Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.
I'm not 100% happy with this chapter, but I can't figure out why, so I've posted it.
It's a really boring one, literally nothing important happens, and nobody dies! Does anyone actually trust my author's notes anymore when I say stuff like that?
Enjoy?
Chapter 92
Harry had wracked his his brain over the last couple of days to think of a good way to teach Neville to duel, to give him a little bit of experience, without having to attend the DA meeting like his friends had suggested.
Unfortunately he had not been able to think of a suitable excuse.
I don't particularly care about helping those who haven't learnt to help themselves doesn't sound like something Neville would take well.
That train of thought had led him here, to the quiet, far corner of the Room of Requirement in which the DA still met. Katie, his usual company at the few meetings he had attended in the past, wasn't yet here, and, given she had stopped coming after Umbridge had left, was likely only going to turn up because Harry was.
There were more students than he remembered. A lot more. Neville seemed to have mustered most of the school from their year down to the third years, and the room had swelled into a vaulted hall two thirds the size of the great hall to accommodate them all. Among them he spied most of last years members, though a couple of faces were missing, and he noted that the majority of these more-experienced students had stopped carrying their wands in hard to access, inconvenient places.
'Where's Nev?' Ron wondered loudly, ushering Hermione over to join him. 'He's not normally late.'
The door creaked open halfway through Hermione's listing of all the possible places Neville might have gone before coming to the meeting.
'Sorry,' Neville apologised sheepishly, 'I've been searching for my assistant, but he's proven elusive.'
'Your assistant?' Ron frowned.
'Last time you had an assistant it was Harry,' Hermione noted none too enthusiastically.
I think the first lesson of dueling should be to check the corners of the room in case you aren't alone, Harry smirked.
'He's still my assistant,' Neville nodded. 'We need to learn how to duel properly.'
'Why can't you teach us that?' Someone, probably Smith, called out.
'I don't really know what I'm doing,' Neville admitted, 'but Harry does.'
'What about Hermione?' Terry Boot suggested. 'I heard she produced non-verbal spells first time in all her classes, and they're meant to be important for dueling.'
'I can teach,' Hermione agreed, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
'Didn't Potter trap you within your own shield?' One of the few Ravenclaws in their year pointed out.
'Because he used magic he wasn't supposed to be,' Hermione snapped. 'If he'd used the correct jinx I would have blocked it. Neville and I can teach this, Harry's not even here.'
'Aren't I?' He called out, amused at the silence which immediately descended.
'We can still teach this,' Hermione decided scathingly.
'If you don't want my help, I shan't give it,' he shrugged. 'We can practise together some other time, Nev,' he assured his worried looking friend.
'No, Harry,' Neville shook his head firmly. 'You don't have to go. They don't realise the difference yet.'
'Telling them didn't seem to work,' Harry commented idly, 'so you'll have to make do with what you have.' He threw Hermione a flat stare to show her just what he thought of her dueling capabilities.
'So we can show them,' Neville grinned.
'That's probably not a good idea,' Harry disagreed, unwilling to display his prowess before so many witnesses. Things about his style, and technique could easily find their way back to Malfoy, and then to more worrying wizards and witches.
He started towards the door, more than happy to teach Neville privately and away from prying eyes.
'Afraid you'd lose?' Smith called out. 'Neville's probably better than you from what I've seen, you're just worried we'll tell everyone you aren't all that great after all.'
'You've been telling people that for years, Smith,' Harry responded dryly. 'In second year you thought I was setting a giant snake on muggle-borns, third year people stopped listening to you briefly because they realised you're an idiot, but oddly they forgot again afterwards, and since then you've been telling everyone I'm a dark wizard, or some other nonsense.'
'You are a dark wizard,' Smith insisted.
'Not contradicting me calling you an idiot then,' Harry grinned, hiding his irritation at how naive they all were.
Dark and Light, he thought disgustedly, a dichotomy of ignorance.
'How about a test,' Hermione suggested carefully. 'One potential teacher against the others. Whichever side wins the duel clearly knows more, and should teach. That's fair.'
'Others?' Neville asked suspiciously.
'It's Harry,' Hermione explained, 'or it's us.'
'You want to duel Harry… voluntarily,' Neville said slowly, bemused by her enthusiasm.
'Normal duelling rules,' Hermione said reassuringly. 'So no dangerous spells, no leaving the ring, and no talking about anything except the duel until the duel is over.'
'And when is the duel over?' Harry inquired, now interested. Hermione was starting to annoy him, and if the other students really thought that knowing a handful of spells was going to be enough to protect them from Death Eaters then maybe it was a good idea he show them how wrong they were before they discovered it for themselves in less favourable circumstances.
'If one side is stunned, or unable to use magic,' Hermione recited eagerly.
'I suppose it will be good practice,' Neville agreed nervously, 'but try not to be too cruel please, Harry.'
'I won't damage anything Hannah will miss,' he replied innocently, causing the blonde girl to flush violently red.
'We'll need a ring,' Neville said hurriedly, changing the subject.
'Done,' Harry said calmly, flicking his wand into his palm and drawing a wide circle of purple fire around them on the floor. Hermione watched with faint admiration, lips pursed as she tried to puzzle out the piece of magic for herself. Harry doubted it would take her long; it wasn't too complex, and she was easily smart enough to do it herself
There were a few murmurs as the ring curved closed, and Harry was sure he heard several of the Ravenclaws placing bets on how the duel would end, how long it would last, and how many spells would be cast. Their ignorance of the principles of a even a controlled duel obvious in their declarations, let alone a true one, where any spells might be cast.
Hermione drew her wand from her waist, tapping its tip against her palm as she moved to stand next to Neville on the opposite side of the ring from him.
Time to have some fun, Harry decided.
He wouldn't use anything dangerous, mostly the useless jinxes he had learnt to teach Neville in their fifth year, and fairly obvious strategy; it wouldn't be too hard to show them the gulf between himself and them without revealing much of himself.
'Will you adjudicate, Ron,' Hermione instructed tersely.
'Will I what?' The red-head replied, baffled.
'Judge, Ron,' Hermione sighed. 'You need to judge.'
'Oh,' he nodded. 'Why didn't you say so?' He grinned.
Hermione didn't respond, she was biting her lip, while Neville was already looking rather resigned to defeat. The fact that the walls of the room behind him were slowly covering themselves in padding didn't exactly display a great deal of self-confidence.
'Begin,' Ron yawned lazily.
'Stupefy,' Hermione hissed, drawing her wand perfectly through the wand motion, and then from it into a handful of small school corridor hexes that Harry recognised from watching Malfoy throw his weight around in their fourth year.
He batted them away, deflecting each curse into the ground to leave small, smoking rings on the floor without moving his feet. Hermione would have to try harder than that.
'Neville,' she urged, taking steps along the side of the ring to try and catch Harry between the two of them, casting stunners as she went.
'Right,' his friend nodded, mirroring her movements.
I wonder, Harry mused, shielding himself wordlessly as they stalked closer, and watching the faint, red ripples of light splash harmlessly across the outside of his defense.
The Chamber of Secrets, the room Salazar had created, was beyond the wards, and his ancestor had said that Godric and Rowena made their most impressive things.
I need the anti-apparition wards to end, Harry tried.
He didn't really need them that badly, he could just shield, or deflect their curses past each other, or any number of things, but he quite wanted to watch Hermione's face when she saw him apparating on school grounds.
A bright, red beam shot from the tip of Hermione's wand, and another, more brilliant, and crackling with power, came from Neville's.
There was a soft snapping noise, and Harry twisted around to face them from the other side of the ring, the light of his shield dissipating between his two opponents.
It worked, he grinned.
A brief check showed that the Room of Requirement had created a small, ward free, bubble within it, just like it had when he had brought Fleur to visit, which allowed him to apparate, but only within the bubble.
The chamber is better, he grinned. Salazar will be very pleased when I tell him.
The founder would probably be unbearably smug too.
'That's not possible,' Hermione said, flabbergasted. 'The wards at Hogwarts can't be breached.'
'He's using the room,' Neville realised, 'it can probably allow us to apparate within it.'
'Good guess,' Harry told him with a smile. 'But now it's my turn to cast spells.'
His ebony wand snapped up, unleashing every jinx he knew in a veritable hail of crackling, sparkling colours that hissed and spattered off the floor and walls around Neville, bursting in showers of smoke upon his shield, which wavered every time his spells struck it.
A little more, he decided, allowing the irritation he had felt at Hermione to guide his magic.
His spells shattered in showers of ice against Hermione's hastily conjured piece of wood, covering the floor with small fragments, and leaving shallow scars across its surface.
The tip of his wand twitched in an almost imperceptible vee, then the blasting curse ripped the wall of wood into splinters. Harry's follow up jinx of choice, the jelly legs hex, tore through Neville's shield like it was wet paper, and every subsequent spell struck his hapless friend leaving him with boneless, waving legs, a faceful of tentacles, waist length hair of quite a charming shade of teal, and no wand.
There was a groan of disappointment from the audience, and Harry frowned.
Did they want me to lose so badly?
A pinprick of cold flared to life in his chest at their ingratitude, part of the reason he was doing this was to help them, he was risking tipping his hand to Voldemort to keep them safe even when they meant nothing to him, and him nothing to them. He carefully suppressed his anger lest it warp his magic into something dangerous again.
'Flammam ungui,' Hermione cried, taking advantage of his moment's distraction.
A thin, hooked claw of fire lunged from the tip of her wand, narrowly missing Harry's shoulder as he threw himself out of the way, and singing his shoulder.
Nothing dangerous, he thought furiously, as the DA members cheered excitedly, and Ron's mouth stayed shut, despite his slightly guilty countenance. I'll show you what happens to girls who play with fire, Hermione.
The tiny shards of ice on the floor cracked and twisted to life, rising as shining, transparent moths, that swirled about his former friend in a vicious storm, beating against her hurriedly raised shield, until their wings broke and they fell to the floor.
Hermione emerged, beaming triumphantly at the fate of his animated insects, only to freeze as she caught sight of him, and the furious white sparks that crackled and leapt from the tip of his wand to the floor. The flickers of energy left dark scorch marks on the floor, and showered them both in small, glowing pinpricks of light that floated in the air for a few moments before fading.
She paled slightly as they swirled and condensed at the tip of his wand, flaring too bright to look at, and Harry spared a brief, cold smirk in reply.
Girls who play with fire get burnt.
'Fulminis,' he said calmly, forcing his anger down just before he released the spell.
A single beam of bright, white lightning leapt between them, piercing through Hermione's desperate shield. The light dissipated instantly, scattering like steam before wind, and the spell hit exactly where Harry had intended it; the point between her feet, melting the stone beneath her toes, and scorching her shoes.
She yelped at the spreading heat and jumped back.
'Perhaps you'd prefer not to break the rules?' He suggested deceptively evenly, a fresh wave of white sparks spiralling along the length of his wand, filling the room with pungent tang of burning ozone. Ron's jaw was clenched, and it looked like he wanted to do nothing more than end their duel, but couldn't without revealing obvious favouritism after Hermione had cast the first dangerous spell.
Hermione's eyes narrowed, and thick bands of copper began to encircle his legs and waist.
Clever girl, Harry conceded, releasing the spell into the floor before the metal grew too close, but you should never have broken the rules.
The audience seemed to have realised that Hermione had started something she was unlikely to be able to finish, because they were looking distinctly nervous, eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them. Smith looked like he was on the verge of panic.
The copper bands fell from his body as he wrest them from Hermione's control, twisting and stretching into shining snakes that slithered around the edges of the ring even as Harry deflected Hermione's spells, some of which he thought she must have made herself, because he had never seen them before, back at her and into her shield.
She melted his copper snakes, vanishing the copper pools before Harry could make use of them, but, despite her determined glare, her breathing was coming fast.
Time to showcase duelling tactics, he decided.
He stepped along the edge of the ring, casting spells across Hermione at her far shoulder just as Fleur had tried to do to him in the chamber, and forcing her along the curving line of purple fire closer and closer to him.
She tried her best to resist, but Harry could simply deflect her spells back where he was already casting, and the two drew inexorably closer until Hermione was forced to throw up her shield, unable to dodge, or step any closer to Harry without being hit straight away.
He flicked his wand lazily, directing the vibrant, crimson bolt of magic into Hermione's shield, and watching it collapse with a ripple of scarlet that flooded over it as the spell struck Hermione in the sternum and she dropped like a stone to the floor.
'Enervate,' Ron muttered, attempting to revive her, but his spell flared out ineffectively against Harry's denser magic.
Harry quietly undid the effects of his hexes on Neville, which were similarly resistant to t he counter curses, and then revived Hermione himself.
'Well,' Neville grinned ruefully, patting his chin to check all of the tentacles were gone. 'I think the winner is pretty obvious.' He turned to give Hermione a disapproving look. 'You shouldn't have broken the rules,' he told her, 'someone could have got hurt.'
'I knew Harry would be fine,' she dismissed, waving her hand vaguely. 'He's not going to be troubled by a few fire spells.'
'Care to explain what you did, Harry?' Neville asked, and Ron, who was murmuring something in a slightly disappointed tone to Hermione, turned to listen intently.
'Simple tactics,' he shrugged. 'I split the two of you up, forcing Hermione to protect you in a way that hindered your ability to duel because you couldn't see, then capitalised on it. I knew, when you were gone, that I had more stamina that Hermione, so I lured her into using expensive spells, then trapped her once she was too tired to fully maintain her shield.'
Some of that was even true.
All of it was valid advice, but he'd never had to think about this duel. There was simply too big a gulf between himself and the others. His magic was stronger, he was more experienced, his spells more powerful, and he knew far more magic to throw at them.
It was never close to a fair contest.
Neville would likely be a fair duellist. He had enough power, though he lacked speed and creativity. Hermione was going to be quite proficient; she was always going to be knowledgeable, that had been a given from before the first day of term, but she was creative too, and fairly fast.
She might be able to hold her own against most wizards and witches with a bit more practice, Harry realised.
'There you have it,' Neville grinned. 'Split up into pairs, and have a few practice duels between you. We need to know how to fight to stop the Death Eaters from harming our friends, and our families. Remember, if you've defeated a Death Eater make sure your opponent can't get up after you've gone and go on to hurt others.' Hermione nodded slightly at Neville's words. 'We can't afford to give our enemies a second chance to hurt us when they have already done so much, we have to protect everyone at whatever cost.'
Still naive, Nev, Harry thought.
He was right to make sure his enemies stayed defeated, but protecting everyone, when there were so few who would do the same for you; he didn't believe it was worth it. Harry knew with little doubt that he could protect those that deserved it, but only if it did not risk him, or those he deems truly precious.
I have become far less selfless, he realised, almost proud, because he had finally fully adopted the ideals Salazar had shown him.
'I need to leave,' Harry announced, when the rest of the room was no longer listening.
'Meeting Dumbledore?' Neville asked.
'Yeah,' Harry nodded. 'I might check on Katie too, I was expecting her to come this evening.'
'We're in Hogwarts,' Neville said reassuringly, 'there's not much that could happen to her.' Harry gave him a long, flat stare until the boy wilted.
'There's not much that could happen to her as long as she isn't near you,' Neville amended, grinning.
Too right, Nev, Harry thought slightly guiltily.
'She hadn't finished her transfiguration essay,' Neville told him when Harry didn't smile. 'I found her sulking about it in the library while I was searching for you. She really wanted to come and watch you wipe the floor with Smith.'
'Good,' Harry laughed, relieved she was fine. 'I'll tell her what happened to you when I next see her.'
He needed the support of his few friends too much to nobly walk away from them and leave them safe, and it was too late for them regardless. Katie was already on Voldemort's list of targets, even if she wasn't likely to be a priority, and Neville intended to go after the Lestranges and put himself in danger regardless.
'Don't,' Neville groaned, 'you've already destroyed my reputation, how did you manage to break my shield with a Jelly-Legs Jinx?'
'Skill, Nev,' Harry grinned, 'pure skill.'
'Sorry, Harry,' Hermione said, drifting over from where she'd been talking with Ron. 'I got a bit carried away.'
'I noticed,' Harry said neutrally, as Neville moved away to put out Colin Creevey's robes which had caught alight.
'I designed the spell myself,' she said a hint of pride resurfacing, 'but I shouldn't have cast it at you just to see where I was relative to you. Neville was right, someone might have been hurt. I'm better with books than battles, anyway.'
'You'll be a good duellist, and no harm was done,' Harry answered absently. He was more concerned with the meeting he was about to have with Dumbledore than Hermione's slightly insincere apology. No matter how genuine her remorse for risking the health of those nearby might be, she hadn't seemed at all concerned about Harry; it wouldn't have bothered him if she knew his full duelling ability, because he wasn't likely to be hurt by a spell like that, but she didn't.
I suppose she could have deduced it, he surmised, slipping out of the room before he was accosted by anyone else, especially Smith, who was throwing him dark, suspicious looks, and not turning his back on Harry even while he was practicing duelling.
The corridors were empty at this time, the only things that ran this late were the DA and quidditch practices, and Harry pitied anyone that was outside in the driving rain this evening. Nobody enjoyed quidditch in weather like this, not even Katie.
'Sherbet Lemon,' he ordered the gargoyle, but it didn't move, and he stubbed his toes on its clawed foot when he continued unsuspectingly.
He didn't tell me the password, Harry sighed.
'Sugar crystal, fizzing whizz-bee, cockroach cluster, chocolate frog,' Harry listed, wondering what other types of sweets he knew. 'Jelly slug, sugar quill, liquorice wand, acid pop-'
The gargoyle sprang aside, and with an exasperated shake of the head at how easy it was to break into the headmaster's office, Harry continued up the spiral staircase.
'Harry,' Dumbledore greeted from the top of the steps. 'I wondered who had managed to open the gargoyle when I had only just changed the password.'
'You asked me to meet you, professor,' Harry reminded him.
'Indeed I did,' the headmaster nodded, beard swaying, 'I do apologise for not telling you the password beforehand, but I hadn't chosen a suitable item of confectionery. I was about to send Fawkes to find you.'
'A good thing I was already here, then,' Harry smiled.
Phoenix travel wasn't his favourite method of motion, especially as Fawkes had a habit of helping himself to anything nearby that he deemed tasty.
'Exactly so,' Dumbledore beamed, ushering him inside with a hand on his upper back. Harry resisted the urge to shrug it away irritatedly, and conjured himself a comfortable chair in front of the desk. 'How are you feeling about your NEWTs, Harry?' The headmaster asked, relaxing in his chair.
Merde, he thought, realising he'd rather forgotten about them since Christmas.
'Other things on your mind recently,' Dumbledore deduced, 'I hope you are ready nonetheless, Harry, it is too late to back out now.'
'I will be fine,' Harry decided after a moment's contemplation, 'it hadn't quite dawned on me how close they were.'
'Three days,' the headmaster noted, 'and I took the presumption of requesting an apparition test too.
'Thank you, professor,' Harry smiled. It hadn't really bothered him that his apparating was all illegal, but a license might be useful just in case.
'Once you have taken them what will you do?' Dumbledore asked curiously. 'You have a whole year.'
I will leave, Harry thought.
'Perhaps I might take Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, and Care of Magical Creatures next year,' he lied.
'Seven NEWTs,' the headmaster beamed proudly. 'I myself only had six at the age of seventeen.'
'What did you want to show me, headmaster?' He inquired politely, changing the subject before the headmaster managed to deduce his real plans.
'Another insight into the mind of Tom Riddle,' the headmaster said sadly. 'You may find it as pitiable as it is harrowing.'
Harry suspected he would find it neither of those things.
'When he was very young,' Dumbledore began, folding his hands in his lap, 'Tom found that he was different from other children. I suspect, from how his accidental magic manifested and grew into something more sinister, that he was not well-treated where he grew up.'
'Where did he grow up?' Harry asked.
'Ah,' Dumbledore looked down at desk, 'Tom's mother was a woman named Merope Gaunt.'
'Gaunt?' Harry asked, only just managing to keep the sharp note of surprise from his voice. The Gaunt family were on his tapestry of descendants from the Peverells.
'Yes,' the headmaster took off his spectacles and placed them down between his forearms, giving Fawkes a warning look when the phoenix trilled mischievously and perked its head up. 'The Gaunts claim to be descended from Salazar Slytherin, and their ability to speak Parseltongue made it difficult to deny. They were blood purists of the most unfortunate kind, marrying within their own family tree, sometimes even brother to sister, to preserve their purity.'
'No wonder Voldemort didn't turn out well,' Harry mused.
'Tom was raised in an orphanage, actually,' Dumbledore corrected gently. 'His mother, Merope, fell in love with a rich muggle, and, using magic or more likely potions, since it is believed she was a squib, she seduced him, married him, and became pregnant.'
'I imagine her family didn't take that well.'
'No,' the headmaster looked terribly sad, 'Merope was abandoned by Tom Riddle Senior when she stopped controlling him, and died in childbirth after naming her son. Her brother Morfin, and her father, Marvolo never searched for her.'
'How heartless of him,' Harry frowned.
'I daresay Merope was grateful she was not found,' Dumbledore sighed, 'Marvolo would not have taken kindly to what his daughter had done, especially not as she took one of his precious heirlooms, a locket, with her. 'Still, it is sad that she found herself so bereft of affection, life often offers us naught but bitter pills, and there is little we can do but swallow them and pretend they are sweet.'
He offered Harry the bowl of Sherbet Lemons, taking one for himself.
'So Voldemort grew up never knowing about his family either,' Harry said evenly, helping himself to one of the sour, yellow sweets.
'I believe Tom was never treated with affection by anyone when he was young, and by the time he realised he was different he had come to hate the world that hated him.' Dumbledore sighed, and rubbed his eyes tiredly. 'When I gave him his Hogwarts letter he was overjoyed to see that there were others like him, even if he concealed it and was wary of a trick to begin with.'
'So he came to Hogwarts,' Harry summarised, 'but the magical world didn't turn out to be the home he expected.'
Dumbledore frowned. 'Why do you say that, Harry?' He asked softly.
'I can easily imagine how it must have been for him to discover there was a whole world to which he belonged when he had never fitted in where he was,' Harry said calmly. 'It must have come as a terrible disappointment when he discovered this world was not much better than the one he hoped to escape.'
'Perhaps you are right,' the headmaster agreed quietly, but Harry got the distinct impression that Dumbledore did not think so. 'In any case, Tom had already developed a very selfish, introspective view of the world, he cared nothing for others, took what he wanted if he could, and had no qualms about hurting those in his way.'
Harry's paranoia sense began to tingle slightly; Dumbledore was not so far from describing him, though he would have used less unflattering terms to portray what he felt were simply realistic moral boundaries.
'He collected trinkets, and trophies, hooded things that held any sentimental value to them, and prized them above all else. That, Harry, is one thing that has never changed, as his estimation of himself grew, so did the value of his trinkets, but he never stopped collecting them.'
'This is to do with his choice of horcruxes, isn't it?' Harry realised.
'Indeed,' Dumbledore beamed, approving of Harry's intuition. 'I suspect that Tom has created his horcruxes using objects that he valued above all others, either as trophies, or as trinkets, important objects, as I said before, but he will have placed them in similarly important places.'
Dumbledore rose from his seat to stir the pensieve with tip of his strange wand.
'I am not sure whether he made this ring, or the diary first, but I do know that he killed his father, and his father's family, and, knowing him like I do, I suspect he used the death of his father to make a horcrux of the ring he took from his uncle. It was a trophy of what he had accomplished, since his uncle, Morfin, was framed for the murders, and died in Azkaban, and it was a symbol of his heritage, his ancestry that traced him back to Slytherin an set him apart even in this world.'
'He values things that set him apart,' Harry concluded.
'Tom did, and does, place great importance on the traits he believes separated him from the others. When he was a child he clung to the things that made him special, and when he was at school he basked in the light of being brilliant, deluding himself into believing that only the traits he possessed were worth having.'
'What about his followers?' Harry asked. None of the Death Eaters reminded him of Voldemort, they were all different, talented, or powerful in their own way.
'I believe he sees them as useful in different ways,' Dumbledore sighed sadly. 'Even while he was at school he showed little true affection for any of the wizards that admired him, or any of the witches that threw themselves into his path. If anything he seemed quite contemptuous of them, especially the latter.'
They did not understand him, Harry realised, but he kept his thought to himself; he did not need Dumbledore to start believing that Harry empathised with Voldemort, true or not.
"I will show you the horcrux I found this summer,' the headmaster said softly, extending a gloved hand in Harry's direction.
He found himself on an overgrown path in the soft, warm rain of summer. The woods were green, the ground soft, brown and sticky with clay where the thicket of brambles, bushes and bluebells did not cover.
'The Gaunt's manor,' Dumbledore said, pointing over the shoulder of his memory self at what was little more than a dilapidated shack.
'Manor?' Harry raised an eyebrow at his generosity.
'The Gaunt family are descended from the Peverells, and a multitude of other pureblood families, but, once their excessive inbreeding grew too much for even other purist families to stomach they were isolated, and their fortune dwindled to nothing more than a handful of heirlooms they were too proud to part with.'
They followed the form of the headmaster as he hummed some cheery dirge, strolling gently up the path, as the foliage bent itself out of his way, in a plum suit with ivory pinstripes.
'As you can see, Harry,' Dumbledore indicated the rotting, swollen bodies of dead serpents writhing in the mud between the gate and doorway to the shack, 'Voldemort does not leave his horcruxes unguarded.'
The plum-suited Dumbledore paused at the gate, flourishing his wand and revealing a set of burning purple runes running along the boundary of the property. The headmaster paused, then, after a moment, cut his thumb and pressed it upon the gate.
The serpent inferi swarmed in a thick, festering waved towards the path, but Dumbledore simply walked past them as if they were not there.
Harry and the headmaster, who was looking distinctly paler, and more weary than his counterpart from memory, followed.
'The snakes, professor, why did they not attack?'
'Voldemort does not want anyone leaving with his treasure,' Dumbledore explained, 'but anyone who comes here has learnt a secret he does not want known at all, so he desires to lure them in, before trapping and killing them to keep his weakness concealed.'
'So the blood?'
'A sacrifice to ensure the visitor is weakened when they try to leave,' the headmaster nodded grimly, 'he can be quite crude at times.'
The door to the shack had the skeleton of a serpent nailed to it, but the mouldering bones fell from the rotting wood when Dumbledore forced it open with a flick of his wand. The headmaster did not immediately enter, but instead took several long minutes to inspect the surroundings, then cast some very complicated looking pieces of enchanting.
'The wards within were quite clever,' Dumbledore admitted from beside Harry, 'had I not been aware of the compulsion charm I would have not noticed them and been caught within.'
He led Harry after his memory self, drawing Harry's attention to all sorts of small, nasty spells placed on what looked like hordes of treasure, but, once Dumbledore had peeled away layers of enchantment, were revealed to be bricks of clay, wood, and rusting iron.
'For all his ingenuity, Tom consistently underestimates people. I do not think he believes it possible for a person to exist without ambition, avarice or anger.'
The false treasure faded, as did the shelves of old books, and the promise of forgotten knowledge, spells and power. In their place stood a simple, stone table, little more than a rough plinth, and on it, in a small depression encircled by a silver serpent, was the ring Dumbledore now wore.
'And now for my mistake,' the headmaster sighed. 'Alas,' he said softly, 'even I am not infallible and might be overcome by temptation and the hope of long abandoned dreams coming true.'
The Dumbledore of the past walked around the plinth, unravelling the enchantments upon the silver snake, and watching it dissolve into nothing, but he froze when he reached the side opposite Harry, and his face lit up with wonder.
Slipping his wand away he carelessly reached out and took the ring, only to drop it in horror a second later, and cast half a hundred spells Harry did not know upon the fingers of his wand arm.
'I found it,' Harry heard the memory of Dumbledore murmur, picking up the ring between the thumb and forefinger of his withered, blackened hand and holding it up into the light.
I've found it, Harry realised, ecstatic glee exploding within him.
Dumbledore nodded sadly beside him, oblivious to his triumph, ignorant that Harry might recognise the crest upon the stone set in the ring.
'A costly error,' the headmaster said quietly, and Harry nodded in mute agreement.
You should never have shown me this memory, he exalted silently.
Dumbledore, the one who intended to sacrifice him, the wizard who had set himself so firmly in Harry's path that he had no choice but to try and move him from it, the man who was already dying possessed the one thing Harry wanted most.
Perfect, he grinned, as the memory faded and he found himself standing in the office again.
'As you can see, Harry,' Dumbledore pulled the glove form his injured hand, baring both blackened flesh and band of gold, 'it is dangerous to go after these horcruxes alone. I would like, if you are amenable, for you to accompany me in a week's time to a location that may hold the next.'
'Of course, professor,' Harry agreed, unable to tear his eyes away from the ring.
'Thank you, Harry,' the headmaster sighed with relief. 'Without Severus my injury takes a greater toll on me, and I fear I will need your assistance.'
'Why me?' Harry inquired, still staring hungrily at Dumbledore's hand.
'Why not someone older? Or more powerful?' The headmaster paraphrased. 'There are few wizards as powerful as you, Harry, and I can trust none of them. You have something that most don't as well, an ability that Tom cannot understand or anticipate.'
'Love?' Harry asked, managing to keep the withering condemnation from his tone.
'Yes,' Dumbledore beamed. 'Tom will always underestimate and dismiss the power of that he cannot comprehend. Were it not for the mutilation of his soul he would have been utterly destroyed by your mother's sacrifice. You see the difference between the two of you, one born from a loveless union, the other with a father willing to die for his family, and a mother capable of sacrificing herself for her child.'
'It is a pity then,' Harry said slightly coolly, 'that you had not already found these.'
Dumbledore smiled, despite Harry's obvious displeasure at the reference to his mother's death. 'You're a lot like her, Harry,' he said gently. 'You may resemble your father, but inside you burns a fire as bright Lily's hair. That passion, that devotion to the one she loved most drove your mother to perform magic capable of overcoming anything Tom could ever hope to cast.'
'But she is dead,' Harry said calmly, 'and now she will never see me, nor her husband, everything she devoted herself to was lost to her when she made that sacrifice. No matter how noble it was, no good came from it for her.'
'Did it not? Her child, the one she loved more than anything else, survived when you would have otherwise died. That knowledge alone was enough to fuel her brave act. Sometimes a great deed must come at great personal cost,' Dumbledore told him kindly, his eyes dark with sorrow. 'I have learnt that first hand, and though I wish it were not so, it is. Death is not so terrible, Harry,' he smiled benignly. 'Many of those I hold dear are there waiting for me there. I think living as Tom, and others I have known have to be a fate far worse.'
'A pity that those we hold dear cannot be brought back to us,' Harry said solemnly, watching with no small swell of satisfaction as Dumbledore's eyes dropped dejectedly to the ring he wore.
Who did you lose, I wonder? Did you sacrifice them as you would me? As Salazar did his beloved wife? Would you bring them back if you could?
'It is selfish of the living to drag the dead from their rest, and dangerous to dabble between worlds that ought to remain separate. A wizard who spends too long surrounded by the dead might seek to join them and be reunited.' Dumbledore's wisdom fell short in Harry's mind, for the wizard's lack of fear lent him no desire or ambition to escape or defeat it. A reunion could have the dead rejoin the living instead of the living joining the dead if only he had the drive to find a way.
The last enemy to be destroyed is death, Harry remembered from the graves of his ancestor.
He had to concede that Dumbledore was right in some respects though; it was too late to bring Salazar back. To do so would be needlessly cruel, for all those he held dear were already gone and with him in the nothingness that came afterwards. The resurrection stone did not actually restore the dead, however, else there would have been no need for the archway; it was likely a shadow of the one the bearer summoned was all it could conjure, and that was all Harry had ever had to begin with.
'It is not yet possible to disturb the dead,' Harry said quietly, 'and I would not drag someone back to our world when there was nothing left for them here.'
'You are a better wizard than I was when I was younger, Harry,' the headmaster admitted, unaware that Harry would have no qualms about bringing back someone who did have something to live for if he truly needed them.
'Did you lose someone, professor?' Harry inquired with gentle curiosity.
'A wizard as old as I will have lost many,' the headmaster smiled sadly, 'but yes, yes I did. I am, at the risk of sounding immodest, a great wizard, Harry, and great wizards are not forged from fortitude, but from misfortune and opposition. Once I hoped to bring them back, feeling they did not deserve something as terrible as death, but now I believe they are probably happier there, just as your parents must be.' A hint of warning entered his tone, Dumbledore was not quite as unaware as Harry had initially believed, though he mistakenly believed that Harry still longed for his parents. 'It would be selfish of me to try and bring them back into a world so different from what they knew.'
'How would you have brought them back, if you had tried?' Harry asked, wondering if Dumbledore knew anything of the veil, for the archway bore the symbol of the hallows, but held no place in most of the legends.
'That is a story for another time,' the headmaster finished softly, tracing the gold band upon his forefinger.
'Of course, sir,' Harry agreed gently, 'sorry, professor, I did not mean to pry.'
'I am not upset, Harry,' the headmaster smiled kindly, 'curiosity is only a vice when untempered by caution.'
'Until next week,' he promised after a long silence, 'and hopefully we will destroy another of Tom's horcruxes together.'
'Do you think it is likely to be there?'
'I do,' Dumbledore nodded confidently, replacing his glassed, to Fawkes disappointment. 'I will tell you more before we depart, but I believe it likely we will find a horcrux there. It is a place Voldemort remembers well, and holds an attachment to.'
'Until then, professor,' Harry agreed, dipping his head respectfully as he stood up from his chair and let it vanish.
It must be the locket, he realised, all the others are accounted for.
He hoped, even in the face of wrenching disappointment, that Dumbledore was right, for if he was, then that last horcrux which Harry had had little chance of locating was found already, and delivered into his hands while he had the expertise of the headmaster to penetrate defences he might not be able to defeat.
All my goals within my reach.
The resurrection stone, a goal he had not expected to even see for many years, sat proudly on Dumbledore's finger, only a foot away across the table, and Harry had to fight the smile that threatened to curl across his lips almost as hard as the impulse to reach out for the ring. It did not matter who Dumbledore had lost; the resurrection stone would not be his for long.
I need it more, Harry decided.
Dumbledore believed he would see those he missed when he died, and given the withering curse was no longer held in check, that happy reunion would come soon. Harry could steal the ring, taking it as a Deathly Hallow might have to be, and Dumbledore could be allowed to think that Harry was following his martyr's path as they destroyed the horcruxes together until the headmaster succumbed to the curse, and Harry was freed to oppose Voldemort as he wished.
He paused at the door, unable to withhold his smile any longer, nor resist the temptation to take one last look at the ring, just to make sure it was real.
The headmaster slipped his glove back on. The soft, brightly coloured wool obscured Harry's view of the crack-riven Peverell coat of arms, the symbol of the Deathly Hallows, but it did nothing to dampen his desire, which, like furious flames, welled hot, high and triumphant within him.
AN: Please read and review, thanks to everyone who does! To be fair, nobody died...
