Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Nine: Regulus's Cave

It was near the end of March that Snape had handed over the memories, which meant said memories would have to wait, and Harry would have to hope that they didn't say anything of great import (although it was good to know that Hermione was on the case of how to restore Stephen's memories, at least).

It was as if Mother had told Snape that Harry had access to her once a month, and he'd timed everything just so. In reality, Harry reflected, it was much more likely that Snape was merely limited by the simple constraint of not knowing how much more opportunity he had to give Harry the information. He must have put it off, as Harry would later reflect, owing to the sensitive nature of some of the information.

Mother, unsurprisingly, didn't know how to read someone's memories without a pensieve. Riddle had created the illusion of accomplishing this via his diary, but that was a horcrux, and, as memories were lodged in the intersection of mind and soul, it seemed most likely that it was merely the case that a fragment of Riddle's memories had been incorporated into the diary when he'd made the horcrux. Particularly relevant ones concerning the creation of horcruxes, and the events leading to Myrtle's death.

Harry was glad to have had the opportunity to check with her on that subject, although he was more concerned, all things considered, with the clarity of the figures in his Foe-Glass, those of them that weren't wispy vague question marks of figures, and with the fact that one of them was Draco Malfoy. He didn't much like Malfoy, but it was somewhat alarming that Malfoy was this year's great threat.

When the new year had come, Riddle had faded back into the background of the glass, turning more indistinct. Where was Riddle?

Harry was not expecting Hogwarts to be invaded, but he was still leary of Malfoy. Hermione was driving herself to distraction, trying to read everything Hogwarts had on offer concerning memory magic, and ignoring Ron's persistent efforts to tell her what he had himself learnt, waving him off as if he were a particularly obnoxious fly.

Harry had never seen anyone capable of doing that before. He'd slipped away, deeper into the library, thinking hard, and left the two of them to be insufferable together.

He continued to sneak out of Hogwarts under cover of night, to visit the Hogsmeade garden, sometimes accompanied by Ginny, sometimes not. It was only about a week before Snape handed over the mysterious memories that the garden flared into sentience, leaving Harry to bask in the sense of accomplishment his success provided. He'd insisted upon Ginny sneaking out with him on the next night, to show her the difference. She had made such progress that she was readily able to recognise it.

What Harry paid pretty much no attention at all to were the House points and quidditch matches. Gryffindor beat Hufflepuff in the final match, which was hardly surprising, either. They had Ron on their team.

And Harry. They had a long history of being almost unstoppable when they were working together as a team. Add in Ginny, and the mainstays of previous years, and even with the newbies on the roster, the team was still guaranteed success.

Harry remembered quidditch just long enough to play and win the game, and then his mind returned to more important matters. Hermione seemed almost horrified at his single-minded focus.

It was still more attention than he was paying to House points. He didn't even know who had won last year. Umbridge had shot down the last vestiges of interest he had in the points system, which had been rigged from the start.

But, it hadn't seemed to matter from third year, on. Caring about points and scores was such a…childish thing to do, and he was at that stage of childhood where he eschewed all "childish" things, for the sake of not being considered childish.

On one side of the equation, he could be expected to outgrow this trend when he settled into being comfortable in being himself, in a few years, or whatever. On the other side of the equation, he probably wouldn't outgrow it for a few centuries. He was curious as to how things would work out, which side of the equation prevailed.

It was after this long string of triumphs, and its counterweight of defeats that fell short of the mark of balancing out triumphs and defeats, that Krum entered Gryffindor Tower to escort Harry to Dumbledore's Office for the final time.

You would not know that Dumbledore was soon to die by his demeanour or vitality. He seemed much as he'd ever been, indeed. He beamed at Harry when Harry entered, and watched with patience as Harry turned around the room, with a smile and a hand outstretched towards Fawkes, a murmured "hello", before Harry glanced at the Sorting Hat, considered his options again.

After that, everything was right down to business. Krum had already gone, with almost silent footsteps. You'd think someone who walked the way Krum did—those sorts of jerky, clockwork motions—would have heavier footsteps.

"You wished to speak with me, sir?" Harry asked, gaze downcast. He hoped it had nothing to do this time with Professor Trelawney. All that remained were he and Nagini. Wait—

"I have uncovered the last resting place of one of Voldemort's horcruxes, although it has taken me all year," Dumbledore said.

The locket. Only, given Kreacher's tale—

But, what could he do? He had promised Kreacher his silence on the matter of the locket—at least as concerned Dumbledore.

He frowned down at the table, mind racing to recall everything Kreacher had told him. A cave by the sea, a "lake" filled with inferi, a ferry across to the far side, the potion….

Did it replenish? He didn't think that it would—not when it was no longer guarding the locket. Then, they'd go, and Dumbledore would find for himself that the locket had gone, and Harry would not have to break his promise to Kreacher, such as it was. It all worked out, regardless of whether Dumbledore was just telling him so that Harry would know where he was (ha!) or whether Harry was meant to come assist.

The main problem that remained was Dumbledore's curse that Snape had mentioned. But, it didn't seem to hinder Dumbledore.

Harry was almost glad that this trip was to a horcrux already retrieved, for he knew the perils that lay ahead. If ever Dumbledore seemed to stumble, he was well-positioned to subtly help.

Assuming he go, of course.

"Are you telling me so that you can set me to learning as much as I can about how to destroy it properly before you get back? As a warning, lest Voldemort try anything?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore smiled, eyes twinkling behind those glasses. "Oh, no, my dear boy. I thought I might show you the culmination of Voldemort's efforts. Not to mention that you yourself are in possession of the least destructive means of destroying the horcruxes."

The way he looked down through his spectacles at Harry was almost reproachful.

"You wish for me to accompany you?" Harry asked. Well, it had some precedent, and Dumbledore's explanation made sense. Harry had been present at the destruction of every other horcrux….

Including the one they were setting out to destroy, but when else would he get to see Dumbledore at work? He had the Sword of Gryffindor and basilisk fang, both. He had the invisibility cloak, and his holly-and-phoenix-feather wand. He was set.

Later, he would question just where Stephen was to warn him of the impending danger.

The wind blew rain into their faces as they apparated just outside the protective barrier barring access to Voldemort's cave. It was not so very far from the orphanage in which Riddle had been raised to discount the idea that he had come here as a child, even, which was a very strange thought.

Harry opened his seventh sense wider as they landed.

Dumbledore shouted some sort of explanation about anti-apparation charms ("anti-wards" Harry corrected mentally), and then they were climbing into the darkened maw of a cave, already soaking wet after only being out in the rain a few minutes.

It was dark inside, but something shimmered like a heatwave on the far wall. Dumbledore made for this, unerring, as if he had some sort of seventh sense as well (he might).

Harry listened to his explanations about old magic and seals that required blood to activate—something about pretension and antiquation.

Harry thought that Dumbledore didn't quite understand, but kept silent. If he stared too long at Dumbledore, the wriggling things climbing up and down Dumbledore's form would distract him from what was going on, from what he should be thinking of, knowing as he did that the Inferi Lake was next.

The thing about Blood Magic was that it was old, intimately bound into ideas of sacrifice and worship. A Christian-bound Wizarding World discounted its power to their detriment. Dumbledore did not, to his credit.

But, a reverence for tradition and a feeling of self-importance were almost-certainly not the driving factors in Riddle's choice.

Shed your own blood here in my sanctuary, and be bound to me, the idea went. Sacred blood oaths, the forerunner to the Unbreakable Vow. It was this certainty, the closest that Riddle could get to trapping any comers into such an oath. Silence. Part of the reason Kreacher had never told, perhaps. Quite likely latent under Regulus's command that Kreacher tell no one.

Harry was glad that Dumbledore volunteered for the honour, but was somewhat surprised that he didn't even try to find a workaround. He could've collapsed this fake-wall, perhaps, burrowed under it, tunneled from above. That was one option.

He could have tried to break the protections on the wall, or tweaked them enough to allow for a sacrifice of something other than blood (bread? water? sand?). That was a second option.

He could have transfigured some rocks into a helpless animal, and sacrificed it, instead. That was a third option.

Harry stopped thinking of all the options and went through the opened doorway into the room with the Inferi Lake.

His sixth sense awoke on its own, screaming a vague warning. Sixth senses were frustrating that way. They would activate on their own—it happened to muggles all the time.

At the time, he thought it was warning him of the lake full of zombies—a threat he already knew about, thank you. Later, reflecting, he would wonder if it weren't trying to warn him away, get him and Dumbledore back to Hogwarts.

Dumbledore continued to figure out the nature of the room they were in, the nature of Riddle's traps, as Harry listened. He noticed the raft—the classic ferry to the other side. Of course, Riddle would be overfond of the symbolism. "Flight of Death", eh?

This entire cave put Harry on edge, granted. Here was yet another of those places that Mother had once warned him of—a place where he must not use the ambient magic, lest he be corrupted. Sometimes he wondered if he had made such a mistake in the time of the gaps—

It did not elude him that almost every such place that he had encountered had been in the wizarding world, and made unusable by Riddle himself. He was such a corruptive element….

At least, Harry knew what to expect here. As did Dumbledore, somehow.

Things did not get tricky at all until Dumbledore had reached the basin with Riddle's potion,which he seemed to feel it necessary to drink.

To obligate Harry to force him to drink. And, Harry thought to himself: No. It is bad enough that Dumbledore has not long to live, that he might die tonight, if that mobile curse is anything to go by, or my sixth sense in warning. I will not be the cause of his suffering, regardless of what use he might make of me later.

Aloud, he said, "That won't be necessary, sir."

He opened the seventh sense to its fullest extent and studied the basin. Riddle was not infallible, and even the best minds left holes in their work. Harry himself did. Father did.

It was well-shielded, to be fair. Harry did not see himself easily breaking through. But, it was only mortal magic, after all, and even the chains at the end of fourth year had had some vulnerabilities, which he hadn't had the time to analyse enough to figure out and exploit.

Here, he was under no real time-constraints.

There were several layers to whatever Riddle had done to the basin, of course. If one failed, the others would hold. Naturally, the outermost layer was the one preventing the use of spells on the basin—a sort of neverending looped finite incantatem bound round several other spells he didn't recognise straight off.

Dumbledore ignored him to reach through the barrier to grab the goblet, filling it to the brim, bringing it to his own mouth, for the moment. The appearance of his hand through the area controlled by that barrier did not disturb the spells in the least. They were not material objects, after all. It was too bad. He wished he could have reached over and widened the gap made by Dumbledore's hands.

A circle for infinity. Lines, connections. Dots. Bind by connecting dots and lines into the circle for infinity. How did you unbind something? Drive a line through it not connected to the circle. Interrupt it.

Not for the first time, Harry wished they'd brought something other than just themselves, the Sword of Gryffindor and the basilisk fang, and their respective wands. And, the invisibility cloak, although Dumbledore was not supposed to know that he'd brought anything but the Sword and the wand.

Not that it mattered. Dumbledore seemed to be drinking himself dead to the world. The crawling things thrived.

Two ways to defeat the basin. Wait, no, three, but only two that didn't involve damaging the cave that the were standing in, risking being buried alive.

The first was to break the circle, disrupting the protective enchantments enough to cancel them. The other was to move all the spells on the basin elsewhere. They seemed firmly anchored; he doubted they'd budge without a great deal of exertion, and then he'd have to choose another location.

Option one it was, then.

He grabbed the goblet before Dumbledore could do anything else stupid, studying it closely. There was a spell attuning it to the basin.

He thought of fire, but that would do little good. Instead, he stared at the little thread connecting it to the basin. Nothing was really lost if he made the locket irretrievable. Success or failure was mostly all the same to him. He snapped the spell thread off the goblet, and pulled. To be safe, he crushed the goblet in his hands, lest Dumbledore get any funny ideas.

As he pulled, the spell-threads surrounding the basin also began to unravel. At the heart of those spells was the one that said that the locket could only be reached by drinking all the liquid, and that the goblet alone could be used to empty it. Harry held the erstwhile heart of the network of spells in his hands, and dissipated the spells that had been attached to it as it unraveled.

Dumbledore came to as he was unraveling the spells, from whatever odd delirium the poison had put him in. He hadn't drunken that much, but it had taken its toll, and there seemed to be some lingering effects. He looked ashen, shaken as if trapped in some nightmare—or newly awakened from it. Given what he'd been saying about Harry forcing him to finish the draught, Dumbledore had known what the potion would do before taking it.

Reckless fool, Harry thought, with a bit of an internal snarl. He let go the strand he was pulling at, and reached through the caustic liquid to withdraw Regulus's locket.

It was a superlative forgery, he conceded, down to the letter "s". Kreacher had not said anything about how Regulus had come to know the way through Riddle's traps—perhaps Riddle had himself commissioned the duplicate, or perhaps that had been Regulus. But, it must have been made specifically to be a replica.

Maybe a fake antique? There seemed to be a specific dark magical aura about it, and it felt old.

He knew that it was a fake, however. He knew that Regulus had left a note in it. As Harry tried to give Dumbledore room to process what had recently happened, at least what he knew of them through his stupor, Harry opened the clasp. The note was nested in there carefully. Harry pulled it out to read it. Harry let him be to recover in dignity.

"It's a fake, professor," he said, holding out the note for Dumbledore's inspection. "This was inside."

Dumbledore was not recovered enough to keep himself from sagging in defeat. Harry was indifferent to this "setback", as he'd anticipated it from the start. But, how would it have been, to go through all that effort and pain just to retrieve a replica if he had expected the real thing?

A glance at Dumbledore showed Harry that it was worse than he'd thought. The potion hadn't just…traumatised? Dumbledore—it had also undone some of Snape's hard work on an antidote to that curse. Harry's eyes narrowed as he examined Dumbledore.

"Come on, professor," he said, in the gentlest tone he could manage. "We have to get you back to Hogwarts."

That was when the inferi started to crawl out of the Lake.