Yo! Thank you to all readers so far!

It took nearly three hours, but finally, and suddenly, Harry began to feel a bit of a twinge in his scar. He told Marvolo about it, and knowing they were heading in the right direction this time, they continued forward, wands in hand.

As the pain got worse, they decided it was best to let the others know they were closing in on their target, so Harry conjured his patronus (Marvolo's magic was too dark to manage it himself) and sent him off with a message telling everyone that they were getting closer.

The pain continued to worsen, but after a few more minutes, the two found themselves standing in front of what looked like an ordinary blank wall. It looked like a dead end, but they knew there was no way it really was, not with the pain Harry was in.

Harry leaned against a nearby wall to keep watch and also rest a bit, needing to catch his breath and push past the pain. While he did that, Marvolo tried to bring down whatever spells were concealing what was really behind this fake wall.

It took some time, but just as three other groups approached them, Marvolo managed it and a door was revealed to them. Without a word, the others were quickly sent for via patronuses, and soon enough all of them were gathered in front of the new door.

"It's behind here, then?" said Severus.

Harry nodded. "Going by the horrendous pain in my scar, yeah, it's definitely somewhere behind this door."

The problem with that was that they had no real idea of what to expect. Anything could be behind the door. And anything turned out to be a corridor.

Huh...

"We should split into two groups," said Hermione. "One group should stay out here to search the nearby rooms, and the other should go through."

It was a good idea, so they all agreed and formed groups.

McGonagall took charge of the first group-the one that would remain on this side of the door. Fenrir, the Lestrange brothers, the Weasley twins, Ginny, Blaise, Theodore, Neville, and Tonks all decided to remain with her.

Harry, Marvolo, Severus, Hermione, Lucius, Remus, Bellatrix, Ron, Draco, and Bill all formed the second group, and swiftly made their way through the door and into the hallway beyond it.

As they cautiously made their way through the hall, they passed two doors, one on either side of the hall. Ron and Bill went through one, while Draco and Bellatrix took the other. The other six continued on.

Not too much further down, they found two more doors along the sides. Without prompting, Severus and Hermione took one of them, and Lucius and Remus went through the other, Remus's head snapping up as he suddenly caught the scent of something unexpected. Something that wasn't supposed to be possible. But if he was right, then Severus' earlier line of questioning suddenly made a whole lot more sense. He pushed forward quickly, Lucius following him hurriedly in confusion as his sudden urgency.

Left alone now, Harry and Marvolo continued, already able to see one final door that was waiting for them at the end of the hallway. The pain in Harry's scar was almost unbearable now, but they knew that only meant they were even closer. Besides, Harry knew how to ignore pain. He was good at it too.

They paused in front of the door, tightened their grips on their wands, exchanged a nod, and tried the handle. The door was unlocked, so they went through. And the instant they stepped past the threshold, the door slammed shut behind them. They heard a lock click into place, but they ignored it.

They were in a small room, so small that if Marvolo stretched out his arms to his sides, his fingertips would brush against both side walls. There were no windows or other doors either. But that wasn't what caught their attention.

Their attention was focused on the small, steel case that sat in the middle of the floor. The case was locked, but a simple alohomora was enough to open it, surprisingly enough. Inside the case was a small, brass figurine of a phoenix.

The Horcrux.

The room was small and closed off with only the single door they had entered from. If a strong enough seal was placed on the door, and they all kept away from the room...yes, their plan could work with this. The design of the room only helped them. In fact, the design of the room was as perfect as they could get for their plan.

They made a quiet agreement on their plan and turned around, only to find that while they'd been occupied, someone else had entered the room as silently as a shadow, and was now standing in front of the door, blocking the only way out.

It was a man with auburn coloured hair and blue eyes, elderly but not quite old. Harry didn't recognize him immediately, but Marvolo did.

"Dumbledore."

Harry balked before this younger Dumbledore could say anything. "Wait, that's Dumbledore? But why does he look so young?"

"It's like my old journal," said Marvolo calmly, eyes locked on his enemy. "I made the journal my Horcrux when I was sixteen, so when the shade inside took on a physical form, it reflected that age."

Harry frowned. "But...doesn't that mean Dumbledore made his Horcrux a really long time ago?"

"Yes, it does. Which means Dumbledore has never truly followed what he preached."

Ignoring those words, the shade simply greeted them genially. "Hello Tom, it has been quite a while now, hasn't it? And you must be Harry. My future self has spoken of you a fair bit. I hope you are well?"

The shade went on for a time, reminiscing about Tom and Hogwarts and Grindelwald. He talked about how he had decided he needed to live forever so he could continue spreading his ideals and ridding the world of people like Grindelwald and Marvolo. He also confirmed that while his future self made the full plan, he was indeed the one to possess and ultimately kill the real Lord Coyote, only to later masquerade as him so he could act as their host. He even agreed that some of them were somewhat irrelevant to the plan, but the more who came, the better.

"And the siphon?"

"Ah, yes, that was mostly out of amusement, it seems. There was little reasoning behind it. My future self simply wished to see whether any of the children would ever notice it had been placed on them. Having the container be a Quidditch Snitch, and that Snitch being placed in a cupboard designed the way it was, was also, evidently, part of said amusement."

"That's it?"

"Yes. Nothing more, nothing less. Or so I would assume, from what my future self has told me."

"Is he here?"

"He is not in the manor, no," said the shade, "though he's not far. He is prepared to act, no matter how things go in here."

"Why do this in the first place?" asked Marvolo.

"To force the war to return, of course," said the shade casually. "My future self wasn't pleased with the outcome, and wished to change it so he could be at the forefront and bring an end to it himself." He smiled a familiarly irritating smile. "I'm glad to see I haven't changed in that regard. I simply can't settle for anything less. You understand, don't you, Tom?"

"What have you done with the bodies of the women you killed?"

The shade only smiled again. "Killed? It seems you're misunderstanding something. No matter what you've seen, Lord Coyote is the only one to have died in this manor. So far, at least. I expect that will change soon enough. But I do hope the others in your group will be thorough in their search for them. They aren't far, though there was little they could do against me on their own."

So this was what Severus had been going on about earlier, Marvolo realized. He hadn't paid it enough attention itself, but Severus had latched onto it immediately. It was a good thing he was one of the ones searching, then.

At that point, Harry decided he didn't want to wait anymore. Nor did he need to hear anything else. He wasn't known as a brash Gryffindor for nothing, he knew, and if there was one thing he had learned over his life, it was to never let a villain finish their monologue.

The shade was talking to them casually, but Harry knew he had to be planning something, and they had no idea what it could be, considering this was, well, Dumbledore. Taking that into account, Harry figured it would be better for them to enact their plan first. Before it was too late.

"Marvolo."

"Harry."

"Do it. Now."

Marvolo closed his eyes, feeling slightly resigned. "...As you wish." Opening his eyes again, Marvolo turned to Harry, leaned down slightly, and kissed the lightning bolt-shaped scar on Harry's forehead, releasing the restraint on his magic and forcefully pushing that magic into Harry's scar.

Harry only half managed to stifle his cry of pain, its intensity sending him to his knees, and tears pooling into his eyes. It hurt. It hurt worse than anything he'd ever felt before. Worse than the beatings. Worse than the torture curse. Worse than anything.

Releasing Harry, Marvolo turned back to the shade, letting Harry fall to the floor. Saying nothing, he made his way to the door, leaving Harry panting in the middle of the room near the Horcrux.

But as Marvolo stepped closer to the door-the shade still standing in front of it, Harry was quickly blocked from the shade's view by Marvolo's body, and he took advantage of that immediately, even despite the excruciating pain he was in.

Quickly, Harry pulled a small vial Severus had given him out of his pocket, uncorked it, and downed its absolutely disgusting contents. It tasted similar to a potion he'd drank near the end of his first year, he realized, only worse. But he had no choice. This had to be done.

Marvolo, back to Harry, unlocked the door. The shade watched him curiously, then asked him what he was doing. Marvolo just ignored him. The door opened, and Marvolo started through it.

"This is incredibly disappointing, Tom," said the shade with a frown. "You were doing so well. I thought you were finally managing to create a bond with another, but it looks like you're as cold and callous as you were as a student. You will never change, Tom. You are no longer capable of it. Perhaps you never were."

Marvolo ignored these words too, and as soon as he was out of the room, he whipped around, his wand in hand. His eyes met Harry's, the green bright and pleading. He raised his wand.

"Marvolo..."

Marvolo sucked in a breath and calmly called out the incantation for fiendfyre. As soon as the flames emerged from his wand, he slammed the door shut and placed a powerful ward over it. No one but him could open it now.

Marvolo was safe, but the shade, the phoenix figurine Horcrux, and Harry were all locked inside with the cursed flames. Marvolo turned and leaned against the door, head bowed and jaw clenched, his mind whirling.

Their plan had been a simple one.

When Marvolo kissed Harry's scar, he'd forced his own magic into it, basically cushioning his soul piece and overloading Harry with his own magic to a point where the presence of his magic would be considered natural in Harry's body.

Severus had recently invented a potion than could protect the drinker from fiendfyre for a short amount of time, and that was what Harry drank while he was blocked from view.

The combination of those should have had Harry passing out and falling into a death-like state that was meant to allow the Horcrux inside him to be destroyed, but the potion would keep him from fully dying and bring him back, while Marvolo's magic would keep his own Horcrux safe. There was nothing to protect Dumbledore's Horcrux though, so his should end up being destroyed, or so they were hoping.

Yes, a simple plan filled with more than a little luck, but there was no guarantee that it was going to work.

Marvolo had never forced that much of his magic into anyone before. Severus' potion was still in a very experimental stage. No documented human had ever had a Horcrux residing inside of them, let alone two.

Their plan had many unknowns in it. So many. Too many. Even now, he wasn't sure how much of it was actually working.

Were Dumbledore's Horcruxes being destroyed? There was no telling. Was Marvolo's Horcrux still safe? There was no telling. Was the potion working? There was no telling. Was Harry even still alive?

There was no telling.

Marvolo tried to swallow around the lump in his throat, tried to ignore the pit in his stomach, tried not to envision what exactly was taking place inside the small room behind him. He didn't say a word or raise his head when the others approached from down the hall, even despite the calls from twenty one different voices.

That's it for now. Looking forward to reviews! Laterz!