Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-One: Shaken and Stirred

Everything was dark and cold. Whispers were all around, seemingly coming from everywhere and yet nowhere at once. Serpents crawled along the floor, and they began to wind themselves, slowly, around Daphne's legs. She tried to kick them off, but they clung onto her easily, and she didn't have her wand to curse them off. The whispers were getting clearer.

"Your soul belongs to me…"

It was a high, chilling voice. Were those red eyes, glowing in the darkness, or was it just a figment of her imagination? She tried to run, but the snakes were crawling ever higher, wrapped around her legs like ropes.

"Let me go!" she shouted.

"There is no escape…" the whispering voice said. "You have already felt it…you have already realized it…"

"No!"

Daphne struggled harder.

"It is pointless to resist…"

Ahead of her, she saw Mum and Dad, both covered by the writhing snakes, their eyes open and glassy, staring into nothingness.

"No! Mum! Dad!"

"They were no match…and you know that it will not end…"

More bodies now…all of S.I.N… The rest of the Order of the Lightning Bolt…the Order of the Phoenix… All lifeless, bleeding from snake bites or strangled. And then, one by one, the bodies began to stir again, rising from the ground with their eyes just as lifeless as before…and the Inferi began to walk toward her…

"No! Get away from me! This isn't real!" Daphne shouted.

"But it is…" the whispers said.

"Daphne…"

The voice was gravely, dead, and yet Daphne recognized it immediately. Ron came shambling forward, the Sword of Gryffindor limply in his hand, his right eye missing and bleeding.

"You let us die…"

A different voice, but just a familiar. Hermione, missing an arm, her expression accusing despite the glazed eyes.

"No…you're not dead…you can't be…" Daphne whispered.

"It's your fault…"

Yet again, a different voice, and this time it was Ginny, her neck at an unnatural angle…and then just a gurgling groan, not even a voice at all, and there couldn't be a voice, because Harry's throat had been ripped open, his glasses lopsided and cracked, as he limped forward behind Ginny.

"No! How…how could this happen?!" Daphne cried.

As if in answer, two large snakes reared up from the mass on the floor, and they coiled their heads together to form an arch, between which a mirror appeared.

Daphne stepped toward it, looking at her reflection…and she saw she was deathly pale, and her eyes were red and had slit pupils. Her mirror image smirked at her, and she could her own face contorting with it.

"You are mine…" the whisper said, in time with her mirror image moving.

[hr]

Daphne shot upright in her bed, panting heavily. The images of the dream were still clear in her mind and she felt her stomach churning, so she leapt out of bed and staggered to the bathroom, where she threw up everything in her stomach.

She felt clammy and feverish, and the scar on her arm, where the foggy hand had grabbed her earlier, burned fiercely. She grabbed it with her other hand, but the burning didn't diminish at all.

"Daphne? Are you okay?"

Daphne stiffened when she heard Ginny's voice and turned around slowly, the horrible image from her nightmare still in her mind's eye, but of course, Ginny looked the same as she always did.

Daphne shook her head. "No…I…" She grabbed the burning scar tighter.

"Is it because of that?" Ginny, who saw it, said.

"No…this is…I think it's because of the locket," Daphne said.

Ginny's eyes widened. "But it was destroyed," she said softly.

"I know…I don't think…I don't think I'm possessed," Daphne said, though in her dream, she clearly had been. "It's…I think it's because of…y'know, when I tried to find the direction of the grave…"

Ginny slowly walked closer. "I told you you shouldn't have done it," she said softly.

"I know…but it worked out, didn't it? We all survived, we got the sword, found out Ron is basically Gryffindor incarnate when he needs to be, and we destroyed the Horcrux. We won," Daphne said, trying more to convince herself than Ginny.

At that moment, Harry entered the bathroom as well. "What did you dream?" he asked.

Daphne sighed, and then told Harry and Ginny everything she remembered. Both of them looked horrified when she stopped talking.

"And all of that just from sensing the magic?" Harry asked.

Daphne nodded slowly. "I…it feels like something of that- that evil is still inside me somehow. It's like it…infected me, or something. I-I don't really know how to explain it," she said.

Harry and Ginny exchanged a worried glance.

"I'll be fine," Daphne said firmly, even though she felt anything but fine at the moment. "It'll probably pass on its own…and if not, it'll go away after we beat Riddle," she went on.

When Harry and Ginny still didn't look convinced, Daphne waved them away and said, "Look, you two just go back to bed. I'm going to brush my teeth and then I'll join you again."

Harry and Ginny gave Daphne a last look, but then they left the bathroom and left Daphne on her own again.

She quickly cleaned out the washbasin and brushed her teeth without looking in the mirror. Even though she knew the dream was just that, she didn't want to see her own face for fear of what it might look like.

Slowly, she walked back to the bedroom and joined Harry and Ginny again.

"You go in the middle," Harry said, pulling her over himself without even waiting for her reply.

"I'm fine, really," she protested.

"You might be, but the two of us are worried, and this is the only way we can both hug you," Ginny said.

"Well, if it makes you two feel better…" Daphne said.

Despite sounding reluctant, though, she was actually glad Harry and Ginny were so worried about her, and she knew they knew that, too.

"I love you two…" she whispered.

"And we love you, too," Harry said.

"So stop being so bloody stubborn," Ginny added.

"I make no promises…"

[hr]

By the time morning came around and the five of them were at the table for breakfast, Daphne felt a lot better than she'd done during the night. The handprint burned onto her arm by the fog still hurt a bit, but at least she didn't feel sick anymore. She could see that Harry and Ginny were still eyeing her cautiously, though, and she couldn't blame them. If either of them had gotten sick after a nightmare, she'd be keeping an eye on them, too.

"Well, that's one down," Ron said cheerfully. Ever since they'd returned from Slytherin's grave and the locket had been destroyed — Harry had opened it using Parseltongue and Ron had smashed it with the sword — he'd been in a great mood, and Daphne wished she could borrow some of his good spirits. "Only three more to go now…"

"But where could any of them be?" Ginny asked. "I mean, Slytherin's grave was probably the most likely place, and there was nothing there except a healthy dose of nightmares for the rest of our lives." She glanced at Daphne.

"I think we were looking at it the wrong way, anyway," Harry said. "Slytherin's grave is an important historical site, but it wasn't important to Riddle personally. Just look at where the Horcruxes have been so far: the ring was hidden in the shack of his grandfather, where he'd first learned of his heritage. The locket was in the cave where he first used his magic consciously — or at least one of the first times he did so. The diary was with Malfoy, but it was intended to be smuggled back into Hogwarts to reopen the Chamber of Secrets. It's all places that were special to him, even if they aren't to anyone else."

"So you think the other Horcruxes will be in similar places that were important to him?" Hermione asked.

Harry nodded. "Yes. I wouldn't be surprised if there's one at Hogwarts, for instance."

"At Hogwarts?" Hermione repeated skeptically. "Right under Dumbledore's nose?"

"He overlooked the Chamber of Secrets for fifty years despite Myrtle dying — no pun intended — to tell someone about how she died," Daphne pointed out. "For all we know he left the Horcrux there."

"That, or the Room of Requirement," Harry said. "It can become whatever you need it to become, and Dumbledore never knew it was there. He might have hidden it there and told the Room to hide it from anyone but him. If he did, I honestly don't really see how we could get to it, either."

"But why would he leave a Horcrux at his school?" Ron asked.

"Because he felt at home there," Harry said softly. He looked at Ron. "You grew up with a loving family, so for you being home was great. For me — and for Riddle — our 'homes' weren't really our homes. Hogwarts is. It is for me, at least, and whether I like it or not, there's more than one resemblance between him and me."

"So that would mean the snake, which is probably with Riddle himself, and one at Hogwarts, which we can't get to at the moment…which leaves one more we need to find," Daphne said.

Harry nodded. "Yes. Either Hufflepuff's cup or something else, possibly Ravenclaw's. But where that one could be…I don't have the foggiest clue. His orphanage was torn down, and he didn't like it there anyway, so that's out. Borgin and Burkes would've been far too risky, as they were experts in Dark objects and would surely have recognized a Horcrux. Beyond that, though…Dumbledore didn't show me any other places Riddle had any special affinity with."

"So what are we going to do, then?" Ginny asked. "Godric's Hollow?"

"I still want to go there, yes," Harry acknowledged. "But I just don't see how it could be a relevant place for the mission now. Honestly, that would really be just…for me, I guess. And there might be Death Eaters waiting for us there, too."

He hesitated for a moment. "I…I've been considering trying to find out what Riddle is up to," he said. "If I lower my Occlumency shields…I can still see through his eyes from time to time. If we knew what he was doing–"

"No way in hell," Daphne interrupted. "Just sensing his magic was enough to make my skin crawl, and you want to enter his head? Knowing he might detect you and…I don't know, possess you again?"

Harry grimaced. "I know, that's why I haven't done it yet," he said.

"Could you find out with your Divination, maybe?" Ginny asked.

"What, like scrying?" Daphne asked. "I'm not sure, really. I mean, that's more…seeing what's currently going on, right? But I could ask Pythia, I suppose. Maybe it's possible somehow. If it is, I might be able to locate the Horcruxes as well. Somehow, I doubt it'll work out that conveniently, though."

"Well, the sword worked out pretty conveniently," Ron said with a shrug. "I mean, we're not even halfway through September yet and we've destroyed the first Horcrux already."

The sword only worked out because Snape had it, and he knew where we were going to be, Daphne thought to herself. Although I still don't know how he remained undetected…

"It won't stay that easy," she said. "And you're too good of a chess player to think that it will."

Ron nodded slowly. "I know, it's just…that short stint with the sword made me feel a lot better about myself, you know? It's like I can't feel down, or something. I bet I could cast a wicked Patronus right now."

"Yeah, I bet your swordsmanship is excellent at the moment," Ginny said with a sly look at Hermione, who turned bright red.

"Shut up, you," Ron said, flushing as well.

"But if I can't scry, what do we do then?" Daphne asked, turning the conversation back to the issue at hand.

Harry shrugged. "Search me. Beyond trying to see into Riddle's mind, I don't have any clues. And who knows what he might be up to, anyway. It's not likely to be helpful to us, though the Order might like to know."

He sighed. "I guess we'll have to go and look for places that meant a lot to Riddle when he was younger, but according to Dumbledore, everyone who knew him then and still lives now doesn't want to talk about it. If he couldn't get information out of people, I don't see how we can. Maybe Godric's Hollow really would be our best bet. Or we could check out the graves of the other Founders after all. Honestly, I'm open to suggestions, here."

For a while, no one said anything. Then, Hermione said, "Why don't we all just take a break for a few hours? Just…relax, lie back, recover from our trip to Slytherin's grave…and then during lunch, we'll determine our next course of action."

Daphne nodded. "Sounds good to me. I'll go and talk to Pythia, then, to see if my Divination can help me with scrying," she said.

"That…wasn't exactly what I meant with 'relax', but you do you," Hermione said with a faint smile.

Daphne grinned at her. "I thought you liked getting immersed in a good book."

Hermione just rolled her eyes.

A bit shorter again today. I meant to make it longer, but I got poked in the eye during krav training and the aftermath of that just happened to be the final drop in my stress levels, which are sky-high as they always are in December, because quite frankly fuck this month, so my minor breakdown ate up quite a bit of time. Consequently, I cobbled this together in about an hour and a half and it's 1:30 AM at the moment, so I think I'm done for the day.