He was in the mist again—an inescapable void that held nothing but painful silence and shifting shadows. The air was fresh and thin, a white expanse stretching endlessly around him, with only the burning sky splattered with red, like the blood of a fresh wound.
The shadows encroached on him, sliding and pressing and wrapping around his body like unseen chains slicked with oil. He floated with nothing beneath his feet, alone and vulnerable.
Drops of crimson fell from the raging hellfire that was the sky, raining blood, and pulsing with the life of a human heart. Liquid trailed into his mouth, staining his lips red; but instead of copper he tasted the sweetness of fruit, though not one that brought him any joy. Voices whispered in his ears like the rustling of leaves, hidden beyond a veil that would never be lifted.
He knew these voices well.
Yes… I need this…
The voices layered on top of one another, echoing and bouncing and lying.
I need this.
The words pulled at his mind with something akin to regret and mercy, as though seeking his forgiveness amongst guilt and despair.
He was back lying on the floor of an unused classroom, betrayal filling his stomach like a sickness. Light slipped and shifted around him, and the mist cleared for the first time he could remember, drawing him through forcefully. Before him was a field of purple, filling the air with its soothing fragrance. He felt safe, he felt loved, he felt at home. The world skipped and the vision flashed, and in his hand was a red stone as he approached a palace in the mountains. In a blink, the stone melted through his fingers and the palace was now a bastion of darkness.
On and on went his mind, skipping like a broken projector: he could hear a phoenix's mournful song overhead as a child wailed from the charred ruins of house; lightning struck the forgotten tower of a fortress; three brothers stood at a bridge while two crumbled to ash; and sad blue eyes filled with grief and love shone in triumph for a final time.
"Harry!"
He blinked awake to see Ron's blue eyes peering down with concern. "Are you alright? You sort of disappeared again."
"Yeah…" said Harry, his voice was unconvincing. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"Right—um, Flitwick is starting to notice us, and I'd sooner not get assigned any more homework. Repente." Ron tapped the teacup in front of him, and dropped it to the floor where it fell with a dull thud.
"Perhaps a little more practice, Mr. Weasley," Flitwick commented as he passed by and watched Hermione. Her charm worked perfectly, and the teacup rebounded from the floor and back onto her desk.
"Mr. Potter, if you please?" The diminutive man gestured to Harry for a demonstration.
Harry's mind was still sluggish as he pulled out his wand. "Repente."
Flitwick picked up the cup and dropped it to the floor, only for it to bounce up and nearly hit him in the nose. He eyed Harry strangely, as if not expecting the spell to work. "Excellent work, Mr. Potter… However, next time instead of dozing off in class, perhaps you can offer some help to Mr. Weasley."
Ron sulked beside him all the way through the rest of class, his mood continuing even as they walked to the Great Hall for supper. "How did you manage to pull that off?" he turned and asked Harry. "You weren't paying attention for the entire lecture! It's bloody unfair!"
Harry shrugged. "It's fairly basic as charms go, I guess."
"Basic!? It's a NEWT level charm!" Ron exclaimed, throwing his arms up in the air.
Hermione looked over at Harry as if she wanted to say something, but was never given the chance, as a set of green robes unexpectedly slipped between them all.
"Potter."
"Blaise."
"What do you want Zabini?" Ron's voice dripped with suspicion.
"I don't particularly like playing messenger, but I made an exception this one time," Blaise continued to Harry, ignoring the other two. He handed him a slip of paper.
Harry stopped dead while reading, his blood running cold. He crumpled the note in his fist.
"What does she want?"
"Haven't a clue," he replied flippantly.
Harry wasn't quite sure he believed him. "And if I don't go?"
"Don't know, but it seems urgent." His eyes held Harry's meaningfully, before he split away and disappeared down another hallway.
"What was that all about?" asked Ron.
"I need to go," said Harry, already half-way turned and leaving his friends.
"Wait! Harry, what's wrong?" Hermione called after him.
"Nothing—I… it's just—I need to go."
He didn't hear what they said next, or if they attempted to follow him as he ran. His mind was closed off to everything around him except the note in his fist.
Emotions rushed through him; more than he had ever experienced, and more than he could possibly hope of deciphering at once. One foot flew in front of the other, climbing staircase after staircase, as he dodged and pushed through crowds of students moving higher and higher in his trek through the castle.
He passed under the ladder leading to Trelawney's tower, and felt himself stop. The front of his mind instructed him to keep moving, reminding him how he didn't have time to waste goggling after a drunken; but somewhere in the back, in a shadowy corner of thoughts better kept in the dark, a voice goaded him to climb.
The air was dead and still, and the ladder swayed before him like the earth hundreds of feet below a man gazing over the precipice of a mountain. In fact, he felt like a man on the precipice of a mountain. Something important hung precariously between himself and whatever lay waiting for him up there.
He shook the feeling off with a horrible chill. He couldn't dwell on the perilous and flighty nature of divination.
The Astronomy Tower was typically abandoned most times of the day, and so it was, when Harry came sprinting towards its entrance. Composed of three spiralling staircases, which corkscrewed into three individual landings contained within a shell of high-arched buttresses, the tower resembled a Unicorn's horn piercing the sky. It was the highest point of Hogwarts, opening on all sides to sprawling views of the grounds which spread to a mist on the horizon.
It was on the top level, which felt like a world floating on its own, where he found Daphne. The warmth of the fading sun kissed down on them. She wasn't wearing her Hogwarts robes, which was odd considering they had class today. Even more odd, her eyes were wet and open with shock.
"You came?" She sounded surprised.
Harry didn't answer right away. He looked out to the field where sprouts of green now dominated the quickly receding snow, and felt dizzy, though not from the height.
He maintained his distance, circling the edge of the battlement, his hand trailing along the weatherworn stone. "Blaise said it was urgent."
"I'm—" Her voice caught nervously in her throat. "Harry… I'm sorry—I never—"
"It's fine." His mind and body felt detached from his voice. He was now grasping hold to the side of the castle with both hands. "It was both of us… we did it."
"No! Gods, no! It wasn't you!" Daphne moved closer, shaking in voice and in step. "Harry, I shouldn't have—it was wrong."
"I liked it, didn't I? I didn't stop us," he stated as though it were that simple. His words only drew more tears from her beautiful blue eyes, dripping like the crystal droplets which weeped from the shards of ice hanging from Hogwarts' countless turrets.
It was then he found himself questioning what had happened. Did I really enjoy it? Could I have done something? He wasn't sure, and that scared him.
"You weren't in any state to do anything, and I… I r-ra—"
"No!" Harry snapped, cornered and injured and afraid. He couldn't stand to hear that word. He could feel himself falling back into the mist, lost.
Daphne moved to hold him, and he flinched, the scent of peaches making his head spin dangerously. He wanted to slap her, to make her feel the deep stabbing pain in his chest. But as sudden as a flash of lightening, he was clutching to her fiercely and protectively, wanting to shield her from his crushing hurt.
He pulled back and thrust his lips against hers, hoping it would clear the storm inside him, but instead it surged and threatened to drown him. Just as quickly as he'd taken her in, he pushed violently away from Daphne, and sent her stumbling to the floor.
What's wrong with me? Harry thought with a spreading madness, but a voice whispered in his ear: You know, you know…
"Why?" He couldn't understand—or rather chose not to.
"I needed you—had to show you before I… I left."
Harry felt his stomach drop out from under him. "You're leaving?"
Daphne nodded, her eyes red and puffy, and lips trembling to the point she couldn't open her mouth to speak.
Like giant pieces of a jigsaw raining from the sky, everything started to fall in place around him: Daphne's distance after returning from the holidays, Astoria's argument with their father, her recent forwardness and desperate actions, the urgent nature of their meeting.
"When?" he asked.
"Now."
He felt like a fool for not seeing it—a damned fool. He wanted to laugh and cry and curse and scream, but did none; choosing rather to stand still and stare at the girl who he had never been able to make sense of until now.
He could see the heartbreak in the depths of her eyes, reflecting like cracked jewels. Numb, he couldn't find it in himself to care in that moment
"Father is taking us to the continent, he doesn't want to risk the war," Daphne explained, looking to Harry for some sort of understanding, but finding none. "I don't want to leave, I swear it! But Daddy doesn't like the way things are going. He's made… arrangements for our safety, and we have to go. I didn't have a choice." She shivered and clutched her stomach with straining fingers, as if on the verge of being sick.
Zis Daphne might say she loves you and do sweet things for you, but in ze end she will leave…
Fleur's words floated back to him, taunting him.
She eez ze one who comes first, and when eet matters she will not be ze one to stay and stand by your side…
Harry was laughing now.
At least Daphne is honest… His own words came back now, adding to the indeed—Oh how wrong he'd been. He was shaking at the truth of it all, tears coming to his eyes.
"Harry, please…"
He could feel her frantic hands in his.
"Please, Harry…" She pulled his face down so he could look into her eyes, perhaps for the last time. "Please don't forget me… don't forget us."
Something hard was thrust into his hand.
He looked down to see an amber locket, surprisingly weighted, and fitted in a silver frame. When he looked back up, she was gone.
I hardly heard her leave, he thought.
He wasn't sure how long he stood at the top of the astronomy tower, the sun long having fallen and releasing its starbursts of color over the sky. A chill crawled up his skin. Time was lost to him, but he was certain of one thing, Daphne was gone.
It might have been from the cold or exhaustion, but something drove him from the tower. His mind was blank and his feet carried him aimlessly in a somnolent daze through the school. Eventually, he noticed he'd led himself to an out of the way bathroom on the seventh floor, one he wasn't sure he had ever used.
Something caught his attention, however; not the bathroom itself, as it was fairly plain as Hogwarts washrooms went, but it was the sound of retching coming from within.
Hunched over one of the carved basins, was a darkly clad figure hacking and gagging with such brutality that flecks of crimson sparkled starkly on the pale stone. The bones of their skeletal frame poked harshly through the fabric of their robe. They were coughing again, deep, phlegmy and painful, before taking in a horrifying gasp of air that sounded like their soul being sucked through their body.
Harry moved to their aid, his footstep echoing noisily off the tile floor.
The figure stilled immediately.
He thought he was staring at a ghost. Their skin was faded to a translucent sheen, interrupted by spidery patches of a sickening yellow hue, and their bloodshot eyes stared out the shrunken holes of their skull.
"Potter." Malfoy spat. His voice was a weak rasp of air, but it still managed to hold its spite.
"Not sure you can handle that," Harry provoked, seeing the blonde reach into his pocket.
Malfoy's pale, wormy lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl. "Following me around now are you? What, did Greengrass finally go and leave you then?"
Harry felt his temper flare, and the smirk on Draco's anemic face suggested he noticed.
"Oh, she did, didn't she?" he drawled, as a hint of extra color injected into his skin; he only looked like half a corpse now. "It was only a matter of time, you know. Her family is old and respected, and it wouldn't do consorting with bloodtraitor's like you."
Harry held himself back—just. Malfoy doesn't know what happened between me and Daphne, he reminded himself. He's just looking to get a rise out of me.
"Knowing what you've been up to, Malfoy, I should've been following you for months," he countered.
Malfoy froze at this, the beginnings of fear creeping into his eyes like little white worms.
"I should kill you here and now for what you did to Katie."
Malfoy stumbled back, his body appearing to give out under its own weight. "I d-d-don't know w-what you're talking about."
Harry could smell blood in the air. "Was getting sent here to kill Dumbledore not enough?" he pressed on.
"Lies!" Malfoy gagged on nothing.
"What did Cho ever do to you?"
"No, no—Stop!" Spittle flew from the cracked edges of Malfoy's mouth, his greasy thin hair flopping over his brow. His wand was out now, panicked and pointed loosely in a tremoring hand.
Harry had grown tired of it all, the secrets, the subterfuge, which played with innocent lives. He didn't care about Snape or Dumbledore and what they wanted anymore; he would get the information out of Malfoy one way or another, and he would stop him before anyone else could get hurt. It had gone on long enough, consequences be damned.
His gaze was severe as he stared into Malfoy's grey eyes. There was surprise in his glazed orbs, and the further he dug, there was an overwhelming sense of terror. He could feel Malfoy's hysteria swirling with unrest in the depths of his mind and tearing away at its sanity. He was lost for a moment—lost in whatever strange connection existed between his and Malfoy's mind. He floated outside of his body, without the anchor of consciousness, and existed in a foreign plane which swelled with the fear of a child.
There was a flash where he saw a bespectacled boy with wild green eyes—himself, he quickly realized from a mind that wasn't his own—and felt a surge of resent and jealousy and panic. Like a worm burrowing deeper underground, he sunk further and further, feeling emotions and catching glimpses of memories he couldn't recognize.
He saw a pair of red eyes and a blonde-haired man swell with pride for the honour bestowed upon him. A sense of resolve settled in him, as he looked at a woman with red-rimmed eyes filled with unconditional love; anxiousness flooded him as he poured a phial over a giant pulsing crystal, which sizzled and sparked at a liquids corrosive touch; frustration gripped him over a hulking black cabinet; and soul-splitting pain tore through him as he lay over his love after careless discovery and a spell gone wrong. There was an opal necklace, a gifted bottle of mead, and phials of a crystal liquid which glowed green in a certain light. He could feel desperation and the need to alert the…
Harry felt something slam painfully against his mind, throwing him through twisting darkness and back into his own body.
"Crucio!"
Harry just barely ducked under the red light as stone and tile shattered behind him. Malfoy looked positively primal. He held his wand with a white-knuckle grip, and it snapped through the air with a BANG. Harry jumped and a bin exploded at the far end of the room, showering its contents through the air.
"Why can't you keep your nose out of everything! CRUCIO!"
Harry slid behind a stall, hearing the metal crumple with a CRUNCH upon impact. Taking out his own wand, he blasted the disfigured stall back at Malfoy. A second later, there came a satisfying cry of pain.
"Just die Potter!" Blood dripped from Malfoy's shattered nose, staining the front of his robes right alongside the streaks of dried vomit.
Water was shooting up from broken pipes in a great gushing geyser, and Harry directed its flow to wrap around Malfoy's ankles like vines and pull his feet up from under him. He slipped on the wet tile, splitting his chin and leaving his face a red-stained mess.
Soaked to the bone, Malfoy pulled himself to his feet and glared at Harry with pure hatred.
"Avada Ked—"
Hearing those words, Harry saw red. A scarlet ribbon slashed across the air, and right through Malfoy. Tiny dark pricks speckled his sodden shirt, before they leaked and spread and connected in a muddy puddle over the front of his chest. His mouth was spread in a silent 'O' and like a puppet with its strings cut he tumbled to the ground.
This time, whimpering with each ragged breath, and blood oozing from grievous wounds in his mutilated chest, he truly looked like a corpse. A dull realization settled over his face and eventually what looked to be… relief?
Harry stood still, his eyes never leaving the slowly dying form of Draco Malfoy.
I did this, the thought flitted through his head. I did this to Malfoy without even hesitating…
The truth turned his stomach, and he emptied its contents in the blood stained water.
Suddenly, without warning, the door burst open and Harry was flung roughly to the side. Billowing black robes came rushing past him, cursing, and kneeling beside Malfoy's broken body. A low chant streamed under breath, reverberating against stone like a droning hymn.
Harry watched as Snape pulled his wand along the lacerations on Malfoy's chest, stemming the flow of blood. Repeating his actions in an ever going cycle, the damage looked to be undoing itself, the wounds knitting together, and stable breaths eventually returned to Malfoy's body.
Standing from where he knelt, blood and water dripping from his clothing, Snape's black eyes traced the carmine splashes which clung to the chipped mirrors and dirtied basins. They then wrenched to Harry with a tearing gaze. "What did you do?"
"I didn't—" Harry stopped. He knew what it looked like, and what it looked like was true. "I wasn't…"
It was then that he felt a familiar stab at his mind.
"No!" Harry shouted, pulling out his wand. "Get out of my head!" He had never been any good at Occlumency, and it was only a matter of time before Snape slipped further in.
"What are you hiding, Potter?" Snape sneered with cruel yellow teeth.
Harry was hiding a great many things, and slowly he could feel emotions, memories, and feelings being plucked mercilessly from his mind. He couldn't allow this to happen.
A flash of blue flames came spurting out the end of his wand, distracting Snape and cutting his connection to his mind.
With a simple flick, the flames were snuffed out of existence.
"You dare?"
Veins popped and furious lines sketched across his sallow face, and Harry half expected to hear the sound of cracking teeth, his jaw clenched so tightly. He had pushed Snape further than he had ever before.
Harry was nearly caught off guard when he saw the movement of Snape's wand and felt the familiar tug of the ankle accompanied by the Levicorpus Spell. Before being dragged head over heels, he quickly dispelled it with its counter.
Snape's eyes widened a touch, and then a cold, ugly sneer spread across his lips.
Another curse from the Prince's book came flying his way, the one that made someone's toenails grow at an incredible rate, and Harry dispelled it as well. This was followed by the Langlock hex, which he cancelled and sent right back, only for it to fizz into nothingness.
Snape was smiling now.
Spell after spell, each as unique as the next, and each increasingly more dangerous than the one before, were sent Harry's way. He could visualize each spell crammed into the margins of his potions book in the neat, tiny scrawl of the Half-Blood Prince, and Snape used each spell with a familiarity of that of a long lost friend.
"It's you," Harry breathed out in realization. It was too soft to hear over the clash of spells, but the manic expression on Snape's face told him the secret was out.
Snape was the Half-Blood Prince.
A wet gurgle could be heard somewhere off to the side, the sound of someone helplessly choking on something. Snape immediately dropped to Malfoy's side again, abandoning his exchange with Harry.
For a split-second, when Snape's back was turned and uncaring to anything save for Malfoy, Harry had the overpowering urge to cast one final devastating spell. His wand twitched in his hand, but the feeling quickly faded, and Harry fled the bathroom.
Tripping over his feet and stumbling into walls, he could hardly believe what had just happened. He'd almost killed Malfoy. He duelled Snape. He discovered the Prince and wanted to kill him as well.
What's wrong with me? His mind pounded. Blood thundered against his skull with each trampling beat of his heart. Nothing's wrong, a dark voice inside him whispered, there's no evil in having what it takes to kill…
He could feel his stomach heave, but nothing came out except for a dry croak of air.
He needed to speak to Dumbledore—to explain what happened and all he discovered.
The familiar sight of a drop-down ladder met him as he rounded corner, and he froze as he had before. Again he was goaded to climb, and again he was warned to keep moving; but this time, perhaps it was his building madness, he reached out and grabbed a wooden rung.
The classroom looked much the same as it had in the past: dark and dusty, with small tables scattered with an assortment of crystal balls, tea cups and tarot cards. Heavy curtains of a deep burgundy blocked out the sun, and thick carpeting of the same color trapped the heat so that a haze seemed to form in the room. The air was stale and oppressive, and choke-filled with the scent of incense and cooking sherry, making his head swim unpleasantly.
"A lone figure draped in blood…" The wisp of a voice tickled his ear. "I had read your arrival."
Harry spun around to see Trelawney sitting alone at one of the tables and staring deeply into a cup of tea with her wide-lensed glasses.
"You could have just looked at my robes when I walked in," Harry replied, trying to ignore the strange way in which the magic in the air was charged.
"Perhaps… but I have seen much and more." She tittered, and dropped the porcelain cup to the table with a clink.
"That's just a pile of leaves," Harry pointed out, looking at the aggregation of organic material.
"A pile of leaves it might be for some, but it is a story woven through the fates for those gifted with the sight and stitched together by the magic of actions taken and not. You were always a fascinating subject, so much of what I see and read is centred around you…"
"Then tell me what you see," said Harry taking the seat across the Seer. He looked desperately at her eyes, hoping for a glimpse of fate, but she gazed past him.
"I see a great many things—always changing, always shifting with the wind. Perhaps had you come time ago when I first offered you to see, the eye would be more clear."
"Tell me anything."
"Drink," she finally said, pushing a second, already filled cup into his hands. It had been waiting for him.
The tea was warm when it wet his lips. It sat in his mouth like a puddle of standing water. Was this really what he wanted to do? He paused in doubt. Prophecy was dangerous, Dumbledore had always told him so, it was best to avoid falling into its self-fulfilling trap.
But he was already here… and there was so much he didn't know…
Before his nerve left him, Harry tilted the cup so its bottom faced the ceiling, and swallowed it in a single gulp with a grimace. The taste was bitter—a fitting taste for prophecy.
She snatched the cup out of his hands, examining it with foggy eyes. She dipped a skeletal finger into the residue, before sucking on it tightly and jumping out of her chair with a gasp. The cup clattered to the ground just as her chair did, and Trelawney clutched at her chest with short gulping breaths.
"What?" Harry demanded.
"The skull and serpent…" she panted, frantically moving throughout the room and searching desks and cupboards.
"What does it mean?" Harry moved after her, and watched as she pulled out a bottle of sherry, popped its cork with her teeth and drank heavily from the spout.
"It means death and destruction and evil…" Trelawney looked on the verge of having a fit. Her eyes bulged in a craze. "Darkness is on its way. It is inevitable, and coming for us all. Two paths converge into one, your actions serving as its catalyst, bringing to a close untimely events. I see the fall of kings and further betrayal, and in you… I see only darkness."
Harry's blood ran cold.
"Tell me—"
"Out!" Trelawney shrieked, throwing her bottle at him. He ducked as it shattered and splashed against his back. "Get out! I won't have your ill-fated presence here any longer!"
Like a banshee, she screeched to the point Harry feared his ears would bleeding. He jumped down the ladder, escaping down empty hallways, his head ringing all the way with her unearthly screams.
"Harry?"
He heard a voice but ignored it. His stomach was churning like the sea in a storm, but there was nothing he could do to settle it. He pressed his forehead against a stone wall, taking in just the slightest hint of relief from its cool touch on his burning skin.
"Harry." A hand rested gently on his shoulder, and he peered up into a pair of concerned blue eyes. "My boy, are you alright?"
It was Dumbledore. Merlin, he must have looked a sight.
"I'm… fine, sir," he coughed, still tasting the earthiness of the tea in his throat. "The blood's not mine—I don't think it is, at least."
Dumbledore's lips curled into a tight smile. "Harry, are you certain you are alright?"
"Yes," he grunted, finally pulling himself straight. "I need to tell you something, sir."
"If it is in relation to Mr. Malfoy, I am already quite aware." He frowned, and Harry looked away guiltily. "I understand the source of your anger better than most. The damage he has caused to this school and my charges is unforgiveable. But Harry, I can't pretend to understand your reasoning for attacking him so brazenly given the precariousness of our situation."
"I found out what Malfoy was up to. He attacked me! He tried to use the Cruciatus Curse on me!"
The expression of a storm brewed on Dumbledore's face. "He resorted to an Unforgiveable… that is serious indeed. I am glad you are unscathed, Harry. But you say he told you of his plans?"
"He didn't tell me exactly, no. I think it might have been… legilimency."
If Dumbledore were surprised at his admission, he did not show it. Instead, his blue eyes winked brilliantly with pride. "He would never have expected you to hold such a skill. Occlumency and Legilimency are said to be two sides of the same coin, but still Legilimency is an art that is much more difficult to master. Mr. Malfoy guarded himself well in the presence of myself and Professor Snape, but left himself exposed to you."
"I don't understand, sir," said Harry, confused. "How was I able to pull it off? I've never even attempted it before."
"I could think of a number of reasons, much of it guesswork and difficult to prove. However, I will simply remind you of what I once said in regards to conventional rules and what they mean to individuals such as ourselves, Harry."
"I remember seeing a large cabinet and Malfoy pouring some type of poison on a crystal—Oh, and it was Malfoy who killed Pansy!" Harry recounted with horror, the shock of the final discovery still as powerful as when he'd experienced it.
"I had suspected the fate of Miss Parkinson was the result of a faulty memory charm, but to know it was done by someone she loved and trusted…" Dumbledore wiped at his eyes as he spoke. They turned to the ceiling and stared deep in thought. "It was a crystal you say you saw… and a magical cabinet?"
"Yes—at least I think so, I don't know where or what they are exactly."
"Worrisome indeed," Dumbledore pondered, pulling at his beard, "but an issue that can be dealt with on the morrow. Tonight, we are headed to find a Horcrux—not a moment can be wasted in gathering them. That is, if you are willing to join me?"
"Of course! Are we going now?"
"We are headed to the coast," Dumbledore replied, leading Harry up to his office. "To an unpleasant place we had once visited in the memory of Amy Benson."
"To the cave?" Harry asked as they climbed the final steps and entered his office.
"Precisely." Dumbledore rummaged through his desk, organizing papers and putting them away. He took out a small oaken box and set it carefully on the surface, before turning to face Harry, his voice taking on a serious quality: "Now before we depart, there is the potential of us encountering significant danger, and I believe you are long past the need of such foolish restrictions—your wand, please."
Harry passed it into his waiting hand and watched with interest as Dumbledore weaved his magic over that of the wand. He handed it back, it feeling much the same as it did before, only lighter.
"Now, let us be on our way." Dumbledore placed his hand on Harry's arm and they apparated away together.
Harry stood, shivering violently in place, his clothing soaked and freezing to his skin with a numbing burn. The swim to reach the inner cave had been brief but agonizing. His fingers felt like icicles which could neither bend nor flex while he fumbled for his wand and cast a warming charm. The soft glow of warmth, however little it truly did, felt like the kiss of life upon his skin.
Dumbledore stood across from him, calm and seemingly untouched by the frigid air, the silver of his hair shimmering like the golden stars on his decorated robes. High above, from a hole naturally carved in the rocky ceiling, shafts of moonlight poured over them. "Do you sense it, Harry?" he asked, looking around keenly.
Harry took in their environment, straining his eyes to look into the shadows. The water sitting still beneath their feet was inky black, blending in with the slimy walls which shone as though stuck by tar. They stood at what looked to be the end of a tunnel, but for some odd reason it felt like he could reach out and step beyond the walls closed around them.
"There's something beyond what we're seeing," said Harry.
"Indeed," Dumbledore agreed. "A wonderful bit of concealment magic, but not one that avoids leaving traces." The old wizard stepped deliberately in front of a small crack in the wall. He ran an exposed finger over it and shook his head in disappointment. "How primitive, Tom…"
Harry stepped beside Dumbledore, and the strangest thought suddenly came to him. The wall itself looked hungry.
Dumbledore pointed his wand and muttered a short phrase, and a glowing white archway appeared, painted in the air in front of them. It flickered for a moment, before disappearing entirely.
Harry shivered again, but it had nothing to do with the cold.
"Cruel, as is the way of Tom Riddle. The payment for passage is blood, in the hopes of weakening any that may enter," said Dumbledore.
Taking his wand in his gloved hand, he pulled it carefully along the palm of the other. The blackness of the cave made it difficult to make out, but he saw Dumbledore smear his palm along the wall, leaving behind a dark trail, which was drank greedily by the stone. The scent of iron filled the air.
The wall shifted and pulled away, before fading and fading until it vanished completely out of sight, and made him question if it had even stood there to begin with. In the place of where the brilliant white arch had been, was a gaping tunnel that stretched into a sinister abyss.
They travelled for some time into the bowels of the cave, staying close together and keeping their wands out in watchful vigilance. A speckle of something flickered off in the distance, like a singular candle burning at the end of its wick. The light grew the closer they drew, casting the tunnel in an eerie green glow. Just like it had been in the memory, the lake emerged from the total darkness in front of them, a mist hanging over its luminous surface. Harry could see the collection of rocks near the water's edge where Voldemort tortured the orphans.
Something about the water felt wrong, and Harry's body screamed at him not to touch it. "What is in the water, sir?" he asked, hearing his voice rebound around the cavern and into its mineral-rich ceiling.
"Nothing we wish to encounter," Dumbledore answered from his side.
"I suppose a summoning charm won't work?"
Dumbledore chuckled lightly. "Often times in life we find simple solutions to the most complex problems. But unfortunately, I doubt we will find ourselves so lucky today."
"And whatever is in the lake won't let us swim across," Harry spoke mostly to himself. He knew they were not alone. There was a malevolence to this place which rotted with an undead feel.
"I believe I have found our ticket across."
Harry turned to see Dumbledore holding something invisible in his outstretched hand. He gave a sharp tug, splashing the water, and a thick chain materialized out of thin air. It moved on its own, snaking along the ground to the exterior wall and attaching itself there. A loud grinding sound pierced the silence of the cave as the chain pulled endlessly upon itself, until the tip of a wooden boat poked above the water.
Dumbledore was already seated in the craft when Harry climbed on board. It felt suffocatingly small as they travelled across the water, and Dumbledore seemed to notice Harry's discomfort.
"I believe there is an enchantment in place so only a single rider can cross at a time, in case Voldemort needed to safely check on his Horcrux," he explained. "Voldemort cared only for those who threatened him, as such I assume the enchantment measures only the presence of adult wizards. The discomfort you feel is likely due to your approaching majority."
He was able to breathe easy again once he stepped out of the boat, taking care to avoid touching the water. They had docked on the rocky islet at the center of the lake, which grew from its depths like a mound of black glass. It was about the size of his dorm at Hogwarts—or even a touch smaller—and it was here where the ethereal glow of the cavern originated.
A pedestal jutted out at a vulgar angle from the peak of the island, and at its center, beating like a sickly green heart, was Salazar Slytherin's locket.
Harry moved to poke it with his wand, but it hit a swirling liquid as though it were an impenetrable barrier. The locket rested at its bottom, submerged. Dumbledore followed with his hand and met a similar result.
They stood there together for what felt like an hour, as Dumbledore tested the protections of the Horcrux and attempted to puzzle out the mysterious liquid.
"It is as I feared then…" Dumbledore finally said. "It must be drunk."
"It's a potion?"
"I suspect it does not cure the common cold," said Dumbledore, his voice dry, and a wrinkle of fear lining his tired eyes. He conjured a goblet and dipped it into the liquid, this time passing through without resistance.
"No! You can't!" Harry shouted. "I'll do it instead."
"Even facing the unknown, your heart remains noble and pure." Dumbledore looked at him with a sad affection, and his lips quivered as he continued on: "My life means little in the face of your own, Harry. I will undoubtedly face horrors beyond imagine once I ingest this elixir, but once I begin I must see it through. Promise me, that if I forget who I am or beg you to stop in the throes of agony, or even attack you in a fit of madness, you will do what is necessary to see this through to completion.
"Sir, I don't want to hurt you—"
"It is not a matter of hurting me, or whether it is something you wish to do or not—it is what must be done." Dumbledore's words were soft, but beneath it was a firmness that halted any further protest.
He lifted the goblet to his lips, and with a frown, downed it in a gulp.
"This certainly will not be helping my already troubled digestion," Dumbledore jested weakly. His hand reached to fill the goblet again, but haltingly this time, as though fighting the urge not to.
After his second drink, Dumbledore was visibly much worse off than after the first. His long, bony fingers gripped the pedestal, just as his knees buckled from underneath him.
"Professor!" Harry shouted, barely moving in time to catch the man before he fell to his knees.
"Harry… I'm not sure if I can…"
"You can, sir, I know you can. You told me you had to." With some unknown strength, Harry hoisted Dumbledore to his feet, allowing him to fill another serving of the potion.
"Please… no…" Dumbledore pleaded, but Harry pressed the cup to his trembling lips and coaxed it down his throat.
He heard him make a terrible gagging noise.
"Professor, you need to keep going."
Pushing himself to his feet from where he'd been hunched over his stomach, Dumbledore showed an inner strength Harry could only marvel at. He filled another glass himself and drank it down earnestly. His body started to convulse, and his chest heave, but still he remained standing on wobbly feet and drank once more.
The goblet slipped from his fingers, clashing with a metallic ting on the stone and rolling away from the teetering wizard.
"Not her… please…why… why not me?" Tears leaked from the seams of his closed eyes, as he fumbled around blindly.
Harry went to fetch the goblet, and returned to see Dumbledore gasping for breath on his knees. He filled it again, and brought it to Dumbledore's face, only for a stray hand to slap it away.
"Professor, you told me we needed to get this done—to do whatever it takes." Harry gripped the man's hands, and fed him some more.
"Please… let me go… I can't… I have to help her," he stuttered between sips.
It was terrible, so very terrible, what he was doing to a man he loved with all his heart.
"I'm here professor, it's Harry. I promise it will end soon, just a few more." He emptied another, focusing all his attention an ensuring every drop was delivered. It was all he could do to distract himself from Dumbledore's pain.
"Oh, Harry… Harry… I was such a fool. I thought I could see her… I only needed to touch it once."
Harry tried to block out his ramblings. Fill and feed, fill and feed, it was perpetual cycle, and the only way of ending this torture.
"I've failed, Gel… failed you… failed them all… I can't fail again..."
His limbs began to flail, thrashing wildly like a fish pulled terminally from the water, and Harry was forced to pin him to the ground. He pressed the goblet to Dumbledore's mouth, fighting his lips until they slackened and accepted the inevitability of the next dose of the cursed potion.
"Just drink, sir, drink, and it will all be over. There's just a few more now, drink." His hands shook as he filled the next goblet. He knew what his instructions had been, but he still hated himself all the same.
"I can save him, Abe… I can... I will… I couldn't before, but there's a way—I won't fail…"
Dumbledore drank greedily now, almost as if he was relishing in his pain. "I can't fail… I can't, I can't, not again… not for him…"
A shallow pool was all that remained of the potion, the chain of the locket nearly breaching the surface.
"This is the last one, professor, I promise. Open up—that's it—I promise, this is it and it's all over." Tears pricked at Harry's eyes, as he fed his defeated headmaster one last time.
With the last of it gone, silently, Dumbledore turned over to his side, and his eyes stared unblinkingly to the darkness above.
Harry wanted to run over and check on him immediately, but remembered what he had promised. In a panic, he sprinted to the pedestal and dug his hand inside to retrieve the locket. He pushed it into his Mokeskin pouch for safe keeping.
"Water..."
He heard a shallow rattling breath, just before a splash.
Harry froze, his blood running cold. He turned to see Dumbledore feebly cupping water into his mouth at the edge of the lake.
"No!" he screamed, slashing his wand just in time to sever the ghastly hand that reached for Dumbledore's face. "Professor, get back!"
He wasn't given the opportunity to check if Dumbledore heeded his warning, as his attention was needed elsewhere. Rising from the luminous green depths came an army of humanoid creatures, their blackened bodies slick with a gluey slime. Men, women and children, naked and rotted, mutilated and whole, crawled overtop of one another like a horde of insects. He blasted a few back, only for them to clamber back up, strong and sightless and unfeeling.
They were Inferi, abominations of necromancy.
I need fire.
A jet of white-hot flame came shooting out the end of his holly wand. Sweat leaked from the pores of his face, and the dark magic imbued in the cursed scar stretching along his neck and jaw burned in agony. Steam surrounded them in a heavy curtain, obscuring the undead creatures, only the screeches of their destruction hinting at their proximity.
They came in never ending waves, swarming around him, where one would fall only for five more to take its place. It was only a matter of time before they were overrun. After a time, Harry's fire didn't quite seem to be enough, as they kept barreling through, crisping and crackling as their skin lit up like kindling. A sharp pain tore through his ankle, and Harry looked down to see the inferius of an infant hissing at him with blood-soaked and blackened teeth.
Just then, an immense stream of fire came bursting through the wall of crimson and gold he'd erected around himself, scorching his side with searing pain. Another gust came flying wildly by, forcing Harry to duck before it burnt off the other half of his face.
Staggering like a drunkard, Dumbledore swung his wand in great wide arcs, spewing flames of such intense heat the Inferi found it impassable. It was effective in clearing most of them from the island, but the fire was all consuming and Dumbledore's recklessness would have them burnt alive at any moment.
Directing a torrent of flame away with a summoned gust of wind, Harry tackled Dumbledore to the ground from behind. Dumbledore was yelling and threatening and cursing at no one in particular. His eyes were closed, his only enemies being invisible ones. Weak spurts of flame were shooting all around them in their struggle, and one licked painfully along Harry's already burnt side. Even now, in a contest of strength, Harry was certain Dumbledore would win, but the potion had weakened him just enough to wrench the wand free from his grip.
Across the rocks, he could hear the twisted claws of the Inferi scrambling towards them again.
With a desperate sweep of his wand, Harry lashed out with every last bit of energy he had remaining. Fire danced around them, circling the Inferi and scorching everything in its path. Burnt flesh filled the air with its putrid scent, choking him as he tried to breath, yet somehow he managed to pull Dumbledore over to the miraculously intact boat.
Some strength had returned to Dumbledore with the short rest on their way back to shore, and he just managed to climb out of the boat on his own once they docked at the entrance of the cave. Without leaving any chance of finding out if the Inferi had in fact followed them through the water, Harry helped Dumbledore along as they rushed out of the cave and sealed it behind them.
"Rest…" Dumbledore breathed weakly, leaning most of his weight on Harry's shoulder.
"Yes, you'll get some rest, sir, I promise. Hold still a moment and I'll get us back."
Taking a deep breath of the fresh sea air, Harry tried to clear the contamination of the roasting dead from his lungs. Feeling a surge of something akin to a second wind, he gripped Dumbledore securely and apparated away.
They reappeared in Dumbledore's Office with a crash, and Harry immediately moved to take the headmaster up to his chambers.
"Wait…" his voice came out as a wheeze. "My desk…" He pointed with his gloved hand, but beneath the leather, much of it having been melted away in the fire, lay a withered black husk.
Harry stopped and stared, forgetting everything. "How…?" he heard the word escape his mouth. How long had he kept it hidden beneath his glove? How long had it looked so bad? Too many questions came rushing through his mind.
"My desk…" Dumbledore repeated, ignoring him. "There's a box… take it."
Harry turned, following the point of his finger. On the corner of his desk, sat the red oaken box he had taken out moments before they left for the cave. "What is it?" Harry asked as he slid it into his pocket.
"Later," Dumbledore whispered, his eyes drooping dangerously with sleep.
Harry decided against taking him up to his room, and instead chose to lay him gently on a sofa near one of his bookshelves. Fawkes flew over and crooned musically as he perched near his master's head, nuzzling his cheek with his beak.
"You did well, Harry… so proud… to have seen you grow means the world to me."
"I'll be right back, sir. I'm just going to get Madam Pomfrey to come check on you," Harry said, trying to keep his tone even despite the growing fear inside him.
He moved to leave, but Dumbledore's necrotic hand held tightly around his wrist. "Your mother and father would be so proud… just as I am." His blue eyes were dim, like the light behind them was fading, but still they managed a distant sparkle as they looked up at Harry.
He needed to get to Madam Pomfrey immediately—she would be able to help him. He left, promising Dumbledore he would return soon, and sprinted through the empty hallways in the direction of the Hospital Wing. He pulled out the Marauder's Map not wanting to run into Filch, and while checking to see if his path was clear his eyes suddenly stopped and so did the steady beat of his heart.