The dream continued with Dumbledore seated on the window seat and his left arm attached to the window. Before him, the enormous serpent was still enclosed in glass. Tom Riddle's diary, Slytherin's locket and Ravenclaw's diadem remain attached to a windowpane. But now, Hufflepuff's chalice was attached to the windowpane beside the other items. As he watched, the golden egg transformed into a miniature golden Hungarian Horntail and spewed fire at the headmaster's left arm, which burned. The pain of the arm distracted him from his surroundings; he couldn't move his arm and finally noticed the small ring on one blackened finger of his hand.
'Did I put that ring on my finger?' he wondered. 'Where is my wand?'
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Soul Jars on Display (07 August 1996)By Harry's birthday, his elves and the volunteer elves from Hogwarts completed the move of the contents of his vaults from Gringotts London to Bank Suisse in Zurich. The goblins remained unaware of the move – the vaults remained active with the presence of ten galleons in each. The dwarves provided Harry with several universal debit and credit cards for his use. Dobby and Preacher each held a set while Harry kept a pair in his wallet. The cards were much easier to carry around than sacks of gold coins.
With the imminent return of his aunt and uncle, Harry moved his possessions into No.4 Grimmauld Place, which was still under Dumbledore's fidelius charm though the Black family wards underneath that charm blocked the entrance of anyone not named as friend or family by the new Lord Black. At the current time, Harry had no one he wished would visit the London address.
Dobby and Breacher attempted to clean the house but surrendered the attempt after two days. To mollify the distraught elves, Harry ordered them to clean the street outside the house. Still at Privet Drive, Harry worked on the last of his summer homework when Dobby came back with a large piece of paper in his hand that he handed to Harry.
'CONDEMNED' 'DANGER' 'DO NOT ENTER' were the words printed on the paper in large red letters.
"What is this Dobs?" asked Harry.
"All houses on grim street have big sign with condemns on them. Muggles with strange hats everywhere putting muggle exploding explosives into all houses around your secret house."
"Let's go look at this," Harry said as Dobby popped him into Grimmauld Place. There he slipped his invisibility cloak over his head and went out the front door. As Dobby had described, the street was filled with construction trucks and workers who were wiring the houses on both sides of the street with explosives. At the end of the street, he found a large plywood sign advertising Grimmauld Towers, a high-rise apartment development that would be complete by the end of 1998.
Laughing lightly, Harry led Dobby to a yellow metal trailer with OFFICE on the door. The locked door did not keep Harry and his elf out and Harry read through the papers until he found the schedule – the construction company would press the plunger on 15 August and collapse all the row houses on both sides of the street in the middle of the afternoon.
'Sirius would make this a great prank to play on the Dork Lord,' Harry decided.
"Dobby, can you find more explosives?"
"More?" asked the timid elf. But then he nodded his head. "Dobby be very careful but will steal lots of explosivenesses from places."
Preacher, Breacher and Treacher were appalled at the idea of setting a trap and then blowing up the Dark Lord…at first. After Dobby argued that Mr Harry Potter Lord Black had to survive to make babies with some witch so there be lots of Potter and Black wizards and witches in future, rather than die fighting evil wizard who cheats in fights, the three elves changed their minds and helped to pack the floors of the townhouse with muggle explosives.
With the iron boxes in the front room in Grimmauld Place, Harry had the elves remove the draperies and he planned his trap. Once the house was filled with explosives and the front door was ready to be rigged to trigger all the explosives in the house when a wizard fired a spell at the door, he sent Dobby to collect the diadem from the Room of Requirement in Hogwarts, and the diary from Dumbledore's office.
Harry now possessed five of Tom Riddle's treasures; locket, diary, diadem, cup, and egg. The only missing pieces were the ring and the serpent who seldom left the side of the Dark Lord. Fortunately, the house-elves at Malfoy Manor welcomed Dobby's visits and they agreed to spy on the snake for their brother.
Tom Riddle and his snake were not masters of these elves and if they said nothing to the Malfoys, no one would know that Dobby came to visit. On 8 August, the serpent slithered outside to hunt and eat another Malfoy peacock but never returned. On 10 August, Voldemort noticed that his familiar was missing. He tore through the four floors of the mansion, blasted holes in the roof and blew out the windows as he expressed his anger. Finally, he petrified Draco and Narcissa before he shrank and placed them inside a locket and hung the necklace around Bellatrix's neck.
"Now, Lucius, you know Bella will protect your wife and son, but you cannot free them until you find and return Nagini to me. Don't fail me or Bella's necklace might disappear as well."
Desperate to save his wife and son, Lord Malfoy set all his minions to work using different spells to locate the missing serpent. The elves remained silent and were never questioned.
"Now, how do I get the ring? I won't sacrifice an elf," Harry muttered. "It's got to be a person."
'Who do I send to die?' he wondered.
From the depths of the Black family magic came the memory of Dumbledore's voice saying, "For the greater good, there must be sacrifices. For the greater good, you must die someday my boy."
'Not me! How about you Dumbledore? How about you sacrifice?'
In his possession were all the Horcruxes of the dark lord except for the Gaunt family ring that lay surrounded by vipers and other poisonous snakes in a dilapidated shack in Little Hangleton.
That last morning, he sat at the kitchen table at Privet Drive and considered his plan as it existed in his mind. He had committed nothing to paper, the idea existed only in his brain.
First, he would provide enough information for Dumbledore to send him after the Gaunt family ring. Once the headmaster was under the curse, his elves would dose the headmaster with the dreamless sleep potion to ease his pain but keep him silent and sleeping while using the ring as bait to draw the Dark Lord to Grimmauld Place.
Second, the elves would capture the snake and place her and all the other soul jars in the large picture window on the ground floor where Tom can see them.
Third, Harry and his elves would crack the fidelius charm on Grimmauld Place but reinforce the Black family wards. The damaged fidelius would allow Bellatrix and any other Death Eater who had ever been in the house to remember where it stood in London.
Harry knew, 'Someone will scout the location, see the snake and other artefacts in the window, and report back to ole Voldiesnorts.'
'Then all I have to do is watch while the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters come calling and everything goes out with bang.'
'My plan is full of holes and lots of things could go wrong…' Harry realized. 'But I gotta see this through to the end.'
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