CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Secrets
"What?" Ron blurted.
"You know?" Hermione exclaimed.
"How can you know?" Ginny asked.
Harry didn't say anything. He couldn't.
He backed away, though, feeling more betrayed than he had in all the time last year that Dumbledore had spent ignoring him. The honesty that Dumbledore had promised the last time Harry stood in this office had been a lie.
"You mean to say that we have been slaving away over this all day, thinking that we were doing something worthwhile, something that would help the cause, and you knew all along that the Dark Lord had created Horcruxes?" Malfoy demanded. Apparently he had reached hot fury faster than the rest of them.
"I did not know for a fact," Dumbledore cajoled. "Until you brought me this evidence, all I had was a strong suspicion-"
"Don't try to feed us that hog shit," Malfoy snapped, in both speech and control; Harry had never heard the aristocratic Slytherin use such language before. "You knew bloody well, you just didn't feel like sharing this crucial information with anyone else – not even your Boy Hero, despite the fact that you dumped the whole weight of this war on his shoulders."
"I assure you, Harry, I had every intention of telling you."
Harry just looked at him. It felt like when Aunt Petunia had been speaking to a social worker about him, patting his head, wearing a large false smile, saying how much she and her husband loved 'little Harry'.
He didn't attempt to put words to the hurt accusation in the forefront of his mind. Dumbledore knew what he had promised. But the promises that adults made didn't mean anything, unless it was the promise to make Harry wish he had never been born. Not that Harry had ever needed Uncle Vernon's punishments to feel that way.
"But you were coping with a very difficult loss at the time, Harry," Dumbledore continued, giving him a look heavy with sympathy, "And I didn't want to add any more to your burden just then."
"Oh, and you didn't think it would be too much of a burden for Potter to think he was somehow supposed to pull a miracle victory out of his hat against an enemy that he thought to be virtually invincible?" Malfoy asked sarcastically. "You were content to just let him be plagued with fear and doubt about his seemingly impossible role in this struggle?"
"This knowledge is not something I could deliver in one short conversation. I planned to have private lessons with you this year, Harry, where we could sit down together and go through the memories I have collected from various people to piece together this puzzle…"
"But you had already done that yourself, hadn't you Headmaster?" Malfoy stated rhetorically. "So what was the point? No offence intended to Potter, but you are considerably smarter than him." Harry didn't take offence; it was true. "If he is satisfied with having Granger pick out pertinent bits of information from textbooks or situations and explaining them to him, why would you think you needed to waste time making him work it all out himself?"
"It is important for you to have a complete understanding of your enemy, Harry. The memories I will show you give us crucial insights into Voldemort's character-"
"Just tell him what you discovered, for Salazar's sake!" Malfoy cried in exasperation. "That is, of course, if you have anything useful to add. And if it is that the Dark Lord will likely have made six Horcruxes, don't bother because we have already worked that much out ourselves."
There was that flicker of surprise that Harry had expected to see earlier.
"So you haven't made that clever deduction yet," Malfoy said belittlingly. "So much for the all-knowing Dumbledore then, huh?"
Fawkes squawked indignantly, feathers puffing out in warning. Dumbledore's voice hardened. "Need I remind you, Mr Malfoy, that I am the Headmaster of Hogwarts and you are currently standing my office without your father's presence on the school board to excuse your behaviour? Or that your mother has made me responsible for your welfare?"
Malfoy's grey eyes were still giving off sparks, but he straightened and said stiffly, "My apologies, Headmaster Dumbledore. I spoke rashly, but with Potter's best intentions at heart and the Wizarding World's by extension. The sooner we can bring this war to an end the better off everyone will be."
The twinkle was absent, but Dumbledore smiled. It was as discordant an expression as Harry had ever seen on the Headmaster's face. "I understand, Mr Malfoy, because I share the sentiment. Very well, I will share what I know, in a manner that should be succinct enough to please you, Mr Malfoy, though the story will be significantly lacking."
Harry heard Malfoy mumble something under his breath that might have been "we are not here to listen to bedtime stories", but either Dumbledore hadn't noticed or he was choosing to ignore it.
"The diary was Voldemort's first horcrux," the Professor began, "created during his school years and apparently intended as a weapon to someday continue what he had started with the Chamber of Secrets. The diary was destroyed by you, Harry, with a Basilisk fang in your second year."
They all nodded, and Malfoy shifted impatiently, but refrained from saying anything.
"Voldemort made boastful claims that he has gone further than anyone in his efforts to achieve immortality, which suggests he must have created more than one horcrux, since others in history have been known to create one, but never a greater number than that."
The first such individual being Herpo the Foul, Harry knew.
"You have said you believe that Voldemort will have created six? I assume you reached this conclusion through the logic that seven is the most powerful magical number."
Malfoy nodded.
"Well then, it becomes a matter of determining what the other objects are and where they have been hidden. You have found Slytherin's locket, which I knew Voldemort possessed and suspected he would have used as a Horcrux but as yet had not been able to locate. From what Kreacher said, I rather think that Regulus Black retrieved the locket from a cave that had particular significance in Tom Riddle's childhood. I have been searching for the location, but it would seem I no longer have to."
It was strange to think of Voldemort as having had a childhood; Harry wondered for a brief moment what it had been like, and whether it had been the circumstances he had grown up with that had driven Voldemort to such acts of evil. Reflecting on life with the Dursleys, though, and everything that he had been through over the years – hell, even over the past few months – Harry decided that nothing was a good enough excuse for what Voldemort had done, and was still doing. Voldemort was evil and Harry was going to see him dead.
"Once the locket has been destroyed, which will be a simple matter to take care of-" he gestured faintly toward the Sword of Gryffindor that was displayed behind his desk (which made Hermione frown in thought and then exhale "Goblin-made" a few moments later) "-that will be three Horcruxes dealt with, since at the beginning of the summer I came across and dispatched a ring horcrux that Voldemort had ensconced in his grandfather Marvolo's cottage."
Marvolo, as in Tom Marvolo Riddle. Harry could tell there was probably a long, detailed history and explanation there that Dumbledore would be all too happy to give, but Malfoy was right that the Wizarding world couldn't afford for them to wait.
"So that's three down, three to go," Harry summarised, speaking for the first time since Dumbledore's revelation that he had known about the Horcruxes. As he had found on numerous occasions, his emotions didn't matter much and tended to just get in the way, so they had been supressed in favour of the importance of their discussion. "We find and destroy the three, and Voldemort's mortal again."
"And I assume you have some clues about those as well," Malfoy said.
Dumbledore nodded, absently stroking his long beard. "Yes, I think so. Throughout his life, Voldemort has displayed a propensity for collecting trophies. In his adulthood, these trophies tended to be objects with a powerful magical history, and with certain grandeur in and of themselves."
"Like the locket," Malfoy commented. "Slytherin's lost heirloom."
"Just so," Dumbledore agreed. "I also know that he procured – by which I mean stole, and committed a murder which he framed on an innocent in order to get away with it – a relic of Helga Hufflepuff's. It was a jewel encrusted cup, which likely ended up as a horcrux as well. I do not know where it may be, however."
"And there are two others," Harry said. "What about them?"
"This is all conjecture, you understand, Harry – unconfirmed guesses." Harry waited for him to continue. "Well, it is my belief that Voldemort would have set out to track down objects that belonged to the other two Founders of Hogwarts, so that he would have a complete set. I do not know if he ever found a relic of Rowena Ravenclaw, but I am confident that Gryffindor's heirloom remains safe." He gestured to the sword again.
"So if he doesn't have an object of Gryffindor's, what did he use instead?"
"I do not know, Harry."
Malfoy rolled his eyes. "What do you think he used instead, then?"
The level gaze that Dumbledore aimed at the blonde was almost the equivalent of an annoyed glare, but the Professor was unlikely to ever express a negative emotion as clearly as that. "For a while now, I have been curious about behaviour of the snake, Nagini. As unwise as it is to entrust a piece of one's soul to a creature that can think and move on its own, Voldemort seems to care for the snake as much as anything, and I imagine he would perceive such a connection to his serpent familiar as underpinning and strengthening his connection to his Slytherin heritage."
Harry quailed a bit at the thought of having to, sometime, take on that snake. He knew it was probably a bit ridiculous, considering he had taken on a Basilisk which made Nagini seem to be the size of a worm, but he had witnessed Voldemort's snake attack someone from the snake's perspective and it had been frighteningly violent. He didn't want to die that way. He was glad that Mr Weasley hadn't died that way, but living with the memory couldn't be very pleasant for him either.
"So the cup, something of Ravenclaw's, and the snake," Harry said. "Am I missing anything else here?"
There was a pause in which Dumbledore's gaze lingered on Harry's scar, but it was fleeting and Harry didn't notice. "No, my boy, I believe that is everything."
"And the sword destroys Horcruxes, so we don't have to go back down into the Chamber of Secrets after all."
"Back-ups, Potter," Malfoy reminded him, once again sounding remarkably like Hermione when she was trying to drill an important concept into their brains. "You Gryffindors would get into far less trouble if you made a habit of incorporating a bit of Slytherin thinking into your plans. What if something were to happen to the sword and you somehow lost easy access to the Chamber? You would have to resort to Fiendfyre, or Corrosion, or the Eraeso ritual, and I think we already determined that those were unsavoury options." He turned grey eyes on Dumbledore. "Similarly, Headmaster, what if something unfortunate had befallen you before you shared the information about the Horcruxes with anyone and we had not discovered it for ourselves?"
Dumbledore flexed his right hand unconsciously. "Your point is well made, Mr Malfoy."
"So you will allow us to go and retrieve some Basilisk fangs from the Chamber?"
Dumbledore's tone became apologetic. "Strictly speaking, students are not supposed to be in the castle during the summer break. I have permitted your entrance into my office, but I am afraid I cannot-"
"What if there is a horcrux down there?" Ginny interrupted. "I mean, think about it. You-Know-Who is Slytherin's only true heir and he probably thought that he was the only one who had discovered where the entrance to the Chamber was. Parseltongue is a rare ability these days, so he would have assumed that only he, or someone he was p-possessing, would be able to get in."
Harry nodded; it made a lot of sense. "Plus, Riddle seemed to think that the Basilisk would only answer to him, so that would be like an already built-in guard dog that could kill people just by looking at them." Absently, Harry thought that there might be a possible joke in there somewhere about how 'if looks could kill'… but considering that Myrtle had been murdered by the Basilisk, and quite a few other Hogwarts inhabitants nearly had as well – Hermione and Harry included – he didn't think it would be in good taste, or well received.
"The only flaw in that would be that the Dark Lord would be placing his horcrux in close proximity to one of the few things that could destroy it," Malfoy pointed out. "But I think it is worth a look anyway."
"Hm," Dumbledore mused, steepling his fingers. "Tom Riddle did, I believe, think of Hogwarts as his home. Certainly, he felt nothing but disdain and loathing for the Orphanage where he stayed when school was not in session. And Hogwarts would fulfil both his criteria of being a safe place, as well as one of personal significance to him."
"So I say we check it out," Harry concluded. "After we get rid of that." He flicked a hand in the direction of the locket.
Dumbledore retrieved the sword from its case and held it out. "Who would like to do the honours?"
Harry looked around at his friends – and it was a strange sort of feeling, to be able to count Draco Malfoy among them. Their faces held a mixture of trepidation and the grim desire to see the horcrux destroyed.
"Ginny," Harry decided. She appeared to be the most afraid to confront the thing that had possessed her and directed her actions to the point of nearly killing Hermione. Harry could imagine, too, that her thoughts lingered on the Diary – the way she had confided in it, poured out all of her feelings to it, trusted it, and in doing so inadvertently given Voldemort the power he needed to control her. She was afraid of the horcrux and afraid of the weakness inside of her. But she also looked to be, in this moment, the most determined of them to see the matter through. Maybe doing this would give her some closure.
She turned surprised and somewhat panicked eyes on him, on the verge of refusing the offer.
"You can do it," Harry told her, with steadfast confidence. She was strong; stronger than him. She would succeed in this, he knew, and hopefully beat back the demons that had haunted her since her first year at Hogwarts at the same time.
She took a deep breath, and accepted the sword.
"You will have to open it I think, Harry," Dumbledore said quietly.
"How?" Ron asked. "We tried for ages last year and none of us could… it is jammed shut."
But Harry knew how; somehow had all along. He focused his gaze on the serpentine 'S'. "Open," he hissed.
The golden doors opened with a faint click, there was a brief glimpse of a handsome eye inside, and then an explosion of sight and sound. Harry didn't catch most of it, but heard a few snippets here and there.
"…silly little girl…" "…'no one's ever understood me like you, Tom'…" "…weak…" "…you are mine, Ginerva Weasley…"
Ginny was pale and shaking, staring wide-eyed at the apparitions forming and coalescing in front of her, the sword trembling in her grip.
"You can do it," Harry repeated loudly and abruptly the horcrux turned on him. Pain exploded in his skull. He dropped to a knee, palm pressed against the scar that seared worse than a branding iron. Dark images swarmed around him, formless at first but clawing for a purchase inside his mind, scraping, dragging out memories and thoughts and feelings. A large figure stepped out of the shadows, leering at him, piggy eyes darkening with a sick hunger-
A dim roar of determination, the whistle of metal passing through air, a crash and echoing shriek of pain, and then the cessation of sound.
ooOOoo
"Harry…" Draco tried gently.
Potter curled tighter into his protective ball, huddling half-under a desk with his shoulder pressed up against the wooden leg. The table was vibrating with the force of his shudders.
Draco knew what he had seen. The vision was visible to all of them, and, distorted though it had been by Potter's intense fear, Draco recognised what – or more accurately, who – it was. Even hundreds of miles away, Dudley Dursley was still hurting his cousin. What Draco had done to him in retaliation for his crimes was too good for the bastard. Draco should have had him castrated, hung, drawn and quartered.
"Harry, it wasn't real. You're safe. It's gone now. Ginny destroyed the horcrux, just like you said she would. Everything is alright."
Green eyes peeked out uncertainly from between knobbly knees. Draco smiled encouragingly, but Potter's gaze travelled past him to the others who were staring openly at him in both concern and surprise. They didn't know why their hero would cower in fear when faced with what had to seem to them an insubstantial and somewhat puzzling threat.
"…thought Harry's greatest fear was a Dementor…?" Ron murmured, to which Granger replied quietly, "…wasn't even Harry's uncle I don't think, which might have made sense…"
"Harry?" Dumbledore asked, appearing more perplexed than anyone. "It was just a cleverly crafted illusion – a last ditch attempt by the fragment of Voldemort's soul at self-preservation. Whatever it looked like to you, it was not real. There is no need to fear."
Potter's cheeks went crimson – although Draco could not tell whether it was out of shame or embarrassment. He started to unwind himself and got awkwardly to his feet, avoiding making eye contact with anyone. Draco allowed him a wide berth, but Dumbledore reached out and squeezed his shoulder in a way that was supposed to be reassuring.
Potter flinched violently away, his teeth clamping down hard on his lower lip to contain a cry. Draco stepped in front of him protectively, glaring at the Headmaster. Ignorance was no excuse in Draco's book, not anymore.
"Harry." Dumbledore sounded almost hurt by Potter's reaction to him, and also somewhat suspicious that there was something he wasn't being told. Since it was true, Draco supposed the suspicion was warranted. He wasn't feeling particularly charitable towards Dumbledore at the moment, though, and he knew full well that Potter didn't want the Headmaster to know anyway, so Draco was content to leave him wondering.
"He's fine," Draco said coolly. "I'm sure you have many demands on your time, Professor, so we will just be on our way to the Chamber of Secrets and then get out of your hair."
"I will accompany you-" Dumbledore tried, but Draco cut across him.
"No, that won't be necessary, sir. The password to get back up here once we have retrieved the Basilisk fangs?"
"Buttermilk Boils," Dumbledore relented. "The latest in the line of Skiving Snackboxes from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, I believe." He smiled faintly in the direction of Ron and Ginny.
"Thank you, sir." Draco gestured for the others to exit ahead of him, making sure that Potter was safely ensconced between himself and Ron. Oddly enough, out of Potter's friends, Ron had shown the greatest level of awareness and caution when it came to giving Potter the space he needed. Draco figured it was a combination of the fact that Ron had been Potter's roommate for years and that it was a natural instinct for women to communicate affection through touch, so it was harder for Granger and Ginny to break out of the habit. They had the best intentions, but Potter freaked out every time anyone came too close – sometimes more obviously than others, though Draco could always read it in his eyes. It was as if, on some deep subconscious level, Potter couldn't comprehend the idea that not all forms of touch were meant to degrade, humiliate or hurt him.
Draco shook his head sadly, wishing that a simple hug could sooth away the pain of his memories somehow, but with Potter in his current state any attempt would only do more harm than good.
He was startled out of his thoughts when he noticed that the procession was casually strolling into a bathroom.
"Hang on a minute!" he exclaimed. "We can't go in there!"
Granger smirked at him. "Offends your sensibilities does it, Draco?"
"It's a girls' bathroom," he stressed, with extra emphasis. Were they all blind or something? Did they seriously expect him to just walk into a girls' bathroom?
"It's Myrtle's, actually," Potter said quietly. "No one else goes in there. Besides, it's not like anyone is around to see you."
"Or we could just leave you behind," Ron suggested.
Draco scowled at him and reluctantly passed through the door. He had heard about this bathroom, actually, from a loud-mouthed Pansy complaining about it in the Slytherin Common Room one evening; something about a ghost called 'Moaning Myrtle' who had made the bathroom inhospitable. He hoped the ghost wasn't in a bad mood today, because he didn't really want to be walking through flooded toilet water.
The last thing Draco was expecting, though, was for Moaning Myrtle to be… flirtatious. But the bespectacled ghost appeared from a cubicle when she heard them coming, and when she saw who it was she smiled coyly and fluttered her eyelashes. "Hullo Harry."
"Hi Myrtle," Potter replied easily, as though this wasn't the first time they had had a conversation. "How have you been?"
"Lonely," she sighed. "You haven't visited me in ages."
"It's school holidays."
"I know…" She pouted. "Holidays are no fun. There's no one to haunt or scare when all the students have gone home."
"What about the teachers?" Potter asked, with the barest hint of a mischievous smile.
"They get mad at me. Especially ol' grumpy bum Professor Snape. He had the nerve to use a spell to get rid of me once, can you believe it?"
Yes, Draco really could – especially if the ghost had called Snape a 'grumpy bum' to his face. The Potions Master would not have been pleased.
"Set Peeves on him next time," Potter suggested and her face lit up with a wicked grin.
"I just might."
"We've got to go down into the Chamber," Potter told her. "Have you been keeping a close watch, making sure no one else tries to use it?"
She nodded, floating over to the sinks and peering at one of the taps. "No snakesies coming out, and no funny-language-speaking people going in. Quiet as a tomb."
"That's good, Myrtle. We'll see you soon."
"Be careful," she said sweetly, then giggled to herself and swept back into her cubicle. "But remember," she called, "I don't mind making room for you in my toilet if something happens to you down there."
"I remember," Potter answered absently, his attention already focused on the tap that Myrtle had examined a few moments ago. His eyes went a little strange and he hissed something in Parseltongue; the same word that he had spoken to the locket, Draco thought. He watched in awe as the secret entrance opened up, but Potter seemed uninterested, as though the novelty had long since worn off. He turned to Ginny instead, a concerned look on his face. "You don't have to come down with us if you don't want to. I mean, if it brings back bad memories…"
Draco realised that she had seemed uncomfortable ever since the corridor outside – the same corridor, he dimly recalled, where Filch's cat had been found Petrified and the messages in red paint had been written on the wall. At Potter's words, however, her features smoothed into grim resolve and her chin jutted out stubbornly. "I can handle it."
An emotion that Draco couldn't identify passed through Potter's eyes, but he simply nodded. "Okay, then."
They jumped down into the giant chasm, one after the other, Potter leading the way. As he stood at the brink, staring down into pitch blackness, Draco thought briefly that what he was doing was completely mad. But if the two people who had nearly died in the Chamber were willing to brave it again, there was no way Draco could live down chickening out now. Besides, this was the chamber of legend, set in place and hidden for centuries by Salazar Slytherin himself. It was a sight few eyes had seen and Draco didn't want to miss out on the opportunity.
So he took a steading breath and jumped.
He landed in a pile of small animal bones and general filth, narrowly missing Granger who had scrambled out of the way just in time. He wrinkled his nose in disgust at the surroundings but didn't comment, simply brushing off his robes and then following Potter as he continued onwards. They passed through another Parseltongue safeguard and wound up in a series of dank tunnels.
"Is this where you two got separated?" Granger asked Ron as they picked their way through a mound of rubble that partially blocked one of the passageways.
He nodded. "Never thought I'd be grateful that my wand was broken, but if it hadn't been Harry and I would be the ones in St Mungos with our memories wiped clean right now and Ginny never would have been rescued."
"…memories wiped clean…" Potter repeated, almost thoughtfully, as though the idea appealed to him. Draco couldn't blame him it if did, considering the sorts of memories he had to live with every day. But he didn't think Potter was the sort of person who would deliberately Obliviate himself, so he decided not to worry about it too much. No one else had heard the quiet words.
"You know, if Riddle had succeeded with what he was trying to do, there might have been two V-Voldemorts walking around," Granger mused. "I wonder if they would fight each other for dominion, or work together to take over the world."
"Thankfully we will never have to find out," Draco said.
They finally reached the central Chamber and Draco would have been in awe of the spectacular size and grandeur of the temple of Slytherin… if his gaze hadn't been caught by the enormous skeleton taking up most of the floor space.
He gaped in open astonishment, momentarily shocked speechless.
"You alright there, Malfoy?" Potter asked, a tinge of humour in his tone.
"That?" Draco gasped. "You fought that? You killed that?"
Potter shrugged. "Tom Riddle set it on me and I defended myself. Fawkes and the Sorting Hat helped."
"Blimey, Harry," Ron breathed. "You told us it was big, but that thing is huge!"
"You should have seen it when it still had flesh and blood," Ginny said, shuddering slightly.
"I think I'd pass on that," Draco confessed. Confronted with something that big and that terrifying, he probably would have run screaming for his life. He wouldn't have stood and fought, and he certainly wouldn't have made it out of the encounter alive if he tried.
His respect for Potter increased another few notches. He might think that heroism had been forced on him, but there weren't many people who would have had the courage or the will to go up against such a monster, and fewer still who would have done it to save the life of someone else.
"We should collect the fangs," Potter reminded them, breaking the stunned stupor. "Carefully. Trust me, you do not want to be stabbed by one of those things."
He sounded so matter-of-fact about it, even though he was talking about a near-death experience that had only been averted at the last moment. Would coming close to death on so many occasions eventually desensitise a person to the whole concept of dying? Draco had to hope that he was never in a position to know the answer to that question personally, although the rate he was going…
They walked along the length of the skeleton, moving cautiously with wands ready for a quick retrieval even though the Basilisk was clearly dead and no other danger seemed likely to present itself. The jaws were big enough for an adult to stand in and the fangs were easily each a foot long. Draco swallowed nervously at the sight, sneaking a sidelong glance at the boy who had fought and defeated this monster at the age of twelve. If he could manage a feat like that, then maybe it wasn't so farfetched that he might be the one capable of taking down the Dark Lord.
They set about wrenching and snapping the teeth off the main bulk of the skeleton, occasionally employing the use of magic when a fang proved exceptionally resilient. Granger coated each one in a simple Shield charm as it was removed so that they wouldn't be able to nick themselves by accident and then conjured a large glass ball around the whole pile so it could be carried safely.
"Are we ready to go, then?" Ron asked.
Potter nodded slowly. "I don't think there is a horcrux in here."
"We haven't even looked around yet," Granger pointed out. "So how could you know?"
A flicker of a frown passed across Potter's face but he didn't press the matter, joining in with the search.
As they spread out, looking for hidden nooks and crannies in an already hidden chamber, Draco took to gliding his fingers over each object he saw and reaching out with his Sight. He didn't feel anything that resembled the mangled soul fragment that he had seen inside the locket, though, and no one else seemed to be having better luck.
Finally, Potter climbed down from the statute of Salazar Slytherin, having clambered through the opening of the mouth and a few minutes later back out again. "I examined the nest and there wasn't anything there except for old skin residue and a few bits of bone," he reported.
"So no horcrux here, then," Ginny concluded. "I was so sure there would be…"
"Maybe You-Know-Who isn't quite as logical as we are," Ron said.
"Do you think there is somewhere in the castle that Voldemort would consider a safer place for his horcrux? Or more significant?" Harry asked.
"Maybe the Slytherin dungeons?" Granger guessed out loud.
Draco shook his head. "It's too pubic. Generations of students pass through there and after all these years there aren't many secrets left undiscovered."
"Where then?" Potter sounded tense, frustrated. Draco was reminded anew of the pressure Potter was under to somehow bring this war to an end and knew that Potter would feel the guilt of every life lost between now and the moment when it was all over (whether for him or for Voldemort).
"We'll find it, wherever it is," Draco promised him. "We'll find all of the Horcruxes that are left, and destroy them just like the Diary, the ring and the locket. We are going to strip the Dark Lord of his immortality and we are going to stop him once and for all."
Potter looked heartened by the miniature speech, and the others too. Draco forced himself to say the next words. "But it will take time."
Potter stared at him for a long moment, before nodding in resignation.
ooOOoo