Hogwarts had been nothing but an endless source of frustration since his return. He'd thought after such an eventful Christmas, returning to Hogwarts would bring a sense of normality to his life, but he had been wrong.
For the remainder of the holidays, Harry spent his days shut up and divorced from the reunited Weasleys, brooding in his room alone over the discovery of Horcruxes.
Split souls. Immortality. It was unfathomable. Voldemort was now all the more dangerous, and all the more difficult to kill. To think he could have a number of these, locked away and hidden from the world ensuring his survival. A cold trickle of dread settled at the base of his spine even now at the thought of it.
Hogwarts was meant to be his release, a place for him to escape the inquisitive eyes and probing questions of his secretive relationship with Dumbledore and why he could no longer spend more than a minute in the same room as Fleur. Instead, it only added to the stress tearing away at his already precarious psyche. He was on the verge of snapping. Every shadow lurked all the more nefariously, every sudden noise made him jump and reach for his wand. Doom hung over him like a tattered cloak, twisting his gut with cold dread.
He'd hardly seen Dumbledore either, in the month or so since the start of the new term. The man had seemingly vanished with hardly a word, appearing in irregular glimpses at mealtimes like one of the many ghosts haunting the halls. His only instruction had come from a meeting they'd had on his first day back, where he had shown Harry a memory Professor Slughorn had faked and asked him to acquire the real one.
For weeks now he'd been trying without success, not because the man was protecting it fiercely, but because it had suddenly become impossible to find a moment where he was alone. Each time Harry sought him out, Slughorn was either in a meeting, busy grading assignments and essays, or out of the castle visiting his many friends.
Perhaps, however, even more distracting than anything else in his life at the moment, was Daphne.
He didn't quite know what to think about what was held between them. There hadn't been a soppy reunion upon returning to Hogwarts; in fact, they'd hardly spoken. Her distance had been a sharp slap in the face. Each note was left unanswered, and every attempt to see her alone was barred by Tracey who never left her side. Blaise feigned ignorance to all his concerns, and Astoria could hardly look at him each time they crossed paths in the hall.
"Did I do something wrong?" he asked himself frequently. He knew he had, but there wasn't a way anyone could have found out about what happened with him and Fleur.
At night, on the verge of sleep when his mind was most vulnerable, he could still feel the phantom touches of her caressing fingers and the ghost of a kiss on his lips. But every time, to his immense guilt and shame, the scent of lavender would overwhelm him and these feelings would shift to the burning passion he felt with Fleur's mouth lost against his.
The echoing sound of his footsteps as he travelled down an empty corridor, woke him from his reveries, and reminded him of his frozen solitude. He could feel his Mokeskin pouch rubbing the skin of his chest beneath his robes. Daphne's gift sat like a lead weight inside, along with the other items he couldn't do without.
He'd purposefully set out to arrive late, not wanting to spend an entire evening where he knew she would be. A well placed hex in the presence of Professor Snape had Crabbe and Goyle sprouting flower from their ears, and was enough to earn him a detention that evening. A sore wrist from scrubbing cauldrons was well worth arriving at the Slug Club just in time for what he wanted to accomplish.
"—let your father know I remember that particular story! He was embarrassed for weeks afterwards! Of course, he's moved up quite high now within the Ministry, working hard as a member of the Wizengamot—"
Harry could hear Slughorn's boisterous voice carry over the soft buzz of polite conversation from his office. His eyes widened, pleased, when he noticed Harry enter the room. The general hubbub of the dinner party quietened as well.
"Harry! I feared you weren't coming!" His chins wobbled beneath his fleshy face as he hurried over, abandoning the conversation he was holding with Ernie Macmillan.
"Luckily it seems that Professor Snape's desire to get rid of me outweighed his want for the cleanest collection of cauldrons in all of England."
"I'll need to speak to Severus about that—keeping me away from such fine company," said Slughorn, leading him to a cozy spot next to the hearth. "Not that Ernie wasn't a delight to talk to," he corrected quickly.
Harry looked over to where his Hufflepuff friend was standing. Ernie smiled and Harry returned a friendly nod. Behind him, was a cluster of students preparing to leave, and lingering near the back was Daphne. Their eyes met for the briefest of moments, before she quickly averted them, picked up her pace and pushed her way out of the room. Blaise, who'd been with her, hurried out as well with a worried expression.
"A shame you couldn't have joined us earlier, Harry. It was a wonderful evening," Slughorn said, distracting him. He waved goodbye to his departing students as they slowly trickled out. "We had a delightful pineapple cream pie for desert." A sly smile slowly crept onto his lips. "But perhaps a nightcap could do us some good."
He pushed himself to his feet with a great huff, and moved to his drinks cabinet in the corner of his office.
"Now let's see… I thought I'd left it here for special occasions…" Harry could hear a series of clinks as glasses and bottles knocked in to one another. "Again?" Slughorn muttere under his breath, sounding irritated. "Well, I suppose this will have to do instead."
He returned with an unopened bottle of brandy. With a practiced flick of his wand, the cork was removed and a pair of chilled glasses were filled.
"I had hoped to share a wonderful bottle of oak-matured mead I received as a gift for Christmas, but it looks to have disappeared. Someone has been stealing from my collection this year—I asked Argus to keep an eye on my office, but the man is as useless as ever." He took a sip of his brandy, the tensed lines of his face disappearing with a content sigh.
"It's fine professor, I actually wasn't expecting any food or drink at all," Harry said.
"Then why come at all?" The man let out a booming laugh.
"I actually wanted to ask you something," Harry kept his voice even as he spoke.
"Ask away then, my boy, ask away…"
Harry paused, trying to settle the niggling nerves which wormed in his stomach.
"Sir, I wondered what you know about… Horcruxes."
Slughorn's face turned a deathly white, flinching violently upon hearing the word. His glass slipped from his meaty hand and tumbled to the floor. "Where did you here that word?" His voice was sharp and hard and entirely unlike anything he'd ever heard from his professor before. "To speak of such evil."
"But you've spoken about them before," Harry pressed on, taking a leap of faith. There was no going back.
"You—How? Dumbledore." The name sounded like a curse from his mouth. "Dumbledore showed you that memory… It's not true! It's not—I swear it!" He stumbled away from Harry in fear.
"He did." Harry nodded.
Slughorn's teary eyes were lined with regret and full of horror.
"He showed me the memory of what Voldemort did to you." Slughorn shuddered at the name. "He showed me how an evil man took advantage of your good graces—a professor who thinks only the best of his students and cares so deeply for them he will do whatever he can to see them succeed."
"I should never have known," he babbled madly to himself. "I should never have gone looking for that sort knowledge."
"Dumbledore once told me you delved into dark magics."
"I did… I was young, foolish… but I stopped—I stopped when my Muriel died. My Muriel and dear sweet Lily…"
He stood there beaten and broken, more a corpse than a man, his skin ashen and drained by grief.
"There's no shame in that, professor." Harry's voice was soft. He looked on pitying, hoping to ground the man he knew back in reality and away from his past.
"Shame?" Slughorn's voice bubbled with harsh emotion. "All I feel his shame—to know that all those who died were because of what I told him."
"It doesn't need to be that way, sir. You can fix it. Help me bring down the monster who is truly to blame. Help me defeat Voldemort. I just need the memory, and together we can avenge my mother." Harry gently took hold of his hand and looked him in the eye. "Together," he promised.
"Together," Slughorn repeated. Silent tears streamed down his face as he closed his eyes and raised his wand to his temple.
The crystal phial rolled around in his pocket as he travelled across Hogwarts.
Harry felt uneasy leaving Professor Slughorn in such a sorry state, but the man had requested he leave, and he needed to find Dumbledore. Finally, after a month, he had obtained the memory. All of a sudden, the anger and irritation which had plagued him, peeled off like a second skin, leaving him feeling lighter and with an extra spring to his step.
There was a sense of self-satisfaction about him as he rounded the third floor corridor and headed towards a passage which would take him to the seventh floor. Just as he was about to pull back the tapestry in its way, he heard raised voices off somewhere in the distance. Moving in that direction, the sound of a scuffle grew louder and he picked up his pace.
Suddenly, there was a scream.
He sprinted down dark halls and shadowy corners with urgency, following where he thought the sounds were coming from. The closer he drew, the more distinct the voices were as they hit his ears. He could hear the faint echo of whimpering. But more disturbing, he could hear the slur of a familiar voice just as something impacted fiercely nearby.
He rounded a final corner and froze.
"Cho?"
He blinked.
"Go away! Go away!" the girl screeched.
There was a second, hardly more than a heartbeat, where he didn't believe what he was seeing. How could he, when cowering before him was a pair of first years in green-trimmed Slytherin robes, white faced, tear streaked and trembling like leaves in the face of an autumn wind. Towering over them was an enraged and dishevelled Cho Chang, who was swinging her wand recklessly through the air.
The magic around her was erratic, shooting off in volatile surges and fizzing sparks that sizzled against the stone walls around them. Harry was hesitant in approaching her, in fear of what she might do to him in her current state, or worse, what she might do to the children.
"Cho!" he shouted, desperately trying to reach her.
She spun around at the sound of his voice, her wand wild in her grip. A startling blue spell burst from its tip, smashing against a suit of armour the children were hiding behind. High pitch screams tore through the hall as fragments of twisted metal shot out like shrapnel.
His prior hesitance disappeared immediately, and he moved between Cho and the children. "Cho! Stop it, this is madness!" His wand slipped into his hand.
Her eyes were crazed, her hair an oily mess; the beautiful young lady he once had a crush on was nowhere to be seen. Lurking behind her, floating, was the ugly specter Peeves, his yellow teeth twisted into a hideous grin.
"Little snakes, little snakes, hiding with their fangs."
His voice cooed in a high-pitch song, while Cho staggered forwards.
"Sneaky, sneaky, little snakes, they move fast."
"Cho, you need to stop this," his tone warned. He did his best to ignore the psychotic gleam in Peeves' bulging eyes. "Put down your wand."
"They say they're nice, but we don't forget the past."
"Put the wand down." He warned again, a prickling feeling climbing up the base of his neck.
Cho's hand was shaking, and she took another halting step forward. The unmistakeable scent of alcohol wafted through the air. She raised her wand.
"We find the snakes who cause us pain, and then go BANG!"
"NO!"
There was a flash of blue and children cried.
CLANG!
The shield he had hastily thrown up did enough to block the concussive blast barrelling towards the first years. Stone exploded from the ceiling, and dust rained down in sheets around them.
Peeve's cackled hysterically, zooming overhead down the hall and fleeing out of sight.
Through the debris, Harry caught the sight of another flash of blue light and quickly deflected it towards the floor with a flick of his wand. The volatility of the spell sent a painful shock up his arm. Twisting around to check on the children, he didn't see the final spell heading towards him.
His head snapped back with a crunch as he was blasted into the unforgiving slabs of Hogwarts. Blinding pain shot down his spine, and his vision darkened to a colorless haze. He fought to remain conscious, his insides feeling as though they'd been turned to mush having not been able to brace for the impact.
It was only the frightened sobbing of children, which grounded him in reality.
Grunting and stumbling to his feet, he was able to make out the figure of Cho stalking towards them.
"Expelliarmus!" he shouted.
The red bolt of light struck Cho in the side, knocking her to the floor and sending her wand through the air into his outstretched hand.
Immediately, Harry went in search of the Slytherin first-years. Kicking away the toppled remnants of the suit of armour, he found them curled up against one another, their faces hidden in each other's shoulders.
"It's alright," Harry said as gentle as he could. Despite this, they still cowered and flinched from the sound of his voice. Glancing over his shoulder, Cho was gone. "She's not here anymore," he told the children, while stuffing her wand in his pocket. It was burning to the touch and entirely uncomfortable in his grasp.
Looking closer, he noticed one of the first-years—the girl—was shaking. From behind her ear, appearing to be nothing more than a shadow, was a thin dark trickle of blood. Her friend jerked protectively, as Harry lifted his wand. There was a glint of mistrust and hostility within the small boy's eyes.
Harry lifted his other hand trying to appease him, making sure to keep his motions smooth and gentle. There was a shallow gash hidden amongst the mess of her dark hair, blood plastering it to her scalp. It was a simple enough spell to heal the cut, but nevertheless the girl looked immensely relieved and grateful.
Looking down at the two children, covered in dust and sweat, their knees tucked up against their chests in a position of utter vulnerability, he felt his heart break. They shouldn't have had to go through something like this. They were so young.
"Come on," said Harry, waving the first-years over to come follow him. The girl scampered to her feet and rushed up closely to his side, clinging tightly to the ends of his robes. A large tear ran through its dark material.
"Where are you taking us?" the boy asked suspiciously as he followed slowly behind; clearly torn between wanting to stay by his friend's side and keeping a safe distance from Harry.
"The dungeons," Harry answered, and pulled back a faded tapestry to reveal a shortcut that would hasten their journey. "Your Prefects will want to know what happened, and they'll be able to find Professor Snape."
Harry really hoped Snape wouldn't try to put the blame on him somehow.
"How do you know where our common room is?" the boy accused.
Harry looked over his shoulder, tapped his nose, and winked. "I have my ways," he said with a smirk, hoping to sound as much like Dumbledore as he could. It was something the old man would have done for amusement. "I wouldn't worry too much about it, I'm not one for pranks—that was my father."
"Are you Harry Potter?" The young girl asked, speaking for the first time since the incident. From below, her face looked up at him with a sort of reverence.
He didn't know why, but the question brought a smile to his face. "The one and only," he responded.
"See, that's how he knows!" The girl turned to her friend, who was now walking along Harry's other side. "He's Harry Potter, he knows everything!"
Harry coughed to cover up his laughter. If only that was true, he thought.
The rest of their trip consisted of Harry entertaining the numerous theories the two youths came up with on how he discovered their common room. He wasn't sure if they would have believed the real story—truth being stranger than fiction, after all.
Eventually, they reached the dungeons, and the blank stretch of wall which served as the entrance to the Slytherin common room. Harry smirked at the expression of frustration on the little boy's face, now having the proof their secret was exposed. He remembered when such childish things seemed so important.
"Here you are," said Harry.
The little girl came up and hugged him tightly around the waist, but her friend remained still.
"My parents don't like you," he said seriously. There was a quizzical look on his small face.
"Oh, er—that's unfortunate."
"I think they're wrong."
Harry wasn't expecting that. He kneeled down, looked the boy in the eye, and asked, "What's your name?"
"Marcus," he responded, fidgeting under Harry's attention.
Harry smiled. "Well, Marcus, thank you. That means a lot."
Marcus blushed shyly.
"I'm Helen!" the girl chirped from the side not wanting to be undone, showing him a toothy grin.
"Of course you are," he grinned right back.
Harry waved goodbye and watched them enter their common room hand-in-hand. He then let out a deep sigh and rested against the cold stone wall for a moment to catch his breath. The back of his head and neck throbbed from where he had impacted the wall.
A moment was all he gave himself before leaving. He did not want to be caught down here when word started to spread of what happened. He needed to get up to Dumbledore's Office; hopefully he would be there tonight.
The castle was now shaded in darkness, with the sun having been extinguished outside. A gloomy haze settled over the corridors illuminated by flickering torchlight. Shadows crept along the walls like creatures of the night, eternally stalking from a plane beyond existence. Through a row of high arching windows, the mystical glow of a full moon lit the night sky. For a moment, he could almost hear a lone, mournful howl in the distance.
Not for the first time he thought of Remus and wondered what had brought about his end.
"—it isn't fair. Why is our family so stupid! It doesn't have to be this way!"
"You know exactly why this must be done. I have a duty to you all."
Harry's footsteps halted at the sound of an argument.
"I understand you like to run around with those school friends of yours, playing hero, but this is real life. Staying out after hours like tonight—which I am most displeased with, I will have you know—and shooting tickling jinxes at each other will make no difference."
Harry pressed himself against the cool stone of the wall, trying to listen around the corner. He thought he recognized the voice of the girl, but he could not place that of the man. It wasn't a professor; he was sure of that.
"We're called the D.A., and we're not pretending to be heroes. We are doing what we can to be ready!"
"There's nothing to be ready for—not for us," the man countered sharply, his voice not giving an inch. "You're being foolish just like your mother."
"If you are the only one who wants to do this, then I don't see how we are the foolish ones."
"I am doing what is necessary. It is choices like these which make the difference."
"The only thing you're doing is tearing us apart," the girls voice was trembling.
"It will only be for a short while, until things settle." The man dropped his tone, his voice losing its edge and attempting to be soothing. "You will make new friends, I promise."
"I don't care about making new friends!" she cried out, sounding as if she was pulling away from him. "It's not just about me! What about Daphne?"
Daphne? The name triggered something inside of Harry, and he edged closer to the conversation.
"Daphne is a charming girl, I'm certain she won't have trouble making any friends despite the arrangement."
"You know that's not what I meant. Do you know how much this means to her? What you're doing to her—it's not right! She's in so much pain… I don't—I can't sit by and watch her destroy herself like this."
"Hush my sweet, hush… Daphne understands…"
Harry heard the loud smack of a slap on skin.
"That's a lie! She doesn't understand! She can't understand why you're doing this to her. You saw what she did for Christmas—what it meant to her and how happy she was."
"Enough! I am you father!" The man's voice cracked, faltering under some unseen pressure. "You think I don't understand sacrifices? That I am so cold, so heartless that I don't suffer upon seeing my daughter hurting? My decision is final, and I will live with the consequences."
Harry could hear footsteps moving towards him now, the heated exchange appearing to have come to an end. He started to panic. There wasn't enough time for him to pull out his invisibility cloak and they were sure to come upon him in a matter of seconds. Squaring his shoulders, he decided to just go with it. He took a single step forwards and immediately crashed headlong into the figure coming around the other side. The deep grunt made upon contact suggested it was the man.
Stumbling back a few steps, and rubbing the sore spot on his ribs where he'd been jabbed by an elbow, Harry straightened to see a sharply dressed man in navy robes standing in front of him. His midnight hair was parted cleanly to the side, and his brilliant blue eyes widened after a double take.
Just behind the man, looking on with a devious expression on her pretty face, was Astoria Greengrass. "Father," her voice was overly sweet, "this is Harry Potter. Harry, this is my father Alfred Greengrass."
"It's a pleasure, sir," said Harry, extending his hand for a shake.
"Yes—" The man pulled at his collar and cleared his throat awkwardly. "My daughters speak of you often."
"Daphne does," Astoria cut in. "Daphne talks about you. I don't, really—no offence."
"Indeed." Mr. Greengrass looked as uncomfortable as Harry felt. They stood there a moment longer, shifting on their feet, unsure of how to act in front of each other. Mr. Greengrass clearly knew they had been overheard to some extent.
"Astoria, dear," he spoke up suddenly. "I believe it's time you returned to your dorms. I have files to report and must be on my way. I will see you soon."
Astoria's eyes darkened with fury and she left without another word.
Mr. Greengrass watched the retreating form of his daughter with an inscrutable gaze, before turning to Harry. "Good evening, Mr. Potter. It's a shame we couldn't have been introduced under better circumstances," he said, his words appearing to be genuine. He nodded a final time and excused himself.
Far too much was going on for Harry to keep focus on all of it at once. He'd been delayed twice now from delivering the memory to Dumbledore. At least now, with the presence of Mr. Greengrass, he knew the headmaster would be in his office.
That proved to be the case, as the stone gargoyle guarding the entrance to the office jumped to the side as he approached.
"Come in, Harry," Dumbledore called from within. He sat in the golden trimmed chair behind his desk with an Augurey feather quill in hand, scribbling away at a pile of parchments.
"Sir, I don't know what caused it, but Cho—"
"I am well informed of the events surrounding Miss Chang," Dumbledore's interrupted, his voice tight as he responded. His eyes had yet to leave the parchment he was hunched over. "Filius has been notified and is currently searching the castle for her location."
"That wasn't Cho," said Harry, thinking back to the girl he'd seen cursing first-years. "It couldn't have been… she must be sick or something."
"She most assuredly is ill, but physically I think not." Dumbledore rolled up the bit of parchment he had been writing on and placed it in a carved oaken box. "The mind and spirit is just as susceptible to sickness as our bodies." His voice hovered in the air with a hint of melancholy.
"I hadn't even noticed something was wrong," Harry admitted.
"I'm afraid most do not until it is too late, or they simply choose to ignore what is standing right in front of them in fear of what they might see. Rest assured, now that we know, she will receive the help she needs."
"The Slytherins—Helen and Marcus—are they doing alright?" Harry asked earnestly.
A soft smile twitched beneath Dumbledore's whiskers. "I have not seen to them personally, but Severus assures me that there is nothing a good night's rest won't fix. It pleases me you were the one to find them and escort them back safely."
"I ran into Mr. Greengrass in the halls as well," Harry added.
"Ah, indeed." Dumbledore stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Mr. Greengrass handled a full inspection of the castle's art. In fact, most of the works within Hogwarts originally came as a gift from the Greengrass family's private collection. From my discussion with him, we both agree that there is nothing wrong with the artwork itself, but rather there is something else—a foreign source—inducing their strange behaviour."
"Malfoy?"
"I suspect so. Yet, we still remain in the darkness as to the actual cause." There was something unnerving in the way Dumbledore spoke so honest and open about his lack of knowledge. "I presume that was not the only reason behind your impromptu visit." Dumbledore looked at him expectantly behind his half-moon glasses.
"Oh!" exclaimed Harry, shooting to attention and digging around in his pocket for the crystal phial.
"The memory…" Dumbledore breathed, taking the phial from Harry and summoning the pensieve.
"I'm afraid I ruined Professor Slughorn's night."
"Shame and guilt were what held Horace back, and confronting the two is never an easy task," Dumbledore said. He poured in the memory and held out his hand. "If you please, Harry, so that together we may come to solve this puzzle at last."
The memory was short, in a blink they had popped in and out. It was nearly identical to the first they had viewed, except crucially for the end.
"Seven… he split his soul seven times," Harry repeated out loud for what must have been the tenth time. The words were filled with just as much shock, disgust, and fear, as they had the first time.
He'd always known Voldemort to be a monster. But to hear this, to see how far he was willing to go, to twist nature itself—it was hideous. Voldemort wasn't human or even a wizard, he was a grotesque amalgam of the vilest magic in existence, given form.
"I had suspected—it was only guesswork at the time, but to have evidence…" Dumbledore trailed off. "We have made a great discovery tonight, Harry. One that not only has provided us a means to victory, but one that has also shown how far you must to go. It is a treacherous path you now walk, my boy."
Something about Dumbledore's words chilled him to his bones. "Do we know where any are?" Harry asked.
Dumbledore's eyes flickered strangely in the light. "There are some in this very room as we speak. One destroyed by you four years ago, and another destroyed by myself."
"I destroyed one?" Harry's eyebrows shot up in shock.
"Indeed, the very same diary that possessed Miss Weasley was Voldemort's first Horcrux, created with the murder of Myrtle Warren. It was weaponized by Tom to reopen the Chamber and finish the work he had started, but in his recklessness it was destroyed."
"The basilisk fang?" Harry remembered the shade of Tom Riddle screaming at the destruction of the diary. "The fang destroyed the horcrux?"
"Not the fang, but its potent venom. The magic within the poison is too powerful for any of the protective enchantments placed on the Horcruxes to withstand."
Harry could feel a burst of excitement in his chest: they'd already destroyed two of the seven.
"And what of the other?"
Dumbledore pulled out a heavy looking golden ring, topped with an inky black stone cracked through its middle which seemed to pulse with life. It was a familiar ring. He recognized it from the memories Dumbledore had shown him.
"Marvolo Gaunt's ring. How did you manage to find it?"
"In the time in which I am not acting as Headmaster of Hogwarts, I am playing the role of detective," Dumbledore laughed to himself. "You may have noticed my increasing absence from the school?" Harry nodded in response. "Much of my time away has been spent scouring the secrets of Tom's past to better predict the future, and begin to understand the mind of Lord Voldemort. I had travelled to the Gaunt shack down the road from Little Hangleton, where I found this ring under a rotten floorboard beneath layers and layers of protections. Dark magic leaves traces, and when one knows where to look, these traces can be followed back to their root."
"How do we know where to look, or what to find? He could use anything—a cauldron… or, uh, a tin pot or something. What's to say he didn't dig a whole and bury it underground."
The look of amusement on Dumbledore's face seemed completely out of place considering the nature of the topic of conversation.
"We must be thankful that is not the case then," he said, while picking up the ring and placing it carefully back in his desk. "Since my discovery of the diary as a Horcrux, I have delved deeply into their mysteries, searching forgotten texts and speaking to old unsavory acquaintances. Horcruxes, as foolproof as they appear to be for men such as Voldemort, are not without fault. Upon destruction of the body, to live as nothing more than a spirit—a fraction of a soul—there is a need for magic to sustain itself. Without the body, there is nothing rooting the soul to the magic of this world. A horcrux serves its purpose as an anchor, but it leaves its creator isolated from what keeps them alive.
"Horcruxes are potent and corrosive by nature. Without magic, they will turn to consume themselves, or even destroy themselves if they must, to satisfy their hunger. To sustain a horcrux, it is in need of a source to feed off of. Something powerful, that can withstand its corruption. There is always a place to start from, and with Tom the answers lie in his past."
Dumbledore leaned into the leather of his chair, peering at Harry over steepled fingers as if expecting something.
Harry put his mind to work, ruminating on what he knew of the Horcruxes. The diary was Voldemort's first and meant to be kept within the Chamber of Secrets, the greatest legend of Salazar Slytherin. The ring had been kept within his family for generations, and hidden in the ancestral home of the Gaunt's.
The image of a locket and a cup flashed before his mind's eye.
"The other memories," Harry realized. "The clues are inside the other memories. The locket Marvolo Gaunt claimed to belong to Slytherin himself was the same one Hepzibah Smith showed to Voldemort along with Hufflepuff's cup. I remember Zacharias once mentioned something about Voldemort stealing it from his family…"
"Precisely, Harry," Dumbledore commended, his gleaming proudly, and his body injected with a youthfulness energy he rarely seemed to possess anymore. "Tom's past is the key to his destruction. I have spent years collecting every bit of evidence I can, each its own unique piece to this intriguing puzzle. When fit together, patterns emerge, and Tom becomes predictable."
"But surely he would have noticed? At least covered his tracks in case he was discovered."
"Oh, he tried, but Tom always thought he knew best. Arrogant to a fault, he always considered himself to be the smartest one in the room. In his superiority he thought it impossible for his greatest secret to be uncovered, and for people to remember him for the boy he once was. Prideful, yet sentimental."
"Sentimental?" That was a word Harry never thought to be associated with Voldemort.
"Places and things, not people… never people." Dumbledore shook his head lightly, before straightening and looking Harry in the eye. "Salazar Slytherin's locket and Helga Hufflepuff's cup: two artifacts powerful enough to sustain a Horcrux and famous enough for Tom to consider them worthy of housing his soul."
"I'm guessing it's not a coincidence they both belong to the Founders?"
"I think not, there is always a method to his madness. Hogwarts was one of the few places Tom was fond of, and I am fairly confident in my estimation that he considered himself an equal amongst the Founders."
"So one for each of them?"
"Perhaps…" A frown creased over Dumbledore's brow. "Although Godric Gryffindor was not renown for magical creations. The only two of any interest are his sword and hat, both of which are safe within this office."
"Then what do you think they could be? And where?" These were the questions which had been burning inside like a fever since emerging from the memory.
"The diary and ring, both of which are destroyed," Dumbledore listed off. "The locket and the cup, an item belonging to Ravenclaw, and Voldemort's snake Nagini. It is only conjecture, but I remain confident enough in my line of thinking. I would presume them all to be hidden in some place of grand importance to Tom's life; just as the diary was meant for the Chamber of Secrets, and the ring was found in the ancestral home which tied his lineage to Salazar Slytherin."
Something caught Harry's attention.
"You mentioned only six Horcruxes, sir. I thought there were seven?"
"Seven…" Dumbledore repeated, his skin losing all traces of color. "Oh—No, I must have misspoken. A seventh—"
Before he could continue, a jumble of footsteps could be heard stomping up the spiral staircase to his office. The numerous portraits of former headmasters took the opportunity to loudly complain about the after hour visits.
"Harry, quick, your cloak," Dumbledore ordered, as he cleared his desk with a wave of his wand.
"Ente—"
The door burst open before Dumbledore could finish.
In front of them stood a teary eyed Professor Flitwick, distraught beyond comprehension. McGonagall was situated behind, a hand resting on his shoulder; but whether it was in reassurance, or simply to keep the half-goblin from toppling over, Harry wasn't sure. Her lips were drawn much tighter than normal across her face, and the cracks in her skin resembled deeply cut trenches.
Something was horribly wrong.
"Albus, it's happened again," Flitwick sobbed. "Another student, gone… it's Miss Chang—she's been poisoned."