"Last year," said Eva Wingfield, her glossy curls done up in pins, "you had the distinct pleasure of being taught Defense Against the Dark Arts by a greasy-haired Death Eater."
"I like her already," said Neville.
"My name is Eva Wingfield," she said, "Order of Merlin, First Class, and former Auror. I fought in the First War, I fought for our side, and I fought for our side only. I fear that this year will be your first wholesome, thorough, and well-rounded experience since the one you had with Remus Lupin in your third year."
She tucked a strand of hair behind one ear as she rose. "Books away, please," she instructed, noticing Hermione's was already open. "Quills away. Wands out." She drew her own. "I'll expect you to do the reading before you come to class, so we won't cover any of that here. You're all of age now, adult enough to realize that not doing your reading means failing your N.E.W.T.'s."
Hermione brightened and straightened her robes, pulling her wand out.
"The Dementors are multiplying, and they're getting worse. They're one of Voldemort's deadliest weapons, and you need to be prepared to counter them." She pushed up the sleeves of her robes, which were lined with purple satin. "Observe. Expecto Patronum!" An antelope, ethereal and glimmering, bounded through the air.
"And if I could have a volunteer?" She came around to the front of her desk. "Miss Granger, how about you?"
Hermione slid out of her chair and joined Professor Wingfield. "I don't expect you, Miss Granger, or anyone, to get it right the first time-- this is an immensely complex spell. But we're going to try. Now repeat the incantation after me-- Expecto Patronum."
Hermione flung her wand out. "Expecto Patronum!" A silver otter shot out from the tip of her wand.
"Very good," she approved, impressed.
Blaise Zabini's lips twisted scornfully. "Have you got a life, or do you sit in your Muggle hovel practicing spellwork all summer?"
Crabbe made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a laugh.
"That's quite enough," Professor Wingfield snapped. "Ten points from Slytherin."
"I'm not the only one who does it!" Hermione said hotly. "Harry could manage it in our third year, and he taught most of us how to produce a Patronus in our fifth."
Eva Wingfield's eyes moved to Harry. "Is this true?"
He nodded.
"Show me."
Harry got to his feet and closed his eyes. "Expecto Patronum!" A stag, wavering in and out of concreteness, galloped through the room and knocked over a statue on Professor Wingfield's desk.
"Sorry," he said instantly, and urged it out the window.
Her eyes were wide. "Mr. Weasley?"
Ron produced a terrier; Parvati Patil made a unicorn, floating in wisps from the tip of her wand; Neville mustered his best rabbit.
"Miss Parkinson, can you show me yours?"
Daunted, Pansy shook her head.
"Mr. Nott?"
"No, I can't make one."
"Am I to understand," Professor Wingfield said, pacing back to Harry, "that you wouldn't teach any of the Slytherins?" A sparkle danced in her eye.
"None of them wanted to learn," Ron told her matter-of-factly.
"That's not true," said a small voice.
The entire class turned their attention to Daphne Greengrass, a mousy-looking girl with ash-brown hair in a long braid. "I didn't know what they were doing, else I'd have probably taken part."
Pansy gave her a stony glare, and she straightened her books, glancing away. "Well, Umbridge was a bloody waster," she said quietly.
Several people laughed.
"Well, Miss Greengrass, perhaps the wisest thing to do would be to put you in pairs. Those of you who know how to produce a Patronus will be paired up with those who do not--" she ignored the groans of protest that went up from the class-- "and you will teach each other." She put a hand on Harry's desk. "You can pair up with Mr. Zabini, and Miss Granger, you can work with Miss Greengrass--"
"I'm not going to learn a thing from that wanking git," said Zabini contemptuously to Crabbe as he crossed his arms. "And you got the Weasel. Good luck with all that."
Crabbe made the laugh-grunt noise again and turned to Ron, who looked equally less than thrilled with the pairing.
"Right then," Harry began. "The first thing you need for a Patronus is a happy memory. Happiest one you've got."
"One time," Blaise said, a smirk on his face, "Draco's dad was at the house. He was telling my mum how he'd inadvertently started a course of action that would end in the death of the youngest Weasley. We were all overjoyed. My step-dad roasted duck in celebration."
Harry gritted his teeth. "Was that the seventh or eighth stepfather? I tend to lose track. Especially with the different ways they meet such tragic, accidental deaths."
With the air of someone who hadn't a care in the world, Zabini shrugged. "Better to have a slew of parents than none at all, hey, Potter?"
Seething, Harry raised his wand, but Hermione caught his arm. "Don't!" she hissed. "You don't need detentions to add to your troubles."
"Why are you always there?" he lamented, glaring back at Zabini, who had moved on to Pansy Parkinson. He shook free of her grip and went over to Professor Wingfield, who was helping Neville show Mark Sutler how to produce a Patronus.
"Good!" said Professor Wingfield cheerfully, as a thin yet very corporeal horse galloped from the tip of Mark's wand. "Keep practicing." She turned to Harry.
"I've lost my student," he told her apologetically, "but I had a question for you."
"What's that?"
"Hagrid brought a locket back from Knockturn Alley for me," he told her, dodging an ostrich that came from Pansy's wand. "I haven't the first clue how to-- erm, that is, I can't open it at all. I thought you might be able to help--"
"That's enough for today!" she cried suddenly over the din, her eyes growing wide, and the silvery shapes faded. Daphne's face fell-- she had managed a cloud of silver fog, and felt quite proud of herself. "Get your things, I'll see you next class." She extended her arms and shepherded them out the door. Hermione and Ron, caught in the crowd, looked over their shoulders at Harry, and Professor Wingfield shut the door behind them.
"Where is the locket?" she demanded, almost breathlessly.
Harry pulled it from around his neck and handed it over.
Immediately, she attempted to open it. She pried at it with her long, perfectly manicured fingernails, tapped it on the top of her desk, and-- "Forgive my crudeness," she said-- bit into the crevice.
Somewhat bemused by this, Harry sat down in a desk.
"It's definitely sealed by magic then," she decided, and drew her wand. "Let's try to destroy it." She attempted several spells, but none of them produced the effect she was looking for; as a last resort, she even tried the Killing Curse.
"Maybe," she muttered, "if Horace can make a potion..."
"Professor," said Harry, forcing himself not to smile, "you just tried 'Avada Kedavra' on a piece of jewelry."
She stopped, locket in hand, and stared at him for a full five seconds. "Yes," she said, as though this were perfectly logical. "Of course I did." She tapped her fingernails on her teeth for a moment, thinking. "There's nothing I can do for you." She handed the locket back to him. "Take it to Professor Slughorn. He may have an answer."
Harry felt the chain coil in his palm with a sense of cold foreboding. The last thing he wanted to do was discuss Horcruxes with Horace Slughorn.
"I'll help you," Ron offered. "You know I will. I don't care if I only scrape by on my N.E.W.T.'s. When should we start searching?"
"What are you talking about?" The tone of Hermione's voice was suspicious as she slid into her usual spot next to Ron, books in hand.
"Horcruxes," Harry said. "Trying to figure out how to destroy this locket."
"So are you going to go today?" Hermione asked Harry. "You know. Ask Professor Slughorn, and all."
Ron eyed his quiche distastefully. "Y'know," he said, before Harry had a chance to answer, "I think the house-elves here could use a lesson from the French."
"How's that?" Harry glanced up from his plate, shielding his eyes from the morning sun.
"Remember Fleur's quiche?"
Harry nodded. "Delicious."
"Delicious is an understatement," Ron said. "I have to be honest, Hermione, I hope you can cook that well." He winked at her.
She glared back. "I," she said, as if about to make a grand speech, "think we should contact Viktor." Her eyes held Harry's gaze.
"Krum!" Ron was visibly outraged. "What do you--"
"Viktor," Hermione continued, calm as can be, "graduated from Durmstrang, where they educate their students about the Dark Arts. Perhaps he can enlighten us, and suggest a way that the Horcruxes might be destroyed."
Ron's face was growing steadily redder; he had forgotten all about quiche.
"Well of course Vicky can give us all the answers," Ron scoffed, turning his nose up. "Vicky's so smart, I'm sure he's a shining academic example in his country..."
"And Phlegm," she said pointedly, "is the best chef in Europe." She angrily took her breakfast, headed Ginny off at the door, and steered her out of the Great Hall.
"Bugger," Harry said under his breath.
Ron gave him a questioning glance.
"I needed to talk to Ginny... sorry, mate. I'll see you later."
He gave him a nod and Harry ran off down the hall, making his way to Gryffindor Tower; he figured the girls were having a bit of breakfast in the commonroom. Which is why, when he passed an empty classroom, he was surprised to hear their voices.
"It's always Fleur's quiche, and Padma's ex-boyfriend, and Luna's so funny," said Hermione hotly. "He's always sticking up for someone else, or complimenting some other girl, but always forgetting me!"
Harry felt bad for lurking outside, but he felt as though he shouldn't burst in on the conversation either, so he stayed rooted to his spot.
"Have you talked to him?"
Hermione gave her a look of exasperation. "Ginny. This is your brother we are talking about..."
She laughed.
"I mean, you'd think after all these years of being around Harry, some of his behavior would have worn off. Harry's always letting you know how much he appreciates you."
Though he couldn't see her face, Harry was sure Ginny was blushing. "Yeah... he's sweet about that."
Hermione let out a puff of air. "I guess I just-- I want to feel like I'm wanted," she resolved.
"I don't think that's too much to ask," Ginny agreed.
He heard footsteps down the corridor, and bolted off down a side passageway. Making a mental note to remind Ron to pay closer attention to his girlfriend, he went off to Potions class, hoping that Slughorn would come in early and he could get this conversation out of the way.
No one was in the dungeons when Harry arrived, and it struck him that it was actually sort of peaceful there. He ambled over to where the lacewing flies were stewing in cauldrons, bent over his group's cauldron, and gave a sniff.
"Smells rotten, doesn't it?"
Harry whirled around to see Professor Slughorn shuffling through the doorway. "'Morning, sir." Today's velvet jacket was a dusty shade of blue.
"Did you know," he said, turning his nose up at the wafting scent of the insects, "that if you leave the lacewing flies for too long-- or if they get too hot-- it causes a strange side effect. The drinker of the potion will still turn into the desired individual, but he will also inherit the very angriest, most ruthless side of their personality for that hour."
The words tumbled over one another. "Professor, what do you know about Horcruxes?"
Slughorn's ruddy face turned shockingly pale. "Harry," he said haltingly, "that subject's banned-- Dark magic, evil stuff--"
"I don't want to make them," Harry reassured him, "I want to destroy them." He unclasped the chain and put the locket on the desk in front of Slughorn.
Slughorn picked it up, held it like blown glass between his clumsy fingers. "So he did it..." He spoke as if no one was in the room.
"Sir?"
He looked up. "Nothing," he said hurriedly, and Harry realized that Slughorn didn't remember giving him the memory in Hagrid's cabin last year. He had been too drunk on mead.
"Professor, I'm not going to give you a box of crystallized pineapple or promise you any connections to anyone important," Harry said flatly, before he knew the words were leaving his mouth. "I'm not Tom Riddle. I'm everything he's not. And I'm going to destroy him. Tell me, Professor. How do I destroy this?" He nodded at the little piece of silver lying between them.
It was with all the regret in the world that Horace Slughorn looked down at Harry. "I don't know," he told him dully. "I don't know. I knew the theory of creating them. But I'd never heard a thing about destroying them." He sank into his chair, defeated. "Never thought I'd be worrying about it."
"But now I have to." Harry took the chair opposite him. "You have no ideas at all?"
Slughorn shook his head. "I'm sorry, m'boy." He studied the objects on his desk, arranging quills, silent until Hermione came into the room.
"Ah! Miss Granger. You're an early arrival as well!" He pasted a smile on his face and went to greet her, leaving Harry to stew, like an over-boiled cauldron of lacewing flies.
Harry sat in front of the Pensieve, which had been moved to an unused classroom that McGonagall had put a password on. Thoughtfully, he traced the runes engraved on the side of the bowl. Hermione had suggested owling Viktor again, and he politely declined, privately thinking that if Viktor Krum came to Hogwarts, Ron would probably push him off the Astronomy Tower.
Dumbledore's memories swirled around in silver wisps, idly waiting for Harry to invite himself in. With a deep breath, Harry gripped both sides of the great stone basin and plunged his head in.
He found himself in the familiar setting of the Burrow, watching Mrs. Weasley and Albus Dumbledore bent in conversation.
"Is it true then?" Mrs. Weasley's face was pinched. "Sirius' brother has been killed?"
Dumbledore nodded. "Yes."
A wail went up from the corner, and Harry saw two identical cribs sitting side-by-side with two identical crying children. Their feet were nearly poking out of the bars. "Oh, hush, Fred and George," Mrs. Weasley said, rearranging their blankets.
"How are the two little darlings?" Dumbledore walked over to the cribs, curling his fingers around the rail of Fred's.
"Troublemakers," Mrs. Weasley said, hands on her hips. "Yesterday-- don't ask me how they managed it-- Bill was de-gnoming the garden, and they got a gnome into the house!"
Dumbledore chuckled. "How old are they now?"
"One and a half," said Mrs. Weasley. "But I'm not worried about them." She smiled up at Dumbledore. "They come from excellent stock."
"Ah, Molly," he said, smiling, "you have always had such faith."
Before Harry's confusion had time to properly set in, he spun out of the Burrow, and was once again sitting in front of the Pensieve. He shook his head, as if to clear the memory. "That's not what I needed," he said out loud, and plunged in once again.
This time he landed in a cold, gray room. The walls and floor were made out of stone. Dumbledore was talking to an aging, rawboned man with shaggy black hair.
"Gaunt," he was saying to the old man. "Morfin Gaunt."
"S'minute," said the old man. He went through a wooden door and came back with a small, beat-up box. "You 'is father?"
"No," Dumbledore said. "I am the Headmaster at Hogwarts."
The old man peered warily out of one beady eye, then shrugged. "Ain't nobody gonna claim it anyways," he said, wiping his nose. "Have it."
"Thank you," said Dumbledore with a small bow, "but I am only in need of one thing-- ah." He lifted Morfin's wand from the box. "Here you are."
"Ain't yeh gonna take the rest of it?"
"No," Dumbledore replied politely. "Those are his things. I will be returning his wand once I have finished with it, as well."
With an uncaring shrug, the old man made for the wooden door. "Get gone with yeh, then. Can't yeh feel the cold? The Dementors'll be comin' in soon." And he disappeared.
Tucking the wand safely in his robes, Dumbledore turned away from the door.
And once again, Harry was back in the quiet classroom.
"I need to see how he destroys it," Harry said to himself. And though he had never tried to navigate a Pensieve before, he thought about this question with all his might as he took one last plunge.
Dumbledore sat at his desk, a single candle and the dying fire providing the only light in the Headmaster's office. Holding a piece of parchment in one hand and a wand in the other, he bent over Marvolo's ring, studying it. His hand, Harry noticed, was already withered and blackened; Harry was struck with the realization that the memory of that injury could be floating around in the Pensieve, and made a mental note to search for it later.
"Yes," he said thoughtfully, rolling up the parchment; Fawkes, as if on cue, took it in his talons and dropped it in the yellow flames of the fireplace.
Dumbledore raised his wand hand. "Animus abolesco, mortalitas exsisto!" he said in a commanding tone.
The fire went out and the candle guttered; the whole castle seemed to quake, and Harry wondered how the whole of Hogwarts hadn't been shaken awake by this spell. Dumbledore sat calmly behind his desk, watching the ring; Harry approached the desk, as it was his wont to do in Dumbledore's office, and jumped back as the stone cracked and a green light shot out from the rent.
"One more piece of you is free, Tom," Dumbledore said quietly to the air as a tall flame engulfed the wick of the candle and the fire sprang into existence once more, licking the logs with a hungry warmth. He took the ring and, with a mien of purpose, slid it onto his finger. As he did so, Harry noticed that the wand in his hand was stamped with a strange gold rune.
Upon Harry's return to the classroom, he grabbed feverishly for the locket hanging around his neck. Setting it on a nearby desk, he pulled his wand. "Animus abolesco, mortalitas exsisto!"
Nothing happened.
He tried again. "Animus abolesco, mortalitas exsisto!"
The locket sat there, mocking him, refusing to react to the spell.
Over and over he tried, using every possible technique he could think of to make the incantation take effect. But nothing worked, and as the moon rose in the sky, he knew he had to call it a night.
Harry took out a piece of parchment. "Animus abolesco," he muttered, knowing he was spelling the incantation wrong, "mortalitas exsisto." He folded it into a square and stuck it deep in his pocket, vowing to come back to this spot every day until he could get it right.
He tiptoed through the dormitories, careful not to wake Ron, who was already sleeping. Pulling the bedclothes around him, he thought desperately of what he could be missing.
Maybe I just need some basilisk venom, he thought ruefully. That did the diary in.
Suddenly his thoughts were a flurry-- Ginny, the Chamber of Secrets, Moaning Myrtle, Draco Malfoy. It's good that Moaning Myrtle was afraid of death, he thought sleepily, because she was our final clue to get down to the Chamber. And if I hadn't got to the Chamber-- Ginny would've died. He shifted, burying his face in the pillow, looking for a comfortable position. And then Malfoy went crying to her last year. Someone should have told her that her new best friend worked for the git who set the Basilisk on her--
He sat bolt upright.
"Ron!"
Ron stirred from sleep and squinted at Harry, bleary-eyed. "Whassamatter?"
Harry quickly slid out of bed and into his trainers. "Ron, it's Morfin's wand!"
Ron blinked at Harry as if he'd just told him a Crumple-Horned Snorkack was in the room.
"Don't you get it?" Harry shook him, doing his best to wake him up. "I destroyed the diary from the Chamber of Secrets with the fang from the Basilisk. The Basilisk is what Riddle used to kill Myrtle. He used Myrtle's murder to create the diary." Frantically, he made a circular motion with his hands. "It's a circle. To destroy the Horcrux, I have to have the murder weapon." He let out a breath. "I feel like Hermione."
Slightly more awake, Ron pointed at the locket. "So what about that?"
"Well-- I dunno," Harry said honestly, "but look. He murdered his dad and his grandparents with his uncle's wand. I just saw a memory where Dumbledore destroyed a Horcrux with a wand-- maybe it wasn't his own. Maybe he used Morfin Gaunt's wand."
Ron's head was spinning. "So..."
"He has two murders with Morfin's wand left to use for Horcruxes, if he wanted to," Harry explained. "What if this is one?"
"But--" Ron yawned-- "I thought you said he only made them for important murders? Why would Myrtle and his grandparents have been important murders?"
Harry sat down on the side of Ron's bed. "Dunno," he said. "Maybe Myrtle was important because he was proving he was the Heir of Slytherin."
"That makes sense. But his grandparents?"
"Dunno. But it's worth a shot, isn't it?"
"Where's Morfin's wand?"
"Dunno."
"What do you know?"
"Dumbledore left me the contents of his office, and McGonagall can let me look through it."
Ron saw he had put on his shoes. "And you're going now?"
"Why not?"
Harry strode down the corridors, wand aloft and lit, not knowing exactly how he was going to reach Professor McGonagall. Surely she didn't stay awake in her office all night long. But upon reaching the gargoyle, he heard a loud wail.
"Ah, Minerva, but of course zis means everything!"
And Harry knew that Madame Maxime had come to pay her last respects to Hagrid.
"I think that the house-elf has come with our mead," Professor McGonagall said. "It must be Dobby. He never comes right in..." But when she came to check, she found a very mute yet urgent young man. "Potter! What are you doing here at this hour?"
"Professor," he said evenly, "in Professor Dumbledore's letter he said he'd left everything to me--"
"That could be of use, yes," she said. "But what could you possibly need now?"
"A wand," he told her. "Morfin Gaunt's wand."
Her jaw dropped slightly. "So you've--"
"I think so."
She shooed him into the room and immediately began rummaging through boxes.
Harry stood, nonplussed, as Madame Maxime looked up at him with mournful eyes. "'Agrid spoke of you so much," she said tearfully. "You were so dear to him."
"I'm going to miss him too," Harry said.
"Is this it?" Professor McGonagall held up a wand.
"Let me see." Harry held out his hand and examined it. The handle boasted a gold stamp.
"What is zis?" Madame Maxime looked from Harry to Professor McGonagall.
"Just wait," said Professor McGonagall excitedly, as Harry pulled the necklace from his shirt and set it on her desk. "Hold on," he warned them, as he pointed the wand at the locket and dug the scrap of parchment from his pocket. "Animus abolesco, mortalitas exsisto!"
"Minerva?" Madame Maxime's voice came out in a frightened wail. "What--"
Harry gripped the side of the desk. The locket lifted off the surface and hung in the air-- the fire extinguished itself, and Professor McGonagall let out a little gasp.
The windows clattered, and Harry was sure the castle was going to come right off the foundations. Just as he was about to lay down the wand, the locket burst open and a bullet of brilliant green light soared from between the two halves, disappearing into thin air. The castle settled, and the fire came back.
"Good 'eavens, Minerva, I 'ave never--" Madame Maxime's opal-ringed hand covered her heart, which was racing. "What just happened?"
But Professor McGonagall was almost unaware of Madame Maxime's existence as she let go of the windowsill and crossed the room. "Can you... open it?"
Harry picked up the locket; it fell open quite easily in his hands, revealing two wedding photos.
"Who are they?" she asked, peering over his shoulder.
"Merope Gaunt and Tom Riddle Senior; those, on the right, Riddle's parents."