own, but it did seem to have intelligence.

"Should we go back to Dumbledore?" Hermione asked in a high voice.

Harry shook his head, and started walking again. "Not now. I want to think about it first. If he realizes that I'm a horcrux he might just decide that I need destroying."

"He wouldn't do that!"

Harry sighed wearily and pulled her along. "What do you think you know, Hermione, and how do you think you know it?"