Chapter 74 ~ Hazel

"When the Fox hears the Rabbit scream he comes a-runnin', but not to help."
~ Thomas Harris, Silence of the Lambs


ECOTS


January 2nd, 1997 ~ 12:22 a.m

"Harry," Hermione hissed from behind. "Harry I'm going to kill you."

"Yeah well, get in line," he said lowly, "because looks like Kaylens might want first crack." The look his girlfriend was giving him he hadn't missed, he just didn't have time to acknowledge it. Not when a thousand pound beast was turning slowly towards him, its dripping and snarling mouth moving away from Tonks.

But that was good. That was what Harry wanted it to do.

"That's right Estonia," Harry growled quietly, "atta boy. Over here."

He had slowly begun to inch backwards with Hermione, his best friend's fingers digging into his shoulder so hard that his arm had lost circulation.

A low, guttural growl filled the air…

"Please tell me you were joking about not having your magic back…" Hermione pled.

He stepped back, slowly. "Can give me detention later," he muttered, not at all comfortingly. His eyes remained on the thing, it finally far enough away from Tonks that the Auror had begun to scramble away, snaring her wand.

That was what he'd been waiting for.

Harry Potter looked the gargoyle right in the eye, his grip tightening around his broom handle. "When I say run, Mione," he muttered, "fucking run."

He felt her nod.

Harry Potter smirked viciously, and in one quick move tossed the broom up and in front of him, the word 'up' barely muttered, barely thought, the wizard about to jump on-

The broom clattered to the ground.

It didn't hover.

It didn't float.

It fucking fell.

It was un-climatic.

It was loud.

It rolled directly under the gargoyle's front claws, the beast stepping forward and snapping the thing in half like a fucking twig.

Harry stared. A surge of anger flared up. Sirius had gotten him that broom.

"Harry your magic-"

"I fucking know about my magic!" he hissed. They were fucked. Absolutely fucked. He couldn't hex. He couldn't fly. It'd never occurred to him that flying wouldn't work. He suddenly had an all new degree of sympathy for Kaylens' lack of magic as the creature lunged forward. Hermione squeaked. Harry nearly tripped. They both jerked backwards, Harry getting ready to shield her as the stone beast attacked-

The blow never came.

The gargoyle sniffed, as if amused, rearing back on its haunches, clearly enjoying itself as he and Hermione slipped on the ice.

It was playing with them.

They were being hunted.

It reminded him of when Hermione had hid behind him, when Lupin had transformed back in their third year.

He regained his footing. "Talk to me Mione," he muttered, "what's their weak spot?"

"Do I look like Hagrid?"

"Hermione…" he snarled.

"They're guard animals. Respond to movement. They um…they aren't the brightest…"

"Great, so they're Ron before he's had breakfast."

Hermione made a sputtering sound.

"Run for between the crypts," he whispered, feeling her nod. It was too big to fit. Granted it could probably knock the crypts down like a bulldozer, but it'd slow it down.

The thing's claws clicked on the ice as it advanced on them, still in the center of all four of them. It was enjoying the hunt, stalking them, in no rush. Here, in this situation, the gargoyle was the apex predator, and it knew it.

Hermione's fingers dug deeper into his shoulder and he about swore at her.

From the mausoleum he and Kaylens had been in he could hear cursing from Black.

The gargoyle's eyes abruptly glowed red.

Harry gulped, ready to run-

That was when Kaylens did something so asininely stupid he resolved to necromancy her ass back from the dead if it got her killed, just so he could kill her all over again.

She threw a snowball at it.

Harry's heated gaze jerked past the gargoyle to her. She stood there, wand in hand, her other one already clenching around another ball of ice.

And fuck if Tonks wasn't doing it too.

Somehow she and the Auror had backed up from the animal farther down the path, and before Harry could shout at them to stop Tonks and Kaylens had both launched a second volley of ice balls at the thing.

Kaylens' sailed high, landing right on its head.

Tonks hit the thing directly in its low hanging dick.

The metamorphmagus sniggered.

The gargoyle roared, the rush of air so powerful it blew off Harry's hat.

And then all thousand pounds of the beast rounded around and barreled straight for the girls.


ECOTS


They slipped and slid as they barreled down the path. Kally's feet tried to gain traction, nearly sliding out from under her before Tonks hit them with a spell that suddenly allowed her to actually run without slipping.

Kally had never run so fast in her life. Overhead what remained of the protective blue dome whipped past, doing them little good given a gargoyle was already beneath it, chasing them down like the hounds of hell.

Tonks let out a happy sort of shout. "Bit like running of the bulls isn't it?!"

Kalliandra suddenly understood why Remus questioned the woman's sanity so often, a desperate laugh escaping at the thought.

They rounded a corner, their lighter weights an actual advantage on the thick ice. Whereas they – thanks to Tonks' spellwork - didn't slide and fall at the sharp turn, the gargoyle's heavy and unbalanced weight sent it spinning out of control. It crashed into another mausoleum, the sound like a detonation at a construction site, pieces of stone and wrought iron fence flying in every direction like shrapnel.

A piece slammed into Kally's arm, a pained whimper escaping. She couldn't stop. They rounded another corner and without even communicating threw themselves into an unbelievably narrow alleyway between two of the crypts. Tonks slammed a hand over her mouth as if to tell her to be quiet, to not move, to not even breathe.

So Kally didn't.

She dug her fingers against the wound in her arm to staunch the flow of blood and tried not to move.

A second, maybe two passed.

Ice crunched.

The gargoyle hurtled past. It moved fast enough to kill, to destroy full sized SUVs in its path, the thing not seeing their hiding place as it slipped and slid past, unable to fly due to the barrier over its head.

It might be inside the barrier, but that same barrier prevented it from flying. So it had to run, slipping and sliding past.

Kyla's heart pounded furiously. Cracking sounds could be heard. Snarling. Crunching.

It eventually faded.

Tonks dropped her hand away from her mouth, hissing in relief. "It'll hit the stairs in a second. Hopefully it'll think we ran out into the larger cemetery."

Kally slumped against the wall and looked at her as if she were insane. "Aren't Lupin and Dumbledore out there? It'll attack them!"

"Yeah but Dobby's with them. They'll be fine. Seriously have you two met? Threaten Dumbledore or Harry and he's a right ole sadistic little thing."

Kally gaped, her arm throbbing so hard she could barely process. She hissed a breath through her teeth, nodding in pain. Blood was welling between her fingers, Kalliandra feeling distinctly shaky, something not good about what had sliced her.

There was blood. So much blood.

Tonks swore suddenly and grabbed at her, hissing something that sounded suspiciously like hit a damn artery.

"Oh," Kally dryly muttered, "sounds wonderful."

The now gray-haired Auror rolled her eyes, her skin changing to a strange grayish hue as she seemed to be concentrating, wand out. "Hold still…healing's not my forte and I'd hate for Harry to try to hex me over this. Man has got a wicked good spin on his expulsos…"

Breathing swiftly Kally managed a small nod, then waited for Tonks to quite possibly blow off her arm.


ECOTS


"HERMIONE LET GO OF ME!"

"Harry TRUST them!" she pled, using all her body weight to try to hold him back. "Tonks is an Auror! She can handle it!"

Harry wasn't fooled. Hermione had her lower lip pulled between her teeth, worrying it. He shot her a scathing look and tried to shake her off. "Excuse me if I wasn't born yesterday. You're worried!"

"Of course I'm worried! They're outrunning a gargoyle!"

With a jerk Harry freed himself of her grip and bolted after them-

A spell took his legs out from under him. Harry slammed down to the ice, flat on his back. The impact winded him, leaving him staring straight up at the cracked remnants of the shield dome, snow billowing down through the hole and into his face. With a furious snarl he slammed his hands into the ground, shoving himself up in time to see Black and McGonagall emerging from the ruins of the mausoleum. The Professor was looking at the hole in the shield, realization dawning on her face, while Black just looked pissed.

"POTTER!" The man strode to him. "Despite what your so called psychopathic urges claim, it wasn't in there. Now where exactly did you plan to kill your girl because it's not-"

Harry's head snapped towards it. "What do you mean it's not there?"

"Did the cold drive your grasp of the English language from your brain? There was nothing in that girl's coffin. Not even a corpse. So do tell if the horcrux isn't in the coffin then where in the HELL-"

McGonagall interjected, looking alarmed. "Where are Ms. Kaylens and Nymphadora?"

Harry shot a furious look at Hermione, his best friend swallowing and holding her chin high. "Distracting it."

McGonagall's head jerked towards him, eyes jumping to the Firebolt. It had been reduced to splinters. "Mr. Potter what about-"

He grimaced humorlessly. "Magic's a bit shitty right now, Professor. Apparently that extended to flying."

The Transfiguration Professor's jaw snapped shut.

Black stopped beneath the hole in the shield and looked up, his lips curling. "We left you to take care of maintaining this for five minutes…"

Harry felt ready to instigate a physical brawl. "What's the matter, Black? Just realizing now how shitty your charm work is?"

Hermione made an exasperated sort of sound. "We don't have time for this."

Black held his gaze for one more long moment before turning his attention to Hermione. "For once I agree with the bibliophile."

Harry didn't give a damn what or who he agreed with, even if it was Hermione. The entire exchange had transpired in less than twenty seconds, but that'd taken too long. Harry clambered to his feet as fast as he could, it far slower than he'd like. The chlorine gas had done a number on him, the wheeze in his breathing evident as he wound up back on his own two scanned the aisle, looking for signs, for anything to indicate if Kaylens and Tonks were okay.

He looked a second too long.

A hand lashed out, grabbing him by the back of the robes as if anticipating his next move. "Now's not the time loverboy," Black snarled, shoving him towards the mausoleum.

Harry didn't know why the hell it'd taken him so long to get to this point, but he rounded around and threw a fist.

It froze. Mid-air. Directly in front of Black's nose.

The asshole just smirked at him.

"Will both of you just STOP it!" Hermione's brown eyes flashed, her wand out and aimed between the two of them. "We'll find it faster and get help for all of them if you two would stop fighting, alright?"

Harry looked directly into Black's eyes and growled.

An instant later whatever motion-freezing charm Hermione had cast dropped, Harry's arm hovering in the air for a half second longer as he fought back a dozen dark things he wanted to do to the bastard in front of him.

It was too late. Between Hermione and Black, Kaylens was already gone. Harry knew this; he hated this. It was like being stuck on that barrier surrounding the island all over again, watching Kaylens plunge into the sea, swimming to distract the shark so the rest of them could get to shore.

The difference between then and now was that he knew he had to fucking let her help.

With an oath Harry rounded around and stormed towards the mausoleum, dragging his hand through his hair and yanking at it. "You checked the coffin?" he demanded of McGonagall, who had clearly gotten sick of all of them and resumed searching.

The woman rewarded him with an annoyed look. "Indeed, Mr. Potter. As if we'd come all this way then forget to check."

He made an annoyed sound of his own. A bubblehead charm hit him, courtesy of McGonagall, the transfiguration professor levitating rubble out of the way to clear a better path in to expand the search.

Gabrielle, the statue, was there, using his wings to hold up a part of the roof that looked ready to collapse in on itself. Harry threw it a vicious look as he stepped over the rubble to get inside, hate for what had just happened running high. "And where the fuck were you at?" he demanded of it. It was a fair question given the statue had been animated to protect, yet it sure as hell had done none of it when that gargoyle had dropped in on them, literally.

"Harry," Hermione said nervously, "do you really want to yell at a statue that's so…" her eyes flickered up indicating its clear size.

"Yes," he said, glaring.

"Mr. Potter," McGonagall said, "it was preventing the crypt from collapsing in on us."

Tonks and Kaylens were out there somewhere, with a several thousand pound stone beast on their tail, and their best line of defense against it had been playing at magical awning. Harry swore.

The angel said nothing, and Harry ducked back inside the crypt that had tried to kill them.

Instantly he felt the cold, icy claws of the horcrux caress his mind.

Harrrrrry….

McGonagall ducked in behind him, her wand flicking, sending a coffin lid flipping over as she searched. Black was muttering things behind him about dark magic detections, Voldemort and that 'pale-faced bastard's predilection for grandeur.' Hermione had slunk around back, remaining outside, but he could see her through a hole in the mausoleum's wall. Her brown hair was slung up in a now messy bun, her incessantly wild hair spilling out of it, cascading around her features like a sodding duelist after a dozen back-to-back matches with the Death Eaters' finest.

You could have her Harry….

For a second Harry's eyes snapped to her, watching, following the movement of her wand as she lifted it, a stream of magic spilling from its tip. Whatever spell she was doing she'd find it. Hermione was smart, powerful, beautiful…

It struck him that he was just standing there, staring at her when Black let out a snarl, grabbing him by the back of his jacket and giving him a shake. Harry snarled, but no words were said. Instead Sirius' ghost growled meaningfully, glaring first towards Hermione, then back at him.

Then with another rough shake he let him go.

Harry realized with a deflated fucking feeling exactly why.

Inside his mind the horcrux laughed. Harry cussed at it, making a mental note to never tell Ron he'd been ogling his girl.

It was like a long, slow chill was slithering across his skin. It caressed his mind, Harry able to feel it, his heart thundering at the idea that Tonks, Kaylens, Dumbleodre and Lupin were out there alone. He tried to focus. He tried. Standing in the center of the decimated mausoleum, rubble all around him, his gaze moved around, sighting upon the coffin he and Kaylens had hidden within. Sighting upon the burnt remains of her shirt. Sighting upon the ground where he'd physically taken her.

Where he'd hurt her. Tried to suffocate her. Made her bleed. Made love to her – if he could even call it that…

"It smells," Black said, "like piss in here."

Harry ignored that. The coffin labelled Hazel Ross lay wide open, a strange contraption inside of it, looking like it had once held two types of liquids that had mixed before becoming aerosolized, but other than that…

There was nothing.

Just an empty, old coffin.

Harry's pulse thundered loudly within his ears.

"It's not here," Black drawled, looking around the crypt with a sneer.

Harry clenched his eyes, gritting his teeth. "It is. I can feel it."

Sirius' ghost merely inclined an eyebrow. "That case 'oh horcrux detector', better detect."

In the distance something exploded, a whole new icening of his blood happening given he didn't know who the hell it was from: Dumbledore and Lupin or Tonks and Kaylens. He had no way of knowing within the mausoleum's walls and he wouldn't fucking lose her again. He wasn't going to lose anyone.

They needed to hurry.

Harry wrapped his fingers around a partially collapsed concrete shelf and clenched. "It's got to be in here…" It was quiet. Too quiet. As McGonagall shifted through rubble tiny stones could be heard clattering to the ground. Water from snowmelt could be heard trickling beneath them, through the grate he'd pissed through earlier. Every so often a distant growl could be heard.

McGonagall stood up and sighed. "We have already searched, Mr. Potter. Nothing showed up with Regulus' detection spells. Perhaps-"

"It wouldn't. The Dark Lord is smarter than that," Black cut her off, but his eyes remained on Harry. "Potter, close your eyes, stop thinking with your libido, and let that sadistic thing speak to you."

McGonagall's green eyes narrowed contemplatively. "Regulus, I hardly think encouraging a student to speak with a dark object is appropriate."

Harry clenched his eyes shut. "Open to suggestions, Professor."

"Don't worry," Black said, "I'll hex him unconscious if it takes him over." He fingered his wand rather eagerly.

Both Harry and McGonagall shot him a look.

Outside Hermione was looking between the ground and the retaining wall. "Harry, when you first started to…" she seemed to be searching for a mannerly wording.

"Want to jump Kaylens?" Harry bit.

She winced, politely rephrasing, "Feel its effects…were you inside already or out here?"

Harry stared at her through the hole in the wall. "Outside." Swallowing, "Right outside." Kally had thought he hadn't wanted her. She'd been insecure. So insecure he'd lost it. Grabbed onto her. Kissed her. Even though he should have known because of all the things Kaylens was, insecure was never one of them.

Through the hole he saw Hermione purse her lips thoughtfully. Then the brightest witch of her age turned away from the retaining wall and looked down at the ground. "If the horcrux isn't in the mausoleum then maybe…" Brown eyes flickered up, meeting his through the gap in the stonework.

It took Harry a second.

It took him another second.

It took him longer than he was proud of.

Riddle hadn't put Hazel in the mausoleum.

She didn't have a grave listing because she didn't have a marked grave.

But he had buried her.

Suddenly everything clicked. "Holy shit."

Harry glanced down at the concrete flooring, the ground outside all covered in it beneath the layers of snow and ice, and without thinking he sat down on the ground, sticking his ear against it.

Then he closed his eyes and waited.

"Harrrrrryyy…."


ECOTS


"Is that the same one!?"

"Do I look like a gargoyle expert to you?!"

Tonks and Kalliandra skidded across the ice, sliding bodily into the retaining wall that held dirt back from the recessed crypts with loud oomphs. Dirt and snow flaked down. Another gargoyle had landed on the sadistic snow globe and had begun stalking them from above. With glee.

They might as well be gerbils trapped in a cage, with a cat on top of the wire mesh lid.

Tonks' head shot up to track it. Yes. The gargoyle was, in fact, still stalking them from above. She had half a mind to inform it that its stealth and concealment skills needed work, but realized gargoyle probably didn't need those kinds of skills. So instead hissed, "Doesn't look like this one has much of a dong on it does it? Actually it's got none. Must be a chick. Bet it's that other one's mate." She paused, before gleefully calling up to the stone edifice trying to kill them, "Good for you girl!"

Kalliandra clutched at her injured arm. "Jesus Christ, Tonks."

"Ah," the Auror said knowingly, "don't want to cheat on Harry by talking about another man." She gave her a decisive wink. "I gotcha. Loyal one you are-"

"Tonks!"

"Okay, okay." Tonks made a mental note to check Harry's girl for a proper sense of humor when in duress though. The Aurors ought to teach a class! Really, it was an essential skill in battle. Who wanted to die in a foul mood after all?

Then again there was the small, tiny, miniscule matter at hand: they were in a labyrinth of recessed crypts with a snow globe shield charm above them, and while they could hide from the gargoyle trapped down under it they could not, in fact, hide from the one with the bird's eye view.

Kalliandra seemed to have the same concern. She dropped back into the alcove with her. "How the hell," Harry's girl hissed, shooting a malevolent look up, "are we supposed to shake that thing?"

"Tell her our gargoyle is better hung than hers so go see Dumble-"

Kally made a sound like an angered cat.

The thing in question slobbered frothily on the shield.

Tonks couldn't help it; she smirked.

"What about Remus?"

Tonks' smirk disappeared. In the distance they could see flashes of light, evidence of Dumbledore and Remus putting up a fight. Which was strange, because-

"If both gargoyles are here," Kalliandra panted, "then what is all of that?" Harry's girl glanced at her. "There were only supposed to be two gargoyles, Tonks."

"Well, you know Remus," she tried with forced airiness, "always making friends…"

Kally clutched at her arm and cussed.

"Atta girl, now you sound like a proper Auror," Tonks said automatically, worried about Remus and Dumbledore. They'd come there with Goliath. There were only two gargoyles in Highgate. They shouldn't be having this problem.

A headstone suddenly flew up, into the air, tossed high above the willowy treetops, as if to emphasize her point.

Tonks gulped and shot a worried look at Kalliandra. The girl's arm had been cut, and cut deep. Tonks had conjured bandages and did several fun, Auror-standard clotting charms, but the girl was still covered in blood. Literally. Arterial spurtage wasn't something to joke about. Granted they'd stopped it and pressure-bandaged that shit but still

Overhead the she-goyle growled. Tonks ignored this and drummed her fingers along her wand in silent thought. It was an old Auror trick to keep herself calm and grounded when shit was hitting the literal fan. Or, in their case, headstones hitting trees. They had a she-goyle perched above them, an injured Kalliandra below, and the male gargoyle could probably see where the she-goyle was at just by looking up even if he couldn't quite fit through the little alleyways to actually follow them.

It was only a matter of time until he started bowling through the crypts, tearing apart caskets, and sending pieces of legs, coffins, bad hip replacements and old, overly formal burial wigs flying.

Not to mention Kalliandra was pale, looking tired, and covered in blood. Mr. Hung-Like-A-Champ could probably follow her scent.

Harry was really going to lose his shit when they got back. Maybe Tonks could hide her till she got cleaned up a bit…

Tonks gave Kalliandra a minute to catch her breath, the weakening barrier glowing an aberrant blue above them. The combined sounds of their breathing seemed loud in the night.

They'd been doing fine in their hiding spot between mausoleums until about a hundred and eighty seconds ago. Then the she-goyle had slammed bodily into the barrier above them, snarling and swiping at the blue construct, sending cracks and fissures rippling through it.

So they had done what any reasonable pair of witches would do: ran like there was a sale at Quality Quiddith.

Kally's hair hung haphazardly in her face, the girl hissing a breath that sent her long bangs blowing out of her eyes. "Seriously, if this is the other gargoyle," she whispered, "then what happened to Remus and Dumbledore? Weren't they getting attacked by this one-"

"I'm sure they're fine," Tonks said none-too-convincingly. Her short pink hair rapidly shifted to white to help her blend into the snowy backdrop. "I mean it's just a couple thousand pounds of angry, solid rock. It couldn't do too much damage to them."

The look Harry's girl shot her could have levelled buildings.

Tonks gave a little shrug. "What? Auror academy teaches us to lie to keep the less trained people calm and-"

"Tonks!"

"Alright, alright."

Around the corner something crunched.

Then crunched again.

Tonks closed her eyes and swore to Circe that it better not be what she thought it was.

Then she poked her head out of the alcove, just in time to see the first gargoyle – the one hung like a literal champion – squeeze its head around the corner.

Yes. It was exactly what she'd feared it was.

Tonks wound up face to face with it.

Inches from her face it let out a snarl, Tonks wincing as her white hair was blown back. Spittle dotted her face from its leaking nose. Shit. This thing had a sodding cold.

Then, despite the narrow alley, despite the fact that it was barely able to fit, despite the laws of physics the thing tried to lunge. There was a loud, scraping grating that ripped through the air, its shoulders scraping the mausoleums on either side of it. It snarled and kicked up snow as its feet tried to propel it forward through the opening.

Tonks stood her ground and watched as it got decidedly stuck.

The gargoyle didn't move. It just snarled. Its large body had gotten stuck in the narrow alley. It fixed her with a red-eyed, black look.

Tonks choked on a relieved laugh, stumbling back a half step and right into Kalliandra. The girl had wisely been preparing to run. "How the hell did it get back here?" Kalliandra hissed.

The gargoyle let out a roar, snarling, squirming, struggling. All four of its legs ran in place. It was so animated that its dong literally swung back and forth, scraping loudly against the snow like a pendulum. Tonks mentally deemed it Champ.

Tonks responded with another outrageous laugh. "He seems a bit angry, doesn't he?" Fixing her attention back on the struck gargoyle, she said kindly, "Sex life isn't it? You poor dear. It's mating season and all and the she-goyle just isn't giving it up is she?" She tisked sympathetically.

Kalliandra beganswearing.

Tonks ignored this, waving her hand as if discussing such things were perfectly normal. "What? I'm just saying…he wouldn't be walking around with that dragging around all erect if he was perfectly satisfied and shit was proper now would he?" She frowned, as if concerned. "You know Champ – can I call you Champ? Maybe get her flowers? Do gargoyles like flowers?" She glanced up at the gargoyle snarling overhead. "Do you?"

Once more Harry's girl swore.

"Have you considered just taking him on a little getaway? You know, mix it up a bit? Perhaps to the other side of the cemetery? For like an hour?" Tonks was addressing the she-goyle above them, her neck craned back to look at her unamused snarl. "I promise we'll behave while you two are gone sorting things out…."

That second bloodthirsty gargoyle, the one that clearly needed flowers, ignored Tonks attempt at counseling and slammed its claw yet again into the barrier above them.

And this time the entire thing cracked, shattering with a resounding BOOM.

Well, it had been worth a try.

Kalliandra let out an ear-piercing scream.

Tonks grabbed Kally's sleeve and started to run, right as Champ used every bit of brute strength his sculptor had given him to burst through the narrow passage, his stone shoulders pulverizing the mausoleums on either side to pieces.

Tonks realized, in that moment, that Kingsley may have had a point about 'not taunting your enemy' on account it could bite you in the ass.

Literally.

The backs of her pants dangled out of Champs' teeth, the creature having just missed her.


ECOTS


BOOM!

Even in the ruined mausoleum Harry heard it. His head jerked up, breathing hard, scar burning as he growled out, "What the hell was that?"

Black's head had already whipped around, staring out one of the many holes in the mausoleum of fun's walls. "Let us worry about that," he said, as if distracted. "You two…dig!"

Then with a whirl of robes he and McGonagall were gone. Harry stared after them, outright gaping. "Did they just leave us with a chunk of Voldemort's soul like it was no big deal and tell us to dig through concrete?"

"Yes," Hermione said, stepping over a pile of stones and into the crypt. "In their defense," outside something crashed, Hermione wincing, "you are getting rather used to this sort of thing though, now aren't you?"

Harry shot her a look.

Hermione just shrugged, her brown eyes squinting at where he was, on all fours, on the ground. "Well then…it's under the floor, isn't it?"

Harry could still hear it whispering in the back of his mind. "Yeah."

His best friend stood there for a moment, her hands hanging at her sides. They were curled into tight fists, her lips drawn into a thin, thoughtful line. Had Harry not known better, he'd have thought she looked scared. "Okay." She sucked in a sudden, quick breath. "Okay. So…" she looked around the crypt, spotting the sewer grate. "We just need to go through there and…and fetch it." She took a step, only for a piece of Kaylens' torn up and burnt jumper to catch around her shoe.

She nearly tripped, would have had Harry not jerked to his knees, grabbing Hermione by the waist to catch her.

Her waist smacked against his face, Harry mumbling a muffled apology into her jacket. Hermione had grabbed his shoulders, nails digging through his jacket and into the bare skin beneath.

That made sense, since Kally was wearing his shirt. She was wearing his shirt because he'd taken hers off her and accidentally burnt it.

His heart thundered dangerously at the memory.

"Thanks, Harry," Hermione said, ripping him from the thought. She let him go, shaking her foot, trying to get the tangling fabric off it. "That would have been brilliant," she muttered wryly. "Smartest witch in her house trips and smacks her face on a coffin. Promise me if I go out like that you won't let my headstone say that?" She shook her head, glancing down at him with a faint smile. She still had him by the shoulders, and Harry had her by the waist.

Her hands lingered there a second too long, and so did his. Harry gulped, awkwardly. He released her as if singed. "Er…sure." He had never had Hermione's hips in his face like that. But she smelled nice.

Hermione had gone slightly pink, and quickly glanced at what she'd nearly tripped on. Her eyes widened as she realized what it was. "Is that Kally's shir-" she glanced at him, her brown eyes sliding slowly down to the slip of bare skin that could be seen peeking out just above his jacket's zipper, where a shirt ought to be. He was clearly missing it.

Her lips instantly formed into an O. "Oh…"

Sometimes he hated having a best friend that was this smart.

Harry rubbed at the back of his neck awkwardly. "Hermione can we just pretend-"

"Harry please tell me you two weren't-"

He groaned. "Don't you think there are more pressing matters than what Kaylens and I did or did not do tonight? Besides I thought you'd already figured that out."

Hermione just stared at him as if he'd committed some atrocity. "I thought you were exaggerating to irritate Black, or-or-Harry, you surely know you can't just go around sleeping with random-"

"Kaylens is not random," he snapped, a surge of annoyance flaring.

Within the crypt something insidious throbbed. It slid out across the two teenagers, sliding across their skin like oil.

The calm reason that practically defined Hermione Granger slid out of her eyes. "Okay, perhaps she isn't random. How about just another number, then?" She held up a hand and began ticking her fingers up. "Pavarti. Cho. Ginny-"

"I never touched Ginny!"

She rolled her eyes. "Then Kalliandra. Who's next, Harry? Luna?"

"Don't," he said dangerously, getting to his feet, "talk about Luna that way."

Every centimeter of Hermione's pretty face had screwed into an expression of utmost confusion. "Like what?" She paused. "Honestly Harry, it's not like we can tell what she's even talking about half the time anyway. What does it matter?"

"It matters," he said, "to me."

"Awfully defensive of someone who isn't on your snogging list, Harry."

"Well at least I take my nose out of books long enough to know how."

Hermione met his annoyed gaze with a steady stare. "Kally aware of that? Sounds like she's got some competition."

"Like hell she does." He paused, taking a step towards her. "I'm going to marry her, Hermione. I'm not marrying, Luna, or Ginny, or anyone else."

Hermione's mouth fell open and flapped. "You can't-you can't be serious."

"Try me."

"You're sixtee-"

"Time traveler. Almost eighteen, actually."

Hermione's full lips parted, looking stunned.

"What's the matter, 'Mione?" he bit, sounding dangerously reminiscent of Ron. "Jealous?" He pressed closer to her, backing her up against the shelving. Her back bumped up against a section of collapsed stone with a quiet hiss.

"What on earth would I have to be jealous of?"

He leaned down, mouth dangerously close to hers. "Oh…I think you know." Somewhere in the back of Harry's mind something screamed that this wasn't like Hermione. This wasn't like him. He ignored it without realizing he was even doing it. He grabbed onto a piece of stone behind her and smirked. "All those late night study sessions when Ron wasn't there? Helping me when Ron was being an asshole? Would a friend really invest that much time?" Waiting, so close he could feel Hermione's breaths against his face, he pressed, "Really Hermione, always taking my side? Honestly, you're the one who's not fooling anyone…"

Hermione slapped him. Hard. He just winced, tilting his head at her and raising a challenging eyebrow. "Can't help but notice you didn't disagree."

Hermione simply hissed at him. "Oh yes, of course. What was I thinking? I'm just so eager to bag the arrogant Boy-With-The-Inflated-Ego."

"Oh I don't know," he challenged, "you were rather eager to see what was in Bulgaria's star Seeker's bags. Maybe Skeeter was right. Maybe you are just nothing more than a fame-followin-"

Harry got slapped again. "How dare you! I'm not the one stripping and then burning my bed-mates clothi-"

He cut her off. "Alright Miss-I-Did-Viktor-Krum. How about I don't judge you nailing a Death Eater and you don't judge me screwing on top of a horcrux, alright?"

"I told you that in confidence!"

"We're in private," he argued churlishly. "Just you, and me, and that homicidal piece of stone."

The angel statue looked on with no expression.

Hermione's mouth dropped, looking like she was ready to slap him again, only she suddenly stopped. Harry was pressing close to her, eyeing her defiantly, only Hermione….

Hermione had closed her eyes, her arms rising and getting in between their bodies. She was rubbing at her face. "Harry…" she sounded choked. "Harry it's the horcrux. This-this isn't us."

He glared at her for perhaps a second longer than he needed to, still pissed she had a nice waist and had implied Kaylens was random. Implied that Luna wasn't worth it. Implied-

Implied they were being manipulated.

The hate abruptly evaporated form his eyes. Harry jerked back, away from her. She was right. Trust Hermione to be right. She was still standing there, her eyes squeezed closed, not looking at him.

She was also trembling.

Harry's brow creased, taking a step towards her. "Hermione are you alrig-"

Her hand shot up, palm flat to keep him at a distance. "Yes, just…" Her cheeks flamed and she refused to look at him. "It's nothing Harry. It's the horcurx, but you really, really need to not touch me right now, okay?"

It took Harry a second to realize why.

It also took him a second to realize he had been dangerously close to snogging her.

Fuck.

Without a word he reached around her, picked up a loose chunk of rock, shot her a casual yet strained grin, and then turned around.

Then he promptly began beating it against the sewer grate's bars with enough force and violence that one snapped inwards on the third try. It clanged down into a deceptively large underground tunnel, a trickle of snow melt flowing down it, hopefully having cleared his piss away. He made a gallant gesture at it. "Ladies first."


ECOTS


"I bloody HATE gargoyles!"

Behind and above them the creatures roared. Kally winced. "I think the feeling is mutual!" The two twisted past a wrought iron fence and squeezed sideways through a foot wide passage in an attempt to lose them. A piece of ice scraped against Kally's face, the cut stinging and causing her to hiss as they emerged on the other side.

The crypts they had just squeezed past exploded. Literally. That was unsurprising. After all, things tended to explode outwards when giant battering rams slammed into them. Only in this case the battering ram was the gargoyle and the 'thing' being destroyed was priceless cemetery architecture.

A part of Kally winced as a cherub went whizzing past her head, embedding itself with deadly force into the retaining wall.

"DOWN THERE!"

Tonks' voice shot out like a bullet, cracking through the night as they skidded across the ice, slipping and sliding as they dodged between the labyrinth of crypts and claws. The Auror was wielding her wand like a mad woman and her hair had turned half-pink and half-white, as if she were too engaged to pay attention to what was happening on her head.

"Expulso!"

Kally had enough time to see the flash of red, the spell lancing out at the sewer grate meters ahead of them, and then everything exploded in a frenzy of concrete dust and ice.

A metal bar that had covered the sewer grate whizzed past, missing their heads by inches, impaled in the crypt next to them.

Another metal bar impaled itself in the gargoyle's neck that was chasing them.

It really hadn't liked that.

And then the other gargoyle lashed out a paw, smacking Tonks, who was bodily thrown into her.

In the upheaval of sky, ground, gargoyle, snow and dust Kalliandra slammed into the ground, skidded uncontrollably on ice, before the ground disappeared beneath her. She fell down and landed with a heavy thud in icy water. Coughing, spluttering, she shoved herself up only to smack her head on a low ceiling. "Ow!"

Above her she heard pounding, snarling sounds.

Kally blinked, vision a bit blurred, ears buzzing from the force of Tonks' exploding hex. She shoved her palms down and tried to move again, her fingers touching around a metal rod, one that bore scorch marks at one end. It'd clearly been blasted off, a part of the sewer grate. Kally blinked at it in the dim lighting. Hell, she flat out stared before looking down the tunnel. It was narrow, it was not high – at best she could maybe crawl on her hands and knees - and it was full of debris. In her immediate area she could see a cherub head, a broken off cross, and several metal rods.

She'd fallen into the drainage system.

Tonks had blown a hole in the ground near the grate. When that gargoyle had played ping pong with them it'd knocked Kally unwittingly underground. Which meant-

Kally jerked up and hit her head again, cussing and shouting, "TONKS!"

As if on cue Tonks fell through the hole in the ground, splashing down into the snowmelt behind her. Tonks scrambled to wedge herself up tightly alongside her. Kally had a half second to gape at the Auror, who had blood freely dripping down her entire face, before the ceiling caved down in front of them.

Concrete and snow fell down, a gargoyle's head following.

Alongside her Tonks groaned. "Not him again."

It opened its mouth and snarled, spittle flying and coating their faces.

Tonks let out a manic, clearly concussed laugh.

Kally grabbed the cross and shoved it directly into the thing's eye.

It screamed; it also disappeared from the hole.

Tonks guffawed. "You stabbed it with one of those Muggle holy symbols."

Kally was glancing behind them. There was a hole to the surface there, and one in front of them. If both gargoyles got on either side they'd be sitting ducks. "It was the first thing I could grab," she hissed.

Tonks just snickered. "Bet you're going to hell for that one. Better tell, Harry."

Kally hissed. Her hand lashed out at Tonks, tugging her shirt and hissing, "Go!"

And they began crawling, not a moment too soon. A claw lashed out into the drainage network, narrowly grazing Kally's foot as they tried to hurry. Water trickled past beneath them, soaking her clothes, and she kept urging Tonks forward by quite literally smacking her leg.

"Merlin mercy, you're a demanding one," Tonks griped, stopping and sniffing suddenly. "You know…it smells like piss down here."

Kally's lips parted to hiss something annoyed, only to stop. Think.

Then Kally closed her eyes, realizing she was literally crawling through her boyfriend's urine.

"God damn't, Potter."


ECOTS


"I really, really hate you, Harry."

Behind her Harry rolled his eyes. "No you don't."

"Yes," his best friend responded, knocking aside a dead rat, "I do." She whimpered as the body rolled over into the water and began to float on the scant centimeters of water they were crawling through. "Merlin that is disgusting."

Flat on his stomach, he quirked an eyebrow, even though she couldn't see it. "We're in a drainage tunnel. What'd you expect?"

She ignored him. "I hate you," she continued, "because if you hadn't gone and done something overly brash and stupidly noble again-"

"I think the word you're looking for is brave."

"-then you wouldn't have lost your magic and then you could be leading."

The rat floated ahead, and Harry realized she might have a point about this. "Look, I'll plead forgiveness for being a crap friend later, alright?" he said, scar throbbing. Hermione was crawling ahead, her wand in one hand with a light coming out of it. "But-"

"Save it, Harry."

There she went again, sounding uncannily like Ron.

"This entire drainage is wrong, Harry. Surface water drains are designed to remove rain and snowmelt from impervious surfaces, but in a cemetery like this… drainage should be only be a quarter of a meter deep and wide at most, not like this."

And there she went, sounding like Hermione again.

Harry grunted, army crawling behind her. "Do I even want to know why you know that?"

"I'm an educated citizen, Harry and think about storm water runoff and the potential repercussions if our current infrastructure isn't designed to properly accommodate our average annual water volume." She paused at where a cascade of water fell down like a thin veil of water, like a miniscule underground waterfall, and sighed. "In case you were wondering, London's design needs work." Turning her wand on herself she muttered, "Impervio," before twisting around to look back at him, pointing her wand right at him and saying the exact same thing.

The spell hit him and instantly Harry felt all the water he was crawling through stop soaking his clothes.

Hermione crawled through the waterfall without incident, emerging on the other side fairly dry. Harry was left gaping. "Why didn't you do that before we started crawling in water and got soaked?"

"Didn't think of it!" she called back, guilelessly.

He was left with no option other than to sputter.

She shot him a look down the tunnel. "I'm sorry, Harry, but I was a bit more preoccupied by your er…" She stopped, and even in the dim light of her wand he could see she was blushing again.

Harry looked at her through the thin veil of water and offered a forced smile. "Just the horcrux, Hermione. It does all kind of sadistic shit to you."

"You make it sound like a poorly behaved pup."

"It kind of is."

"Harry, you almost snogged me."

"Ah, that. You're still mad?"

She hissed in exasperation. "No! Of course not I was just as bad but…" She just shook her head, dropped the subject and started crawling again, but Harry didn't miss how she continued to worry on her lower lip.

With a sigh Harry crawled through the waterfall after her. The water didn't soak his hair to his head or his clothes any worse than they already were though. Instead the droplets bounced off him like oil on water, the sensation tickling him.

They continued crawling through the drainage pipe, every muscle in him tense as he tried to feel or hear the horcrux. The pipe seemed to have taken them away from the mausoleum though, before curving back around, but hell if he knew in what direction. Possibly back the way they came? He wasn't sure.

He did run headfirst into Hermione's shoe when she suddenly stopped. "Ow," he muttered, rubbing at his head.

Hermione ignored this. Instead she just shifted, squirming awkwardly, Harry flat out looking away to avoid looking directly at his best friend's ass. He grasped what he'd told Hermione but he could still hear the horcrux in the back of his mind, telling him that Hermione was special; that she was the smartest witch of her age; that she'd be a true prize for the taking.

Not to mention she was shapely with full, pink lips and classic features and that was something he'd never wanted to think about before.

When this was over he was going to take great, great pleasure in destroying that thing.

All the splashing and movement in front of him suddenly stopped. Harry chanced cracking an eye to see what was happening, only Hermione was gone.

He panicked. "HERMIONE!" He crawled, quickly, scrambling forward a few meters-

The floor dropped out from under him and he tumbled into a chamber. Landing flat on his back, wind knocked out of him he coughed, heavily. Then he rolled over and let out a groan, spotting Hermione's shoes. "Thanks," he wheezed, "for the warning."

"You're welcome," she said guilelessly.

He shoved himself gingerly up. "Not mad my ass."

Thanks to Fawkes and Dumbledore's meddling Harry didn't miss slight smirk on Hermione's face, even in the relative dark. He made a mental note that Hermione extracted revenge subtly and creatively. She was looking around, stepping closer to the center of the room as he shook out his sleeves, slinging water everywhere.

He found himself in a small, circular room. There were four drainage pipes leading out of it, set about a meter and a half up the walls, one of which Harry had just tumbled out of. Water flowed out of three of the four in slow trickles, the streams sliding down the room's slanted flooring towards the center.

What made it weird were the torches lining the walls, symbols etched on the bricks and stones. It looked like it had been made out of different materials at different points in time, and poorly at that. The symbols though…they looked like ancient runes.

Harry frowned. "Where exactly are we?"

His scar throbbed.

Hermione's voice was quiet. "Underground," she said. "Obviously."

He shot her a look.

Hermione wasn't looking at him though. She had taken four steps forwards, her eyes transfixed to something he didn't see. Her lips were parted, the lower one trembling.

Harry froze, mid-sleeve ringing.

A look of fear was on Hermione's face. Her wand hand had fallen, the light at the end of it dimming so there was barely anything for her to see by. The lumos charm flickered dangerously, as if thinking about extinguishing, but the dim light that remained…

It was directed downwards.

Harry looked at her and then looked at where her wand's light spilled forth. They both stood near the outskirts of the small, circular chamber. The middle of which was dropped out, and that...was where her wand light spilled.

Hermione just lifted a finger and pointed down.

Glancing back at the pipe he'd tumbled out of, Harry grimaced. Then he walked, cautiously towards her.

That was when he heard it.

It scraped. It rubbed, like a metallic link being dragged against rock, and as Harry took one final step to stand beside her, he saw that was exactly what it was.

Below them, in a six foot deep, hollowed out portion of stone, lay a girl. Three rivulets of water dribbled down the lichen covered stone, the dirty snowmelt trickling onto her, before draining away down four holes. Iron chains were attached to the girl's wrists and ankles like shackles, rusted to the point of corrosion. One had broken away from her skeletal like foot, and lay against the stone. Scraps of cloth clung to her. Clothing reduced to mere strips, her bones visible beneath the chains, the skin that remained stretched out like leather upon her. The girl let out a shallow, rasping breath, her wrist moving ever-so-slightly as her fingers stroked the wall. It was almost as if this simple, weak gesture comforted her.

It was with horror that Harry realized the wall had indents where her fingers had worn away the rock. It was a mark of wear over time, of how very long she had been doing this.

And with each stroke the shackle on her wrist scraped against the stone.

This…this was the quiet dragging, scrape he'd heard.

Something inside Harry clenched as he realized. She was clearly dead; she was clearly not.

Shadows flickered, the dim light of Hermione's wand shaking as his friend's hand shook. The remains below didn't notice. Instead the girl let out a rasp, her tongue flicking out from between grayed lips, it attempting to lick the water as it rolled past her downturned face, on the floor of her prison. An act of someone desperate for a small bit of relief from perpetual hell, and as her tongue licked out…

Her tongue was blackened.

"Oh God…"

Hermione stumbled back, away from the pit. The girl below heard her, and with a rasping wheeze turned her head. Her neck made a crunching sound, the witch looking up.

Harry saw her face for the first time.

The eyes were hollowed out, the skin beneath them darkened with shadow, the rest of her face flaccid and gray. Her cheekbones were sunken in, the shape of her skull literally revealed. A piece of her jaw bone was fully visible, showing beneath a flap of tissue. The shape of it was impossibly familiar, bile rising, yet Harry…

Harry could not look away.

It was because of the eyes.

Golden eyes peered up at him.

Golden, hazel colored eyes.

A hissing filled his head as he looked into them, utterly incapable of looking away. But there was nothing there. The eyes stared blindly. The girl had ceased being able to see a long, long time ago, yet they were housed in a face so familiar he felt ready to vomit.

Her eyes darted up, as if looking for the source of the sound.

Around her neck hung a locket.

Harry had seen that locket before. It had been in a picture, hung from a young girl's neck. Hazel Scott.

A rasping, wheezing voice carried out of her mouth. Her throat had been partially rotted away, and Harry surmised that her vocal chords no longer fully worked. The corpse that had once been a person tried anyway. Rotted teeth were revealed around her blackened, decaying tongue, the rasping sound an affront to nature. It chilled him down to his very marrow, the noise…cutting into his blood, his psyche, Hermione whimpering as it hurt her too.

"Harrrrrry."

He was unaware of the choking sound he made. He was unaware that he had taken a step closer to the edge. He was unaware that Hermione had grabbed him, dragging him forcibly back from the edge, choking his name.

Harry fell back against the wall, Hermione next to him, his friend clinging to his arm and shaking. Harry stared sightlessly ahead, a cold, cruel toxin slithering through his veins as he realized what Voldemort had done.

"He-he turned her into a-an-an-" Hermione sounded like she was grasping for logic, for an explanation.

There was none.

Harry just slumped there, against the stone, water dripping down on him and sliding right off from Hermione's imperturbable charm. He could still hear Hazel calling to him, hear the horcrux in his mind. It rasped. It said his name. Over and over. Harry's stomach churned as if he'd ingested poison. "The horcrux," he ground. "The horcrux, it…it did this to her." To Hazel Scott. To the girl that looked like Kally.

His Kally.

His head hurt; his scar burned.

At some point Hermione had slid down the wall, now sitting. Harry joined her. Neither spoke. They just sat there for a long, long time. Hermione's fingers dug into his arm, Harry's hand lifting and dropping over hers, clasping onto hers hard. At some point he realized that Hermione was hyperventilating, leaking tears from her eyes.

He hated this.

He could still hear her.

Horcruxes were insidious. They had a way of getting inside of your head. They could turn you against your best friend. They could twist your base motivations, desires. They could convince you to kill for fun.

And apparently they could keep the dead in suspended animation, if the circumstances were right.

The chamber's cold floor seeped up into him, chilling him down to his spine.

He could still see Mrs. Scott and her husband-turned-dog, sitting there on that overly comfortable couch.

"Thomas gave her a locket for her sixteenth birthday. They'd had a bit of a falling out before…I always thought it was such a sweet apology."

Helga Scott's words swam back inside his head, Harry choking, "Riddle. He-he gave her that locket. To power the fucking horcrux up," he choked down a swallow. "Before he killed her."

Hermione made an upset sound.

"They began dating not long after that, and not long after that…she died."

Riddle had strangled Hazel, suffocating her.

"How could he?" Hermione choked. "He-he's a monster!"

Harry grabbed clumsily onto Hermione's hand, trying to hold it tighter.

He'd nearly killed Kaylens. He'd tried to suffocate her in that crypt, getting off on it. The thrill he'd had as she'd started to go limp. He'd been driven by that thing¸ that locket strung from around the neck of what had once been Hazel Scott.

"She was so happy with him you see. She told us…he'd said he'd loved her. We thought he might…once they'd graduated…"

Hermione's wand light flickered out, his best friend letting out a whimper. Harry's stomach almost revolted. Hermione's did. In the dark his eyes adjusted, Fawkes allowing him to see as she leaned over and got sick. His head jerked towards her, staring blankly as she wretched. Hell of it was she didn't let go of his hand. This, more than anything, shook him from his momentary catatonia. Harry gave it a quick shake to try to free himself, but she just tightened her fingers around him with the strength of a constrictor, whimpering again.

Hermione never whimpered. Ever.

So there, in the dark, Harry did the only thing he could do: he let his friend vomit while holding her hand. "Oh God…" she choked again, bent over the stone, her long, dark hair hanging in ringlets.

Harry's mouth had gone remarkably dry. "I told you," he muttered hollowly, "God's got nothing to do with this."

Hermione wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, sitting up and breathing shakily. "Yeah…yes, I suppose…I suppose you're right." She fumbled for her wand, managing a weak, "Scourgify," at the mess. A moment later her wand light flickered unsteadily, as if trying to light up the room and failing. The gray, unfeeling stones that made up the room came back into view.

Harry felt a fog in his mind. It was raw and pained. A slow burning, insidious anger lurked within it.

Hermione fell back against his side, Harry unconsciously shifting to let her. She let out a stifled sob, the quiet scratching still heard. It was suddenly loud in the chamber, as if, despite the rotted off ears, it had heard them. Somehow the sound was worse, now that they knew what it was.

Harry took Hermione's hand and laced his fingers between hers, tightening them. Hermione tightened hers back. They both stared at the hole in the ground, the pit, hearts in their throats.

"Harry," she said, grasping for a sense of reason, "what do we do?"

He shook his head. He knew what they had to do; he just didn't want to voice it. The horcrux, the girl…they had to kill them both. He turned his head to look at her, sucking in a breath to tell her-

Hermione's tongue darted out, the tip touching her lips, wetting them slightly.

Harry stared. He stared, previously unaware of how close they'd gotten. Sitting together, like this…they'd done it a million times before.

Hermione was upset.

Warm brown eyes, wet with upset looked up at him.

Without thinking Harry's hand found her chin, cupping it, pressing closer. Something insidious whispered within his mind again, latching on like an unhealthy lover. It'd been waiting for the right moment, that second of a dropped guard. It had it. "Hermione…" he muttered. "It'll be okay."

She looked up at him, the witch trembling. "No," she countered, "it won't."

He breathed. Just breathed. "You're right."

There was no lying about it. She was right. Hazel Scott was dead. She'd been murdered, tortured for not just moments but decades. The fog in his mind urged him to make Hermione forget about it, to help her. He hovered for a hollow second, forgetting where they were, what they should be doing, the horror of it. He felt Hermione's breathing growing ragged, his friend shifting, the nerves on his lips on fire with how wrong this was and yet he was still doing it. She was brilliant…he could have her…

The voice inside his head encouraged him, told him it was alright. He could have her, kill her, use her….

Harry's lips brushed Hermione's…

There was no tingling. No aberrant sensation. Nothing.

Kally.

Harry's eyes shot open, staring at the brown ones that had just done the same.

At that premise moment they heard noise in one of the other pipes, Harry's head jerking up right as more light spilled into the shadowy chamber, Tonks shoving a half-pink and half-white head out of the pipe, grinning dazedly at them. "Wotcher Harry, Hermione." She looked between the two of them. For all of Tonks' faults she was still an Auror. She could read people. She had already caught sight of their positioning, of how close they were, and her eyes went wide. "Ohhhhh. Was snogging afoot?"

And then, with all the grace that Tonks normally exhibited, she fell straight out of the pipe and landed on the stone, just like he had five minutes earlier.

Harry dropped Hermione's hand as if he'd been scalded, jerking away so fast his best friend smacked against the wall. Hermione looked dazed, shaking her head and blinking as if in a stupor.

Tonks lay on her back, blood dripping from her forehead, and groaned.

Kally stuck her head out next, looking to make sure Tonks was alright, before glancing at where he and Hermione were.

The look on Kally's face was, for a second, confused.

And then it wasn't.

Harry's heart about fucking stopped. He dragged a hand through his hair and tried to remember how to breathe.

Something changed on Kaylens' face. He'd be hard pressed to pinpoint what, but something had. Kaylens lips parted, like she was letting out a stunned breath. Then they closed, something hurt and masked all at once was there. Her brow furrowed ever-so-slightly, something it didn't usually do.

Harry swallowed dryly and tried to think.

The horcrux in his mind just laughed. "Kal, I…"

He didn't get to finish. Tonks waved up at Kally to get her attention, like they were on some type of jovial jaunt, drawing his stricken girlfriend's attention down. Down towards where Tonks lay flat on her back, a pit behind her.

A pit Kalliandra was perfectly positioned to look directly down into.

He knew the exact instant she saw it.

Color drained away from her face, her breath sucking in. This time he heard it. He heard it despite the steady trickling of water. He saw the fear in her eyes. He saw her almost tremble.

Then he saw her steel herself, like she always did, and without a word his girlfriend climbed down, into the chamber.


ECOTS


Kally avoided Potter's gaze and the pit like the plague, crouching alongside Tonks and feeling like she had been stabbed, repeatedly. The outer ring of the chamber was safe. She couldn't see what she just had, even if her breaths were coming in a lot more shallow, quick. She could pretend she hadn't heard Tonks say what she did, and that she hadn't seen Potter and Hermione looking breathless and shoved apart like they had been, Hermione's cheeks pink like they always were when she was talking to Ron.

She didn't want to think about it.

She did manage to catch Tonks' hands, stopping the Auror from waving her wand about like a glow stick. She heard footsteps approaching from behind, not caring. "The gargoyle batted her," she said, not looking at whoever had approached. "I think she's concussed."

"I am not," Tonks argued, batting her away and sitting up on her own. "I was just startled to crawl in and find those two-" She waved a hand back and forth between Harry and Hermione, Kally closing her eyes and trying to dispel the completely sick feeling welling inside. Tonks stopped, frowning. "What'd I walk in on anyway?"

"Nothing. You didn't walk in on anything."

Potter's distinct voice had come from behind her, sounding tense.

Kally remained silent, eyeing Tonks with concern and pointedly avoiding Potter.

Tonks just rubbed her head. "You know there's mating gargoyles above us right? The male is not happy and I've had enough male-female drama for one night thank you." She touched a tender spot on her head, wincing. "As evidenced by the state of my noggin'."

"Yeah," Potter agreed, "she's definitely got a concussion. Again."

Tonks shot him a glare. "Don't worry, I'm used to them."

"How many can you exactly get before they stick you on desk duty again?"

Tonks scowled. Kally stared hard at the wall. Potter grimaced.

Hermione had remained on the opposite side of the pit, about as far away from the center of the room and them as she could get. Her eyes were squinted, the witch looking as if she were thinking about something extremely hard.

"Kally?"

She shot him a look over her shoulder.

To Potter's credit he actually flinched. "Look, now's not the time but whatever you're thinking just…just don't."

Her look turned scathing. "Oh I'm sure you know exactly what I'm thinking."

He sucked in a breath, as if irritated, his mouth opening to retort something only to stop. His eyes caught on the bandages on her upper arm, the blood covering half her shirt, the blood on her face. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing." She echoed his use of the word.

Concern flashed in Potter's eyes.

Tonks snorted derisively. "Piece of rock split open an artery and I'm not sure what she did to her face." The Auror glanced at her and lifted a finger, as if to poke at her blood smeared cheek-

Kally slapped her hand away.

Harry stood there, looking tense. "I left you alone for ten minutes."

"Yeah well," she bit, shoving herself back to her feet and meeting his eyes. "So did I." Her eyes shot towards Hermione then back to him, quirking a golden eyebrow and focusing on something she could somehow, oddly, handle. Thinking about even this was better than focusing on what she'd seen in the pit.

It was a mark for what kind of day she was having.

Tonks muttered something about teenagers, standing up and brushing her hands on her jeans. Kally just stood there, waiting.

Potter looked like he rather wanted to hit something. "Kaylens I told you, it's not what you-"

"Bloody hell! What-what in the bleeding hell is this!?"

Tonks had reached the edge of the pit and looked properly down for the first time since tumbling into the chamber, seeing the girl below.

Kally and Harry held each other's gazes for all of two more seconds, coming to a silent agreement to get back to this later. They both glanced towards where Tonks stood, an abject look of shock and sadness on her face.

The Auror slowly crouched down, her words nearly a whisper. "Merciful mother of Merlin, you poor thing. I'm so sorry…" Her head whipped up, looking between Harry and Hermione. "What do you two know about this?"

Silence fell across the room, Tonks looking suddenly a lot more alert.

Hermione spoke from across the room. Kally repressed the temptation to pick up a rock and throw it in the general vicinity of her head. "The locket is a horcrux, Tonks. We think…" the girl's brown eyes shot across the room, catching Kally's for a second. "We think Vo-Voldemort did something to her. She's obviously dead, but…the dark magic is keeping her alive somehow."

The Prefect sounded uncertain. Hermione never sounded uncertain.

Kally dragged a hand through her hair, her injured arm hanging limply at her side. This-this girl… "It's her, isn't it?" Her words were quiet, a near whisper. Only Tonks and Potter would have heard her.

Potter was the one who answered. "Yeah."

Kally didn't look over at him. She didn't look over at Hermione. She didn't look at Tonks. She just took several determined steps towards the edge of the pit, looked down, and felt every internal organ she had curl up and weep.

Hazel Scott lay at the bottom like a partially desiccated corpse.

That corpse was attempting to feebly move its hands, but the tendons and ligaments had worn away, snapping, the muscles decayed.

It was a long time before any of them spoke again. Potter had approached the edge, eyeing her awkwardly. Hermione had remained right where she was, leaning against the far wall, clearly not wanting to look again. To Tonks' credit, she had yet to move away from the pit's edge and appeared to be seriously assessing the situation, all traces of joviality gone.

The metamorphmagus sighed. "If that locket's a horcrux," she said with finality, "one of us has to go down to get it."

The three of them stood there, staring down.

"It will be trapped," Harry said.

Tonks' heart shaped face twisted determinedly. "Probably."

Kally bit down on her lower lip and let her eyes run along the walls of the pit. Water ran down three of the sides, slickening the rock, colorful lichen growing, taking root within the cracks in the stonework. "There's no easy way down."

Potter twisted his currently useless wand in hand. He kept a white knuckled grip on it anyway. "Any ideas?"

"Yeah," Tonks said. "Crawl back out the way we came. Grab some brooms. Fly to Tahiti. I heard it's nice this time of year."

The corpse that had once been a human wheezed.

Tonks swallowed audibly. "Rappel hook. Toss it down, hook the locket, reel it up like a fish on a wire."

Harry, Hermione and Kally all looked at her with identical looks of revulsion.

"It's attached to her neck, Tonks," Potter said, using the kind of tone ordinarily reserved for escaped psych ward patients.

Tonks glanced up. "And?"

"Without going down there to unlatch it you'd have to break her neck to get it off." Harry looked rather horrified.

"Well…she's already dead," Tonks said, frowning a little. "It's not like she's exactly using her neck right-"

"No."

Once again they all lapsed into silence. It was as if they had all come to the same, silent agreement that summoning it would not work and be more likely to set off magical traps than to help anything.

"There's lichen."

Now it was Tonks, Harry and Kally's turns to look at Hermione as if she were the insane one.

"Hermione," Harry tried, slowly and carefully, "you're going to have to give us a little more to go on."

The brunette met their gazes and shook her head. Her wand arm still hung limply down, the light aimed at the floor. "Lichen are composite organisms."

Three blank stares persisted.

She looked perplexed. "They require sunlight to grow and survive. There's no sun down here. So how did it grow?" The girl gestured at the ceiling, as if expecting to see a storm sewer grate or opening to the surface. Only there was none. The gesture threw shadows and shafts of light every which way. "We have to assume the dark magic is reanimating h-her-" she suddenly faltered. It took her a second, but she seemed to summon something from within, standing a little straighter, breathing, "It could affect anyone who goes down there too."

"I'll do it."

Kally glanced at Harry, finding him staring resolutely down into the pit, already crouching to assess his route.

"Actually…" Hermione chewed on her lower lip nervous. "I'm not sure that's a good idea, Harry."

The look Harry shot her was so dark it was a wonder she didn't burst into flames on the spot.

"It's just…the horcrux affects people badly, Harry. But…it seems to affect you worse. Especially considering…." Hermione looked fleetingly between him and her, Kally hissing an incensed breath as she realized what she was getting at. She shot Potter an angry look.

Potter didn't see it. He had closed his eyes and looked like he rather wanted to break something. "I swear I didn't say anything."

"Uh huh," she muttered. "Was that before or after whatever it was Tonks crawled in on?"

Potter looked like he'd been slapped. "Kal…"

"You do not get to call me that right now."

Green eyes fixed on with so much confliction she wanted to smack the look right out of him.

"I'll do it."

All three heads whipped towards Tonks, the Auror forcing a false, airy smile. "I'm the big bad Auror. All certified and shite. Just, you know," she conjured a rope out of the end of her wand, the thing falling down to coil heavily against the stonework, "yank me out if she tries to eat me."

Kally gaped.

The sound of iron dragging over stone filled the chamber, as if Hazel knew what they were planning.

It occurred to her that the corpse…that somehow, distantly, they were family.

She didn't have family.

"No," she said, voice weaker than she would have liked. "You're injured Tonks. I'll do it."

Tonks looked up from where the climbing rope had coiled like a snake. "That's sweet and all Kally-kins, but your arm is what we, in the Auror profession, like to call jacked."

Kally had already grabbed at the bandage and tugged it off, exposing a nasty, still healing gash. But…it was healing. She wasn't spurting blood everywhere. She wasn't going to bleed out.

Potter grunted unhappily at the sight.

"Well I'll be damned," Tonks said, looking mildly impressed. "Alright." She tossed the end of the rope down the pit then twirled her wand, sending the rope to wind around a large pipe, it winding into a knot. "Have at it. I'll cover you from here oh uni-blooded-freakazoid."

"No way in hell are you going down there alone." Every line of Potter's face was set grimly, his tone a gravelly grind. Kally glanced at him, startled by the force of his tone, but he just met her look with an unamused grimace.

"Harry," Hermione said again, "I don't think-"

"I won't hurt her." His gaze didn't leave hers. "Not Kaylens. Can't make any promises for what she might do to me, but…" It was a question, the wizard standing there, tilting his head in silent challenge.

Kally just blinked at him. "It's only three or four meters, Potter." It wasn't like she was about to side down into a bottomless pit of unfathomable depths.

He just quirked an eyebrow now, arms crossing over his chest, his jacket the only thing covering it.

Suddenly Kally was very cognizant of the fact that she was wearing his shirt.

Making a frustrated sound she wanted to snap something suitably scathing on account she was hurt. She wasn't sure what exactly had been happening, or what was had gone on when Tonks had crawled , but she knew enough to feel a tight pit in her stomach, and she didn't like it.

She also knew that Potter wouldn't back down.

"Fine. Alright. Whatever Potter wants," she muttered.

The she grabbed onto the rope, and without a word shoved off the edge, bracing her feet against the side, Tonks yelping and casting a quick spell to tighten the rope in place just a bit more. "Warn a witch will ya? Shit…Harry, she always this impulsive?"

From above the pit's rim she heard Potter mutter, "You have no idea…"

Kally ignored them, using the rope to hold on and create tension so she wouldn't slide straight down. It was only a few meters deep, and still…

Her heart pounded furiously.

It took her only twenty seconds. And still, when her feet got towards the bottom she felt a rising, irrational urge to climb back up. Like something awful and terrible and deadly would grab ahold of her foot and drag her down if she dared place a toe there. Kally hovered there, breathing shallowly, just centimeter's out of Hazel's reach if the once Reach tried to grab ahold of her. Her arm hurt, and Kally was unaware she had even whimpered.

"Kaylens?" She looked up, straight up the rope's winded strands, finding Potter crouched and looking down. She'd rarely seen him look so intense.

With an unsteady breath she slid the last meter down.

Her feet connected with the stone with a solid thud.

The smell hit her first. Like a sickeningly sweet, pungent odor. It stunk of putrefying organs. Kally's breath shuddered as she fought down a gag. It shouldn't still smell. Hazel Scott had been dead since the forties. There shouldn't have been any flesh left to liquefy, to reek.

Yet there was.

Her hands clung to the rope like a safety line, like it could save her if everything down here went spectacularly wrong. Water rivulets slid down the walls of the pit all around her, like an ornate, dark drain. Behind her she heard a quiet, rattling breath-

"Kal."

Her head shot up, Kally unaware that her hands had been shaking until that exact second. Potter was still looking down, his gaze having shifted behind her, sharpened like a hawk onto the chained corpse behind her. "You need to move. Don't want to kick you in the face."

Shakily she nodded, slowly, very slowly releasing her hold on the rope.

Then she finally turned, keeping her body pressed as tight to the wall of the pit as she possibly could.

Hazel Scott's chained hand was reaching, stretching out across the wet ground, unable to reach any farther. She was reaching in the wrong direction, blind and not hearing right. The girl was barely capable of movement, having been in one position so long it looked as if parts of her had congealed to a grate beneath her.

Kally clamped her hand over her mouth and tried not to gag.

Potter dropped to the ground besides her with a loud thump. Like her he made a gagging sound. Unlike her he'd turned around right away, tense, alert as he eyed the corpse. Then he glanced at her. "You alright?"

Hand still over her mouth Kally nodded.

He grunted in response, Potter's eyes already raking all over the pit. It was not large, maybe four meters straight across at most. Just long enough for the girl's body to have curled up within, unable to reach either side even had she spread out.

Kally slid her feet back away from Hazel's skeletal fingers, off white bones sticking out of her pointer and index.

Slowly, slowly Kally lowered her hand away from her mouth, breathing shakily.

Potter just seemed tense. "I fucking hate horcruxes," he muttered darkly. He glanced at her, looking between her and what was left of Voldemort's first and only love. Something disturbed was in his eyes, Kally not an idiot. She saw the similarities within the girl's decayed face.

"Well," she murmured quietly, "at least we know I'll make a good looking corpse."

Potter let out a stunned breath, as if biting back an extremely out-of-place laugh. "Fucking hell, Kaylens."

She ignored him, eyes locked onto Hazel's sightless ones. She just crouched down, looking at the locket around the girl's neck and feeling ill. That insecure feeling she'd had from before swum over her. It was like a room temperature wave sweeping over her skin, chilling her down to her bones. Potter's presence was palpable besides her, her heart speeding up. She acutely felt upset. Upset at him. Upset at what Tonks had said. Upset at what she and Potter had just done within that crypt only for him to sodding do that with Hermione.

A logical, rational part of her mind told her she didn't actually know what he'd done.

An even more reasonable part of her mind pointed out that, given her current position next to a member of the undead and a dangerous magical object, that who or what Potter was snogging should be the least of her worries.

Hazel Scott's mouth opened slightly, lower lip somewhat peeled away, revealing a black tongue and rotted away teeth. She wheezed. She wheezed something Kalliandra could not quite make out, but what she did hear…

It sounded like help.

Kally stood, taking an instinctual step forward-

A hand snared her in an iron grip. "Don't." It was like being struck with an electric wire, her entire arm tingling at his touch. Kally sucked in a breath, glancing at him with an annoyed look.

Potter wasn't looking at her though; every centimeter of his expression had contorted into something so disturbed, so serious that she barely recognized him. His eyes were locked on the dead witch, his jaw set.

"Don't," he repeated. "I haven't figured out if she can actually hurt you yet."

Kally unconsciously wet her lips. "Just me?" she managed. "Still harboring delusions of grandeur and invincibility are we?"

His grip didn't move. "No," he bit. "Just don't particularly care about my ass right now." He paused, the shadows from the wand light above casting harsh patches of light and dark across his face. He paused for so long Kally thought he would remain silent, only-

Words burst out of him.

"I didn't mean to, Kaylens. I just-" He grimaced, and now she knew he was no longer talking about Hazel. "I told you, I hate horcruxes. It got into my head." His voice was hard, hateful. Not once did he look her.

Kally's eyes darted from him to Hazel and back.

Potter simply released her, his hold having been so tight she wouldn't have been surprised had his fingers left indents against her skin. She didn't say anything. She didn't hiss a breath. She didn't snap at him. She just wet her lips again, managing a miniscule nod.

He hadn't meant to.

"I know." And to her surprise…she did.

She directed her attention back to the corpse that could quite possibly kill them, never seeing Potter's confused look.

It was one of relief.

Tonks' wand light shifted overhead as they both stood there in relative silence. The stench was repugnant. The dampness of the sewers had encouraged rotting. Yet, after so many decades, the only thing that should have been left of Hazel Scott should have been bone.

Instead flesh, tissue, sinew remained.

All of it attacked Kally's nostrils in a way that made her want to violently vomit.

The trickling of water down the smooth sides of the stone pit echoed, almost musically, the narrower walls of the pit amplifying the sounds. Hazel let out a rasping wheeze, a flap of tissue visible through a literal hole in her chest flapping. What remained of a lung…

"So," Potter started, his voice startling in the dark, "that mean we're…alright?"

Despite herself, despite the horror of what she was standing there and looking at, she let out a shaken breath and actually answered. "No."

Potter seemed to hesitate, and when he spoke again his voice was tight. "Alright." He nodded, as if to himself, his gaze never leaving Hazel's body. "What do I do to fix that?"

"You think now is the best time to talk about this?"

"Horcruxes tend to take offense when we try to kill them, Kaylens," he said calmly. "Seems as good a time as any."

From overhead Kalliandra heard the distinct groan of Tonks, but she daren't look away from the dead witch that Voldemort had killed with his bare hands.

Instead she felt her insides twist up, knowing Potter was right. Horcruxes tried to kill them. She'd nearly died from the last; Harry had died from the one before. So he'd told her.

He loved her. She believed that. He wouldn't have done half the terrible things he had for her if he didn't. The images, memories he'd shoved into her mind regarding Umbridge attested to that. Kally should be dead, yet he wasn't.

He'd gone back for her.

"Kal?"

She shivered, a small tremor coursing through her body, but she did not dare close her eyes. It didn't stop her hands from visibly shaking. Potter was right. This was a horcux. They could die. Given that, his apology's timing made a twisted kind of sense. So Kally made no move to step forward to retrieve the locket. She instead stood right there, next to Harry Potter, and ignored that insidious whispering in the back of her mind. "What happened with Hermione, Potter?" she whispered.

He didn't bat an eye. "I kissed her." He paused, brow furrowing deeply. "Sort of."

Her heart about dropped out, but she dragged in a steeling breath. "What do you mean," she said, "sort of?"

"Touched her lips with mine and stopped."

Kally bit down on the inside of her mouth for a moment. "Ah."

"It was awful."

From overhead there was an exasperated sound, immediately followed by Tonks soothing, "There, there Hermione, don't take it personal. Harry probably just isn't into that prim and proper librarian look you've got-"

There was the distinct sound of someone stomping on another person's shoe.

Tonks yelped.

Hermione hissed in exasperation, clearly trying to keep her voice down and failing. "I am not taking it personally. But not only do both my best friends have the emotional range of teaspoons, but this one picks the most abhorrent time to talk about uncomfortable things. There's an undead body down there. And we-we shouldn't have even-it meant nothing." She paused. "This is bad even for him."

It was clear Hermione had no idea they could actually hear her.

Kally bit down harder, and a sharp pain shot through the inside of her cheek. It hadn't meant anything. It hadn't. But while she insecurely felt her insides twisting up and curling in, mirroring what Hazel's corpse was doing literally in front of her eyes, Potter seemed less affected.

In fact, the corner of his mouth actually twitched. "In the defense of teaspoons, Hermione," he called up, "Ron gets a lot better about that."

From overhead Hermione went instantly silent, cheeks turning pink.

"Aw look, Harry, you made her blush." Tonks sounded far too cheeky for what they were doing, but there was a strange note to it, like it was a little too forced.

Harry ignored her. "Well he does."

Hermione blinked down, looking skeptical and embarrassed all at once. Yet her wand remained aimed determinedly at Hazel Scott.

"Hermione," Harry said, voice rising just loud enough for she and Tonks to surely hear him, "mind telling Kaylens here that that thing we did was awful?" He grimaced. "You know, in the interest of her not dumping my ass?"

Tonks sniffed wryly. "Be a bit more worried about her conking you on the head and leaving you down here, Harry."

"Nah," Potter said far too confidently, "she'd miss me too much."

Kally shot him a look so black it was a marvel he didn't burst into flame then and there.

He just growled. "Hermione, you're killing me here." Kally saw him glance at her out of the corner of his eyes. "Possibly literally."

Hermione remained silent a moment longer; it was palpable. "I'd rather snog, Snape."

Harry's head snapped up, looking bewildered. "Really?"

Now it was Kally's turn to hiss.

His head snapped back down, and she distinctly heard a sound of muted horror and humor besides her. "I couldn't possibly screw this up more, could I?"

Kally didn't look at him, but her eyes imperceptivity narrowed. "Don't sell yourself short, Potter. You certainly seem to have taken up the challenge."

"Kal…"

She gestured at Hazel, suddenly wanting out of there even more. "Can we just-"

"No."

Kally could not believe they were having this conversation. "Of all the fucking places, Potter…"

"You're the one who insisted on jumping into the hole before I could apologize."

"Not my fault you weren't quick on the draw."

Overhead Tonks frowned. "Is she talking about him snogging you or his prowess in the sack?" she asked Hermione, sounding genuinely confused.

"I'm dead," Hermione said, as if placating herself. "The gargoyle killed me and now I'm trapped in a never ending loop cycle error of Dante's seventh circle with idiots."

Tonks' mouth fell open and looked insulted.

Had there not been an undead skeletal look alike to herself not a half meter from her, Kalliandra might have knocked her own head against the pit's wall to render herself unconscious. As it was, she was fairly certain something down there might try to kill her.

The banter had at least stopped her hands from shaking, her eyes flickering down to them, then glancing at Potter.

He stood there unmoving, rigid. Every muscle could be seen stiffening beneath his coat. His attention remained fixed upon the horcrux, but the corner of his mouth quirked into a grim, strained smirk. His gaze darted towards her hands for just a second, noting that she seemed calmer, before darting back with a knowing look.

She blinked at him. "You're doing this on purpose."

"Partially," he admitted. "I also don't want you mad at me." Potter shifted on his feet, disturbing the thin layer of water.

She could only wet her lips. "Not getting off that easy," she promised quietly, golden eyes flickering over him uneasily. "You're still in all kinds of trouble."

"So long as I'm still yours to be in trouble with."

Her lips fell apart in silent shock, processing that.

His brow creased severely. "Kaylens?"

It was cold down here. It was an unnatural sort of cold that made everything around her feel wrong. But Potter asking if he was still hers made her stomach twist in even worse ways.

He was insecure.

Potter was insecure.

Harry-I'll-Jump-In-Front-of-Death-Curses-Potter.

Kally looked at him for a second longer, than glanced back towards the body. "Potter," she murmured, "you're an idiot."

She never saw the relieved look on his face.

Tonks and Hermione, however, did.

Tonks shot Hermione a confused look. "Did they just make up?"

Hermione simply rolled her eyes.

Kally noticed none of this; neither did Harry. They were both too busy staring at the remains. The still moving remains.

And just like that the feeble, false illusion of normalcy slid away, and they were plunged back into the dark horrors Voldemort had dealt.

While they had spoken Hazel had moved. She was still moving, albeit slowly. Her clearly broken and cuffed wrist shifted against the ground, moving closer to her body, curling in feebly. The girl, of what was left of her sensory deprived body, trying to curl in on itself in fear and pain and loneliness.

Kally's heart about broke in two.

Water trickled down the pit's walls, rolling beneath their feet to where Hazel lay, circling the drain. And still they both stood there. Even Hermione and Tonks had gone silent, as if all four had come to a silent agreement to shut up and pay respects to Voldemort's victim.

And then Potter, as he always managed to, broke that silence.

"We can't leave her like this."

"Yeah."

Harry's hand rose, dragging over the top of his head. He looked visibly stressed.

Then he moved.

This time it was Kally's hand that shot out, snaring his coat sleeve, a surge of panic in her. He shot her a look, green eyes oddly bright in the dark.

Then they lit up with understanding.

Kally clutched onto him for just a second longer, then her fingers slipped away, her eyes flickering over Hazel Scott.

The girl, her own relative, made a rasping sound.

This time it sounded like, "Leeze." Without lips it was hard to make a p sound.

The corpse was whispering please.

Kally's throat seized, her eyes clenching as she nodded, an upset sound escaping. "I'm so sorry…"

After that it was as easy as reaching out. The energy around her thrummed with molecular life, Kally's breathing slowly growing erratic as she gathered her magic to her, it sliding out, following the path of the trickling drainage water, wrapping around Hazel.

What met her was sick; it was twisted and tainted; it was painful. A dark, sordid magic held Hazel in stasis, forcing her to linger, to remain.

And just like that Kally snapped the thread keeping her there.

The Reach didn't notice the final, relieved sound leaving the girl's lips. She didn't notice that she'd gone weak, Potter snagging her to prevent her from falling. She didn't notice the subtle, threatening taint in the air begin to grow stronger. She just felt Potter's presence, and barely managed to open her eyes to look at the girl's corpse that now lay fully and completely dead.

For a moment they all remained silent. Potter's arm wrapped tighter around her waist, tugging her a step back, his breath hot on her ear. Overhead Hermione could be heard stifling an upset sound. Kalliandra simply shook, less from exertion and more from what she'd felt doing it. And Tonks…

Tonks voiced what they all were thinking. "Why would he do this to her?"

Frighteningly it was Hermione who answered.

"Isn't it obvious?" Silence passed. "He-he wanted control over her. He wasn't ready to let go of her. So if he kept her like this, then well…he could keep her."

Tonks cast a questioning look to her.

Hermione shook her head furiously, her upset turning to anger. "Muggle psychology." She paused, tone coldly angered. "He kept her like an unwanted pet down here."

Kally's breath sucked in, her golden eyes flickering over what remained of her ancestor. Her golden hair lay saturated in the watery runoff sliding down the pit's drain, her hands curled in, body now nearly in the fetal position, as if desperately having tried to comfort herself as the pain of rotting for decades continued unyieldingly and unbearably.

Now the girl's bones and flesh harbored no life, no pain, no anything.

Voldemort had done this to her, merely because she'd loved him.

"Potter," Kally heard herself whisper, recalling the way that creature had looked at her, "if Voldemort ever…if he ever manages…just promise me-"

Harry's voice interrupted. It was hard and edged, like steel. "You won't end up like that."

Kally still shuddered. "But if I do, Harry. Please…promise me you'll-"

Potter's grip tightened on her.

Then he said something she'd never expected to hear from him.

"I'll take care of it."

After that it wasn't so hard. At some point Potter released her, approaching the body of the dead girl. A knife appeared out of nowhere, one in his hand that gleamed black in the dark shadows and wandlight. Goblin forged steel dipped in basilisk venom.

Harry cut the necklace from Hazel Scott's neck. A dark cloud burst out of it, swirling within the pit for a moment, Kally and Potter both ducking before it dissipated.

And then they left. The others spoke around her, but she felt curiously numb. She heard the suppositions, the talk through the tunnel about why this horcrux, unlike the others, had not been booby trapped or rigged to try to kill them as aggressively as the others. Kally heard Tonks calmly point out, all jest gone from her voice, that Voldemort had probably been unable to let go of the girl. Serial killers often kept trophies, things taken from their victims during the kill, only in this case Hazel herself had been the trophy.

It was with a cold horror that they all came to the same conclusion: Voldemort probably came to see her still, occasionally.

Hermione logically mentioned that if that were the case, that it would explain the lack of subterranean traps.

Potter just snapped that no traps were needed when something was so insidious it could make you want to rape and kill your best friend.

Kally saw the look of alarm on Hermione's face as she realized exactly what Potter trying to snog her had nearly cost.

Eventually all four of them crawled out of the drainage pipe, back up into the half destroyed mausoleum. Kally's eyes shifted to the sky, looking for gargoyles. Hermione and Tonks seemed unconcerned, the Auror letting out a shuddering breath and casting a Patronus message charm, telling the others in a quick, succinct voice that it was time to leave. They'd accomplished what they'd come for. Hermione said the name, "Dobby," just a bit too quickly, a pop loud as the house elf apparated into existence, extending a hand to take them all with him, out of the anti-apparation zone of the cemetery. And Potter…

The now dead horcrux was clenched in Potter's hand, the chain dangling down from his fist.