Italicized: Excerpt from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince


Chapter Eighteen: Days of Future Past Pt. I

November 27th, 1984 | Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland

Harry Potter sat across from Albus Dumbledore within the ladders office within Hogwarts, carefully listening to the man as he explained everything. Everything about Voldemort, the diary Harry had destroyed in his second year - which was destroyed by Neville here - the history of what Dumbledore believed to be Horcruxes, and the history of the Deathly Hallows. They went into detail regarding the Horcruxes, with Dumbledore believing that Voldemort created as many as three. The diary and two others. Harry didn't count, seeing as the soul residing in Will Byers now was the soul of Harry's universe's Voldemort. They would need to kill that fragment soon. One Voldemort was bad enough, they didn't need two.

And the Deathly Hallows. Harry was more intrigued by those than the Horcruxes, seeing as he was now in possession of two of three. The Elder Wand and the Cloak of Invisibility. Both were handed over by Death itself to the Peverell brothers thousands of years before. The Elder Wand had belonged to the oldest brother, Antioche Peverell. The Cloak of Invisibility had been given to the youngest brother, Ignotus Peverell. And the third Deathly Hallow was the Resurrection Stone, which had been given to the middle brother Cadmus Peverell. As Dumbledore described them, Harry came to his own conclusions regarding their creation and the meaning behind them. All three Deathly Hallows were created in order to cheat death itself. That much was obvious.

But Harry doubted the children's story that had become a legend in regards to the Hallows. He instead believed that the three brothers had created the Hallows themselves, trying their best to escape death. The oldest brother - being proficient and powerful in magic - constructed the Elder Wand out of Thestral Hair and Elder Wood, with the wand becoming the most powerful wand in existence thanks to its wand, core, and its first owner. But the wand had become a famously sought-after item by many wizards and became something many would kill for. And so, the Elder Wand gained a reputation of death, which mostly led to its owner changing every few years. Albus Dumbledore was one of its longest owners, having hidden it in his possession for almost forty years.

The Resurrection Stone had been created the by middle brother to bring back the dead, but the experiment had clearly failed. According to Dumbledore, the Stone only produced a 'shade', which resembled and held the memories of your loved ones. They could be called into the land of the living, but they would be unhappy here. They would feel unwanted, and would eventually disappear. It led Harry to believe that the 'shades' called were deceased souls, returning from the afterlife. Because the description of 'not belonging' reminded him of his time in Will's body. It was too similar to be a coincidence. This was the reason behind the middle brothers' suicide. He had brought his wife's soul back to the living world, but she was unhappy, and eventually faded. The depression he fell into afterward led to the man's suicide.

And the third brother - seeing the failure of his brothers' inventions - decided to do the opposite. He did not search for death or a way to reverse it. He instead tried to hide from it, constructing the Cloak of Invisibility to remain forever hidden from prying eyes. And it had worked. The third brother had survived long enough to have a son, and when he died, the Cloak was given to the son. Somewhere along the line, the Peverell's married into the Potter's and eventually landed into the hands of James Potter during his education at Hogwarts. Harry had received his own Invisibility Cloak during Christmas Break of his first year at Hogwarts. He had left it behind in his own universe, gone forever from his reach.

But here was the new Cloak of Invisibility, sitting in Harry's lap underneath the Elder Wand. Dumbledore had given it to him just minutes ago. After all, it was Harry's heirloom by blood. It had still belonged to this universe's Harry Potter, and because that Harry wasn't around anymore, this Harry would take it. He now possessed two of the three Deathly Hallows, and he had absolutely no idea what to do with them. Perhaps he could reshape the slot in his staff to fit the Elder Wand. Harry could even stitch the invisibility cloak into his dragonhide armor for stealth. That would be an interesting experiment. Harry was sure he could work out exactly how to incorporate the two Hallows into his current arrangement of powers and items.

While he thought of the Hallows, he also thought of the second matter of that meeting. The Horcruxes. Harry hadn't heard of them in his own universe, but it made sense given what he knew of the diary. The questions were simple. How many did Voldemort make? Where were they now? And how could he get to them before the night of the Third Task? Because if Voldemort somehow survived that night, he would not only be alive, but he would also know that Harry knew of his Horcruxes. He needed to run searches. He needed to study Voldemort more than anyone would sanely research anyone. Anything that could reveal the possibilities of more than three Horcruxes, and their location. Harry brought this point up to Dumbledore.

"I've been studying Tom Riddle for many years since his death thirteen years ago. I've tracked down several locations from his past that could lead to potential Horcruxes, but have refrained from searching. It would be most unfortunate if my search led me to revive the Darkest Lord in recent wizarding history," Dumbledore explained.

"Show me," said Harry. Dumbledore led Harry away from the desk, stopping at a small cabinet that held miniature trinkets that the Headmaster had collected in his long life. But upon opening the cabinet, the trinkets disappeared to reveal a small opening. Within the opening was a hovering bowl of water, which seemed to glimmer with golden light. "This, Harry, is a pensieve. Used to reconstruct and replay one's memory. They are not widely used given the charms needed around the bowl and within the water. But it is especially essential for one as old as I am. But I have been using it for other purposes in the past few years. One of which is the collection of memories related to Voldemort," Dumbledore produced a few vials from a case nearby, all labeled with the name 'Tom'. "What you are about to witness is a memory belonging to Bob Ogden,"

"Who is?"

"He was employed by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He died some time ago, but not before I had tracked him down and persuaded him to confide these recollections to me. We are about to accompany him on a visit he made in the course of his duties," Dumbledore tipped the silvery contents of the bottle into the Pensieve, where they swirled and shimmered, neither liquid nor gas. "After you," said Dumbledore, gesturing toward the bowl. Harry bent forward, took a deep breath, and plunged his face into the silvery substance. He felt his feet leave the office floor; he was falling, falling through whirling darkness, and then, quite suddenly, he was blinking in dazzling sunlight.

Before his eyes had adjusted, Dumbledore landed beside him. They were standing in a country lane bordered by high, tangled hedgerows, beneath a summer sky as bright and blue as a forget-me-not. Some ten feet in front of them stood a short, plump man wearing enormously thick glasses that reduced his eyes to molelike specks. He was reading a wooden signpost that was sticking out of the brambles on the left-hand side of the road. Harry knew this must be Ogden; he was the only person insight, and he was also wearing the strange assortment of clothes so often chosen by inexperienced wizards trying to look like Muggles: in this case, a frock coat and spats over a striped one-piece bathing costume.

Before Harry had time to do more than register his bizarre appearance, however, Ogden had set off at a brisk walk down the lane. Dumbledore and Harry followed. As they passed the wooden sign, Harry looked up at its two arms. The one pointing back the way they had come read: Great Hangleton, 5 miles. The arm pointing after Ogden said Little Hangleton, 1 mile. They walked a short way with nothing to see but the hedgerows, the wide blue sky overhead, and the swishing, frock-coated figure ahead. Then the lane curved to the left and fell away, sloping steeply down a hillside, so that they had a sudden, unexpected view of a whole valley laid out in front of them.

Harry could see a village, undoubtedly Little Hangleton, nestled between two steep hills, its church and graveyard clearly visible. Across the valley, set on the opposite hillside, was a handsome manor house surrounded by a wide expanse of velvety green lawn. Ogden had broken into a reluctant trot due to the steep downward slope. Dumbledore lengthened his stride, and Harry was quick to match it. The lane curved to the right and when they rounded the corner, it was to see the very edge of Ogden's frock coat vanishing through a gap in the hedge. Dumbledore and Harry followed him onto a narrow dirt track bordered by higher and wilder hedgerows than those they had left behind.

The path was crooked, rocky, and potholed, sloping downhill like the last one, and it seemed to be heading for a patch of dark trees a little below them. Sure enough, the track soon opened up at the copse, and Dumbledore and Harry came to a halt behind Ogden, who had stopped and drawn his wand. Despite the cloudless sky, the old trees ahead cast deep, dark, cool shadows, and it was a few seconds before Harry's eyes discerned the building half-hidden amongst the tangle of trunks. It seemed to him a very strange location to choose for a house, or else an odd decision to leave the trees growing nearby, blocking all light and the view of the valley below. But he decided quickly that the location had been chosen for a purpose. Concealment. Definitely, something needed when choosing a home for a wizard.

He wondered whether it was inhabited; its walls were mossy and so many tiles had fallen off the roof that the rafters were visible in places. Nettles grew all around it, their tips reaching the windows, which were tiny and thick with grime. Just as he had concluded that nobody could possibly live there, however, one of the windows was thrown open with a clatter, and a thin trickle of steam or smoke issued from it, as though somebody was cooking. Ogden moved forward quietly and, it seemed to Harry, rather cautiously. As the dark shadows of the trees slid over him, he stopped again, staring at the front door, to which somebody had nailed a dead snake. Then there was a rustle and a crack, and a man in rags dropped from the nearest tree, landing on his feet right in front of Ogden, who leaped backward so fast he stood on the tails of his frock coat and stumbled.

"You're not welcome." The man standing before them had thick hair so matted with dirt it could have been any color. Several of his teeth were missing. His eyes were small and dark and stared in opposite directions. He might have looked comical, but he did not; the effect was frightening, and Harry could not blame Ogden for backing away several more paces before he spoke. "Er — good morning. I'm from the Ministry of Magic —".

"You're not welcome."

"Er — I'm sorry — I don't understand you," said Ogden nervously. The stranger was making himself very clear in Harry's opinion, particularly as he was brandishing a wand in one hand and a short and rather bloody knife in the other. The man was speaking parseltongue. Dumbledore seemed to catch on as well and turned to face Harry. "You understand him, I'm sure, Harry?" asked Dumbledore quietly.

"Yes, of course. He's speaking parseltongue," said Harry. Dumbledore smiled, nodding as they turned back to the stranger. The man in rags was now advancing on Ogden, knife in one hand, wand in the other.

"Now, look —" Ogden began, but too late: There was a bang, and Ogden was on the ground, clutching his nose, while a nasty yellowish goo squirted from between his fingers.

"Morfin!" said a loud voice. An elderly man had come hurrying out of the cottage, banging the door behind him so that the dead snake swung pathetically. This man was shorter than the first and oddly proportioned; his shoulders were very broad and his arms overlong, which, with his bright brown eyes, short scrubby hair, and wrinkled face, gave him the look of a powerful, aged monkey. He came to a halt beside the man with the knife, who was now cackling with laughter at the sight of Ogden on the ground. "Ministry, is it?" said the older man, looking down at Ogden.

"Correct!" said Ogden angrily, dabbing his face. "And you, I take it, are Mr. Gaunt?"

"S'right," said Gaunt. "Got you in the face, did he?"

"Yes, he did!" snapped Ogden.

"Should've made your presence known, shouldn't you?" said Gaunt aggressively. "This is private property. Can't just walk in here and not expect my son to defend himself."

"Defend himself against what, man?" said Ogden, clambering back to his feet.

"Busybodies. Intruders. Muggles and filth." Ogden pointed his wand at his own nose, which was still issuing large amounts of what looked like yellow pus, and the flow stopped at once. Mr. Gaunt spoke out of the corner of his mouth to Morfin. "Get in the house. Don't argue." It was parseltongue again. Morfin seemed to be on the point of disagreeing, but when his father cast him a threatening look he changed his mind, lumbering away to the cottage with an odd rolling gait and slamming the front door behind him so that the snake swung sadly again.

"It's your son I'm here to see, Mr. Gaunt," said Ogden, as he mopped the last of the pus from the front of his coat. "That was Morfin, wasn't it?"

"Ar, that was Morfin," said the old man indifferently. "Are you pure-blood?" he asked, suddenly aggressive.

"That's neither here nor there," said Ogden coldly, and Harry felt his respect for Ogden rise. Apparently Gaunt felt rather differently. He squinted into Ogden's face and muttered, in what was clearly supposed to be an offensive tone, "Now I come to think about it, I've seen noses like yours down in the village."

"I don't doubt it, if your son's been let loose on them," said Ogden. "Perhaps we could continue this discussion inside?"

"Inside?"

"Yes, Mr. Gaunt. I've already told you. I'm here about Morfin. We sent an owl —"

"I've no use for owls," said Gaunt. "I don't open letters."

"Then you can hardly complain that you get no warning of visitors," said Ogden tartly. "I am here following a serious breach of Wizarding law, which occurred here in the early hours of this morning —"

"All right, all right, all right!" bellowed Gaunt. "Come in the bleeding house, then, and much good it'll do you!" The house seemed to contain three tiny rooms. Two doors led off the main room, which served as kitchen and living room combined. Morfin was sitting in a filthy armchair beside the smoking fire, twisting a live adder between his thick fingers and crooning softly at it in Parseltongue: Hissy, hissy, little snakey, Slither on the floor, You be good to Morfin Or he'll nail you to the door. There was a scuffling noise in the corner beside the open window, and Harry realized that there was somebody else in the room, a girl whose ragged gray dress was the exact color of the dirty stone wall behind her.

She was standing beside a steaming pot on a grimy black stove and was fiddling around with the shelf of squalidlooking pots and pans above it. Her hair was lank and dull and she had a plain, pale, rather heavy face. Her eyes, like her brother's, stared in opposite directions. She looked a little cleaner than the two men, but Harry thought he had never seen a more defeated-looking person. "M'daughter, Merope," said Gaunt grudgingly, as Ogden looked inquiringly toward her.

"Good morning," said Ogden. She did not answer, but with a frightened glance at her father turned her back on the room and continued shifting the pots on the shelf behind her. "Well, Mr. Gaunt," said Ogden, "to get straight to the point, we have reason to believe that your son, Morfin, performed magic in front of a Muggle late last night." There was a deafening clang. Merope had dropped one of the pots.

"Pick it up!" Gaunt bellowed at her. "That's it, grub on the floor like some filthy Muggle, what's your wand for, you useless sack of muck?"

"Mr. Gaunt, please!" said Ogden in a shocked voice, as Merope, who had already picked up the pot, flushed blotchily scarlet, lost her grip on the pot again, drew her wand shakily from her pocket, pointed it at the pot, and muttered a hasty, inaudible spell that caused the pot to shoot across the floor away from her, hit the opposite wall, and crack in two. Morfin let out a mad cackle of laughter.

Gaunt screamed, "Mend it, you pointless lump, mend it!" Merope stumbled across the room, but before she had time to raise her wand, Ogden had lifted his own and said firmly, "Reparo." The pot mended itself instantly. Gaunt looked for a moment as though he was going to shout at Ogden, but seemed to think better of it: Instead, he jeered at his daughter, "Lucky the nice man from the Ministry's here, isn't it? Perhaps he'll take you off my hands, perhaps he doesn't mind dirty Squibs..." Without looking at anybody or thanking Ogden, Merope picked up the pot and returned it, hands trembling, to its shelf. She then stood quite still, her back against the wall between the filthy window and the stove, as though she wished for nothing more than to sink into the stone and vanish.

"Mr. Gaunt," Ogden began again, "as I've said: the reason for my visit —"

"I heard you the first time!" snapped Gaunt. "And so what? Morfin gave a Muggle a bit of what was coming to him — what about it, then?"

"Morfin has broken Wizarding law," said Ogden sternly.

"'Morfin has broken Wizarding law.'" Gaunt imitated Ogden's voice, making it pompous and singsong. Morfin cackled again. "He taught a filthy Muggle a lesson, that's illegal now, is it?"

"Yes," said Ogden. "I'm afraid it is." He pulled from an inside pocket a small scroll of parchment and unrolled it.

"What's that, then, his sentence?" said Gaunt, his voice rising angrily.

"It is a summons to the Ministry for a hearing —"

"Summons! Summons? Who do you think you are, summoning my son anywhere?"

"I'm Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad," said Ogden.

"And you think we're scum, do you?" screamed Gaunt, advancing on Ogden now, with a dirty yellow-nailed finger pointing at his chest. "Scum who'll come running when the Ministry tells 'em to? Do you know who you're talking to, you filthy little Mudblood, do you?"

"I was under the impression that I was speaking to Mr. Gaunt," said Ogden, looking wary, but standing his ground.

"That's right!" roared Gaunt. For a moment, Harry thought Gaunt was making an obscene hand gesture, but then realized that he was showing Ogden the ugly, black-stoned ring he was wearing on his middle finger, waving it before Ogden's eyes. "See this? See this? Know what it is? Know where it came from? Centuries it's been in our family, that's how far back we go, and pure-blood all the way! Know how much I've been offered for this, with the Peverell coat of arms engraved on the stone?" Harry stopped dead in his tracks. Peverell coat of arms. Peverell. It was a black stone with the Deathly Hallows symbol decorating the surface of the stone. That was it. The Resurrection Stone. It had to be.

"I've really no idea," said Ogden, blinking as the ring sailed within an inch of his nose, "and it's quite beside the point, Mr. Gaunt. Your son has committed —"

With a howl of rage, Gaunt ran toward his daughter. For a split second, Harry thought he was going to throttle her as his hand flew to her throat; the next moment, he was dragging her toward Ogden by a gold chain around her neck. "See this?" he bellowed at Ogden, shaking a heavy gold locket at him, while Merope spluttered and gasped for breath.

"I see it, I see it!" said Ogden hastily.

"Slytherin's!" yelled Gaunt. "Salazar Slytherin's! We're his last living descendants, what do you say to that, eh?"

"Mr. Gaunt, your daughter!" said Ogden in alarm, but Gaunt had already released Merope; she staggered away from him, back to her corner, massaging her neck and gulping for air.

"So!" said Gaunt triumphantly, as though he had just proved a complicated point beyond all possible dispute. "Don't you go talking to us as if we're dirt on your shoes! Generations of purebloods, wizards all — more than you can say, I don't doubt!" And he spat on the floor at Ogden's feet. Morfin cackled again. Merope huddled beside the window, her head bowed and her face hidden by her lank hair said nothing.

"Mr. Gaunt," said Ogden doggedly, "I am afraid that neither your ancestors nor mine have anything to do with the matter in hand. I am here because of Morfin, Morfin and the Muggle he accosted late last night. Our information" — he glanced down at his scroll of parchment — "is that Morfin performed a jinx or hex on the said Muggle, causing him to erupt in highly painful hives."

Morfin giggled. "Be quiet, boy," snarled Gaunt in Parseltongue, and Morfin fell silent again. "And so what if he did, then?" Gaunt said defiantly to Ogden. "I expect you've wiped the Muggle's filthy face clean for him, and his memory to boot —"

"That's hardly the point, is it, Mr. Gaunt?" said Ogden. "This was an unprovoked attack on a defenseless —"

"Ar, I had you marked out as a Muggle-lover the moment I saw you," sneered Gaunt, and he spat on the floor again.

"This discussion is getting us nowhere," said Ogden firmly. "It is clear from your son's attitude that he feels no remorse for his actions." He glanced down at his scroll of parchment again. "Morfin will attend a hearing on the fourteenth of September to answer the charges of using magic in front of a Muggle and causing harm and distress to that same Mugg —" Ogden broke off. The jingling, clopping sounds of horses and loud, laughing voices were drifting in through the open window. Apparently, the winding lane to the village passed very close to the copse where the house stood.

Gaunt froze, listening, his eyes wide. Morfin hissed and turned his face toward the sounds, his expression hungry. Merope raised her head. Her face, Harry saw, was starkly white. "My God, what an eyesore!" rang out a girl's voice, as clearly audible through the open window as if she had stood in the room beside them. "Couldn't your father have that hovel cleared away, Tom?"

"It's not ours," said a young man's voice.

"Everything on the other side of the valley belongs to us, but that cottage belongs to an old tramp called Gaunt, and his children. The son's quite mad, you should hear some of the stories they tell in the village —" The girl laughed. The jingling, clopping noises were growing louder and louder. Morfin made to get out of his armchair.

"Keep your seat," said his father warningly, in Parseltongue.

"Tom," said the girl's voice again, now so close they were clearly right beside the house, "I might be wrong — but has somebody nailed a snake to that door?"

"Good lord, you're right!" said the man's voice. "That'll be the son, I told you he's not right in the head. Don't look at it, Cecilia, darling." The jingling and clopping sounds were now growing fainter again.

"'Darling,'" whispered Morfin in Parseltongue, looking at his sister. "'Darling,' he called her. So he wouldn't have you anyway." Merope was so white Harry felt sure she was going to faint.

"What's that?" said Gaunt sharply, also in Parseltongue, looking from his son to his daughter. "What did you say, Morfin?"

"She likes looking at that Muggle," said Morfin, a vicious expression on his face as he stared at his sister, who now looked terrified. "Always in the garden when he passes, peering through the hedge at him, isn't she? And last night — " Merope shook her head jerkily, imploringly, but Morfin went on ruthlessly, "Hanging out of the window waiting for him to ride home, wasn't she?"

"Hanging out of the window to look at a Muggle?" said Gaunt quietly. All three of the Gaunts seemed to have forgotten Ogden, who was looking both bewildered and irritated at this renewed outbreak of incomprehensible hissing and rasping. "Is it true?" said Gaunt in a deadly voice, advancing a step or two toward the terrified girl. "My daughter — pureblooded descendant of Salazar Slytherin — hankering after a filthy, dirt-veined Muggle?" Merope shook her head frantically, pressing herself into the wall, apparently unable to speak.

"But I got him, Father!" cackled Morfin. "I got him as he went by and he didn't look so pretty with hives all over him, did he, Merope?"

"You disgusting little Squib, you filthy little blood traitor!" roared Gaunt, losing control, and his hands closed around his daughter's throat. Both Harry and Ogden yelled "No!" at the same time; Ogden raised his wand and cried, "Relashio!" Gaunt was thrown backward, away from his daughter; he tripped over a chair and fell flat on his back. With a roar of rage, Morfin leaped out of his chair and ran at Ogden, brandishing his bloody knife and firing hexes indiscriminately from his wand. Ogden ran for his life. Dumbledore indicated that they ought to follow and Harry obeyed, Merope's screams echoing in his ears.

Ogden hurtled up the path and erupted onto the main lane, his arms over his head, where he collided with the glossy chestnut horse ridden by a very handsome, dark-haired young man. Both he and the pretty girl riding beside him on a gray horse roared with laughter at the sight of Ogden, who bounced off the horse's flank and set off again, his frock coat flying, covered from head to foot in dust, running pell-mell up the lane. "I think that will do, Harry," said Dumbledore. He took Harry by the elbow and tugged. The next moment, they were both soaring weightlessly through the darkness, until they landed squarely on their feet, back in Dumbledore's now twilit office. "Well?" Dumbledore asked.

"There was a lot to unpack in that memory," Harry spoke. There had been a lot. The Gaunts. The man named Tom who Harry assumed was Voldemort's father. The Resurrection Stone. The fact that the Gaunts descended from both the Slytherin and Peverell lines. But Harry was confused. Why this memory? What did the Gaunts have to do with Voldemort besides the connection between the family and Tom Riddle?

"What did you learn?"

"I learned a lot. The Gaunts are the descendants of both the Slytherins and the Gaunts. The ring and the locket are their ancestral heirlooms. Tom Riddle is Voldemort's father. And the ring. The stone inside,"

"You no doubt placed the connection," Dumbledore stated.

"It's the Resurrection Stone. It has the Peverell coat of arms on it," Harry explained. "It's the last of the three Hallows. But that's the least important thing. The ring and the locket are likely contenders for a Horcrux. But I don't get it. What do the Gaunts have to do with Voldemort? Was he related to them?"

"His mother is Merope Gaunt. Mr. Gaunt's daughter. And you would be correct about the locket and the ring. I am certain at least one of them is a Horcrux," Dumbledore stated. "But I must warn you, the Deathly Hallows are dangerous. While they have never been connected by a single soul, there is a legend concerning the master of all three artifacts. The 'Master of Death'. While this legend is mostly ignored, I cannot help but warn you. You are close to connecting all three Harry. And connecting them only leads to death. It is in the name after all,"

"Right," Harry wasn't concerned. The Hallows were something else to him now. The memory had given him a lot to think about. But it was only one of several vials. If they wanted to unpack the entire history of Voldemort and his Horcruxes, then they would be in Dumbledore's office for a long while. The old Headmaster poured the second vial into the pensieve, and they dipped their heads in once more. It was going to be a long night.