A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites and follows after last chapter! I know there is a lot of intrigue...but hopefully you are enjoying the updates still. Can you believe that we are only ten chapters away from the end? Anyhow, here's the return of a familiar face. You can follow me on tumblr (nauticalparamour) where I post sneak peeks, story updates and answer questions.
Please let me know what you thought of chapter thirty-nine and be on the lookout for chapter forty soon!
October 1969
It felt odd to be walking around in Diagon Alley after having been holed away in the Burrow for so many months. Since June, she had rarely left the Arthur's charming little cottage, except to maybe make a few quick trips into the small village of Ottery St. Catchpole, knowing that it was better for her to remain unseen. She wasn't sure that anyone was looking for her, but on the off chance that they were, it was better just not to risk it.
She wasn't lonely at the Burrow. She saw Molly and Arthur daily, and members of their little group, still not yet named, popped in to see her now that they knew she was there. She quite enjoyed seeing Amelia who shared a passion for Arithmancy, and reminded Hermione rather a lot of her niece, Susan. She had a fresh perspective on the politics of the time, and seemed to know just how everyone in the Wizengamot voted. Fabian and Gideon stopped by too, and never failed to make her laugh. The more she got to know them, the more she realized they were not Fred and George, sharing none of their business savvy. If anything, they reminded her more of Bill than any of the future Weasley children.
Now, though, with Molly and Arthur newly married and out on their honeymoon in Brighton, Hermione and Dumbledore decided now was the best time to look for the Gaunt Ring that was possibly a horcrux.
Dumbledore had described and drawn the ring that Tom Riddle began to wear not long after his Uncle Morfin had died, toying with it constantly. They surmised that it was likely the first horcrux that he'd made, finding the timing too suspicious to be coincidence. Hermione had stared at the drawing for hours, committing it to memory, so if they found it, she would recognize it.
Planning to meet Dumbledore at the Leaky Cauldron, Hermione flooed in a little bit early so that she could do a bit of browsing and have a bite to eat before they traveled to Little Hangleton together. After a quick sandwich at the pub, Hermione eagerly made her way out into the Alley.
Getting out was a welcome change, even if she hadn't been lonely. The air was crisp and cold and the colors had already begun to change up in the country, but there was no hint of foliage in Diagon Alley when Hermione began to walk around. She made a beeline to the bookshop, wanting to see if there was anything new, even if she wouldn't buy anything that day.
Flourish and Blotts was rather empty when Hermione made her way down the aisles of books. The new release of the moment appeared to be something from Bathilda Bagshot, and even though Hermione was sure she'd read practically everything the woman had written at this point, she flipped through the pages reverently.
"Sweet Salazar," a familiar voice came from her left. "Is that really you Granger?"
Hermione turned to face a gleeful looking Bellatrix Black, staring down at her stomach with a disturbing level of excitement. "Bellatrix," Hermione said, grabbing her wand instinctually, the need to protect herself and her baby stronger than ever.
"Don't tell me you are actually pregnant!" the other witch practically cackled. "And it must be Rodolphus's. Salazar, this is amazing news."
"Rodolphus and I have nothing to do with one another," she answered, taking a step back. "So if you are still trying to break your betrothal, I'm sorry, I can't be of help." Hermione thought the pair of them rather deserved one another the way that Rodolphus had treated her in front of his father. She wanted nothing to do with either of them.
"Merlin, no, my father broke off our engagement months ago, when I told him he had a mudblood mistress," Bellatrix smiled, one cheek dimpling, showing how proud she was of herself.
Hermione swallowed, wondering why Rodolphus hadn't reached out to her if he was no longer betrothed to Bellatrix. Unless...unless Bellatrix was never really an obstacle, and he would never be able to stand up to his father and do what he really wanted. "Well, I'm happy for you, then," Hermione said, wanting to get out of the conversation as quickly as possible. "You'll be free to pursue whomever you want."
"Not exactly," Bellatrix said darkly. "I'm engaged to someone else right now, and Rodolphus is with some Greengrass sister, though I can never remember which one. They all are so dull it's hard to tell them apart. But, once I tell everyone about his little halfblood bastard, no respectable family will want to touch him!"
A stone dropped in Hermione's stomach when she heard that Rodolphus was together with someone else, especially someone as pretty as one of the Greengrasses. It was only weeks ago that he was holding her tight and telling her how much he loved her. It hurt to know that he was able to move on so quickly after everything they'd been through.
But, she didn't want him to hate her if Bellatrix succeeded in telling him about the baby. It made her sick to think that having a half-blood child could make him so detested, but she wasn't going to be a part of that if she could help it. "No, Bellatrix, please don't tell him anything," she practically begged the other witch. "He doesn't have anything to do with it, I swear."
She already knew that Bellatrix thought she was loose for the simple fact of being a muggleborn, so hopefully it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to get her to think that she was sleeping with someone else, too. Before she could extract a promise from the other witch, a clock was chiming the time and Hermione knew that she had to meet with Bellatrix. "I have to go," she told Bellatrix, heading towards the door. "Promise you'll keep this between us?"
Bellatrix hadn't stopped smiling since she'd seen Hermione, making the Gryffindor's stomach twist in a queer way. "Promise," Bellatrix said, with a shrug of her shoulders.
Wanting to put as much distance between them as possible, Hermione left Flourish and Blott's behind and made her way back to the pub, only to find Dumbledore waiting for her, wearing loud purple robes.
"You're late, Miss Granger," he said, shutting a small gold pocket watch when he noticed her. "That's uncharacteristic."
"Sorry, I just bumped into...someone, at the bookstore," she tried to explain, unable to shake the feeling of dread that lingered after her talk with Bellatrix.
Hearing that gave Dumbledore pause. "Anyone we should be concerned about?"
"I don't think so," Hermione answered truthfully, hoping that Bellatrix would keep her promise. After all, at one point the Slytherin had been positive that they were friends. Maybe Bellatrix would just decide to leave her alone, now that Hermione had nothing to do with her engagement.
Dumbledore gave her one last long look before nodding slowly. Ushering her towards the floo, he gave her a handful of powder before telling her the name of the pub in Little Hangleton, where they would begin their search.
The Mangy Boar was a very small pub, but then again, Little Hangleton served a very small wizarding population. The barkeep barely gave them a look when they came through the fireplace together, after ascertaining that they wouldn't be paying for a pint or two. Heading out down the path, Dumbledore and Hermione walked in silence.
"This is well integrated with the muggle village," Hermione said, feeling a bit perplexed. There was almost no separation between the two and it left her feeling odd and exposed in her robes.
"Little Hangleton is an old village, populated well before the Statue of Secrecy," Dumbledore explained. "It's this closeness that allowed Merope Gaunt to meet and poison a wealthy young muggle named Tom Riddle, resulting in her child, Tom Riddle, Jr."
"Poisoned?" Hermione asked, not knowing the full details of their involvement.
Dumbledore gave her a grim look. "Yes, a love potion. She thought she'd gotten him to fall in love with her for real by the time she fell pregnant," he told her. "But it was never real love. That's the life that Voldemort was born into. That is why he is so evil."
Hermione wondered on his theory that the love potion could explain Voldemort's behavior. She wasn't sure that she'd heard anything like that before, especially considering there were likely hundreds of similar cases that hadn't produced someone like Voldemort. However, she held her tongue, knowing that they were looking for a horcrux and not debating the power of love at the moment.
The Gaunt family home was really more of a shack, sitting in the shadow of what was likely once a beautiful manor home, that had been left to nature for sometime. The grounds were still immaculate, though vines now covered the stone, dying slowly in the cooler temperatures. The shack was almost unnoticeable, and completely dilapidated.
"This has sat untouched since Morfin Gaunt went to Azkaban for murdering the Riddle family," Dumbledore explained, pushing in the door with his hand. Inside, a lonely mouse scurried along the edge of the floor, hoping to remain unnoticed.
Hermione ducked in after him, feeling her eyes prickle from the musty smell. "Did he kill them to avenge his sister?" she asked.
The wizard answered sounded distracted while he levitated broken furniture out of their path. "No, I believe that it was Tom Riddle who killed his muggle family, likely hoping to erase them from his history," he explained. "Morfin confessed, but he was under a memory charm."
"So he is in Azkaban for a crime he didn't commit?" Hermione asked, feeling uneasy. "Shouldn't we do something to help free an innocent man?"
"Morfin Gaunt, while perhaps innocent of this crime, is not the kind of wizard you would want to free. He has committed atrocities that he simply wasn't caught for," Dumbledore answered.
Hermione felt uneasy, remembering how long Sirius Black had been left to rot in Azkaban after "confessing" to giving up Harry's parents. Had Dumbledore also dismissed the other man out of hand, letting him sit in the wizarding prison for over a decade before he escaped?
Before she could think of anything to say, she felt that familiar tingle of dark magic that she'd become attuned to whenever she was near a horcrux. She knew that she would recognize the prickle at the base of her spine for the rest of her life. "It's here. Can you feel it?" she asked her companion.
Dumbledore nodded, and aimed his wand at the floorboards. Immediately, nails began shaking loose, followed by wooden planks, pulling them back until the dirt floor was revealed underneath. Dropping to their knees, they began digging into the subfloor, looking for the horcrux.
It was Dumbledore's dirty fingers that first felt the zing of metal. Immediately, he called for her to stop digging and used his wand to free it the rest of the way. There, barely three inches under the Earth, sat a silver ring, with an unusual black looking stone set into the center of it - the Gaunt family ring. Levitating it between the two of them, Hermione and Dumbledore nodded in agreement. There was no mistaking it.
"That makes four horcruxes," Hermione said grimly, watching as Dumbledore pocketed it for safekeeping. "And, if we are lucky, only one remains."
"Made all the more difficult that we have no idea what it is," Dumbledore said in agreement. "Perhaps it is time for me to ask our mole to probe a bit further."
"Can't you just tell me who it is?" Hermione asked, the unknown driving her crazy. "I might be able to tell you something about them...their character, if we can trust them."
Dumbledore shook his head, looking at her cryptically. "Believe me, Miss Granger. It's for the best if we keep it a secret. You'll just have to trust me and Arthur."