My Little Horcrux
Chapter 4 The Journal
The plane pulled into the Prague International Airport. After an uneventful trip, the four friends stepped out into the dense crowd. Harry resisted the urge to shoot up sparks from his wand in order to locate his three companions. They met outside the doors, and Hermione poured over a map
"How can you read that?" Ron asked her, "It's not English."
"It's in Czech." Hermione answered.
"You know Czech?" Ginny cocked her head.
"Of course not," Hermione laughed, as if the answer was obvious. "I'm using a translation spell, I see it in English"
"So, which way do we go then?" Harry looked around.
"That way," Hermione pointed down an old cobblestone street.
And so they headed down the cobblestone street, past the tourist filled historical district, and into a part of town that looked even older. There was one building over two stories, it was made of dark stone and stood at least nine stories high in its towers. There were turrets that stood out into the bleak grey sky.
"This it?" Harry asked, as it was the only mansion.
"Yeah," Hermione sighed as they walked to the door. Beside the large thick walnut there were boarded up windows that smelled of smoke, and no light came from the cracks.
"Should we knock?" Ginny raised her eyebrows.
"Couldn't hurt." Ron shrugged as he rapped his fist onto the doors. It created a sharp smack.
"Ron stop, you'll only hurt your hand," Hermione held her forehead, "Use the knockers."
"Oh, right." Ron blushed, and he slammed the brass knockers into the door, and the heavy wooden slabs slid open, a thin beam of light falling onto Ron's hair.
"Come in," an old voice creaked, "No use standing there all confounded."
"Hello, Mr. Dumbledore?" Hermione said unsurely as she led her three companions into the old house.
"Yes, I'm sorry little girl, but this is no longer a hotel." The old man croaked.
"We know, we were wondering if we could look in some of your rooms." Hermione said gingerly, "Albus Dumbledore sent us, we were hoping to look through the room he stayed in."
"How is Old Albus?" The old man lit up.
"Sir," Hermione comforted.
"He's dead," the old man closed his eyes, "No one ever calls me sir."
"I'm so sorry." Hermione touched his shoulder softy, "We all miss him."
"Go ahead, take a look, up two floors on those stairs, take a right, a left, a left, a right, and then it's the fourteenth room down on your left." The man sighed.
They followed his directions and found themselves in a large room that was well in decay. It seemed to have once held a wealthy charm, but after years of non-use, the engraved Spanish mahogany walls were chipped and moldy, the high arching ceiling that was painted by gentle hands was cracked and faded, the picture now barely distinguishable.
Boxes and old clothes flew through the air as the four friends searched in vain for their late headmaster's journal. They piled everything that had been searched into the hallway, and after several hours, the room was empty, and the journal unfound.
"It's no use!" Ginny screamed, "Dumbledore might not have hidden it in his room!"
"Why me?" Ron asked the ceiling.
"What is that picture?" Harry asked.
"Two angels," Hermione answered, squinting, "A male and female, the male seems to be returning to his female lover."
"Home," Harry smiled, and then he pointed his wand at the ceiling, "Home!" The paint brightened, and the picture was clear. The paint shone even though the light in the room was dim, it shone brighter and brighter until the picture was lost in a white glow, and a thud echoed through the empty room, as a small leather bound journal hit the floor.
Harry reached and grabbed the journal. There was a list with seven items with two crossed out. Harry figured that it was a list of the horcruxes, but it didn't make sense, some were numbers, others letters, other symbols, and the first crossed out one was a stick figure drawing.
"Clues." Hermione decided, "That list must be clues about the horcruxes, let me see it, perhaps they follow a pattern."
Ron, Harry, and Ginny sat on the floor as Hermione tried to decipher the clues. Ron looked ready to fall asleep, and Ginny seemed not too far behind.
"Ginny," Harry finally broke the silence, "How did you know about Snape and Regulus? You can't have just guessed it."
"I didn't." Ginny admitted, "Shortly before Dumbledore died, I went into Snape's office to ask him about some homework I needed because I missed a class. He wasn't there, so I thought it might be on his desk, I didn't find it, but I found a key. There was a locked drawer on his desk, and, well, curiosity got the best of me, so I opened it."
"What was inside?" Ron asked, now interested.
"A snail?" Hermione asked herself, "No, it's not a snail."
"Poems," Ginny giggled, "Snape wrote poems about Regulus, and in all of them there was reference to 'The night of love, when free from studious bonds.' Of course I put everything back and ran from his office."
"Harry," Ron yawned, "how many horcruxes are left?"
"Well, Dumbledore got one already, and I destroyed the diary" Harry thought, "So five are left, we know that one is Voldemort, and R.A.B. has one, so we need to find three, then find R.A.B., and then kill Voldemort."
"Sounds like a plan." Ron gulped.
"I've got it!" Hermione yelled excitedly.
"There's a pattern?" Harry asked.
"No, but I got where the first horcrux is!" Hermione sped.
"Where?" Ron asked.
"Rome!" Hermione relished, "In the Vatican catacombs!"
"And how do you know this?" Harry asked incredulously.
"Simple, it has the roman numeral XII, which was used in Pope Pius XII, who died in 1958, around the time when Voldemort was just out of school and began creating horcruxes." Hermione said proudly.
"But the number twelve could mean anything." Ginny pointed out.
"True, but this is the only number that is a roman numeral, also after it there is a picture, at first I thought it was a snail, but it is a papal ring!" Hermione pointed at the picture. The three others gave her a suspicious look.
"Ten years of Sunday school." She shrugged.
"So it's off to Rome then." Harry sighed. With that, they walked down the stairs to the front door where they saw Dumbledore's father sitting in a chair.
"Thank you so, much." Hermione smiled, placing her hand on his shoulder. "He's dead!" she screamed. "I don't feel a pulse, his eyes are glazed over! He must have died while we were upstairs."
"Well," Ron stammered, turning pale, "Wipe your fingerprints off of him, and lets get to Rome.