Ava P.O.V
It's been a week and I'm finally out of the hospital wing. Dad visited me whenever he could, and Draco and the boys visited me in the morning and Harry, Ron and Hermione visited me in the afternoon, which I was so grateful for or I would have lost my mind being on my own.
Sometimes Draco would sneak in at the middle of the night then leave early in the morning before Madam Pomfrey came to check on me. I have no idea why she kept me in there for that long. I was fine the next day but she still wouldn't let me leave. I've got a feeling that dad might have something to do with it.
I'm just in the Gryffindor common room at the minute, we have come up with another plan to get Slughorn's memory. Harry is going to drink the Liquid Luck then go to see Slughorn. We are all praying that this works because this is our last chance to try and get his memory.
"Are you sure about this, Harry?" Hermione asks.
"Yes" he nods. "We need that memory. Without it then we leave the fate of our world to chance, Dumbledore said so himself" he said, before opening the vial and drinking all the Liquid Luck. He puts the vial down next to him and sits there with a smile on his face.
"How do you feel?" Ron asks.
"Excellent" Harry grins. "Really excellent."
"So remember" Hermione says, "Slughorn usually eats early, takes a walk then returns to his office."
"I'm going to Hagrid's" Harry says. He stands up and grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet. "Come on baby cousin."
"But what about the plan?" I ask a little confused.
"Forget the plan. I'm going to Hagrid's, I feel like it's the place to be tonight, do you know what I mean?"
"No" we all frown.
"Just trust me. I know what I'm doing, or Felix does" he says, before dragging me out of the common room. We are walking down the corridor and Harry hasn't stopped smiling.
"Do you really believe that we can get Slughorn's memory from going down to Hagrid's?" I ask.
"Yes, I believe we can."
"But how? Slughorn isn't there."
"Just trust me, ok?"
"Ok, I trust you."
"Aww thank you" Harry says cheerfully. "I trust you too."
We turn the corner and see Slughorn by an open window of one of the greenhouses. He seems to be cutting the leaves off a Tentacula Plant. Harry looks at me and smirks with a 'I told you' look. I roll my eyes as we walk over to Slughorn. He mustn't have seen us walking over to him because he jumps about 5 feet in the air when he does.
"Merlin's beard, you two!"
"Sorry, sir" I say. "We didn't mean to scare you."
"Yeah, you probably thought we were Professor Sprout or something."
"What makes you think that?" Slughorn frowns.
"Well, just he general behaviour sir" Harry says. "The sneaking around, the jumping when you saw us. Are those Thetacula Leave? They are very valuable, aren't they?"
"Ten Galleons a leaf to the right buyer" he says, cutting off another leaf. "Not that I'm familiar with such transactions, but one does hear rumours. My only interests are purely academic, of course."
Academic my arse. He's so going to sell them.
"Personally" Harry says, glancing at the plant, "these plants always kind of freak me out."
I nod in agreement. They are pretty creepy, especially the way they move on their own. Slughorn nodded then looked at us suspiciously.
"How did you two get out of the castle?"
"Through the front door, sir. We are off to see Hagrid's, he's a very dear friend of ours, you see, and we fancied paying him a visit, so if you don't mind, we will be going now."
Harry goes to walk away but Slughorn speaks up. "Harry?"
"Sir!"
"It's nearly nightfall, surly you two realise that I can't allow you to go roaming the grounds by yourselves."
"Well by all means come along sir" Harry looks at me and grabs my hand. "Come on, Ava" he drags me away before I could say anything.
"I can walk, you know. You don't need to drag me."
"Shh!" he whispers. "It's working."
"What's working?"
"Look behind us" I look behind us and see Slughorn following us down to Hagrid's. "I told you that this was the place to be tonight" he says grinning.
"Yeah, I guess it really was."
We make it to Hagrid's and Slughorn followed us all the way there. We make our way down the hill and I see Hagrid standing in front of a massive dead spider which made me grab Harry's hand in shock.
He laughs. "Scary, isn't it?"
"Yeah" I breath out. "Just a little."
"Me and Ron nearly got eaten by his family back in our second year."
I look at him in shock. "Why would you even go into his nest?"
"It was for answers, but we didn't think that the spiders were going to be as big as this" he says, pointing to the one in front of us.
"Merlin's beard" Slughorn gasps, as he walks up behind us. "It the an actual Acromantula?"
"A dead one I think, sir" Harry says.
"Well spotted, captain obvious" I whisper. Harry just shrugs with a weird grin on his face.
"Good god" Slughorn says. "However did you manage to kill it?"
Hagrid looks at him shocked. "Kill it? My oldest friend, he was."
"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't -"
"Don't worry yourself" Hagrid says, cutting Slughorn off. "Seriously misunderstand creatures, spiders are. It's the eyes, I reckon. They unnerve some folk."
"Not to mention the pincers" Harry says, as he clicked his tongues and pretended to have pincers which makes me laugh. Hagrid just looks at Harry confused.
"Yeah, I reckon that too."
"Hagrid" Slughorn says, "the last thing I wish is to indelicate, but Acromantula venom us uncommonly rare, would you allow me to extract a vial or two? Purely for academic purposes, of course."
"Well I don't suppose it's going to do him much good now, is it?"
"My thought exactly" Slughron says happily, before he walks closer to the spider. "Always have a ampoule or two about my person for just occasions as this" he says, pulling out a small vial and putting it against the spider's pincers. He pushes it a little and it starts filling up with clear liquid.
"I wish you could have seen him in his prime, magnificent he was, just magnificent" Hagrid says, wiping his nose.
"Would you like me to say a few words?" Slughorn asks. Hagrid nods. "He had a family, I trust?"
"Oh yeah" Harry says, staring at the spider.
"Farwell -" Slughorn stops talking and looks at Hagrid. I'm guessing his waiting for his name.
"Aragog."
"Farewell Aragog, king of the arachnids. Your body may decay but your spirit lingers on and your human friends find solace in the loss they have sustained."
After we buried Aragog, Hagrid invited us back to his house for drinks. Hagrid and Slughorn got drunk pretty quick but me and Harry didn't drink anything and just sat there and listened to them sing. Harry was loving it. I think he's still high on Liquid Luck, which is a good thing since we still haven't got Slughorn's memory yet.
"I had him from an egg, you know" Hagrid says. "Tiny little thing he was when he hatched. No bigger than a Pekinese, a Pekinese."
"How sweet" Slughorn says, taking a sip of his drink. "I once had two fish, Francis and Charlie, they were very dear to me. One afternoon I came downstairs and they had vanished. Poof!"
"That's very odd, isn't it?" Hagrid frowns.
"But that's life I suppose, you go along and then suddenly proof."
"Proof" Hagrid says, before he falls asleep.
"Proof" Harry whispers.
Slughorn looks at us. "It was wo students who gave me Francis and Charlie. One spring afternoon I discovered a bowl on my desk with just a few inches of clear water in it, and floating on the surface were two flower petals. I watched them sink and just before they reached the bottom they transformed into two fish. It was a beautiful bit of magic."
That does sound very beautiful.
"The flower petals had come from a Lily, you mother, Harry, but the other fish was from your mother, Ava. One day I came downstairs and the bowl was empty, that was the day your mothers -" he stops talking and looks at us. "I know why you're here, but I can't help you, it would ruin me."
"Do you know why we survived, Professor? The night we got these?" Harry asks, pointing to his scar. I pull out my wand and point it at my shoulder, making my scar appear. Slughorn looks at it then at Harrys.
"It was because of them" I say. "Because they sacrificed themselves, because they refused to step aside, because their love was more powerful than Voldemort's."
"Don't say his name" Slughorn winced.
"We're not afraid of the name, Professor" Harry says, before he stands up and walks to the table where Slughorn is sitting. I get up and stand next to him and take his hand into mine.
"I'm going to tell you something, something others have only guessed. It's true, I am the Chosen one, only I can destroy him, but in order to do so, we need to know what Tom Riddle asked you all those years ago in your office, and we need to know what you told him."
Slughorn shakes his head. "Be brave, Professor. Be brave like our mothers, otherwise you disgrace them, otherwise they died for nothing, otherwise the bowl will remain empty forever" Harry says.
Slughorn looks at us one by one then pulls out his wand and a small vial from his pocket. "Please don't think badly of me when you see it, you have no idea what he was like, even back then."
"We would never think badly of you" I say, making Harry nod in agreement. He put his wand tip to the side of his head and he starts pulling out a sliver mist, which I'm guessing is his memory. As he was pulling out his memory, I could see the hand that had the vial in so shaking, so I put my hand over his to stop it from shaking.
He put his memory in the vial then hands it to Harry. We go to leave but Slughorn speaks up. "I really am sorry about your mothers, you two. They were both lovely young ladies" then he passes out.
I look at Harry. "I know we got the memory, and I'm happy about that, but he looked scared of it."
"I know, I thought the same thing" Harry looks at me then at my shoulder. "You might want to cover that up again."
I nod and point my wand at my shoulder and my scar disappears. "Come one, we have to show this to Dumbledore" Harry says. I nod and we leave Hagrid's house then ran all the way to Dumbledore's office.
We don't stop running until we get there. Harry knock on the door and we hear a 'come in' he opens the door and we walk in and I see Dumbledore sitting behind his desk. He smiles at us then glances to Harry's hand.
"We got it" Harry says, showing him the vial. "We have Slughorn's memory."
Dumbledore stands up and points to the pensieve. We walk over to it and Harry pours in the memory which makes the liquid twirl black. We put our heads in and watch the black smoke disappear. I see that we are in Slughorn's office and he's talking to a young Tom Riddle.
"I was in the library the other night in the restricted section and I read something rather odd about a bit if rare piece of magic" Tom Riddle said, as he walked closer to the fireplace. "It's called an Horcrux."
"I beg your pardon?" Slughorn asked him in slight confusion and surprise.
"Horcrux" Tom said. "I came across the term while reading and I didn't fully understand it."
"I am not sure what you were reading, Tom, but that is very dark stuff, very dark indeed" Slughorn said still in shock.
"Which is why I came to you."
"A Horcrux is an object in which a person has concealed part of their soul" Slughorn explained.
"But I don't understand how that works, sir" Tom said, as he took a few steps forwards.
"One splits one's soul and hides part of it in an object, by doing so, you are protected, should you be attacked, and your body destroyed" Slughorn said.
"Protected?" Tom asked.
"The part of your soul that is hidden lives on, in other words, you cannot die" he said. Tom stayed quiet for some time as he turned around and walked to the fireplace with his back facing Slughorn.
Slughorn stood there and watched him.
"And how does one slip his soul, sir?" he finally asked.
"I think you already know the answer to that, Tom."
"Murder" Tom said, as he played with the ring on his finger.
"Yes, killing rips the soul apart, it is a violation against nature" he explained.
"Can you only split the soul once, for instance, seven?" Tom asked.
"Seven?" Slughorn asked in shock. "Merlin's beard, Tom, isn't it bad enough to consider killing one person, to rip the soul into seven pieces …" he trailed in shock. "This is all hypothetical, isn't it Tom, all academic?"
"Of course, sir" Tom said as he turned around to face him with a smile. "It will be our little secret."
There was black smoke and the memory stopped. We took our head out and we were back in Dumbledore's office.
"Sir" me and Harry says when we see the look on Dumbledore's face. He looks like he's in shock. He raises his hand, stopping us from saying anything else.
"This is beyond anything I imaged."
"You mean to say that he succeeded, sir?" In making the Horcrux?" Harry asks.
"Oh yes, he succeed alright, and not just once."
"What are they exactly?" I ask.
"Could be anything" Dumbledore says, before walking over to his desk. He opens a drawer and pulls something out. "A right for example, or a book."
"Tome Riddle's diary" Harry whispered.
"It's a Horcrux, yes. Four years ago when you saved Ginny Weasley life in the Chamber of Secrets, you bought me this. I knew then that this was a different kind of magic, very dark, very powerful, but until tonight I had no idea just how powerful."
"And the ring?" Harry asks, pointing to it. I look at it and realise it's the same ring that Ton Riddle was wearing in the memory we just saw.
"It belonged to Voldemort's mother. Difficult to find, even more difficult to destroy" Dumbledore says, holding up his burned hand.
"It's there anything my dad can do to help you?" I ask.
"Your father is helping me as we speak."
"But if you could find them all, and destroy each Horcrux, then you could destroy Voldemort" Harry says, and Dumbledore nods.
"How would you find them?" I ask.
"They could be anywhere" Harry adds.
"True, but magic, especially dark magic -" Dumbledore starts, as Harry reaches out and touches the ring. It starts spinning and Harry moves his head in a weird way then stands there like nothing happened. "- leave traces" Dumbledore finishes, glancing at Harry.
"That's where you have been going, isn't it? You know, why you leave the school. You've been looking for them, haven't you?" I ask.
"Yes, Ava, and I think I may have found another one, but this time, I cannot destroy it alone" Dumbledore looks at us. "Once again, I must ask too much off the both of you."
"We will help you, sir" we say together.
"Tomorrow evening I want the both of you to meet me at the Astronomy Tower at night fall, do you understand?"
We nod, the leave his office and make our way back to the Gryffindor common room to tell Ron and Hermione about everything we have just saw.
"How did slughorn now what a Horcrux was?" Harry asks, as we walk down the corridor.
"I've been thinking the same thing. I didn't even know that you could split your soul."
"Me either. Now I can see why he changed his memory."
"Me too" I say, as we reach the portrait. She looks at me but doesn't say anything and asks for the password. Harry gives it to her and she swings open. We thank her and walk inside and see Ron and Hermione sitting on the chair, snogging. I clear my throat and they quickly pull apart.
"How did it go?" Hermione asks quickly. "Did you get the memory?"
"Yeah, we got the memory and it's worst than we though" Harry says, as we next down next to them.
"What was his memory?" Ron asks worriedly.
Me and Harry sit there and tell them everything that we have just saw.
"I never knew magic could get so dark" Hermione mumbles, more to herself than us.
"We are going with Dumbledore tomorrow night" Harry tells them. "He thinks he knows where an Horcrux might be and he's asked us to go with him."
"Where do you think it might be?"
"We have no idea, but it's not going to be easy to get to" I say.
"Yeah" Harry nods. "It's Voldemort, after all. He's going to make it hard as possible."
"And there's 7 all together?" Ron asks.
"Yes" I say, looking at them, "but there's only 5 left. Two have been destroyed already. Harry destroyed Tom Riddles diary back in his 2nd year, and Dumbledore destroyed a ring that belonged to Voldemort's mother, but the ring was cursed and that explain why Dumbledore's hand looks burned."
"And these last 5 could be anywhere, and anything?" Hermione asks.
"Yes, it's going to be hard, but not impossible" Harry says.
"But they could be anywhere around the world."
"He wouldn't put them around the world" I say. "He would want them close to him so he can keep an eye on them."
"What if he's got them locked up somewhere?" Ron asks. "What are we meant to do then?"
"We break in" me and Harry say together.
"We break in" Ron and Hermione say back.