A/N – Seems the email notification for the last chapter was on the blink. Check you have read it before going any further!
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The locket resisted every spell, charm and potion they could think to test. Nothing had done more than scratch the surface or make the device glow. Speaking in Parsletongue did make the 'S' reappear, but nothing else happened, not even when Harry commanded it to open or wore it.
Hermione was once again buried in books and sleeping very little, while continuing to get grumpier and grumpier.
Harry was destroying so many targets that he had been forced to become much better at banishing the pulverised stone, or risk filling up the garage.
Ron had taken up using the exercise machines so often that he had worn out two of them and broken a third on general principles.
Their high spirits had crashed dramatically when they found the locket almost impossible to destroy. The only spell they had not tried was Avada Kedavra, and that was only because none of them felt they could cast it, and, more to the point, none of them had even wanted to try it, not even Harry.
He was even more frustrated than before he had recovered the locket. Now that they had it in their possession they didn't know what to do with it. Who could have expected it to be so resistant to destruction?
"It doesn't make sense," Ron said. "Why go to all that trouble hiding it with traps and secrets when it can't be busted anyway?"
Hermione pointed out that it might not have been Voldemort who made it that way. It had originally been owned by Salazar Slytherin after all.
Harry was currently searching the books left in the shelves of the Black library. They had been over them a dozen times already, but he kept hoping there would be something amongst the dark arts volumes that would help them.
The memories in the chest were haunting him too. Once again, he was sure knowledge they needed was in there, if only he could find a way to get it out.
Borrowing Professor McGonagall's Pensieve was not an option, yet. She would be sure to want to know what he was looking for, and she might even object letting him learn any spell dangerous enough to damage the artefact. There had to be Pensieves somewhere, but the only place he hadn't tried was Knockturn Alley.
Putting the books he was holding back onto the shelf, he decided to tell Ron and Hermione his plan. He had to go to the disreputable shopping area and make enquiries.
"It is going to be very dangerous," Hermione said. "Even with three of us."
"Too dangerous, that's why I am going to go alone."
Ron laughed. "Mate, even I can do the math there. One can't be safer than three."
"It is if I use the invisibility cloak."
They argued for a while more until Hermione came up with a better plan that even Harry couldn't object to, especially when Ron threatened to follow him anyway.
Harry's exit from the fireplace in the Leaky Cauldron was slightly smoother than normal; he only stumbled slightly before crashing into a table and attracting the attention of the few patrons currently in the tavern. Ron joined him without saying a word. They were both wearing disguises that made them look a lot older, and almost like brothers; Hermione's spell work making a much better job of it than either Ron or Harry could have hoped.
Dark, but not black, hair was held back in a pony tail by a ribbon. Their skin was deeply tanned and they both wore Muggle sunglasses. Rough stubble coated both faces, making them appear to be in their early twenties, but one had a moustache, that he nervously stroked as they walked out into Diagon alley.
"Stop playing with it!" Harry snapped at Ron.
"I can't help it, it itches. Well not exactly itches, just feels funny."
"I told you it was a bad idea," said a disembodied voice from nearby.
"But it looks great!" Ron protested, ignoring the muffled giggle from the invisible girl.
While the rest of Diagon Alley may have been suffering a drop in patrons since the war started, Knockturn Alley was almost abandoned. The dim and dingy narrow streets were filled with rubbish that nobody had bothered to clean away. The occasional hag or witch, it was difficult to tell the difference, stood in unlit doorways leering at them, and hooded figures wandered in and out of dark stores, sometimes pushing between the two boys on their way past even though the rest of the street was clear, but compared to the last time Harry had been there, it was empty.
Borgin and Burkes was still open however, so they went in, it being the most familiar shop to them.
The cabinet, that Harry had once hidden in and that Draco Malfoy had used to infiltrate Hogwarts, was gone, as was the proprietor of the shop, Mr. Borgin, an oily-haired, stooping man
The younger man they made their enquiries with was almost identical looking though, so they assumed he was a son.
"No Pensieves, or any of the other stuff you looking for in here," he spat angrily. "What you see is what you get. Damn Aurors took everything else."
They had a quick wander about the shop, pretending to look for something to buy. Remembering his last visit to Diagon Alley, Harry decided to buy the first thing he laid his hands on that didn't look completely evil. Surprisingly, Ron found a few bags of Peruvian Darkness Dust from his brother's joke shop. They were for sale at ten times the price though, but Harry didn't want anybody else to have them, not after Draco has used it so successfully during the attack on Hogwarts.
Harry also found himself buying something that for an inexplicable reason had caught his attention; a glass eye. He had just wanted to look at it, but Borgin's expression brightened up so much when he noticed Harry's attention on the object that he felt compelled to buy it.
"A very interesting purchase there, young sir," Borgin Jr. said with much more politeness. It was amazing how quickly his demeanour changed once Harry produced a money bag loaded with Galleons.
"With that eye you gain the ability to see through most walls, to spot magical energy, and to detect poison simply by looking at it. It will also provide you with three hundred and sixty degree vision, literally letting you see out of the back of you head."
"Cool," said Ron in rapt fascination. "How do you use it?"
"Why you simply remove the eye you want to replace, usually with a very sharp knife, since that is the easiest way, and put the new one in its place," answered Borgin with a smile, as if it was the most sensible thing in the world. "No spells or rituals required, except the ones to stop bleeding to death of course. Nothing simpler."
Ron turned pale and no longer looked as interested, and Harry nearly changed his mind.
"I heard a tale of an Auror who has something like this," Harry said. "I have been told he has no control over where it looks. Is that the case with this one?"
Borgin stiffen slightly when Harry spoke, and for a second he wondered if he had made a mistake mentioning Mad-eye Moody.
"No young sir! This one is completely at your command," Borgin answered stiffly.
"Excellent. No other er, side-effects I should be aware of then?" asked Harry, trying to give a penetrating and menacing stare.
Borgin shifted uncomfortably.
"There have been tales of the eye causing some weak minded people to act a bit oddly, on occasion." he answered.
"Act odd? You mean go mad don't you?" asked Ron.
Borgin's continued hesitation answered them more clearly than his eventual words did.
"No sir, just a few simple folk of a lower calibre have become slightly, excentric," he said.
Harry smiled grimly.
"Thank you. Now you wouldn't happen to know where we might purchase a Pensieve, or any of the other items I mentioned, would you?"
Borgin, acting much friendlier after some gold changed hands, gave them directions on how to find a few stores that might indeed have what he was after.
Leaving the store, Harry was about to toss the eye away when Ron caught it.
"Hey," he said. "Don't bin it! That cost you a lot you know, besides, it might come in handy."
"Only if you want to end up like Mad-eye Moody," said the voice out of thin air.
They tried the shops Borgin had pointed them to, and managed to buy what was reputed (by the store keeper) to be the most dangerous and powerful acid in existence, to try on the locket. Nobody knew of any Pensieves for sale.
On one street corner, a shabbily dressed witch offered to show Ron, or Harry, or both, a good time, and called out offering something to do with Polyjuice when they walked away.
"We are being followed," Hermione told them suddenly. "Looks like four, maybe five people in hooded cloaks."
Harry laughed. Everybody, including themselves, was in hooded cloaks.
"Right," he said. "Let's get out of here."
That was when they discovered the anti apparition ward. It felt like a solid wall stopping them from entering the compression of Apparition.
"Follow me," Harry whispered, as he walked down a side alley in what he hoped was a casual manner. As soon as they turned the corner he took off running, Ron pounding along beside him and Hermione invisibly following.
They took several twists and turns, hoping to lose their trackers, before stepping into the doorway of a closed shop. Hermione had hung back at the last corner, keeping a look out for their pursuers.
"There are coming," she called.
Ron was busy working on the door of the shop. When spells didn't unlock it he pulled a thin metal rod from a pocket and expertly picked the lock, impressing Harry despite the urgency of their situation. Once inside, he called out to Hermione. She pushed past, the light touch of the invisibility cloak betraying her presence.
They sealed the door and retreated to hide behind a counter in the rear of the empty store. The hooded people hurried past, apparently thinking Ron and Harry had gone around the next corner.
"I heard one of them say they were tracking you," Hermione whispered to Harry.
Sure enough, the hooded figures reappeared in front of their hiding place and one even pushed his face against the filthy window in an attempt to see inside.
Harry thought quickly.
"Right," he said. "If they are tracking me, then I have to lead them away. Hermione give me the cloak. You and Ron stay here and I'll lead them off."
"Don't be stupid mate," said Ron. "We are in this together."
"No time to argue, Ron," said Harry, taking a guess at where Hermione was and reaching out to pull the cloak from her. "I am going to head for the edge of the anti-apparition ward. It can't be covering the whole of Diagon Alley. You stay here until they follow me and then follow. If they catch me you will be able to jump them from behind."
"If I get away I'll Apparate around a bit then meet you back at Grimmauld place."
Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but was cut off by the front door of the shop suddenly exploding inwards. Smoke and dust filled the air from the explosion as the trio ducked down behind the counter.
Before the dust cleared, Harry leaped up and blindly fired a blasting hex through the open doorway.
"Cover me!" he said, feeling like he was taking a line from a Muggle movie.
Hermione understood and started firing her own spells through the door as Harry crawled towards the door. Ron saw what she was doing and added his own spells to the fight. Answering spells started coming back in.
Harry rolled to take cover behind an empty shelf and looked for a way out. The door and window of the shop weren't options, and the back door, if there was one, meant his attackers would come through the store to follow him, making Ron and Hermione targets.
Debris and dust flew up around him as more spells impacted on the floor, roof, and ceiling. Large pieces of the counter protecting Ron and Hermione splintered and broke off. A second later the remaining portion of the counter enlarged and turned to stone to provide better protection.
The whole front window abruptly exploded inwards showering glass over the trio and leaving several cuts in Harry's face. Harry swept his wand in front of him and reversed the path of the glass making it fly back out into the street where it was greeted by several screams of pain.
He had to get out of the store, now!
"Reducto," he shouted, putting everything he had into the spell and pointing at the wall in front of him.
A large hole appeared in the wall in another ear splitting explosion of dust and wood. At the same time a new barrage of spells hit the store and several small fires sprung up, only to be squashed as Ron or Hermione countered them.
Harry climbed to his feet, careful to keep the remaining bits of his crumbling shelter between him and his assailants.
Ron and Hermione were still furiously firing spells through the door and window, trying to keep their attackers at bay. Glimpses of hooded heads could be seen through the smoke, peering in from outside of the store. A stream of seemingly liquid fire hosed in through the window, bathing the shelves in flames and causing the temperature to immediately rise to furnace-like conditions and the air to be torn from Harry's lungs.
Even as Harry conjured a stream of water from his wand, a counter spell flew from one of his friends, probably Hermione, and the flames flew back out as if a gust of wind had blown them out the way they had come. Cool air flooded over Harry letting him draw deep, soothing breaths into his scorched lungs while at least one figure outside caught fire in the counter attack and began screaming.
Taking a final deep breath, Harry ran and leaped at the hole with his arms out in front of him like he was diving in to a pool.
Luckily the hole was just large enough to fit his shoulders through, but he landed on his face in the next store, bruising his lip and thumping his right leg on the ground painfully hard.
Immediately there was a change in the sounds of the fight behind him.
However they were tracking him, they knew he had moved to one side of the store, but hadn't yet realised he was no longer in the same room. Spells thudded into the wall behind him and one come through the hole to rupture the ceiling of his new hideout.
Harry poked his wand up to fire a spell through the hole, hoping to keep them ignorant for a bit longer.
Suddenly the room he had just left became totally black. Not a single glimmer of light could be seen inside the store where Ron and Hermione were! It was Peruvian Darkness Dust. Somebody had thrown a handful into the air and made it impossible for anybody to see in or out.
Several more spells thudded against the wall, letting Harry know his attackers were still tracking him despite the impenetrable darkness. He quickly checked his pockets and found several of the twin's items he had forgotten about.
An amplified voice suddenly boomed into the room behind him.
"Come out, Potter, we know you are in there and you can't get away. We aren't interested in your friends, so if you give yourself up, we'll let them go."
Spells shot out of the store as all three of the defenders gave their answer. The return fire from the attackers rocked the walls and made the roof groan threateningly.
Harry pulled the cloak over himself and darted to the door, unlocking it with a spell as he ran. Immediately, shouts from the attackers showed they could tell he was on the move, but judging from the sounds of the impact of their spells, they still didn't realise he was next door.
Judging by their shouts, they must have thought he was running for the front of the store and was going to charge out blindly to attack them. The unexpected move caught them off guard since there was a pause in the attack as somebody shouted confusing orders.
Barely slowing to yank the door open, Harry darted out and ran around the corner away from where the attackers were. He caught a glimpse of at least a half dozen hooded figures hiding behind whatever cover was available, hiding from the spells Ron and Hermione were still firing blindly from within the blackness.
Rounding the corner he dropped a portable swamp behind him and continued to run. Confused shouts grew louder as his pursuers finally figured out he was somehow no longer cornered in the store and gave chase.
"He must have Apparated," one shouted.
"Don't be stupid, Pike," another yelled. "If he could Apparate he wouldn't have appeared so close, he would be long gon-arrrrgghhh."
The voice was cut off by a muffled splash.
It sounded like at least one of them had found the swap and Harry wished it had been a deluxe model with live alligators!
Smiling, he turned the next corner and discovered he had run into a dead end. The sounds of pursuit were getting closer. He rushed to a dark doorway on one side of the alley and tried the door. It was locked.
"Alohomora!" he shouted, pointing his wand at the door. It remained stubbornly closed.
"Down here," someone called from near the mouth of the alley.
"Damn it!" growled Harry, then he kick the door with all his might in frustration.
Surprisingly, it flew open.
Grunting in the sudden change of luck, Harry ran through door into the darkened room behind it before spinning around and sealing the entry.
"Colloportus," he gasped.
With the door closed the room was pitch black. Harry stood panting, waiting for his eyes to adjust, when somebody started talking outside in the alleyway.
"He went down here. Where does it say he is now, McDuff?'
"Right in front of us," came an excited reply. "There, inside that door."
A loud 'bang' came from the door as somebody tried to force it open. Harry jumped backwards in reflex and collided with a desk, knocking his already injured leg.
Cursing under his breath, he pulled the cloak off and lit the room with his wand, looking for a way out. He was inside a store room of some kind. Dusty shelves loaded with boxes lined the walls. A rickety wooden stairway led to an upper level.
Grabbing the desk he pushed it against the door, hoping to gain some breathing space by slowing his pursuers down.
He was out of breath, sweating heavily, bleeding from several different places, and his leg hurt to put weight on it. Another loud bang on the door made him jump again as the desk moved forward slightly with the force of the blow.
Limping to the stairs he started to climb up, pulling himself forward painfully, using the hand rail.
This was a disaster, almost as bad as the night he had led a rescue party to the Ministry of Magic and gotten Sirius killed.
About half way up, the desk flew across the room and the door burst open before rebounding against the wall and partially closing again.
"IMPEDIMENTA!" he cried, jabbing his wand furiously at the doorway.
The door slammed shut with so much force that it was torn off its hinges and tossed out into the street in pieces.
Harry desperately hoped it had taken at least one of his pursuers with it.
Coloured flashes of spells came shooting through the now door-less entry, hitting the stairs at his feet and ripping them to pieces. The stairs gave a lurch and dropped in a stomach wrenching drop that stopped abruptly. A piece of the roof fell down hitting him painfully on the head and making lights burst in front of his eyes.
The sudden jerk pulled the railing from Harry's hand as he lost his balance and started to fall backwards to what would surely be an extremely painful, if not fatal end.
In a panic, his closed his eyes and Apparated.
He came to lying on cold, damp stone. It took him a few moments to recognise the roof above him as rock. A dim glow of light was coming from somewhere behind him, as the smell of salt and sea water filled his nostrils. Memories slowly clawed their way to the surface of his mind. Going to Knockturn Alley, the chase, Apparating and falling with nothing on his mind except desperation; just like the second time he had Apparated.
"Oh no," he groaned.
It was the cave Dumbledore had taken him to; the antechamber to the hiding place of the locket Horcrux. He had no idea how he had Apparated there, except for the fact he was desperate when he tried to get away, but at least he was in one piece, he hoped.
Sitting up slowly, he checked all the usual vital parts. Everything seemed ok, even his eyebrows had survived the trip. Blood was trickling down his face from a wound on his forehead and he ached from a dozen different injuries, but aside from an incredibly bad headache, he appeared to be all right.
Harry stood slowly and looked around.
Nothing had changed from the fateful night not long ago. He found himself walking to where he remembered Dumbledore cutting himself to spray the wall and open the door. The dark splash of dried blood ran across the stone to stop abruptly; probably where the doorway started.
Harry ran his hand over the rock, unconsciously repeating the very movements Dumbledore had made to find the hidden doorway. A blazing silver archway suddenly appeared making Harry jump backwards.
Was somebody coming out of the cave? He raised his wand ready to defend himself as the rock vanished leaving an entry into complete darkness beyond.
After a few moments nothing happened, and Harry realised what had occurred; the blood on his hands when he touched the wall had opened the doorway.
A sort of irresistible, horrid fascination caused Harry to light his wand and walk into the cave beyond the door. The vast black lake and high vaulted cavern looked exactly as he remembered it; just like in his nightmares. Worse even was the misty green light glowing from the middle of the lake, beckoning him with its fatal attraction.
Being here was stupid. There was nothing here and no reason to go further. Even if Harry could find the hidden boat, what purpose could be served by going back to the island?
Several loud apparition cracks echoed from the entrance chamber, making Harry's heart almost stop. He doused his wand and limped to the side of the door to hide out of sight in a slight indentation in the wall.
"He is in there," an excited voice called. It was one of the voices he had heard back in Knockturn Alley. Somehow they had followed him!
Harry almost tore the invisibility cloak in his haste to get it on. As he did so, the bag of darkness powder fell out of his pocket and burst open, plunging him into absolute darkness.
Just before he lost the ability to see anything at all, Harry caught a glimpse of several people rushing into the cave with their wands drawn. One, who had been looking at what appeared to be an old wooden compass, had just looked directly at Harry when the powder filled the air.
PETRIFICUS TOTALUS! IMPEDIMENTA! STUPEFY! REDUCTO, REDUCTO, REDUCTO! DIFFINDO! BOMBARDIA! EXPELIAMUS! SCOPPIORUMORA FORTA!
Harry started casting almost every offensive spell he knew, screaming it in his mind while not emitting a sound. The massive cannon blast spell sounded especially loud as it echoed through the chamber and reverberated endlessly, half deafening him, and hopefully his opponents.
Chaos reigned as his blinded attackers, realising they were under attack but not knowing where from, started throwing spells in every direction. Harry threw himself to the ground and crawled towards the exit, occasionally either casting a reflective shield between him and where he thought his attackers were, or another offensive spell to keep them on their toes.
All around him, as he painfully dragged his body over the rough rock towards where he was sure the exit was, he could hear them yelling instructions and questions to each other. The ringing in his ears made their voices sound dull and far away.
Sharp edges of stone cut through his robes and tore at his flesh as he pulled himself slowly onwards. He desperately wanted to get up and run, but there was just too much chance of getting hit by one of the many spells that were flying through the air.
It seemed like an eternity before the light he formerly found dim almost blinded him as his head cleared the magical darkness. He was back in the antechamber, several feet from the magical door.
None of the others had made it back out of the cave. They were still fighting each other, despite numerous calls for everyone to stop.
In a break between the yells and spell casting, Harry heard a single noise that put more fear into him than anything he had faced so far in this battle. Incredible though it was, the noise carried to where he lay, recognisable through the slowly fading ringing caused by his cannon blast spell; it was a splash.
Somebody had fallen into the lake.
The confusion generated noise of the battle was overwhelmed by a terrifying scream, and Harry knew what had happened. The Inferi had risen from the lake and grabbed the person who had fallen in; probably dragging him back down into water.
More screams filled the air as the Inferi found more victims. Panicked voices became frantic in their spell casting as the living desperately tried to fight off the unseen dead things that were attacking them.
Harry dragged himself forward, further away from the archway, until he reached the steps leading down into the water. He rolled around to face the blackness and prepared to fight anything that came out through the doorway, living or dead.
Fire was the only thing that had saved him last time. Dumbledore had created a ring of fire that surrounded them as they had made their way back to the boat. Calling up every fire and burning spell he knew, Harry lay still and waited.
People were dying. Just on the other side of the archway, inside the blackness, living, breathing wizards were being dragged by the horrific, zombie-like corpses of murdered people into a horrifying watery death, and Harry was letting it happen.
They were trying to capture you, a voice said inside of his head. Still the horror of what was happening made him want to call out, to try and save them.
They knew about the cave, it told him. Although coming here had been a mistake, letting anybody else know about it would be an absolute disaster, but he didn't even know who they were. They might not have been Death Eaters, since they weren't wearing the skull faced masks.
Like the local press would be firing spells meant to injure and incapacitate at you. But none had fired any of the unforgivables, or at least not that Harry had seen.
The screams and yells became fewer and fewer as Harry debated with himself. A final cry followed by a horrible gurgling signalled the end of the battle. No Inferi had ventured beyond the bounds of the inner chamber, and no living people had left the room besides Harry.
As if on queue, the magical darkness dissipated like smoke blowing away on a gentle breeze, and discovered the archway had disappeared. Grey unremarkable stone covered a place of horrors the likes of which Harry never wanted to face again.
Voldemort's trap had claimed more victims.