Don't own jack, blah-blah, smoochie higgle duck. Whatever. Read and review please. It'll make my sister and me mucho very happy. Or is that redundant? Oh, and I especially want your opinions on Ophelia. 'Tis important. Thankies.

Chapter Two

Funerals Are a Drag, So Here's Something To Cheer You Up

Harry was walking with Ron and Hermione, with Ginny trailing behind with Luna and Neville, when a woman with long, shimmering black hair walked up to him. "Harry Potter?" She held out her hand to shake.

"Yeah," he replied, shaking her hand. It was small and slim, but beneath the lily-soft skin was a strange, iron strength. He stared at her hand for a moment, his eyes catching on a ruby ring with a intertwined, golden GG on its great surface. When he caught himself and raised his eyes to meet the woman's, he nearly had a heart attack. It was like looking into a mirror. Her eyes were the same brilliant emerald green as his, as Lily (Evans) Potter's and Petunia (Evans) Dursley's. The Evans eyes. Was she a relative?

"May I speak to you for a moment? In private," she added. Harry glanced at Ron and Hermione, who nodded at him.

"We'll wait for you, Harry," Hermione murmured, and turned to speak to Ron.

The strange woman with the long, glistening black hair and Evans' eyes guided Harry back towards the White Tomb of Dumbledore, where the woman stared off into space for a few minutes, her eyes gone hard and glacial. Harry had seen such an icy green in his aunt's face when she made allusions to magic and wizards.

After a few moments, the woman murmured, "You're probably wondering who I am. My name is Ophelia."

Got a last name that goes with that? Harry wondered, but didn't say anything. Ophelia went on, "I have two gifts for you and some advice. The advice is this: keep your lover closest to you, so that you may protect her. Do no push her away for her own sake. It is only more likely that she'll be hurt. Better that you keep her with you, like your two friends, Ron and Hermione. That is my advice to you, one green-eyed crow-headed half-blood to another." At this, she winked. Then, almost sadly, she slipped the ruby ring with its twin Gs off of her finger and held it out to him.

"Funerals are a drag, so here's something to cheer you up. My father gave this to me, to keep it safe. He figured that no one would think to see if I had it. Take it."

"W-why?"

"It is one of the thirteen Horcruxes of Lord Voldemorte, the signet ring of Godric Gryffindor."

It was about this time that Harry Potter's synapses all began firing at once. Here was a half-blooded witch, with the Evans' eyes and James Potter's thick, black hair, offering him the signet ring of Gryffindor, which was supposed to be one of Voldemorte's Horcruxes. Not only that, but she claimed there were not seven, but thirteen of them.

"Who... who are you?"

"Ophelia. And a friend. That is all you will get from me."

"There are only seven Horcruxes."

"Speak of this to the triad of mortal goddesses, and they will tell you that there ought to be thirteen." Harry blinked, trying to avoid confusion. "Your three lady friends should also know the answer."

"If... if there are thirteen, how am I supposed to destroy all of them?" Ophelia smiled and slung her arm around Harry's shoulder. If it had been someone else, it would have pissed him off, but for some reason when Ophelia did it he didn't much mind. It actually felt kind of nice.

"Do not forget, you have destroyed two- the ring of Slytherin and the diary of Tom Riddle. That is now eleven. I have given you a third, the ring of Gryffindor. That is ten. You have in your possession three others, left to you along with a ratty little house elf, a very handsome hippogriff, and a lovely house. That is seven. I have myself another, though I cannot part with it just yet. That is six. One is Voldemorte himself, and the other is his serpent. That is four. So, Harry, you need only quest for, find, and destroy four Horcruxes. Three, if you guess right."

"If I guess right?" Harry echoed, bewildered. Ophelia smiled.

"Forgive me for speaking in such a roundabout way. I can't actually tell you what the ones that I don't have are. There's an enchantment on them. So sorry, dear. Suffice to say, you have access to four of them, two of which thanks to your ratty little house elf, who's kept them stashed in a faintly sinister jewelry box with a dead ballerina in it. Offers up a lethal little lullaby if your not careful. I'm sure you know the one I mean. Found it before Padfoot died. Ah, Padfoot. Regulus was my favorite of the two, but I liked Sirius well enough. Good man, that one. Anyway, dear, I must be off. My father didn't approve of me coming to the funeral. But before I go, I thought you might want this back." She slipped her arm off his shoulder and a hand into the pocket of her black robes, pulling out something Harry didn't think he'd ever see again in his life.

"My pocket knife!" It was the knife that Sirius had given him, that had melted in his fifth year. Yet here it was, whole and gleaming as if it had been polished before Ophelia had given it back to him. "How did you-"

"Don't you read fairy tales? Never ask where the three gifts come from, just accept them and keep them handy. Damn. Here, let's see, that was the second gift... do I have anything else for you... ah!" She pulled from her other pocket- a much larger one- a small book. "This, my dove, is a book of poetry. Now, I have it on good authority (so don't go rushing off to the train yet) that Dumbledore left you something in his will, which Minerva's coming over here just this minute to give you. Whoops, better hurry. Anyway, some of that something are notes. Order of the Phoenix reports and such. This book will help you decode it. Use the summer for weddings of your friends brothers, personal romances, and learning codes so that later, you and your DA busters can turn yourselves into the new Order. Toodles, my little chicken. Enjoy the summer. Wait till term before you go Horcrux hunting, all right?" She'd been backing away towards the forbidden forest, grinning and skipping backwards as she watched him and waved. "Yours sincerely," she cried, doing a rather fabulously executed cartwheel. It revealed a pair of faded blue jeans and two tennis shoes, one purple and one white. The white one had the word "Remember" in black marker. The purple one had "Dumbledore" done in what looked like white paint.

"Yours truly, Ophelia!" She called, and disappeared into the Forbidden Forest just as McGonnagal put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Come with me, Potter. There are things we need to discuss before you return home."

Harry turned back just once, to see if Ophelia was watching. He thought he might have seeh her just as he was walking under the arch of entryway, but he could be sure.

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Next Chapter

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Omniscient-Gamma50116-Baudelaire

"Sir," said Harry, flexing a cramp from his wrist. "What does that mean?"

"When you are at the Burrow, look inside the box of papers. There is a folder, the Baudelaire folder. It is very big, and spans almost sixteen years. You will find, if you look in the 50-section, that message in its code. You must decode it, Harry. That is why Ophelia gave you the book, remember? To decode those papers. Trust no one with that information except the Weasleys, Miss Granger, the Longbottoms, and the Lovegoods, and those whom they believe can be trusted. And I mean no one. No adults."

"Tonks."

"No, not even her, I think. Good bye, Harry. I shan't see you soon, but I shall see you. Oh, and when I said the Gryffindor sword, lying safe in its case, was not a Horcrux? I was wrong."

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Read and review, please, thank you! Corrections, ideas, praise, flames, all welcome. No cussing, though, please.