Chapter One Hundred Fifty-One: The Third Prophecy
It was after Hallowe'en—an uneventful Hallowe'en, for the first time since Harry had started here at Hogwarts, which itself roused Harry's suspicion, that it happened.
Professor Trelawney swept into the Great Hall the day after Hallowe'en, drawing the stares of everyone who had arrived for breakfast, both those who knew her, and those who hadn't met her before, for differing reasons.
Those who had never seen her before were taking in her appearance, which was rather more bedraggled and unprofessional than usual for her—no mean feat! She was all frizzy brown hair and haphazardly, unevenly draped gaudy shawls, glinting with fewer bangles and less jewelry than usual. You could tell that they were thinking that, whatever she was the professor of, they were not taking her class. Her regulation black robes were buried under the swathes of fabric, despite how much less there was of it this morning.
Those who knew her knew also that she almost never came down to the Great Hall. She claimed that it clouded her inner eye, which might have been true—this was not Harry's best subject. Regardless, her visits were infrequent, and noteworthy. He still hadn't forgotten Christmas Dinner of third year: "the first to rise will be the first to die!", indeed.
Then again, Harry rather thought he'd been the first to rise. Perhaps it was one of her hidden minor predictions.
Dumbledore saw her, and rose to his feet with silent grace. Harry just stared at her as she wrung her hands, and hurried over to the Gryffindor Table, collecting more stares as she went. More and more people were turning to watch the spectacle of Professor Trelawney, by the second.
"Ah, Sybil!" Dumbledore said, striding over to her, and thus the Gryffindor Table by extension, with a benign smile. "What a pleasant surprise! Come, come sit at the Staff table…there's plenty of room—"
"No, no, I'm not here for food," she said, with a rather odd, chipper cheer. She turned to Harry. "It works! It works!"
Harry didn't know what she was talking about. He cocked his head to the side, trusting in his befuddled expression to convey his complete ignorance as to what she was talking about. It had something to do with Harry, did it?
In response, Professor Trelawney pulled out a tape recorder, and memory clicked for Harry. Last year, when Umbridge had been trying to kick Trelawney out for being a fraud. He remembered now—the plan. See if she couldn't develop her skill. Record any prophecies she might not realise that she was making.
"You have one recorded on that cassette?" he asked, tuning Dumbledore out, for now. Trelawney beamed at him, in a quite uncharacteristic manner.
"Oh, yes! I believe you, now! I had no idea that I could—er, I mean, it's a bit confusing. I didn't realise that I was so…er, difficult to understand."
Harry's heart sank. Some manner of "incomplete prophecy", then? Well, depending on the subject material, it might be better than nothing. And, meanwhile, Trelawney was reaching for the "play" triangle.
"No," Harry said, holding out a hand to cover the button before she could press it. Just in case it was something important, which, given her previous two prophecies—the complete ones that he and Dumbledore knew of, that was—it must be. The last two prophecies, the only known ones, related directly to the war, to Riddle, almost naming him.
"Professor, sir…I'd heard that sometimes prophets have an easier time developing their gifts if they record them, and I thought—well, it was last year; it was as much to spite Umbridge as anything else, but I think Professor Trelawney might have recorded another prophecy. I thought she might give them when other people weren't around, and she might give more prophecies than we knew of. So, I—"
Dumbledore's eyebrows rose almost to the brim of his pointy hat.
"A prophecy?" he asked. "Yes, you're probably right to be cautious, Harry. Let's go to my office, Sibyl. We can talk about it more, there."
Harry leapt to his feet, shoving his breakfast aside. The "most important meal of the day" was nothing next to his need to know this prophecy. He refused to be cut out. He grabbed his school satchel, and nodded to Ron and Hermione, with a wave and a smile to Ginny.
Dumbledore seemed to make to protest, but Sibyl was sufficient distraction, practically bouncing on her feet with excitement…no, with vindication. Here was proof that she wasn't just some fraud. That she had a gift.
Harry could understand the reaction, and here it served him. He overlooked it.
Professor Trelawney wanted to shake his hand, and flatter him, and foretell long life and a happy marriage to him, all the way to Dumbledore's Office. It made it difficult to get rid of or to dismiss him. Dumbledore, regardless of what his preference would have been, had little choice but to let Harry come hear the third prophecy with him.
Once inside the Office, Dumbledore leapt into action, casting all sorts of spells on the doors, and the walls, an imperturbable charm, which Harry wished he'd known years ago, and quite a few nonverbal spells that Harry had no way to identify, but which were doubtless against eavesdropping or unexpected arrivals or intrusions. Fawkes seemed a bit curious about the proceedings, suggesting that this was not a common occurrence.
"Hello, Guy," Harry said, with a nod at Fawkes. He glanced over at the Sorting Hat with an apologetic shrug that he doubted it could see.
Dumbledore finished with that familiar spell colloportus, that any more Harry associated with the Department of Mysteries. Then, Dumbledore finished by conjuring two chairs for Harry and Professor Trelawney, and pulling the pensieve out of a cabinet.
Professor Trelawney looked positively flattered, and rather gratified, for finally being acknowledged, although she must have realised that Dumbledore knew that she was a real seer. She pulled the tape recorder on its cord back from around her neck, and laid it down in the middle of the desk, before pressing the triangular "play" button at long last.
The harsh guttural growl of her prophetic voice filled the room, albeit with a curious, tinny undertone to it, which the tape player alone couldn't account for, as Harry had worked hard on forcing the medium to replicate the sounds it recorded faithfully.
But, there was little time to give thought to this, for the recording of Trelawney's words were indeed a true prophecy, and perhaps a very useful one, at that. The newest prophecy said:
"Seven for seven for seven
The heart broken seven times
The ivy grows bound by seven roots
Seven links in seven chains
Four houses for one soul
Four houses for seven souls
The world where memories lie
A secret buried deep within
The twisted home of a twisted heart
Turn around, once, infuse it with soul
The last light from a dying star
Pierced through by dark-fortified light
Her plate is empty, but she does not want for drink
Beyond the river its lair, guarded by the woman raider, pillaging and plundering for her hoard
The last regret of a grieving daughter
A statue with the knowledge of a hundred men
The lost soul, trapped between realms
Bound in exile, freed in death
The queen of killers, with fangs of death
The faithful companion, never far from her master
Go through the hallowed archway, one by one.
Seven for seven for seven"
Dumbledore's gaze turned so sharp it could cut steel as he listened to the words. Harry listened just as closely, with bated breath. It could not have been clearer that Dumbledore wished that Trelawney had never heard the words. That might be part of why he'd kept knowledge of the other prophecies from her. Here was another privy to their secret quest, albeit a bit befuddled, and unaware of her knowledge.
"Thank you, Sibyl, for bringing this to my attention. I must ask you not to share it with anyone else."
He was going to ask to keep the tape, Harry realised, and that was the only one Harry had made.
"We'll see to it that it gets properly recognised and catalogued," Harry promised her with a smile. "Just erase it."
Dumbledore was a pureblood. He didn't know that you couldn't erase cassette tapes. But, Trelawney nodded. She'd just let the tape record over itself as it usually did, and acknowledged her own contribution, basking in the warmth of knowing that she'd made a difference.
Dumbledore accepted this plan. There was no guarantee that he wouldn't obliviate Trelawney, or something, later, but Harry doubted that he would, regardless of whether or not he would have, had Harry not been there. The fact was that Harry knew that Trelawney knew this prophecy, and would be less inclined to trust Dumbledore if he knew that Dumbledore had erased part of Trelawney's memories. And Dumbledore needed for Harry to have this knowledge, so that ruled against obliviating Harry.
Trelawney was allowed to leave, and then it was time to analyse her prophecy. Harry knew that that was coming.
"Seven for seven for seven? Does that signify anything at all?" he asked. He knew that the answer had to be something to the effect of "seven is a magic number, and it must be the number of times Riddle split his soul."
Harry, therefore, decided to rush on without giving Dumbledore the benefit of a reply. "Is there anything worthwhile in all that nonsense of sevens that the prophecy begins with?"
Dumbledore's eyes were back to their usual twinkling. "The number seven repeated seven times. And seven lines, before the prophecy begins to list artefacts. A mention of the four Houses of the Founders being used as vessels for Voldemort's horcruxes, I think, is also buried in those lines. But, perhaps the next lines are more interesting."
"Her previous prophecies weren't in lines at all," Harry felt inclined to interrupt to point out. There was little in common with the previous prophecies she'd given. After all, there the lead-in line, repeated at the end as this one was, was also a hint as to the subject of it. "Shouldn't we wait for something clearer?"
Dumbledore sighed, looking down at his desk. "Alas, Harry, that is something we don't dare to do. Once a prophecy has been uttered aloud, that is its final form. We will never have more to work with than this incomplete prophecy."
Did that mean that it was his fault, for giving Trelawney the tape recorder and telling her to listen? Would a clearer prophecy have emerged if he'd just left well enough alone? Oh, well. "No use crying over spilt milk," as the saying went.
"And the end is straightforward," Harry said, coming back to the main point of the conversation. If he were going to miss classes, and breakfast, he might as well make the most of it. "'The hallow'd archway;—the Veil of Death, in the Department of Mysteries. The horcruxes must be killed—sent through the Veil."
Dumbledore did not argue. Perhaps, he was content to let Harry do all of the work. And Harry couldn't help but attempt to puzzle it out.
"Well, the first item in our list of seven seems straightforward. We already destroyed that one. I did. At the end of second year. What sort of order do you suppose this is in? It can't be chronological, or the crown wouldn't be the fifth item. Unless we've destroyed some without knowing about it?"
Dumbledore gave him a benign smile, but there was a flicker of regret beneath. "It would be very difficult to destroy a horcrux on accident, if you will recall. Only Fiendfyre or basilisk venom are strong enough to accomplish such a task."
Yes. Harry still remembered the explanation he'd been given before destroying the ring and crown.
If this were in order of destruction, the locket should have been directly after the diary, followed by the ring and crown. Instead….
"Well! The first refers to the diary that Riddle wrote in when he was sixteen—that reference about deep secrets. And after that…." He paused. He knew that these lines concerned the ring, but he didn't quite understand that about it being an artefact to recall the souls of the dead—did that mean it truly was a hallow? "The ring, I presume. Although I can make little of the second of those two lines."
Harry narrowed his eyes at Dumbledore's persistent silence, until Dumbledore said, "This concerns matters that you are safer not knowing, for the moment."
As he might have been expected to say, regardless of whether or not the ring was a hallow. He refused to speak of the ring.
Harry realised that the next two lines were referring to the locket—also already destroyed. "The last light of a dying star", indeed! That was a reference to Regulus—his last, heroic sacrifice. Ron, the light that had destroyed the locket.
But, he edged away from mentioning the locket. How difficult a prophecy mentioning the locket made it for him to keep Kreacher's secret!
He shook his head, and continued on to the next bit, with a muttered, "The next two lines are a bit inscrutable don't you think? There's got to be something clearer. 'Her plate is empty, but she doesn't want for drink'—wait, that's Hufflepuff's Cup. We don't know where that is!"
This was news. This was helpful. "Does it say?" he asked, almost to himself. "I think it does. Let's see, what was it? Something about a woman raider, plundering for a hoard. Makes her sound like a dragon…."
Why a woman? How many women did he know of, involved with this war, who might be associated with one of Riddle's horcruxes? Not one of Harry's allies, not the Order of the Phoenix. A woman associated with the Death Eaters.
Only two came readily to mind. It seemed improbable that the Malfoys would be given two horcruxes to guard. That was putting too many eggs in one basket, and Riddle was not a fool. More's the pity.
That left Bellatrix Lestrange. "Lestrange? A hoard, something about dragons?"
Dumbledore leant forwards, eyes no longer twinkling. "No. Voldemort chose the hiding places for his horcruxes to be no less grandiose than the vessels themselves. What is the heart of wizarding society?"
The Ministry of Magic was the wrong answer. But Hogwarts, the answer his mind leapt to straightaway, was no better. He tried it, regardless, for want of a better choice.
Dumbledore shook his head. "A hoard, Harry. The safest place to store an artefact in all of Britain, despite that people come and go from there every day. 'Beyond the river'—the waterfall, 'Thieves' Downfall'."
Harry could now say that he honestly had no idea what Dumbledore was on about, now. He cocked his head in passably polite befuddlement.
"It is the safest place except for Hogwarts for anything you might wish to have protected. There is an enchanted waterfall that defeats most would-be thieves, revealing use of Polyjuice Potion and concealment charms, amongst many others."
"Ah," Harry said. Gringotts. Not a place he particularly fancied trying to break into, himself. And, Riddle had stored an artefact of the Founders there, by using a proxy.
Still, might they not have some sort of legal recourse? Couldn't they bargain with the goblins? But, goblins took their clients' privacy very seriously. They would need to be offered something for which they craved, to consider such a route.
Harry might be able to think of something. That seemed to be his lot.
"Gringotts, then," he said. "I suppose you'll work on that. And then, the next two lines—clearly about the diadem, somehow. I'm not sure how the diadem is a 'daughter's last regret'—"
"It is said that Helena Ravenclaw, daughter of the founder of Ravenclaw House, stole her mother's crown, and ran away from home with the Bloody Baron. It is a very secret tale that they don't often discuss. The crown itself was thought gone for good, and she has never told a single soul where she hid it before she died."
"She must have told Riddle. Him being charming again, I suppose. And the last four lines—" he lifted his head to look at Dumbledore, cutting himself off. It was mostly an upward flick of his eyes. There was a question thick in the air, one he wasn't sure he had the nerve to voice.
He was pretty sure he understood the next two lines, for they concerned him. He the lost soul, bound into exile, but even death hadn't freed him. Did that death refer to the past, when, as a baby, he'd surely been killed by Riddle's curse, and that was the cause of his memories being "freed"? Or, did it refer to a future? Was he not "bound in exile" now?
But, if these lines spoke of him…his death was assured. There was no avoiding it—the horcruxes had to die, all of them, for Riddle to be defeated. If he were, himself, a horcrux…then his death became necessary for winning the war. Ron and Hermione, Stephen and Sirius, would just have to fight the next war with new allies, and hope for the best.
Although…this would have had to be true, if it were true, his entire life. He would have been a horcrux for at least as long as Stephen knew him, right? Dumbledore had mentioned something at the end of second year, of Riddle putting a bit of his soul into Harry, on that Hallowe'en night.
Yet, Stephen spoke of their meeting far into the future. Was that a future where Riddle was still at large, and that was the reason for Harry's silence? He didn't like to think of himself hiding out in that house Stephen had described to them once or twice—Patchwork Palace, Stephen had said it was called—sacrificing the Wizarding World to Riddle, in order to ensure that Thanos, the greater threat, did not destroy everything because Harry was not there to do his part in stopping him.
Perhaps, Harry was too difficult to kill by ordinary means? Not cowardice, but a lack of means? Although, he had the Sword of Gryffindor, and he was sure that Hermione could learn to cast fiendfyre. There should be no true obstacle to his death. Harry himself was the greatest threat to such a plan. He'd lived, somehow, despite that. He lacked all the details.
Now, he knew, understood, that his premature demise was necessary for the fulfilment of Dumbledore's plan to defeat Riddle. No wonder he'd hidden it so well!
But, Harry had meant what he'd said to the ghost of Riddle, back at the end of second year. He did not fear death. He did not seek for it, it was not his bosom friend, but he could see himself doing as the youngest Peverell had, and welcoming Death as an old friend. He'd been to the Beyond before. It wasn't strange to him, or alarming. He did not seek for it, but to protect his friends and family…that would surely qualify as redemption, too.
A true gryffindor doesn't think twice about sacrificing himself for the good of the many. Were their roles reversed, he doubled that Dumbledore would hesitate to lay down his own life. No matter what you said about Dumbledore, he was dedicated.
And now, Harry was forced to see Dumbledore's motivations, his plans, in a new light, one that he didn't like. It was this secret knowledge that Dumbledore had kept from him, whenever Harry had come too near the truth in their conversations, these past few years. Why? A protection? Didn't he deserve time to prepare himself for death? If his role were that of the sacrifice, shouldn't he have known that going in? And his friends…Ginny….
Dumbledore was horribly silent, and wouldn't meet his eyes, just like last year. That spoke volumes, on its own.
"And, those last two items," Harry said, with a shrug, as if ceding the point to Dumbledore, whose face looked slightly less taut and inflexible as Harry changed the subject. This was the secret that Dumbledore had tried to shut him away from!
"'The queen of killers, with fangs of death', that needs no explanation. Not as much as the two lines before it. Did you know all along that I would have to die, professor?"
Suddenly, he was on his feet, with little knowledge of rising. Energy, power, gathered around him, invisible to the naked eye. Hogwarts itself lent him strength, whatever arcane magic lingered here in the Headmaster's Office. "Was I nothing to you but a pawn?"
"I cared more about your happiness than the world, Harry," Dumbledore said. "I wanted only to protect you—"
"Even after I proved myself, again and again?" Harry demanded, and then caught the train of his thought.
He didn't know what to think of Dumbledore, but he knew that Dumbledore wasn't his father. He wasn't family at all. He'd leave the accusations of how hard he'd worked, all his life, to be a worthy son, to one of his actual parents, and try not to fault Dumbledore for things he hadn't done.
Projection. That was one of the little flaws that undermined strong arguments. Lack of clarity. Lack of relevance. Straw men and red herrings. He wanted his argument to be strong.
"Didn't I deserve to know that I was going to die? How long did you think you would keep that knowledge from me? What if you died before you had the chance?"
"There were—methods, failsafe measures. Once a man realises that he is about to die, that he must die for his cause, his life becomes empty. You deserved to have friends, to have people who loved and supported you. The war would surely be lost without friends and allies you could count on. And you would be lost without their love.
"Love is the most powerful force known to man. There is a room in the Department of Mysteries—perhaps you tried to open it—filled with just that. It is so powerful a force that they have put special protections against that door being opened. That is the power the Dark Lord knows not, Harry. The power that you have in so great of quantities that it drove out Voldemort, when he tried to possess you, and which Voldemort knows not at all.
"If I had told you that you must die, you might never have forged those friendships, and perhaps, then, you might have turned out a less admirable person than you are. I don't mean to disparage your character, but it is difficult to see just how much every little experience we have has on who we are. I wanted you to experience that love that Voldemort never had, for it to strengthen you. And, who knows, perhaps it can save you, in the end. That line 'neither can live while the other survives', does not mean that both must die to save the world. It is a hint that you will be freed of Voldemort's influence by passing through death."
"I'll do it, you know. I would always have done it," Harry said, glaring down at the edge of Dumbledore's desk. "I can't believe that you'd doubt that."
But he didn't know about Mother, about how she looked after him, from her place of refuge, deep within his soul.
"I know that, Harry. You are a true gryffindor," Dumbledore said, with a half-hearted smile.
It didn't feel like a reassurance of a compliment anymore. It felt like being a dog in training, fed a treat to reinforce behaviour. He had to talk with the others about this.
In the meantime… "What are you going to do about Hufflepuff's Cup?" he asked, as if that was the end of it.