Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Harry Potter/Wizarding World. They were all created by the genius that is J.K. Rowling.
Author's Note: I'm really glad that everyone is enjoying the story and that you all didn't lynch me for throwing in a Ginny/Viktor update rather than pick up with the cliffhanger I left with Harry, Hermione, and Ron. It will probably be the last Ginny/Viktor chapter for a while because obviously Ginny has to go back home and to Hogwarts. Not to mention that I do want their relationship to progress slower for the simple reason that I don't want it to be rushed so soon after Dean's death. Now on to my reviewers, to GenealogistElyse it took me a long time to decide who I wanted to pair Ginny with so it wasn't something random. I think that she is a really great female and very strong willed I couldn't see her with just some random person. It's really funny the way that it happened because it makes me sound completely insane but I was watching GoF and the version of Ginny in my head perks up and goes…'hey I'm with him yo.' But back to the serious I see where you're coming from with Krum being almost like a bull in a china shop. I think that they would have a lot in common too. Also I see Krum as the type of guy who wouldn't let her over bearing brothers run over top of him. It's something I have in common with Ginny only I just had three brothers to torture my boyfriend's whereas Ginny has 6 plus Harry. I'm sorry about my run on sentences they along with my spell are atrocious but the spell check fixes the bad spelling well enough. I tend to write the way I speak so as you can imagine carrying on a conversation with me tends to confuse those who I speak with at times. To mishi gohiku Damn it, now I have John Jacob Jinglehimer Smith stuck in my head and it's impossible to get rid of, I don't think I've laughed so hard at a review…well ever sadly I can kinda picture things happening that way. And to harryherminefan I'm pretty sure that you have more faith in my writing capabilities that I have glad you're enjoying the story.
Chapter 34: Handbags and Horcruxes
Harry, Hermione, and Ron were elated when they made it back to Grimmauld Place. Their plan had gone off without a hitch really. Of course after arriving there Harry realized that they probably could have walked into the Burrow wandless and without their cleaver disguises and nobody would have been the wiser. Still it proved that they were able to come up with well thought out plans and execute them. "So how much damage was done?" Harry asked once they were settled in the setting room.
"I don't know yet." Hermione said running her fingertips over the small bag before pulling the draw strings open.
"Be careful," Harry said knowing that there could be broken well anything in there.
"That's a little redundant isn't I mean it's Hermione we're talking about." Ron said.
"Funny Ron," Hermione shot him a look then peered inside of the bag.
"Well?" Harry prompted.
"Since it's all going to have to be repacked anyway…" she pulled a throw off of the back of a sofa and laid it out on the floor.
"What are you doing?" Ron asked confused.
"Checking our supplies," Hermione said before carefully spill the contents onto the blanket. "I figured that if anything was broken it would be easier to clear away like this." Harry and Ron stared in awe as Hermione continued to shake things from the bag until she was up to her knees in clothes, books, sleeping bags, a tent, and anything else shed' thought they would need. "I told you it had everything." She said looking at the boys.
"What would we do without you?" Harry asked.
"I ask myself the same question every day." Hermione said in a teasing voice.
"How?" Ron asked.
"Undetectable-Extension Charm." Hermione said sitting down in front of the pile to start sorting it out. "Honestly Ron, you grew up in in the Wizarding World surly this isn't new to you."
Ron frowned, "Well no but that's a really little bag." He defended himself.
"I figured it would be easier to conceal if need be." She said then looked up at the boys. "Am I going to have to do this all by myself?" she raised an eyebrow at them.
"No." Harry said as he and Ron moved quickly to the floor to help her.
"Be careful there are phials of potions and ingredients I thought we would need. Some of them can be quite harmful." She said. "We'll need to laundry the clothes just to be safe."
"We'll get it all straightened out." Harry assured Hermione. "I think it might be a good idea that when we repack to organize it. Maybe have all the potion stuff together?"
"Why do we need all these books?" Ron asked stacking them together.
"Because we have no idea what we are coming up against. Harry said that the magic used to protect the fake locket in the cave had been unlike anything he'd ever seen before." Hermione reminded him. "Besides we're not exactly going to be able to run to the library whenever we come across something that we're not sure about."
"You said there was nothing in the library about the Horcruxes." Harry said confused.
A look of slight guilt crossed Hermione's features. "That's because someone had already removed them from the library."
"Dumbledore," Harry said in surprise. "It would make sense; he had suspected You Know Who made the Horcruxes even before he got the real memory from Slughorn. It would have made sense for him to take them out of the library not just to study but possibly to keep another student from stumbling on that information. It almost makes going back to Hogwarts worthwhile."
"Dumbledore probably destroyed them though, wouldn't he?" Ron said.
Hermione shook her head and pulled several very old tomes from the pile Ron had made. "He only removed them."
"Merlin's beard Hermione!" Ron gasped. "How the hell did you get your hands on those Horcruxe books?"
"Well it wasn't stealing they're library books." Hermione defended herself. "After Dumbledore's funeral I thought of it. I mean he would have wanted us to have them so we could find out as much about them as we could so I…used the Summoning Charm and 'accioed' them from his office to the girl's dormitory. And if he wouldn't have wanted us to have them he would have hidden them better."
Harry gave her a big grin, "You're brilliant, Hermione." He said.
"I'm a little confused though. I mean we know about them those books aren't going to tell us where to find them." Ron pointed out.
"Yes but they'll tell us how to destroy them." Hermione said.
"I hadn't even thought of that." Ron said lamely. "I mean I guess I've been more focused on finding them."
"I think our best bet would be starting with 'R.A.B.'" Harry said pulling the fake locket from the moleskin bag Hagrid had given him.
"Do you think that there is any chance that he might have destroyed the real one?" Ron asked.
"I think anything is possible but we still have to find him to be sure." Harry said. "Then we'll go from there."
"Do you have any ideas?" Hermione asked carefully picking broken glass from the fibers of one of her sweaters.
"Sort of but nothing really solid, there is a pattern, at least with two of the Horcruxes. Dumbledore said he found the ring in the cottage on the edge of the Riddle Manor. And the Cave was a place where he'd went as a child on holiday with the orphanage he grew up in. Then the items themselves are connected too. The diary of course was connected directly himself, he'd written it while he was at school at Hogwarts. The locket was his mother's and the ring his grandfather's. Both of them were connected to Salazar Slytherin and connected him to not only the Wizarding World but Hogwarts as well. We also know that he killed for the cup of Helga Hufflepuff, so there stands a chance…a very good one that he made it into a Horcruxe as well."
Hermione knew that Harry hated the fact that he'd had one thing in common with Voldemort; that they'd both never knew a home until they came to Hogwarts. "What about the orphanage?" she asked. "Do you think he would have hid one there?"
"No because when he found out that he was a Wizard he did everything that he could to shed himself of his Muggle life." Harry said.
"Yeah he wouldn't want any reminders of that. I mean he didn't even keep his Muggle father's name." Ron said.
Harry sighed, "I really wish Dumbledore was here."
Hermione reached over and squeezed his hand gently, "We all do and he wouldn't have left you with an impossible task."
"It seems that way though." Harry said.
