Note: I love you all to death! Reviews rock!
I feel so special…
---------------------------------------------------------
"Are you sure you don't want to come with us?" Hermione asked.
"Yes. Very sure." Harry said. The three of them had been granted access to Hogwarts anytime in September, as long as they had an auror accompany them to the gates. The school was staying open, unless something else happened. McGonagall had gladly let them in.
"Come on, Harry. We need you there." Ron said, "You're the only one who knows what we're looking for."
"It's a book Ron." Harry said angrily. "It can't be that hard to find. Besides, I need to think of other horcrux hiding places." Harry had been searching his brain for weeks trying to remember anything that might be useful, but had come up with nothing.
"D'you think the memories are still there?" Hermione said absently.
"What?"
"The memories. The ones he showed you. Maybe if you look at them again you can, you know, find something you might have missed."
"I'm not going back." Harry said, although he did think that it was a good idea.
"Okay, but maybe Professor – or, I mean Headmistress McGonagall can let us borrow them."
"We don't have a pensive."
"I'm sure someone in the Order has one." Ron said, "Actually, I think Bill has a pensive. I've seen him use it before."
"So, if we could get them, would you -?" Hermione started.
"I guess it wouldn't hurt." Harry agreed.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the two of them were gone, Harry went back to Grimmauld Place. He figured that it was a safe place to think without having to worry about someone attacking him. Harry was glad but also slightly disappointed that Ginny was at school. For a second he wished that he had gone with Ron and Hermione –
Stop it Harry, he told himself. You need to think about horcruxes. Not Ginny. Horcruxes. He thought of all the places Dumbledore had shown him in the memories. Nothing was ringing a bell. Hopefully they would get those memories.
Harry sauntered up to his room and fell onto the bed. This isn't working – He was far too tired and preoccupied to think about Voldemort. He rolled over and fell to sleep.
When he woke up, Harry spotted something on the bedside table. It was a letter… He opened the envelope, and two small papers fell out. Harry recognized the handwriting. Ginny… Harry smiled. He wondered how long it had been sitting there. The first one said:
His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad
His hair as dark as a blackboard,
I wish he were mine; he's really divine,
The hero who (will conquer) the dark lord
Harry had seen the poem before… years ago… He had forgotten about it. He smiled at the last line – he was glad that she supported him.
The second parchment wasn't parchment at all – it was a picture. A very small picture… Ginny sat in front of a tree, smiling at him and blowing kisses. Harry attached the picture to the back of the poem and put it in his pocket with the birthday card from Sirius. He was thankful that Ginny would now always be with him. All he had to do was look in his pocket…
"Harry!" Hermione shrieked. He could hear her and Ron hurdling up the stairs. "Harry, Harry, Harry!" The two of them nearly busted down the door.
"What is it?" It took them a minute to respond, as they were both out of breath. "Are you going to tell me what's going on?"
Hermione reached into her bag and pulled out a collection of bottles. "We got them." Harry took the bottles from her. He recognized each of them. Yes, they had gotten them. Now all he needed was a pensive.
"Wait a second." Harry said. He pulled a skinny blue bottle from the pile. "I've never seen this one before."
"Well, we had to guess." Ron explained. "He had a whole closet full of them."
"We figured that, since he used those memories more recently, that they might be near the front. So we just took all the ones in front." Hermione added.
"And McGonagall let you take them?"
"Well, we had to pass all these test so that she was sure of who we were, and that we weren't under any kind of curse." Ron said. "Guess we convinced her. After that she let us take whichever ones we wanted."
"Write to Bill about the pensive." Harry said. "I need to look at these as soon as I can." He gathered all of the bottles together and set them gently into his trunk. Then he locked it and set a password, so that it could only be opened if you said the right word and if you had the key. Harry did the spell non-verbally, so that not even Ron and Hermione knew the word, although they could have guessed it. "They should be safe in there."
"You think?" Ron said.
"Go owl Bill, Ron." Hermione said.
"Yes, your highness." Ron mumbled as he left, looking quite annoyed.
"Did you find the book?" Harry asked Hermione.
"No. We looked for four hours, and there were five of us. Luna, Neville, and Ginny helped." Harry's thoughts switched as Hermione said her name. Stop it, you idiot. "I don't think it's in there, Harry."
"It's there. You just didn't find it."
"Harry, we searched everywhere -"
"The restricted section?"
"Well, no, but we couldn't -"
"Then you didn't search everywhere. What about the common rooms? Maybe someone took it out."
"Harry, honestly, how could we -?"
"We need to find this book, Hermione. It's in the school. I know it. I can feel it." Harry thought for a minute. "He wouldn't have hidden it in the library. It'd be to easy to find." Hermione opened her mouth as if she were going to say something, but then changed her mind. "What?"
"Oh, it's a stupid idea."
"You're ideas are never stupid. What is it?"
"I was thinking – maybe he hid it in the Chamber."
That's a stupid idea, Harry thought. How could he have gotten in there? Well, he had opened it before, but – Harry's jaw dropped.
"What?" Hermione said.
"Hermione… you are defiantly the smartest person on earth."
"That's what they tell me." She joked. "Why, do you think it's there too?"
"I know it's there. He came back for a job. In one of the memories, he came back for a teaching job."
"So you think he did more than just give them an application?"
"Of course. Or, if not, he did open the Chamber before that."
"Yeah, but he was only a kid."
"He created the diary when he was sixteen. Why couldn't he have done it to another book, that just happened to be Ravenclaw's, that he found in the library? Maybe that's when he got the idea."
"What idea?" Harry didn't answer her. His mind was going too fast. Voldemort had decided to make horcruxes, had tried it out on the diary, had found Ravenclaw's book, and had then decided to make some object from every house a horcrux as well. That way he'd have five, and he could pay homage to his favorite place.
Hermione waved her hand in front of his face. "Hello? Harry?"
"I need to go to Hogwarts." Harry mumbled. "Now."
"Don't be silly. It's eight in the evening. By the time we'd get there -"
"We could apparate to Hogsmeade…"
"Yes, but the curfew is seven now, not nine. They'll never let us in. Just wait until tomorrow." She sat next to him on the bed and put a hand on his shoulder. "I heard they let quidditch come back. There's a Gryffindor match tomorrow."
"That's good." Harry mumbled.
"I thought you'd like to see a -"
"I don't want to see anything. It's good because no one will be in the school. I can get in quickly and get out quickly. Myrtle might be a problem though. When do they start letting people into the school?"
"At ten AM. But if you want to go during the quidditch match, we'll have to leave by 6 PM."