Chapter 6

Horcruxes

Harry woke up the next morning completely oblivious to the article in the Prophet. To him it was a normal morning that would be spent looking for the locket. Fawkes suddenly put down a copy of the Prophet on the kitchen table; Harry did not know why Fawkes would do such a random thin,; but he glanced at it nonetheless. Harry shrieked when he saw the article; he could not believe his eyes.

'Dead! Dead? Where did they get that from? And on the influence on Veritaserum? What am I going to do? If I send anyone a message to correct them, they would know where I am…and if I don't, everybody would think I am dead, including the Order and Ron and Hermione…and Ginny! I can't let that happen!'

Harry thought about this long and hard. He decided that it was not worth risking the Order finding out where he was, so he wasn't going to correct them. If the Order thought he was dead, and Voldemort thought he was dead, he wouldn't be in as much danger. Except then, Voldemort would try to take over the Wizarding World, not knowing that his prophecy wasn't fulfilled yet. Whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, Harry couldn't decide.

Harry went up the stairs and into a dark hallway. He immediately began searching the rooms. It didn't take him long to find Sirius' room, and Harry did not like being in there. It reminded him of his godfather, who could no longer spend time with him.

He assumed Regulus' room would be on the same floor, so he kept searching. After a few minutes, he found it.

The room was a mess. The floor could barely be seen through all the things thrown all over the place. He spotted a cabinet in the corner of the room, so he decided to check there first. He immediately found what he was looking for.

The locket, identical to the fake one, was covered with dust. This told Harry that it was there for quite a while. 'Seventeen years', he thought to himself.

He did not know what to do now. The memory in the Pensieve showed Dumbledore eliminating the curse from the ring, but Dumbledore used many nonverbal spells. Seeing as Harry had no chance of finding out what those spells were, he decided to try a simple spell, and hoped it would work.

"Specialis Revelio!" Harry said, curious as to what he would find.

Nothing happened, except for the locket cracking open. Harry was ready to start a duel with whatever would come out of the locket, but instead, all he found was a note.

He read it silently, astonished.

To Whom It May Concern: This horcrux was destroyed in 1980. The other horcruxes are Marvolo's ring, Riddle's Diary, Hufflepuff's cup, his snake, Nagini, and I (yes, I am a horcrux). It was very painful to become a horcrux; it caused me to do irrational things, almost as though he possessed me. He did not know, however, that I already destroyed some of his horcruxes before he had made his final horcrux: me. I could not find Riddle's Diary or Marvolo's ring, and I did not succeed in killing Nagini, but the other horcruxes no longer exist. To whoever this is, I wish you the best of luck in defeating the Dark Lord. I plan on killing myself in order to make it easier for you to defeat Voldemort. The pain is too much to bear, and I could not continue in my search for the horcruxes even if I wanted to. The Dark Lord has no idea that any of his horcruxes are being destroyed. He has no means of finding out either, unless he goes looking for them. I am proud to be serving you, and I truly hope you defeat him and allow the Wizarding World to live in peace.

Best of luck,

R.A.B

Harry was dumbfounded. Could it really be that easy? All he had to do was kill Nagini, and then he could finally defeat Voldemort.

'All?' Harry thought to himself, 'Killing Nagini is hard enough. How the bloody hell am I supposed to find her!'

He then evaluated the situation, and decided it wasn't that bad. 'It could have been a lot harder. I should be thankful I don't have the other horcruxes to go after, or it would be impossible to kill Voldemort, since I had no idea how to destroy them or where to look for them.

Harry spent the next few weeks practicing Occlumency and other kinds of spells that might be helpful when he finally met Voldemort. After a couple of weeks of hard work and practice, he somehow got access to Voldemort's mind, and he could not believe this was turning out to be so easy.

"My loyal Death Eaters; we have gathered today to celebrate. Anyone have an idea as to what the cause is?"

"The death of the Potter boy," sneered Malfoy, "…and I'm guessing Nagini would be staying in Azkaban with the dementors from now on, since her presence is no longer needed?"

"Yes Malfoy, she will. I needed her with me for reasons that aren't any of your business, but now that my only true threat is gone, I no longer need to keep her safe with me. No one can harm her near the dementors anyway; the Potter boy is the only one who would be foolish enough to try, and as we found out earlier, he is already dead."

"That sure is a reason to celebrate," grinned Crabbe, "he was such a pain to deal with!"

"Precisely…Christmas has come early this year…"

"Sir, you a Buddhist, not a Christian," said Crabbe.

"Avada Kedavra!"

'This is too easy; first all the horcruxes are gone, and now I know where to find Nagini? It's too good to be true!'

After much thought of whether he should risk his life so soon or wait a while, Harry decided to set off to Azkaban. Tomorrow school would start, and everybody would be much too distracted to notice anything that happened at Azkaban. Especially since everyone thought he was dead.