Of the Horcrux, wickedest of magical inventions, we shall not speak nor give direction.

"These sure are quite ominous words," Professor Merrythought remarked as she finished reading Magick Most Evile's introduction. Closing the book she looked at Slughorn and Harry, who had come in her office to talk about their would-be study subject. "And you say you haven't found anything on this 'horcrux', is that right Mr. Slughorn?

The Slytherin nodded. "I've been searching in the Restricted section for the last few days and so far I've yet to find any book but this one mentioning it. Surprising, don't you agree? I mean," he said, "if it is mentioned in the very introduction it was most certainly rather infamous back then. The way the author himself talks about it seems to imply that much. And yet we've got nothing, as if somebody a long time ago took great care in removing any mention of it."

"Well, dark wizards rarely are talkative about the magic they dwell in," she pointed out. "But you have a point, it is rather queer. If it were really as reviled as the author presents it, then there would be no reason for you to find this here and for me to only heard about this now." She closed her eyes a moment and hummed. "Most peculiar indeed…"

After a minute, Slughorn tried, "Maybe the person who took all that knowledge forgot to check the introduction and missed this one?"

Her lips twitched. "Well, I sure would have made that mistake. But I wonder… If your theory is correct, then I'm afraid that there will be very little for you to work on. You have basically nothing to begin with, so what are you planning to do?"

It was clear that the Slytherin had been expecting this question for the answer was immediate. "Hogwarts is said to have one of the greatest libraries in the world," he started explaining. "It is even said that only the Library of Alexandria can boast being superior to it. So if there is any book on this 'horcrux' left, I'm sure that we can find it here. Moreover, there is the possibility that this horcrux is mentioned in a book under a different denomination so if we make an advanced comparison between several dark artefacts, we may narrow the possibilities until the most probable one remains."

She hummed. "You may be right. If you have any chance of finding obscure and long forgotten knowledge, it is here. It may however take a while for you to find what you are seeking, if you ever do. Are you really willing to try your luck, knowing it may bear no fruit, Mr. Slughorn?"

He shrugged. "Cannot the same be said about every research work, Professor?"

That made her chuckle. "True, true. Very true. Are you by any chance hoping to become a researcher yourself, Mr. Slughorn?"

The boy smiled and scratched the back of his head.

Merrythought turned her head. "And what about you, Mister Potter?" she asked Harry. "You haven't said anything so far. Could it be that you disagree with Mr. Slughorn and would rather study something else?"

Harry grimaced.

The way the Slytherin was presenting it, the whole thing about studying Horcruxes appeared to be frankly boring. If what he said was true then it seemed like they were going to basically waste hours in the library in hope of finding one rusty book which would tell them what this 'horcrux' was and call it a day.

And yet, Harry couldn't help feeling uneasy. He didn't know if that was because he was paying more attention to these sort of things because of divination or if there was something else at work, but Harry had the nagging feeling the whole thing was less innocent than they believed it to be.

"I'm just wondering if that's a good idea, that's all."

Professor Merrythought gave Harry a small smile. "I expected no less from you."

"But Professor-"

She raised a hand. "When you start researching anything involving the Dark Arts," she explained them, "there are two things you must keep in mind, Mr. Slughorn. The first one is naturally the fact that you may just not find what you seek. The second one is the danger the Dark Arts can cause. You may very well open Pandora's box if you two are not careful. If you haven't found any mention of what you seek, it may not have only been because others didn't know of it, but because they feared this knowledge may one day fall on the wrong hands. A fear so strong they refused to even say its name."

"Those were different times!" the Slytherin protested. "When you read the rest of the book, it's obvious the author didn't mind too much what others would do with what he wrote! Isn't it more probable that this was just one of those silly superstitions people had back then?"

Professor Merrythought raised an eyebrow.

Slughorn flinched. "Sorry, Professor."

She looked at him for a long minute. "Maybe people didn't know better," she said in a low voice, "but that doesn't mean one should just wave away their warnings. The possibility that that knowledge got lost for a good reason is one you just cannot ignore. I confess I myself am curious about what this 'horcrux' can be, but you need to understand that this isn't as harmless as studying the variety of shield charms which exists. This is why I must ask you this: why should I let you study this?"

The Slyterin winced and looked away.

She sighed. "As I thought. Mr. Potter?"

He had a bad feeling about it. As Merrythought said, there were many reasons why they should let the whole thing rest. He understood why she was saying that and yet...

"You said people might have not wanted to mention it because they got scared," he murmured. "But fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself. And I- and we just can't let that happen."

And yet when Merrythought had said these words, Harry hadn't been able not to think about him .


It wasn't as if Harry had forgotten about Voldemort.

How could he? Every time he was looking in the mirror, Harry had no choice but to look at this constant reminder of the man who has been trying to kill him since he was a baby. But if the strange incident that had happened a year ago was still sometimes in his mind, the fact that his scar hadn't hurt since that day had convinced him practicing occlumency had effectively taken care of that problem and that he was safe.

Here, in this time, Voldemort was nothing but a potential future among dozen others. One which wouldn't come to pass before at the very least five decades. As a result it had only been natural for Harry to put the dark wizard in the back of his mind and focus on more pressing matters.

He knew all this, yet when he had heard these words coming from his Defense professor all these reasons had felt like excuses.

"Fear of a name only increases the fear of the thing itself," Slughorn breathed once the door to Professor Merrythought's office was closed. "Brilliant. I have to say, I was convinced Merrythought had no intention of letting us continue until you said that so well done, Potter. Those were very good words."

"They're not mine."

"I figure. They're Dumbledore's, aren't they?" Seeing Harry's startling he lightly laughed. "That's just the sort of thing he'd say."

Harry weakly smiled.

"Impressive chap, that Dumbledore. The things he can do with his wand… I confess it's partly because he is that impressive that I chose something I'm pretty much sure he isn't going to pick. Don't misunderstand," he hurried when he saw Harry frowning, "I know more than anybody how nice he can be but well..." He gave a small smile. "Whatever he is going to choose for his study is without a doubt going to be amazing, something nobody has ever done before. And it's alright," he hurried. "It's more than alright. It's just that when you have somebody like Dumbledore in your class, others cannot help comparing everything you do with what he does."

"So?" Harry challenged.

"So no matter how good you are, how hard you've been working, your work is bound to look less impressive than it actually is." He shrugged. "If we want to do well for our project, then we mustn't start with a handicap like this one."

"We're going to waste hours looking for one word that even dark wizards even refused to say," Harry reminded him.

"That's no handicap at all. I mean, yes, it's not going to be easy but everybody's expectations are low so what little we do get is going to be groundbreaking in itself, no? Merrythought also said she was interested and that thing you said had quite an effect on her so we actually are starting this project really well."

The Slytherin nodded, obviously pleased by the current turn of events. "I look forward to working with you, Potter. Together I'm sure we will do really well. Who knows? If we discover this 'horcrux' and it happens to be something amazing, we may even do better than Dumbledore."

He then loudly laughed, as if he's just told a good joke.

Harry didn't have the heart to say marks were at the moment the furthest thing from his mind.


Albus had no idea which subject he and Elphias should pick for their Defense project.

As it often was the case for him, there were many things Albus would die to study in more depth. But if he often wanted to do everything at once, his teachers and the magazine for whom Albus would write tended to give him a few pointers on where he should focus his efforts on. Now however Albus was free to do whatever he wanted to such freedom scared him.

Should he focus his efforts on attempting to give the dark arts a definition that was a little more thought-out than 'dark magic equals bad'? Should he try to find the sought common denominator of all protective enchantments? Should he try to create a protection not even the killing curse could break? Should he attempt to see how emotions such as fear were able to take physical form and become boggarts? What did boggart look like in the first place?

So many possibilities, and Albus had to pick one.

When Albus informed Elphias of his conundrum his friend laughed. "That sure is a problem I'm not going to have! Is your head always like this, Albus?"

He gave his friend a small smile. "It can be worse sometimes."

The blond boy returned the smile. "Well, whatever you pick is fine with me."

That was the whole problem.

"Also it's not as if you will never be able to study what you didn't pick afterward," the blonde boy reasoned. "So if you like all the subjects you've got in mind, pick the one that you think doing this research project will actually benefit the most from it."

That wasn't a bad idea actually. As their Defense Professor wanted them to go further than what was normally done, Albus had little doubt he could get unlimited access to the Restricted Section and that he'd be allowed to experiment more than usual. Considering the circumstances, this project was actually a golden opportunity for him to study subjects that would be normally frowned upon.

Albus closed his eyes and mentally reviewed every idea he's had. Some, he knew, were more a passing fancy of his and weren't that urgent; others were a little trickier but he had no doubt he could study them in peace whenever he wanted.

And just like that, the number of potential projects went down to zero.

The red-haired boy gritted his teeth.

There had to be something !

Ever since he's entered Hogwarts, Albus knew there were doors he had had to close in order to preserve that image of himself he's been building. Questions he just wasn't allowed to say out loud for fear of having to deal with the consequences. And while it was true he didn't per sure regret his choices, Albus was aware this may be the only moment he'd be able to say them out loud.

Among all the things he wanted and hadn't been allowed to have, which one was the most important of all?

The answer immediately came to him, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.

Elphias sighed. "Oh well, it's alright if we don't know yet. We've still got got time so don't stress too much, okay Albus? Albus?" Seeing his friend's face whitening he couldn't help adding in a worried voice, "Are you- Are you alright Albus?"

Th-That was pure madness. How could he even dare to think about that ? He couldn't. He just couldn't. That wasn't allowed. That wasn't allowed. If anybody found out…

Ah but don't you want to know, Albus? A treacherous voice whispered in his mind. Don't you deserve to know?

And even though there were dozens of reasons why he should drop it, Albus knew at this very moment that he was going to do it.

Heart racing, he occluded his mind to the best of his abilities and announced, "Sorry, I just remembered I've left my cauldron in the dungeons simmering. If I don't hurry up, there might be an accident."

The boy frowned and for an irrational moment Albus thought his friend was going to call him out on his lie and somehow just know what he had in mind.

But Elphias just sighed. "If you want us to do well, you'll have to be more careful and not let other things distract you, Albus."

Albus smiled. "Duly noted. Now I should hurry up before the potion blows up the whole school."

The smile stayed on his face when the other boy chuckled and told him to hurry up, and it stayed when Virginia seeing him leaving the Common Room reminded him the fact he was a prefect didn't mean he could just ignore curfew whenever he wanted. Only when the Fat Lady closed the door did he stop smiling and nervously ran a hand through his hair.

It had to look like an accident.