Chapter 20

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry, 17th October 2011

"I think we need to teach them about Hellhounds," Sam said suddenly.

They were sitting in their classroom, an hour before class started. Sam was sitting at the teacher's desk and making notes. Dean looked up in surprise from where he was standing.

"What? Isn't a bit early for that, Sammy?" he asked. Sam shook his head.

"Dean, these kids need to be taught what not to do as well as what to do. We need to warn them about what can happen if they make a deal. We just told them about Demons, and they saw the article. They need to know why we went to hell. It seems like a natural progression of events."

"But why would they even need to know how to make one?" Dean asked incredulously.

"People make deals without knowing it all the time Dean," Sam pointed out. Dean sighed.

"I get it… at least they know what they're up against."

"I'm guessing that we're gonna show them my crossroads deal?" he asked.

"Yeah," Sam replied quietly.

"We can't show them me getting killed by the Hellhounds," Dean said, "Kids shouldn't see people dying like that."

"I know Dean. I'm sure we can skip that part," Sam said. "I read up on it. Apparently, if you focus while in a memory, you can skip ahead and skip to different people's memories," he explained.

"Oh right. I guess that could work. You're right. The kids need to be warned," Dean said, albeit frowning.

"Yeah, come on, we have to get ready for class," Sam said, turning to the Pensieve.

"Do you want to do it?" Sam asked. "We're gonna have to explain what actually happened, with me dying, or do you want to show the memory?"

"I don't really want to, but alright. I'm gonna have to show my memory of making the deal anyway," Dean replied as he opened Supernatural Beasts and Defence. He turned to page 142 and stared at the word Hellhounds in bold print. Something so simple, but the word sent a shiver down his spine. He pulled out the temporary wand and held it to his temple. He concentrated on the memory of those few days, his deal, and… death. He saw the silver strand come from his temple and swirl into the bowl.

"Here goes nothing," he muttered.

"Yeah," Sam said. "Hey, what do you wanna do later?"

"I dunno. Time to shine," Dean muttered bitterly. Students filed in and sat quickly.

"Hey guys," Dean said with a lazy wave of his hand. Sam turned.

"Open your books and turn to page 142," he said.

"Hellhounds, sir?" Hermione Granger asked.

"Yeah, anyone know what they are?" Dean asked. None of the students answered.

"Well before looking at Hellhounds, you have to look at Demon deals," Sam went on. "As we learned last week, red-eyed Demons are the ones who usually make deals. Demons deal with people for different things, wealth, love or raising a loved one from the dead." A hand shot up.

"Yes?" Sam asked.

"People can come back from the dead?" the red-headed boy asked in shock

"People can be brought back by Demon deals that are normally done at a crossroads. An exchange of the person's soul is taken for the deal," Dean told the class. "They usually get around ten years, and Hellhounds come. They tear the soul from the body and drag it to Hell," he said, the memory of the Hell dog's claws ripping into him floating in his head.

"We're giving you these details to prevent a deal being made," Dean went on. "The possibility could come up where you could make a crossroads deal, but we want to inform you of the crap it causes."

"We'd like to show you a memory. Sam, do you wanna elaborate on what happened?" Dean asked. Sam sighed.

"A couple of years ago, I was kidnapped by the Demon that killed our mother. He cursed me as a baby, along with several others. We were brought to an abandoned town and were made to fight to the death. The winner would lead a Demon army. Soon enough it was only me and a guy called Jake left. I fought him and knocked him out." Well, I thought I did, Sam thought bitterly. "I heard Dean and our Dad's friend Bobby calling. I was walking towards them, and I felt pain and I didn't remember anything after that."

"Jake sneaked up behind Sam and stabbed him in the back, severing his spinal cord. He was dead pretty much instantly. I made a deal to bring him back," Dean explained. Everyone was quiet, not daring to speak. "Now my deal was a bit different, I only got a year. Most people get ten years, but don't let that make you think it's okay to make one. You may think that ten years is a long time but trust me it isn't." The students looked at each other nervously.

"Everyone get in a line," Sam instructed. The students rose, getting in a single file line quietly. One by one they entered the Pensieve. When the boys joined their students, they were standing at a crossroads in the middle of the night.

Dean was alone in the centre of a crossroads, looking around. There was nothing but the Impala behind him. He was turning around impatiently. His face was drained of colour, hair a mess, clothes rumpled, like he wore the same clothes for a few days.

"Oh, come on already. Show your face, you bitch!" he yelled. Suddenly, a beautiful woman in a black dress appeared.

"Easy sugar, you'll wake the neighbours," she said with a smile and her eyes glowed red before turning back to normal. "Dean. It's so, so good to see you." She inhaled sharply. "I mean it. Look at you. Gone and got your family killed. All alone in the world. It's too sweet. Excuse me, you're gonna have to give me a moment. Sometimes you gotta stop and smell the roses."

Sam scowled.

"That bitch," he muttered. Dean grimaced.

"I should send you straight back to hell," Dean said menacingly.

"Oh, you should," the Demon said mockingly. "But you won't. And I know why."

"Oh yeah?" Dean challenged.

"Yeah. Following in Daddy's footsteps. You wanna make a deal. Little Sammy back from the dead, and—let me guess—you're offering up your own soul?"

Sam flinched.

"There are a hundred other Demons who'd love to get their hands on it. And it's all yours. And all you got to do is bring Sam back. And give me ten years—ten years, and then you come for me," Dean told her. The Demon smiled

"You must be joking," she chuckled.

"That's the same deal you give everybody else," Dean protested.

"You're not everybody else," she said as she walked up to Dean. "Why would I want to give you anything? Keep your gutter soul. It's too tarnished, anyway." She whispered in his ear.

"Nine years."

"No," the Demon smiled.

"Eight."

"You keep going, I'll keep saying no," she replied casually.

"Okay, five years. Five years and my bill comes due. That's my last offer—five years or no deal," Dean bargained.

The Demon leaned in for a kiss and then smiled. "Then no deal."

"Fine," Dean said simply.

"Fine," she said walking away. "Make sure you bury Sam before he starts stinking up the joint."

"Bitch," Sam and Dean muttered together causing a few of the students to look at them curiously before turning back to the action.

"Wait," Dean said, and the Demon stopped, smiling.

"It's a fire sale, and everything must go," she said softly.

"What do I have to do?" Dean begged.

"First of all, quit grovelling. Needy guys are such a turn-off." She sighed. "Look… Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I could get in a lot of trouble. But what can I say? I got a blind spot for you, Dean. You're like a… puppy. You're just too fun to play with." She sighed again. "I'll do it."

"You'll bring him back?" Dean asked.

"I will. And because I'm such a saint, I'll give you one year. And one year only. But here's the thing. If you try and welch or weasel your way out, then the deal is off. Sam drops dead. He's back to rotten meat in no time. So, it's a better deal than your dad ever got. What do you say?" Dean grabbed the Demon and kissed her to seal the deal.

"That was around the time I woke up," Sam said. The scene shifted and Dean flinched a little.

"This memory will be edited a little, taking out the Hellhound's attack. This was a year later when Dean's deal came due. You'll still be able to see what led up to it. That blonde woman was a Demon called Ruby. Well, we thought she was Ruby. We didn't know that another more powerful Demon had forced Ruby out and possessed the same vessel."

"The Hellhounds ripped me apart," Dean told them, not sugar-coating it.

They were in a normal looking home office Sam and Dean were spreading dust on the floor in front of the doors frantically, while Ruby watched. Loud barking sounds came from behind the door.

"Give me the knife, maybe I can fight it off," Ruby urged toward Sam. Sam looked at her, a bit confused.

"What?"

"Come on! That dust won't last forever."

Dean turned around and looked at them from behind Sam, eyes widening. After a few seconds, Sam held the knife out, offering Ruby to take it.

"Wait!" Dean cried.

"You wanna die?" Ruby challenged, shooting a glare at him.

"Sam, that's not Ruby. It's not Ruby!" Dean yelled.

"When your deal is almost due you can see their true faces underneath the human they're possessing," Dean explained to the students' curious looks.

Sam turned to Ruby, who raised her hand and quickly flung him into the wall, pinned, his feet a few inches off the floor the knife fell from his hand and clattered to the floor. Without looking, she flung Dean across the room, on top of a table, pinned too.

"How long you been in her?" Dean grunted.

Ruby's expression changed, almost looking childlike. She looked down at her body with interest as she spoke.

"Not long," she simpered. "But I like it. It's all grown up and pretty." Her eyes flashed fully white.

"Oh my…" Hermione whispered. "Her eyes…."

"And where's Ruby?" Sam gasped out. Lilith's eyes returned to normal.

"She was a very bad girl, so I sent her far, far away," she said, tilting her head, a cracking sound reverberating through the room as she did.

"You know, I should have seen it before… but you all look alike to me," Dean taunted. Lilith ignored him, walking toward Sam.

"Hello, Sam. I've wanted to meet you for a very long time." She grabbed hold of his chin, forcing him to face her. She kissed him.

"Lovely…" Ron muttered.

"Your lips are soft" she smiled. Sam moved his head away from her in disgust.

"Right, so you have me. Let my brother go," Sam said, with a piercing glare.

"Silly goose," Lilith teased. "You wanna bargain, you have to have something that I want. You don't."

"So, is this your big plan, huh? Drag me to hell. Kill Sam. And then what? Become queen bitch?" Dean gritted out.

"I don't have to answer to puppy chow," said Lilith nonchalantly. She walked away from Sam, toward the door. The loud barking had started again, fiercer than before. She put her hand on the doorknob.

"Sic 'em, boy," she smiled and opened the door.

The students were pale, and even though they didn't see the rest as the room blurred around them, they knew it was horrific. Some of the students shuddered.

The memory faded and blurred, and the students found themselves back in the classroom. The students returned to their seats, shocked by what they just witnessed.

"Sorry about that, guys." Dean sighed.

"D-Dean, how did you get back?" Neville asked.

"Well, this ties into what we're going to be teaching you about soon. An Angel brought me back," Dean explained.

"An Angel, you have to be joking," Malfoy snickered to his friends.

"No Mr Malfoy, we're not kidding," Sam replied. "Just like Demons, Angels are real too. We didn't believe they were real either at first. And you don't want to piss one of them off either."

"Then we started getting dragged into Angel business," Dean frowned. "Long story short, an Angel pulled me from Hell. But we'll talk about that next week, okay?"

The rest of the class passed quickly, handing out new homework and collecting the previous weeks.

"Well, that was certainly interesting," Harry commented as they left the classroom.

"I can't believe they showed us that." Hermione made a face. "It was painful to watch."

"Think about them, they had to live through it." Ron grimaced. "That Hellhound sounds like a right nasty piece of work."

"And supposedly you can't even see them," Hermione remarked, pulling out her book and turning to page 142 and showed them the chapter head. "See? There is no pictorial reference in this book anywhere saying what the creature looks like."

"Well, how in the bloody hell are we supposed to fight something we can't see?" Ron asked.

"Maybe we'll find out in training," Harry shrugged his shoulders as they went into the Great Hall for lunch. "If there's a spell to make them visible, Hermione will find it." He smiled at Hermione.

⸸

The day flew by faster than Harry was expecting. At dinner, Hedwig flew to him with a note in her beak. Harry read the note, written in Dumbledore's elegant script. The note invited him to a lesson that night before starting to burn at the edges. Harry let go of it at once, and it immediately burned up into a small pile of ash. Ron and Hermione looked at him worriedly, but, and, and, and, and he assured them that it was alright.

Later that night, Harry walked past the large gargoyle statue, up the steps and knocked on the door.

"Come in," Professor Dumbledore called. Harry entered.

"Welcome Harry," he smiled in greeting. "I trust you are well since we last met?"

"Yes sir," Harry replied.

It was a little under a week that Harry had been called to the Headmaster's office. Harry was confused when Professor Dumbledore began with, not a memory, but a talk. Of course, Harry had seen the dreadful attacks on Diagon Alley, Ollivander's disappearance, and the Ministry's fall to Voldemort's forces. He filled Harry in on the measures the Order were taking to combat this. It was a brief discussion, more to fill Harry in on everything, and tell him they would resume lessons next week. Harry informed Professor Dumbledore of the overheard conversation between Malfoy and Snape. He dismissed his concerns, saying he was not worried, and when Harry argued, he almost sharply insisted he knew more than Harry and was again, unbothered by the situation.

So here Harry was, a month and a half after his initial lesson, beginning his next. Professor Dumbledore invited him to sit.

"So, Harry, in tonight's lesson, we continue the history of Lord Voldemort, then Tom Riddle. You remember his excitement of coming to Hogwarts when I visited him. So, he started like any other student, was Sorted into Slytherin House, and he quickly discovered the connection between his house and snakes. He showed off his Parseltongue to other students, although the staff were unaware. As far as anyone knew, Tom Riddle was a model student, and very talented.

"Sir, did you tell the other staff about what he was like at the orphanage?" Harry asked.

"No, I did not," Dumbledore replied. "I was hoping he had grown from that behaviour. I kept a close watch on him regardless."

"He made a lot of friends as he moved up in the school," Dumbledore continued. "Although, I doubt he felt any affection for them. They were a mixture of weak seeking protectors, some seeking glory, and thuggish students looking for trouble. In time, they would become the first Death Eaters after they graduated Hogwarts. There were several notable instances when they were there, most serious of course was the opening of the Chamber of Secrets, of which Hagrid was wrongly accused. I have not been able to find many memories of him at Hogwarts. Most people are unwilling to talk about him. What I did find out was that Riddle was obsessed with his parentage. He searched in the Wizarding World for a trace of a Tom Riddle Sr, but never found him. He eventually realized his father would have never entered Hogwarts. I think this is when he dropped his original name. He began to look into his mother's family, and eventually found traces of the Gaunt family. In the summer of his sixth year, he left the orphanage and went to visit his relatives. Now Harry, if you will stand."

Both Harry and Dumbledore entered the Pensieve. It took Harry a moment to recall where he was, the Gaunts' dishevelled shack.

The room was dark and filthy, thick with cobwebs and mouldy, rotting food lay across the table, amongst crusted pots and pans. A man was slumped in an armchair by the fire, a candle at his feet, and jumped as a knock on the door woke him.

The door opened and a boy stood on the threshold, a lamp in his hand. He was pale, tall, and handsome; Lord Voldemort as a teenager. He looked around the room before him.

"YOU!" the man bellowed as he stumbled drunkenly at Riddle, his wand raised.

"Stop," Riddle commanded in Parseltongue.

"You speak it?" the man stumbled to a stop.

"Yes, I speak it," Riddle replied, entering the room. He looked disgusted, and maybe even a little disappointed.

"Where is Marvolo?" he asked.

"Dead," the man replied.

"Who are you?" Riddle asked.

"I'm Morfin, ain't I?"

"Marvolo's son?"

"Course I am…" he trailed off, looking closer at Riddle and frowned. "You look like that Muggle. I thought you were him," Morfin whispered.

"What Muggle?" Riddle snapped coldly.

"That Muggle that my sister fancied, who lives in the big house up the hill," Morfin spit on the ground. "You look right like him. But he's older now, older than you." He swayed, still obviously very drunk.

"Riddle came back?" Tom asked.

"He left her and serves her right. Marrying filth! Robbed us, she did, before she left. Dishonoured us, the little slut." Riddle moved forward and everything went dark.

Harry was suddenly in the Headmaster's office again.

"What happened?" he asked.

"It went dark because Morfin did not remember the following events," said Dumbledore simply. "He woke the next morning, with Marvolo Gaunt's ring gone. Meanwhile, the Riddle family was found dead in their home. The Ministry knew it was a Wizards murder, and they knew a Muggle hater lived nearby, who had been imprisoned once already for his crimes against Muggles. They went to question him and Morfin admitted murdering the family."

"He confessed?" Harry asked.

"He took Morfin's wand and used it," Dumbledore told him. "Murdered his Muggle family and went back to the shack to implant false memories in Morfin's mind. It took some skilled Legilimency to get it out of him. You see, the Ministry can detect magic was cast, but not by whom. So, when Morfin's wand was found at the scene…"

Harry nodded in understanding.

"Now, there is one more thing I must show you," Dumbledore said as he rose from his chair. They descended into the depths of the Pensieve again.

They saw what appeared to be one of Slughorn's Slug Club parties, which appeared to be coming to a close. Riddle stayed behind. Harry noticed Marvolo Gaunt's ring on his finger.

"Look sharp Tom," Slughorn told him. "You don't want to be caught out of bed after hours. You are a Prefect after all."

"Yes. Sir, I wanted to ask something."

"Ask away boy," Slughorn smiled.

"What do you know about Horcruxes?" Riddle asked. Immediately something changed. There was a strange fog in the room. Slughorn's voice boomed through the room.

"I don't know anything about Horcruxes, and I wouldn't tell you if I did. Get out of here at once and don't let me hear you mention them again!"

They were instantly back in the office again.

"What did that mean?" Harry asked. "Sir."

"This memory has been tampered with," Dumbledore explained. "I believe he is ashamed of what he actually told Riddle. Possibly to show himself in a better light. It was crudely done, as explained by the fog you saw. For the first time Harry, I will be tasking you with homework."

"Okay," Harry nodded.

"It will be your job to persuade Professor Slughorn to divulge his real recollections," Dumbledore told him.

"Can you not use Legilimency? Or Veritaserum?" Harry asked.

"Professor Slughorn will be expecting both," Dumbledore replied. "I do not want to risk him leaving Hogwarts by attempting again or forcing it from him. So, that brings our meeting to a close. Good night, Harry, and good luck."