A/N: Hello Dear readers! Sorry for being MIA such a long time but the good news is that this story is finally completely written! The ending is perhaps a bit rushed but I lost interest in it a long time ago, thus taking so long to finish it. I shall now post the final seven chapters for you to read. Thank you for all of those who stuck with this story throughout the years. I hope you like the rest of it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter
26st January 1995
You-know-who a hypocrite? – The feared Dark Lord a product of a Muggle and a Squib?
The identity of the feared Dark Lord Voldemort has been revealed by an anonymous source. The Dark Lord Voldemort - known for his hatred for Muggles, Muggle-born and even Half-blood witches and wizards as well as his desire for blood purity - is really a half-blood wizard by the name of Tom Riddle, born to a Squib mother Merope Gaunt and a Muggle father Thomas Riddle. Riddle attended Hogwarts 1938-1945 - -
The question, however, remains, do the followers of Riddle know of his heritage and knowingly bow down to this hypocrite or has the Lord who fears death deceived them all?
By Charlus Jameson
Remus shook his head as he folded the newspaper having finished skimming through the article. Trust Sky to start antagonizing Voldemort through journalism after having been denied his manhunt. It had taken all four of them to restrain both him and Dora after they found out about the Azkaban breakout and more importantly Gregory Mallory escaping. When the two had finally calmed down enough to see reason Marcus had lectured them on doing rash decisions. They would have to carefully plan the next raid instead of just rushing into it. Unfortunately, however, most of the Death Eaters had managed to evade sightings and were avoiding their usual hideouts and thus they were unable to even plan one.
So instead, Sky had thrown himself into discovering the location of the last Horcrux they had yet to find and destroy apart from the snake. They all knew how imperative it was to destroy all the soul pieces before they could start an open war with Voldemort. The snake they were not worried about as Voldemort was known to keep her with him at all times, but the diadem was a cause for worry. Sky was convinced that it would be at Hogwarts but so far had been unable to locate it. He had spent the past month turning over every nook and cranny of the Chamber of the Secrets with Dora and Emily but with no success.
How to find something that had been missing even before it was hidden? The Ravenclaw's diadem had been a myth long before even Remus had attended Hogwarts. He doubted that even the ghosts of Hogwarts knew what happened to it.
Suddenly Remus sat up as his brain caught up with his thoughts.
'The ghosts! The Grey Lady!'
He remembered the rumours he had heard from his school years. Some first year Ravenclaws were insisting that the Grey Lady was the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw. No-one had believed them, but what if it was true?
Remus grabbed his wand and Apparated to Hogsmeade.
It was worth a shot to find out.
"Nothing. There's nothing in here!" Sky growled in frustration as another hidden room in the Chamber failed to contain the missing Horcrux. "We've been searching for days!"
"More like weeks." Emily commented dryly making Sky glare at her.
"Are you sure it's in Hogwarts?" Dora asked for a hundred time.
"I'm sure." Sky sighed. "And don't ask me how I know, I just know."
"Well, it's definitely not here." She commented.
"Where else can it be? Riddle is the only one who has access here. He's the only one who even knew it truly even existed! He's smart enough to use that to his advantage." Sky argued.
"Like this is the only place to hide stuff in Hogwarts." Emily rolled her eyes.
"Where would you have hidden it then?" Sky asked annoyed.
"Well, I don't know. Some empty unused classroom maybe. I mean, there are hundreds! Or the room of requirement. I mean you could imagine any place you wanted to hide it and only someone who imagines exactly the same as you could find it! Me and Dean once hid there from Filch. I don't even remember what I was thinking, I mean we kinda panicked and the room conjured up room filled with all kinds of old stuff. I think I even saw Trelawney's empty brandy bottles there…"
"Wait, wait!" Sky exclaimed holding up a hand thinking hard. "Brilliant!" He cried joyfully and grabbed his sister to a hug, spinning her around the Chamber. "You're brilliant!"
"What? What did I do?"
"Of course! The Room of Requirement!" Dora caught on grinning.
"Let's go!" Sky ran out of the Chambers to where their brooms lay. "Hurry up, we have a soul to destroy!"
It wasn't long till they found themselves reaching the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, only in his excitement Sky failed to see Remus who came from the other direction and crashed into him.
"Ow." Sky groaned.
"Remus? What are you doing here?" Dora asked helping the man up.
"I found out where the Horcrux is." Remus said.
"Really? We too!"
"Yes. The Ravenclaw ghost, the Grey Lady, is the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw. She was the one who stole the diadem in the first place but hid it before she died. Riddle managed to manipulate its location out of her during his school years. She gave me some clues and I was able to figure out she meant the room of requirement."
"The Grey Lady is Helena Ravenclaw?" Dora said amazed.
"We can discuss that later, now let's go destroy that soul piece." Sky said and walked back and forth three times thinking of a room with hidden things. Seconds later the smooth door turned into a door and the four entered.
"Woah." Dora gasped. "This might take us a while."
The others nodded in agreement, grimacing as they looked around the room at the hundreds of piles of stuff.
"Accio Ravenclaw's diadem." Sky said waving his wand.
A moment passed and Dora looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
"You really thought it would be that simple?"
Sky shrugged.
"It was worth a shot."
"Somehow I think that Riddle wouldn't just leave his soul here without any kind of protection." Emily commented.
"I didn't think so but sometimes the simplest solution works the best."
"Sky's right." Remus commented having muttered his own locator spells with little success. "Often wizards tend to overlook the simplest solutions and go for the most difficult ones. However, it would seem that Riddle was smart enough to cover all magical possibilities."
The girls nodded.
"The Muggle way it is then." Dora said.
"I think it's best if we split up." Sky commented and the others agreed. "Dora and I will go this way, you guys take the other. Use Patronus to communicate." He continued before nodding at his sister and uncle and heading to the right side of the room with Dora on his heels.
Hours and dozens of piles of junk later a silver tiger appeared in front of the young couple and Emily's voice filled the air.
"No success here. It's late and Remus and I think we should call it a day and come back tomorrow with new strength. Meet us by the door in fifteen."
Sky sighed in disappointment before conjuring his own Patronus and letting his sister know they would be there.
"It's okay, luv. Tomorrow is a new day and we can ask others to help us." Dora said hugging him.
Sky pecked her lips before answering.
"I think it's best if we keep the search party minimum. I wouldn't want Dumbledore to catch onto what we are doing."
Dora nodded and the two left the search behind – at least for the rest of the evening.
Sky, Dora, Remus and Emily spend the next two days rummaging through the room of hidden things with little success. On the third day, their search was interrupted by a message from Marcus, delivered by Shadow.
"What does it say?" Dora inquired.
"The Unspeakables are gathering tonight."
"You mean all of them?" Dora asked astonished.
"Yes. Even the silent ones." Sky said with equal amazement. It was an incredibly rare event for all of the Unspeakables to gather. All Unspeakables, researchers, analysts, healers, combats, active, non-active, trainees, retired, silent – literarily everyone would be there. It meant hundreds of people from all over the world would attend. As far as Sky knew it had only happened once hundreds of years ago but no one knew the cause for a fact. It would be an incredible honor to see it happen.
"Wow."
"Dad wants to see us beforehand." Sky continued skimming through the note.
"Well, we still have a few hours to it." Remus commented. "Let's keep searching." He said turning back to rummaging through the piles of rubbish. The others joined him and for the next hour the search continued as such.
Sky was just about to suggest they come back another day when suddenly Emily cried out from further away:
"Sky! Dora! Rem! I think I found it!"
The others rushed to find her following her voice and stopped short in front of a mannequin with an awful orange wig. On top of it sat the Ravenclaw's diadem.
"This is it!" Remus said waving his wand over the tiara jus to be sure, even though all of them could feel the item reeking off tainted magic. Well done Emily!" He smiled.
"I can't believe it." Dora said. "It was right here all along."
"Yeah." Sky agreed.
"But why would he put it on a display like that?" Emily commented. "I would have hidden it in the deepest corner of the room."
"Maybe he thought it would be overlooked as bauble." Sky commented.
"Hidden in plain sight." Remus agreed.
"Well I for one am happy he did or we would still be searching." Dora said.
Remus nodded. "Now we only need to destroy it."
"But how?" Emily asked. "We can't just Fiendfyre the Room of Requirement, can we?"
"We could…" Sky trailed off.
"But luckily I got us some basilisk fangs from the Chamber so we don't have to burn down the whole school." Dora said and gave a fang to Emily. "Finder gets the honor."
"Only if you want to." Remus added concerned and Sky nodded in agreement.
Emily smiled wickedly as she raised the fang and turned toward the diadem.
"With pleasure."
"My friends. You all know why we have gathered here tonight." Marcus' voice carried through the hall. "Tom Riddle has declared a war upon us all and we will need the help of each of you to defeat him."
"Zo, it iz true tzen?" A disguised voice asked though Sky thought he could hear a feminine hint in it. "Tzis Riddle waz not killed by 'Arry Potter tzirteen yearz ago?"
"No, he was not. Riddle is smart. Insane but an extremely intelligent wizard and that's what makes him dangerous. Thirteen years ago he found a way to cheat death – I'm sure you have all heard of Horcruxes by now?"
Shocked gasps ran through the hall and the atmosphere got even more somber. Marcus was referring to the Flamel case which had made that particular piece of magic known throughout the DoM. After Sky had found out the truth about the Stone, Marcus had consulted several of the Heads and they had come to the decision that the so-called Philosopher's Stone would be studied to get as much information out of it as possible to help with the Riddle case, and then be eliminated. The Stone had been destroyed just a few months ago, naturally taking the Flamels with it as both their souls had been tied to the Stone. To the public Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel had died of old age as no one wanted Horcruxes made public knowledge, but to everyone who knew the truth the Flamels were considered with shame and revulsion.
Thus it was no wonder Sky could hear some witches and wizards cursing Riddle's name, some expressing their disgust and shock.
"Exactly." Marcus continued agreeing with their disgust. "He has made several and we have been working on discovering them for the past couple of years. We have been quite successful in the task so far but his soul trinkets are not the reason I called you all here today. I called you here because we need your help. We need your eyes and ears to uncover and stop any plans or recruitment processes Riddle has come up with. We need your skills to fight back when he does succeed. We need more manpower to conduct raids. We need you to help us to stop this madman before he has the chance to spread his wings and move on to grander destruction." Marcus paused.
"We have already lost many great agents to his Death Eaters. Latest were tonight when a team was ambushed protecting Godric's Hollow. None survived.
Sky bowed his head among many others to honor the fallen. That was what Marcus had informed them of before the gathering. Serpent and his team had been patrolling in Godric's Hollow after receiving intel on Death Eater activity in the village and had been ambushed by said Death Eaters. None of the team had survived and the backup had arrived too late. Sky had never gotten along with Serpent and they had continued their mutual dislike throughout the years but he never wanted him dead and was sad to hear it.
"Voldemort will not stop at Britain, we all know this. Given a chance he will move the death and destruction to the rest of the world. We don't want another Grindelwald to happen.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are at war. Britain cannot fight this threat alone. We need the help from each of you to destroy this psychopath and his minions before they destroy us." Marcus looked around the crowd and Sky felt as though he was meeting the eyes of the hundreds of people gathered – impossible as that was.
"Now who's with me?" Marcus cried and the crowd roared their approval.
Sky smiled imagining the shock Riddle was going to feel when the opposing force he was going to encounter was no longer going to be Dumbledore and his band of fried chickens, and instead this.
A/N: Thanks for reading. Please review and tell me what you think.
- Dalnim