Thank you to all supporters with an extra special thank you to Jimmy Adams, Rafał Badera, Jo Daviz, LegendaryWasabi, SvenGTX, Optimum Prime and Jack Schriner. I really love you all and you really motivate me to keep going with my writing.

As always the next two chapters and the link to my discord are available on my pat re on page, however, there is now also the first chapter of my new fic 'Harry Potter and the Stich in Time' the fic that will be taking this fics update slot when this one finishes.

Chapter 22

The first of September brought with it the trip to Hogwarts, which would be the first time Harry had been out in wizarding public since he had gotten off the train before the start of summer break. Wanting to avoid a fuss,, he had even gotten Sirius to go do the back-to-school shopping for Hermione and himself. Hermione had been disappointed to miss out on a trip to Flourish and Blotts, especially after her parents had given her £150 to convert to Galleons after both she and Harry had been made the new Gryffindor prefects. However, she had completely understood what would happen if Harry stepped into the Alley. Also, given the amount of times her photo and name had appeared in the media over the summer as the Boy-Who-Lived's girlfriend while they printed story after story about Harry catching Voldemort, she wasn't sure she could go to the Alley without being harassed either.

The Grangers had offered to take Harry to King's Cross, and when they arrived at King's Cross they found little Suzanne Payne and her parents sitting in the small cafe, Suzanne drinking a coke while her parents each enjoyed a cup of tea. Harry and Hermione asked Suzanne if she wanted help getting her trunk onto the train and if she would like to get a compartment with them, which the young witch accepted. Hermione said her goodbyes and promised to write to her parents, and then the two teens and the little first year stepped through the barrier between platforms nine and ten, finding themselves once more on the magical platform. Parents and children were saying goodbye to their sons, daughters, and older siblings who were about to leave for school, and a number of first years were crying, already homesick and missing family they hadn't even parted from yet. Owls and toads added to the noise as they called to each other or demanded attention from their humans.

Then, people started to notice that Harry Potter had arrived. It was almost as if a wave of silence washed over the crowd, soon dispelled and quickly replaced by energetic whispers of "It's Harry Potter!" Suzanne, who knew nothing of Harry's past, got nervous at so many people staring at the group she was currently in, but before she could do or say anything Hermione spotted how uncomfortable the young girl was. She put a reassuring hand on Suzanne's shoulder and told the girl. "It's okay. Harry is really famous among witches and wizards, and he won a big international sporting event at the end of our last school year. No one is going to hurt anyone."

The little girl calmed for now, but Harry wasn't sure that would hold up to him being mauled by fans, so he leaned in to Hermione and whispered, "Why don't you take the trunks and Suzanne and get us a compartment? I'll go play nice with the public." He tried not to say the second part like he was describing his own personal hell, but judging by the look Hermione shot at him he didn't think he was successful.

"Okay, but don't be long." She gave Harry a kiss on the cheek, and with a few flicks of her wand the three trunks stacked themselves and started floating towards the train while Hermione followed them leading Suzanne. To give himself a reason to have separated from the girls, Harry grabbed the trolleys that they had their trunks on and pushed them to a trolley bay that was right next to the arch that led back to the muggle station. When he turned back, just as he expected, more than a few of the parents had come over.

The first one to get to him grabbed hold of Harry's hand and shook it. "It's such an honour to meet you Mr. Potter. I have been reading about what you did all summer and it's just astonishing. To think he was alive and hiding all this time. But you took care of that didn't you." Harry shook hand after hand, and while he didn't like it he definitely wasn't as overwhelmed as he had been the first time this had happened to him. He did realise he was justified in getting Sirius to pick up his school things, though. One thing Harry noticed was that while the parents were all fighting to shake his hand, the students who went to Hogwarts with Harry just looked embarrassed by what their families were doing. It made some sense to them; he was just a student who did something crazy. No matter how much the Prophet made him out to be some amazing hero, they still had their memories of the last few years where Harry was pretty quiet and focused rather than someone who wanted to be in the spotlight.

Eventually Harry saw that he only had ten minutes until the train left and had to leave, so he called over everyone, "Okay, I'm sorry everyone but I need to get on the train. I can't go missing school now, can I?" Reluctantly the crowd parted and let him through. Luckily for Harry, they were all parents and the idea of a kid missing their ride to school was anathema to most of them.

It took Harry about five minutes to find the compartment that Hermione had found. It wasn't just Hermione and Suzanne, though, Luna was sitting with them reading the latest copy of the Quibbler. "Good morning Harry." Luna didn't even look up from her magazine.

"Hey Luna. Anything interesting?" He asked, indicating the magazine.

However, Luna answered the question more broadly. "Everything is interesting if you look deeply enough, Harry. Well, everything except Professor Binns's class, but that's just him not the subject."

Harry and Hermione both laughed at that, but Suzanne looked confused so Harry filled her in. "Professor Binns is the most boring teacher you will ever meet. He is a ghost who teaches history, but despite how cool that sounds he has an almost perfect record of making students fall asleep. In fact, Hermione here is the only student I know who has never fallen asleep in his class."

The trip to the castle was fairly uneventful. There was a meeting where the new Head Boy and Girl addressed the Prefects, telling them about the schedule to patrol the train and to give them the time and place for the first Prefect meeting of the year. However, there was no Malfoy to come and try to wind up Harry in the hope to get a reaction while he and Hermione patrolled the train, so the only problems were the usual stuff you get when a large group of teenagers has little supervision. The highlight was introducing Suzanne to chocolate frogs and Bertie Bott's every flavour beans. Of course, Harry had to teach the first year muggle born the ever popular game of every flavour roulette. That he was able to pull Hermione and Luna into the game was a double win, except Luna never seemed to get a bad flavour.

-ϟϟϟ-

The feast went great. For the second year in a row, the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor was the same as the year previous. It seemed that Professor Lupin was going to be their Defence professor permanently now. Suzanne was sorted into Hufflepuff. Susan Bones was one of the new Hufflepuff prefects, so Harry knew she would look after the new first years in her house. He and Hermione had to lead the new first years up to the common room, and as they led the first years through the castle Hermione kept pointing out places where interesting things happened according to Hogwarts, a History. Harry, not to be out done, decided to do the same but much to Hermione's continued disappointment he still hadn't read Hogwarts, a History. So, instead of pointing out places of historical interest, he pointed out places where some of the best pranks Fred and George had ever played happened, with a full description of the chaos that resulted. Harry didn't want to brag, but the first years definitely seemed to prefer his tales of chaos to Hermione's histories.

The biggest stress (outside of homework) the next week was taking the Gryffindor firsties down to breakfast every morning, and the only reason that was stressful was because he was running out of prank stories to tell. Unfortunately the peace couldn't last; the Monday morning paper proved just how fragile that once was. The front page had a photo of Bellatrix LeStrange firing a dark mark into the air while she stood in front of a burning building that looked like a normal muggle home. Under it was the headline 'Insane Death Eater Begins Reign of Terror.' The article went on to say that LeStrange had killed a muggleborn wizard and his muggle wife, and had also left a message in the house that indicated that more such attacks were coming.

Harry let out a growl of frustration. He had hoped he would have a lot longer before any more of this madness would raise its head. Hermione asked him what was wrong so he handed her the paper. It only took seconds for her to see what had gotten him so riled up. "Fuck! I didn't expect her to move this openly." Hermione surprised a lot of the people sitting around her by her use of profanity, but Harry knew that Hermione just saved the harsher language for when she thought it was truly necessary.

"Well, subtlety and planning were never the demented bitch's strong points. A part of me wonders how she ever made it into Slytherin," Harry tried to focus his mind on anything but the images that the newspaper had painted in his head.

"Probably pure ambition and blood fanaticism," Hermione pondered. The two of them and a number of other students, especially Neville, picked at the rest of their breakfast before going to class.

-ϟϟϟ-

Harry was only a little surprised when during his first lesson (Charms), Luna knocked on the door and handed a note to Professor Flitwick. After reading the note, the fun and excitable half goblin teacher addressed him and Hermione. "Miss Granger, Mr Potter, the Headmaster has requested your presence in his office. Pack up your things and go with Miss Lovegood here. Oh, and be ready to demonstrate to me the Muggle Repelling Charm at the start of our next lesson."

Harry and Hermione packed up and followed Luna out of the Charms class."Any idea why the headmaster wants to talk to us, Luna?" Hermione asked, even if they could both probably guess it was to discuss LeStrange.

Luna nodded. "He wants to discuss a new supplier of milk for the school. He's considering changing the dairy we currently use to one called Cadbury."

Harry tried not to laugh but wasn't very successful, Hermione did a lot better but still smirked at their friend. "Luna, Cadbury is a muggle company that makes chocolate. It's not a dairy."

Luna frowned. "I think the headmaster will be disappointed, he specifically mentioned Cadbury's dairy milk. And it looked like he thought it was delicious."

This time Hermione couldn't keep a straight face so it was left to Harry to explain. "Luna, Cadbury's Dairy Milk is the name of the Cadbury Company's signature chocolate bar. The headmaster likes to use the name of sweets as the password to get into his office. I think that he was telling you the password so you could tell us."

"Oh. Then I'm afraid I can't answer your question. I have no idea what the headmaster wants to talk to you about." The smaller girl sounded really disappointed that she didn't have an answer for them.

They arrived at the gargoyle that guarded the headmaster's office, and the password was indeed Cadbury's Dairy Milk. The headmaster was waiting for them and called them in before they could even knock on the door. As soon as they stepped inside, he spoke up. "Ah, Miss Granger, Mr. Potter, please sit down." It was obvious that the man was a little agitated despite the smooth and even tone of his voice.

"I trust the two of you have seen this morning's edition of the Prophet?" He paused for a second and both Harry and Hermione nodded. "Tell me, what did you notice about the photograph?"

"That it was weird they had one," Harry said after only a moment. "LeStrange doesn't seem the type to let someone take her picture without killing them when they point a camera at her."

"Ah, the photo was taken using a highly modified pensive. I believe that the Prophet has the only one with that capability in all of Britain. The memory is from a bystander that LeStrange missed. That's not what I was referring to."

There was a copy of the paper on the headmaster's desk, and Hermione opened up the paper and looked at the photo again. This time she ignored the obvious and paid attention to the details. Was there something specific about the house, or LeStrange's wand, was she standing on something? All of those seemed unimportant as she checked them out. Maybe it was something in her outfit? That's when Hermione saw, tied to a loop on LeStranges belt, a Goblet. "Harry, is that what I think it is?" She pointed out the cup in the photo.

Harry just looked at the photo for a full second before he said anything. "I think it is. That could be Hufflepuff's Cup. What do you think, Professor?"

Dumbledore looked at Harry over his half moon glasses before saying. "I, like you Harry, think that that is indeed the legendary cup of helga Hufflepuff."

"Then the last Horcrux is in the hands of Bellatrix LeStrange. Fuck!" Harry shouted the expletive.

"While I can understand the sentiment Harry, I must ask that you refrain from using such language in my office. This is still a school after all." Dumbledore said in the way that made everyone think of him as a kindly grandfather.

Harry didn't apologise though, instead he pressed forward. "Sir, you don't understand. Horcruxes can possess people. If LeStrange has the cup, who are we facing? LeStrange? Voldemort? Some combination of the two?"

Now Dumbledore looked surprised and Hermione looked like she was going to be sick.

"Please Harry, I know you don't trust me, but I need to know everything you know about Horcruxes and hopefully how you learned it." The old professor sounded more weary than Harry ever remembered him, and Harry looked to Hermione for her opinion.

She thought for a bit before saying. "The timeline is completely different now. We don't need to worry about people changing it anymore. Not since the end of last year. You stopped Voldemort from returning that night so we are flying blind again."

So Harry told Dumbledore almost everything. Quirrell and the Philosopher's Stone. Ginny and the diary Horcrux. Sirius, Peter and the Dementors. The original Triwizard Tournament and its outcome. Cornelius Fudge not believing that Voldemort had returned and sending Dolores Umbridge to the school where she tortured students. The war. Dumbledore's death. Searching for the Horcruxes. The muggleborn camps. The only real thing he left out was how he and Hermione had come back in time.

When Harry finished recounting the previous timeline, Dumbledore looked shocked. "I can see why you don't trust me. The other me had plans and kept secrets and it led to such horrible things. I thought such camps were a mistake humanity wouldn't make again. I saw such camps; it was soul destroying. Yet my actions, however inadvertently and indirectly, led to British witches and wizards repeating that mistake." Silence hung in the air after the headmaster spoke, and it was clear that Dumbledore was using the silence to think about all the information Harry had given him. They were there for so long that one of the castle's house elves popped in and gave them each a bowl of soup and a sandwich, indicating that it must be lunchtime for the rest of the school.

"Harry, just how complete was the possession of Miss Weasley? Was it just control like the Imperius Curse, or was it deeper than that?" Dumbledore asked as he dipped the corner of his sandwich in his bowl of soup.

"It was deeper. The horcrux was feeding off her but it was also using her to control the basilisk, the basilisk recognised her as the Heir of Slytherin, she could even speak Parseltongue…"Harry froze after he had said that last line.

"Harry?" Hermione turned to look at him, concerned why he had stopped speaking in the middle of a sentence, only to find Harry had a stunned look on his face. He dropped his sandwich, not out of any conscious decision but because he simply forgot to keep hold of it. He then raised his hand to the scar that was on his forehead over his right eye, a look of mixed realisation, fear, and rage on his face.

"God fucking damn it!"

A/N

That's right people you have heard of Quirrell-Mort, Ginny-Mort, and even Harry-Mort, but are you ready for Bella-Mort? Hahahahahaha.

Sorry this chapter is a little shorter than normal. My old ass office chair finally decided to break on me, unfortunately, I was sitting in it at the time so ended up being sent flying. I'm fine but I put my hand out to break my fall and jarred my wrist. That led to me losing three days of good typing time. But this chapter had the 'introduction' of 'Bella-Mort' (not a name I will be using in the fic {probably}) and Harry has just realised he is a Horcrux, so I hope you all like it.