Harry looked around him, warily. The mist was thicker here than at Grimmauld Place, and tombstones loomed out of the darkness ominously. Memories rose, unbidden of a previous visit to this same place.
'Kill the spare!' A flash of green light, Cedric Diggory dead. 'Bone of the Father', a tall pale figure rising from a cauldron…
Harry shook himself roughly, forcing his mind back to the present.
"Come on, there should be a road this way," he whispered to Sirius, gesturing away from the hill overlooking the graveyard. Standing atop the hill, barely visible as more than a silhouette in the night, was a large, decrepit manor. The old Riddle House.
"Where are we?" Sirius asked as they picked their way back towards a small gate set into the low stone wall bordering the cemetery.
"Little Hangleton, or close enough to," Harry said. "I've never been here before, except to this graveyard. Not exactly a fond memory."
"You haven't been here? Then how are you expected to know what you're doing?" Sirius asked.
"I know enough," Harry said curtly. "And I can learn the rest as we go."
"And you're sure you won't get yourself killed?" Sirius said dryly.
"Probably not."
They both stopped talking as they pushed their way out of the small gate into a small lane, enclosed on both sides with thick hedges. Harry looked up and down the lane, frowning for a few minutes before turning to his left.
"This way, I think."
He led, one hand brushing idly along the bushes, not daring to light his wand in a muggle area. Sirius padded quietly along behind him, glancing around often, as is habit to an experienced Auror.
Harry had to hold of shivering as the fog swirled around their ankles. He wished Ginny had been well enough to come, or to even stay awake. Not having her comforting presence was off-putting, and he was nervous enough without that added worry.
The road sloped slowly upwards, and the land around the road changed from well-kept hedges to messy, twisted thickets of small trees, their branches covered in moss and lichen.
Harry slowed down turning side-to-side as he walked, feeling a prickle in the air. There was magic close by. He carefully pulled out his wand, the weight of it comforting in his hand and summoned several small balls of fire to orbit around his head. The warm light was more soothing than the harsh cold light of a Lumos spell and he relaxed ever so slightly.
"We're close," he said to Sirius, who had also now drawn his wand.
He was suddenly overcome by the strong urge to run, to go anywhere else, but to get away from this place. There was somewhere else he needed to be, wasn't there? Or someone safer for him to be. Why did he want to go any further?
He shook his head angrily, recognising a strong repelling charm coming from the left side of the road. A strong, but shoddily cast ward, he noted. A better version would be less obvious and more insidious creeping into his mind and playing to his fears. Pushing the panic aside, he pulled Sirius along with him to the edge of the path.
Wand held tightly in one hand, Harry pushed a few low hanging branches aside, finding a small clear area of ground that may have once been a path. His senses on high alert, he picked his way along the path, carefully feeling for any further wards that might be triggered.
Not far down the path, Harry was finally able to make out a large shadow ahead of him. Sending a few smaller fireballs closer, he made out the cold grey stone of a building. The house, if it could still be called that, looked even worse than in the memory Harry had once seen. Nettles covered almost the entire outer surface of the house, and not a single window pane looked to be intact.
The front door was remarkably still in place, but it looked so weather-beaten, Harry wondered if it would hold back a stiff breeze, let alone a storm.
"Damn creepy place you've found here, Harry," Sirius whispered. "I don't think much of your taste in houses."
Harry just rolled his eyes before raising his wand in the direction of the building. He waved it a few times, watching different colours fade in and out in the air. One particular spell caused all the nettles and trees next to the shack to light up in a dark red before fading.
He frowned, and contemplated him next move.
"All the bushes are charmed to attack us if we get to the door," he told Sirius.
"Got any ideas?" the Auror replied.
"Several, yeah. But, one is really standing out right now."
Harry closed his eyes, and reached out again, shaping his magic carefully, before releasing it. A shimmering dome faded into existence in front of them, arching up over the shack and encompassing the backyard full of twisted plants. With the shield in place, he paused, looking carefully at what enchantments he could see. None seemed to suggest any kind of relocation spell, so there was no reason to think the Horcrux would move when he did this.
With a quick flick of his wrist, Harry conjured a much large fireball than before and flung it hard into the nettles on the house. There was a muffled boom as it hit, and the flames spread, lighting up the area around them. The fog fled in wake of the heat rolling off of the building.
And then, the flames petered out, leaving the shack and all nettles without harm. The moss on the rough stone walls was the only thing that seemed to have been burnt away by the fire.
Harry swore softly. "I had hoped that would work."
"Well, it looked impressive," Sirius said, encouragingly.
Harry frowned as he looked at the building, "If Ginny were here, we could try to control Fiendfire," he said. "I don't dare try alone though. We're going to have to do this the hard way."
He rapidly volleyed a few more destructive spells at the plants to no noticeable effect.
Sighing, he reached around and pulled the sword out of the scabbard on his back, and held it tightly in his right hand, swapping his wand to his left.
"Are you any good left-handed?" Sirius asked as they made their way closer to the shack.
"Good enough," Harry said grimly. "Ginny and I can generally get away without the correct wand motion if we need to."
Striding forward, he swung the sword in an easy arc over his head, bringing it down across the trunk of a particularly large nettle between him and the door. The blade sliced through the trunk with minimal resistance, and he leapt back, allowing the plant to fall to the ground.
Seeing nothing more was going to happen, he gestured with his wand, levitating the nettle to the side, where he flung it away, collecting a few of the smaller nettles along the way. The plants seemed to writhe, wrapping themselves around the severed plant, holding it tightly in gnarled, rough limbs.
"That looks painful," Sirius commented.
Surprised at how easily overcome this first obstacle was, Harry made his way through the overgrown garden, chopping and throwing away any plants that stood in his way.
He reached the door, and noted in disgust the skeleton of a snake still nailed in the middle of the wood.
"Charming," Sirius muttered, sounding equally repulsed.
Harry pushed on the door with the sword, and was surprised when the blade sunk straight through the wood, splitting it easily. Pulling back briefly, he carefully cut away at the hinges of the door, and watched it fall inwards to land with a cloud of dust.
With the door gone, Harry could feel various strong enchantments just inside the door, no doubt waiting for someone to trip as they entered. He quickly poured his own magic into the curses, overloading them until he couldn't detect any further barriers.
"This was only his second Horcrux, maybe the defences aren't as sophisticated yet," Harry mused aloud as he caught his breath and walked into the shack, the door crunching underfoot.
He continued to brandish his wand in front of him as he went, feeling out any magic that might be in the air, and coming up with nothing. The walls and furniture were another matter, and he cautioned Sirius to avoid touching anything.
Making his way into the living room, Harry stopped, feeling the malevolence in the air, like a thick fog. He shivered, and scanned the room, taking care of where he trod, as the floorboards cracked and crumbled, rot having long since destroyed the strength they once had.
He turned to see Sirius standing in the doorway behind him, letting Harry take the lead.
"Stay there, you don't want to be too close to this," Harry warned.
Looking back around, Harry approached the floorboards close to the fireplace, where the dust was not settled quite as heavily. With a flick of his wand, a couple of the boards were ripped aside, revealing a filthy golden box, sitting half-buried in dust under the floor.
Harry swallowed, his heart beating so loudly he was surprised Sirius couldn't hear it. With another careful flick, the box was levitated onto the stone blocks the made up the base of the fireplace, and the lid opened.
There, nestled in the clean interior, was a golden signet ring, set with a heavy black stone. It wasn't particularly elegant, and looked rather ugly to Harry's eyes. Etched into the stone was a triangle, containing a circle, bisected by a straight line down the middle. The sign of the Deathly Hallows.
Harry narrowed his eyes. Here, looking so innocent, was the object that had been responsible for Dumbledore's death in his old world. Harry didn't dare touch it, knowing how deadly the curse on it could be.
Without another word, Harry swung the sword around, hitting the ring hard on the golden band. Again, rather like the diadem before it, an explosion of magic seemed to pulse forth from the ring. Harry barely caught it in time, holding his wand outstretched in his left hand, pushing back on the dark tide with his own magic.
To his horror, the blackness kept on pushing back, without dissipating. He gritted his teeth, trying to resist it, his arm shaking.
GINNY! I need you!
In the back of his mind, he could feel Ginny wake up suddenly, and help throw her magic through their bond, helping to contain the dark magic.
Harry, use the wand! Ginny thought desperately.
Moving quickly, Harry stopped fighting, jammed his own wand back into his pocket, the black cloud swirling up in front of him, before flicking his left wrist sharply. From a disillusioned holster that he rarely took off, another different, more ornate wand slid into his hand, sending a small shockwave of warmth through his arm. He seized the Elder Wand, and with it, and with Ginny's help, finally pushed back the swirling magic before him, just before it reached him.
The black cloud was constricted down until it was barely any bigger than the ring itself when everything went wrong. Recognising its counterpart, the Resurrection Stone shuddered and broke free on the ring it was set into, and flew fast to meet the Elder Wand, coming to rest at it's tip.
Without the wand helping to hold back the magic imbued into the ring anymore, it exploded.
Harry was flung backwards from the magical shockwave, crashing through a wall into the front room. In sudden, terrible pain, Harry tried to look up, but was barely able to lift his head. Acting on instinct alone, he summoned the Sword of Gryffindor back to him, and stowed the Elder Wand back into it's holster, where it promptly faded from sight. He caught the Resurrection Stone in his hand, and shoved it weakly into the same pocket as his normal wand, even as his vision was filled with black spots. The floor felt to be moving under him, and there was a throbbing pain in his head. Vaguely, he could hear Ginny calling out in fear, trying to tell him something, but the pain seemed to wash away any meaning.
The last thing he made out was Sirius' panicked face looming over him, mouthing words that Harry could no longer hear as the world turned black, and Harry knew no more.
A/N: A shorter chapter this time, I'm afraid. I could have kept going, but it made more sense to break here and have a longer chapter next time. I hope you all enjoy it.
If you are feeling too deprived on some Harry/Ginny goodness, check out a new one-shot I've posted, Harry and the Angel. It took me away from this story a bit, but, being only a one-shot, this is now my main story again.
Final comment, as I feel I don't say it enough, I really am very thankful for all the lovely reviews. I may not reply to many of them, which I apologize for, but I do read all of them and they do help keep me motivated to write more often. I hope you all had a Happy New Year, and here's to a good 2018. :)