A/N:Here's another chapter. Enjoy :))

Chapter 144: It's gone

"I say you should wait until it's my turn to say that." her brother laughed darkly, giving her a meaningful look.

"Oh dear, I forgot about that." she groaned deeply. "Oh, whatever, you can start if you're ready."

Her fiance jumped to his feet.

"No, wait a moment at least for her to recover a bit. She'll faint if she has to go through that now. Please."

"Well," Severus said "it is clear that we cannot count on you to properly evaluate your physical state, so I'll follow Mr Malfoy's advice and take a break before you lose consciousness."

And that's exactly exactly what they did.

"So let me get this straight: that thing lived inside her ever since that night in Godric's Hollow? And Harry has one as well?" Ron asked the teachers.

"That is correct Mr Weasley. Although, if we are right, her brother's is only half as big as the one that I have just incinerated."

"By the way, professor, that was the most badass thing I've ever seen."

"Thank you Ms Weasley. Although I feel obligated to inform you that we do not us such language in this school."

"Technically, we're not in the school, we're under it."

"I see your sense of humor wasn't affected by the massive loss of blood."

"Never. That thing is in my very soul. You can't take it away so easily. Now, let's finish this thing or I'll lose my mind. And I really hope you're right Minnie, cause if his is as big as mine, well, I can't really fanthom that pain. Come on. Are you ready Harry?" the trembling of her voice was at least a little worrying, as well as the fast pace at which her eyes were moving.

"I'm good. But you..." despite himself, he shot Draco a glance; the blond clenched his jaw and pursed his lips, but nodded nevertheless. It was only going to get worse if they waited any longer.

Both of the teachers stood, and walked up to the second bed.

"Now, we are going to follow the exact same steps as we did in Selene's case. The vial of Phoenix tears is more than half full so there is no need to worry about that."

"I know professor, I trust you. I'm ready."

The exact same steps were made and, not even a whole minute later, the second IV was dripping blood inside Harry's veins. Contrary to what they thought though, the thing was just as big as the previous one had been, surprising all of them.

"But that doesn't make any sense. That's not how Horcruxes work. It should have been roughly half the size of the other one. Every text on the subject specifically states that a Horcrux splits the soul in two equal parts. What happened?"

"Maybe there is half left in Selene's blood?"

"There isn't. I checked after I put the IV in."

"I might have an explanation for Mrs Granger." Minerva said, a look of realization settling on her face.

Everyone looked at her, confused.

"When Selene Apparated in the Graveyard during the third task of the Triwizard Tournament, she got hit with a Killing Curse at some point, but survived. Back then, we didn't know what happened. Also, in your second year, the Basilisk stared right into your eyes and nothing happened." she told the girl.

"So what?"

"Well, what if something did happen? Our original theory was that your ancestral powers are going to gradually destroy the Horcrux , but obviously that wasn't the case. But what if all those things that were supposed to kill you did not seem to have any effect because they started to wear the Horcrux away instead? And maybe they weren't enough to destroy it completely, but merely reduce it to half of its original size."

"Well that's a first. Something about this actually makes sense at last. Probably that's what happened. Is there anything that we need to do, or I can take a nap? I don't know about Harry, but I feel like my eyes will fall into my mouth if I don't close them soon."

"I'm afraid you can't dear. We have to go to a first-day meeting with the other teachers. Your friends can stay here, but Poppy will come down in about half an hour to check on you and give you some pain relievers and maybe a dreamless sleep potion, and you have to be awake for the checkup."

"But why not move them to the Hospital Wing? Wouldn't they be cared for much better there? And without the huge inconvenience of Madame Pomfrey having to walk such a long way to get here? "

"It would attract too much attention. It's only the first day of school and although the deep wounds on their necks have healed, they're going to develop some alarmingly large bruises in a few hours. Besides, it is indeed inconvenient, but not only for us, for everyone else as well. There aren't many chances for someone to just stumble upon us here. "

"And Riyep, with all her pacing around the castle and scrutinizing eyes, is not someone we can trust to keep a secret, especially if she finds out that what we did is helping us in the fight against her master. We don't want to risk the Dark Lord suspecting anything, so she can't see the two of them."

"She's a Death Eater?"

Snape nodded, not finding it in himself to taunt Ginny for asking such a stupid question this time.

"Besides, here you can visit them as much as you want, it's more or less out of Poppy's juristiction to throw you out of the Chamber of Secrets as far as we know." McGonagall added, a faint smile playing on her lips.

"We have to go Minerva, you're too punctual to be late for a first meeting, especially given that you're Headmistress now."

"Yes." she turned to the two beds and then to the twins' friends. "If anything goes wrong, Severus and I each have an enchanted Galleon. So give us a message and we will be here as fast as possible. Poor kids, sucked in the black hole of the madman's rotten soul."

And with that, the two teachers got out of the Chamber, leaving the four teenagers alone with their exhausted friends. But at least they were clean of the darkness now; hopefully.