Chapter 16
I Am Whatever I Am
"Severus Snape has not returned, My Lord."
Lord Voldemort dismissed the young death eater who had been elected by his peers to inform the dark lord. The young man spun around and left as quickly as he could, thankful that he escaped without punishment. Though he had committed no wrongdoing, so far as he knew, the dark lord needed no justification to administer the Cruciatus Curse.
I gave him until tomorrow, Voldemort mused. Despite this fact, he expected Snape to have returned by now, and found it odd that he had not. This could have several different meanings. Perhaps Snape made progress with his work on overcoming the new wards around Hogwarts, and he simply did not wish to take the time to return. Or could the Ministry have somehow captured him? Though Voldemort would never publically admit it, he knew this would be a severe blow to him.
With the permanent elimination of his followers in Azkaban, all of whom reportedly had been executed on the orders of Minister of Magic Scrimgeour, Voldemort's army, if one could refer to it in that manner, lacked experience and leadership. The death of Bellatrix Lestrange only exacerbated this situation, with the result that Snape's place in the hierarchy had risen substantially.
In the back of Voldemort's mind, he knew that another possibility existed explaining Snape's absence, but he put the thought out of his mind. He had given Snape until the next day, and he fully expected him to return. If he did not, . . .
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Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny silently witnessed the mist emerging from the destroyed locket twirl round and round until it slowly began to assume the form of a human being. At first, they could not determine the sex or appearance of the person, but gradually they could determine that the figure would be male, and after another half a minute, the unmistakable features (at least to Harry) of Tom Riddle emerged. All four teens pointed their wands at the translucent form which only measured about three feet tall. At last the rate of the spinning decreased and the released horcrux came to life.
Only Harry and Ginny had seen Tom Riddle, and only Harry Lord Voldemort, so he recognized the features of the horcrux immediately, though its features remained fuzzy. Quite clearly, this version of Tom Riddle occurred many years after the Tom Riddle of the diary. His face had contorted from the various magical experiments conducted upon himself, and perhaps also from the act of creating multiple horcruxes. This being bore little resemblance to the handsome Head Boy last seen in the Chamber of Secrets. Nevertheless, he had not yet completed his transformation into the Lord Voldemort that regained his body in the graveyard a couple of years previous.
"Welcome to my home, Tom Riddle," Harry hissed in a low growl, "Are you ready to die?"
The horcrux turned its gaze to the young man, and the typical Voldemort sneer formed on his lips.
"You have released me," the horcrux stated in a stronger voice than that of the later version of Voldemort that Harry knew, "You do not know what you have done. You have opened Pandora's Box."
The floating Tom Riddle quickly turned, eyeing each of the four young wizards and witches in the room, wishing to choose a host quickly. He would enter the weakest of the four so that he could immediately overcome his or her defenses. Within seconds, the horcrux focused its eyes on Ginny and moved quickly in her direction. Ginny froze, completely immobilized by fear.
"NO!" yelled Hermione, understanding that the horcrux meant to possess Ginny, but the older witch could not react quickly enough to prevent it.
Ron cast a stunning spell which travelled straight through the horcrux, having no effect. At the same time, however, Harry thrust his wand at the translucent figure and yelled, "ACCIO." Riddle's progress slowed and then halted just as it made contact with Ginny's mid-section. Hermione immediately grabbed Ginny by her shoulders and pulled her away. Riddle turned his gaze on Harry.
"How dare you interfere, boy," it growled, "You shall pay for your impertinence."
"No!" Harry responded in similar fashion, "You will not choose. I will choose." The accio spell remained in effect, and Harry concentrated on pulling the horcrux towards him. He recognized that it would possess one of them, and he likewise knew that that person must be himself. Slowly the figure of Tom Riddle moved towards Harry, slowly but inexorably.
"Why should I possess you?" the angry voice of Tom Riddle asked, "I shall make that decision."
"You will come to me!" Harry snarled in a voice only partially recognizable by the others, "You will come here, because I am you, and you are me. We must become one. What will be, will be."
Ron, Hermione and Ginny only vaguely understood what he meant, and they stood statue-like as the floating figure of Tom Riddle neared Harry Potter. Hermione continued to hold onto Ginny, though she no longer needed protection. Harry clearly possessed a power over the horcrux, which unwillingly moved across the drawing room.
"You cannot hope to destroy me," the voice of Tom Riddle blustered, but he could not disguise the worry in his voice, for he recognized that the boy had taken control. The horcrux could only brace itself for the battle to come.
But no "battle" occurred. Instead as the horcrux neared Harry's body, it sensed something familiar inside, and it suddenly dematerialized back into the mist that first emerged from the smashed locket. Almost magnetically, the mist shot into Harry torso, causing him to stiffen and squeeze his eyes shut. His three friends observed these events in a terrified stupor, having no idea whether they had just witnessed a positive or negative development.
Harry felt a fire in his stomach when the horcrux mist entered his body, but within moments, he felt the fire disperse throughout all of the cells of his being, and the momentary pain ceased. He instinctively understood that he had absorbed the horcrux, that it now constituted a part of him. How this would affect him, he did not know. Finally he inhaled deeply and opened his eyes.
His three friends gasped. Unmistakably, his green eyes shone brightly for three or four seconds, as if small light bulbs behind his pupils had been lit. The flickering light faded away, and Harry's eyes returned nearly to normal, but Hermione and Ginny both could see the difference.
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Taking a page out of the book of Barty Crouch, Jr., Severus Snape transfigured the bodies of his two colleagues, whom he had just murdered, into bones, which he buried. Snape took his time, knowing that the dark lord had allowed him two days to work on overcoming the wards at Hogwarts, allowing him a full day at least to manage his disappearance. True, the dark lord probably expected him to return earlier, but Snape felt confident that no death eaters would be sent to track him down for another day.
First he apparated to his small house at Spinner's End. Dingy even at its best, after months of disuse, the small residence appeared as bland as a black-and-white movie, practically devoid of color. Calmly, Snape climbed the steep stairs to the bedroom, where he opened the closet. Inside he pulled out a small traveling case into which he carefully packed several changes of clothing and other personal items which he kept in the house exactly for this moment. The moment he left Lord Voldemort for good.
He well knew that with his defection, his chances at a long life diminished nearly to zero. The dark lord may wait to track down Draco Malfoy, but once convinced of Snape's treason, he would not exhibit such patience. He would stop at nothing to realize his revenge, which left Snape with but one hope, that the dark lord could be defeated before killing him. And that hope, according to Albus Dumbledore, lay with one man, Harry Potter.
If, of course, Albus Dumbledore had not made a tremendous mistake. The headmaster foresaw his own death, and in fact arranged for it to a large extent. The two men argued about it for months. Dumbledore inferred that Draco had been given the order to kill him, which could only mean one thing. The dark lord meant to sacrifice Draco, who could not hope to complete the murder. Yet Dumbledore insisted that the killing must take place, that in some manner Draco's failure formed an indispensable element of the dark lord's plan.
Snape argued this point time and again, one of the few times he flatly disagreed with the wise old wizard. How could Dumbledore's death not advance the dark lord's cause? How could the death of the only wizard the dark lord feared bring the wizarding world closer to victory? Though he conceded that normal logic supported Snape's position, Dumbledore would not explain his certainty as to why illogic in this case would prove true. He only asserted that the dark lord's plans depended on Dumbledore acting in a predictable way, such as resisting an attempt to kill him.
"Lord Voldemort cannot understand how a person can willingly sacrifice himself for a cause," Dumbledore's words echoed in Snape's mind, "Tom quite willingly sacrifices others for his cause, but his cause is himself. His plans assume that I will easily repel Draco's murder attempt, that Draco will be arrested in the effort, and that he will cooperate with the authorities, or in any event divulge what little knowledge he possesses under the influence of veritaserum. No doubt, Voldemort has implanted information in the boy meant to mislead, or worse, draw us into a trap. I fear that another essential element of the plan is Voldemort's certainty that I will act in a specific manner. My death, I am convinced, is therefore essential to disrupt this plan."
As much as Snape respected the man, and Dumbledore would count as the only person that Snape truly respected, the black-haired wizard could not understand, and only after intense insistence by Dumbledore did he finally agree to finish the job assigned to Draco Malfoy. Both Dumbledore and Snape knew that Snape would be left with no option but to return to the protection of the dark lord for a period of time, until an opportunity presented itself. The opportunity arrived sooner that he expected.
Dumbledore assured him that steps had been taken to prove Snape's innocence, in the long run, but he would have to survive on his wits until then.
Returning to the kitchen, he opened a cabinet door and removed a dozen bottles of mead and wine, placing them into the magically altered travel bag. He could easily have packed triple the amount that in fact had been placed inside, but Snape had little need for other luxuries. For the next week at least, he would stay out of view, allowing him plenty of time to savor his favorite beverages.
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"Well, that went about as well as we could hope, I suppose," commented William Oglesby's old friend, the assistant editor. The two men each swished the Ogden's Firewhisky in their glasses, both exhausted from the effort of transferring the entire operation of Daily Prophet Publications from its Diagon Alley headquarters to a country residence just a few miles north of the Scotland-England border.
Of course, in the wizarding world, no distinction existed between Scotland and England for purposes of governance. The large structure simply served as a viable location in which to hide from the Ministry while still managing to publish a daily newspaper. The process had to be choreographed perfectly.
First the Fidelius Charm needed to be placed on the large nameless house so that when employees inevitably would be questioned by Ministry officials, they would be incapable of revealing the location. When employees began the process of moving, a few stood aside, placing additional complicated wards and protections on the building. Oglesby hoped that this might protect them for a couple of weeks. Already, he had a scout searching for a replacement location if they had to bug out again.
The Prophet's fleet of hundreds of owls could not be housed in the same location, for the Ministry could easily track the owls back to the temporary headquarters. Thus, their handlers split the flock into several smaller groups, housing them in various sites throughout Great Britain. This and a hundred other details needed to be ironed out during the day, all while trying to publish the semblance of a newspaper for the next morning.
Fortunately, the news from the Ministry appeared to be promising. Scrimgeour's conciliatory words towards Harry Potter could only mean one thing. The Minister had to pull back from his plans, at least temporarily. Oglesby's sources in the Ministry reported chaos following the blockbuster interview with The Boy Who Lived. He could not have hoped for more.
"We escaped; that's all," he commented to his old friend, taking a sip of his whiskey, "but we've only scored a goal. The snitch is still out there, and the game is far from over. We've bought some time, but Scrimgeour doesn't give up easily."
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Harry took stock of himself. The horcrux which for decades had been locked up in Slytherin's locket entered his body, but he could feel nothing different, once the initial fire in his stomach subsided. But he knew that Tom Riddle's partial soul did not simply vanish into nothingness. He absorbed it. After completing his self-examination, he could barely believe it. He felt great.
Hermione released Ginny, and the two girls carefully approached Harry. Ron, who had only stood a few feet away from Harry, also stepped gingerly towards his friend, and examined his face.
"Are you OK, Harry?" Ron asked uncertainly, not clear what had happened to his best mate. Harry looked at him and then at the girls, and shocking all three of them, his lips broke into a huge grin.
"I feel brilliant," he informed them simply.
Ginny eyed him suspiciously and asked what all of them wondered, "What happened?"
"He's part of me now," Harry answered briefly, "For better or worse." Amazingly, he did not appear especially concerned.
"But what do you mean, Harry?" Hermione inquired quietly, "The horcrux is dead, isn't it?" She noticed that the green of Harry's eyes definitely appeared more vibrant than before, even in the dim light of the drawing room.
"Dead?" Harry asked in return, "I suppose it depends on what you mean by dead. Yes and no."
"Come on, Harry," Ron admonished him nervously, "Stop talking in riddles. Just tell us what happened."
"You saw it," Harry explained as if he absorbed horcruxes on a daily basis, "What's there to tell. It's part of me now. I absorbed it."
"So it's gone, then, right?" an anxious and frightened Ginny asked, "I mean it can't hurt anyone now?"
"IT can't hurt anyone," Harry replied ominously, "but I can."
Uncharacteristically, Hermione remained silent. Feverously, her brain attempted to assimilate and interpret what her eyes witnessed and what Harry spoke. Finally she thought that she understood.
"Can you control it?" she asked quietly.
Harry stared at her, realizing that she comprehended what happened. Her question, he knew, did not only refer to this horcrux, but also to those that remained. His extraordinarily vibrant green eyes nearly hypnotized her.
"It's not a matter of controlling it," he murmured just above a whisper, "It's part of me now. I am whatever I am. I will be whatever I will be. There's no turning back."
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"Here are more letters, Minister. More owls are arriving every minute."
"Thank you, Cho," Minister Scrimgeour replied absently, "put them by the others."
Cho Chang nodded silently and quickly placed the new two-foot high stack of parchment next to three other piles already on a long, narrow highly-polished table lining the wall of the Minister's office, opposite the fireplace. She could deduce that the Minister or his aides had perused at least some of the angry missives from an irate public, reacting to the interview with Harry Potter distributed in the Daily Prophet that morning. The previous piles no longer sat in perfect order but had been replaced haphazardly. Cho took a few seconds to straighten them out before silently leaving the opulent office, but not before glancing quickly at the Minister. His stoic face could not obscure the worry in his eyes. Cho turned away so that he could not see her lips curl up ever so slightly.
An unscientific review of the previous letters showed that the public favored Potter by a ratio of about twenty to one. A few letters, probably by former Slytherins, expressed support, but the vast majority contained statements ranging from outrage to mere disappointment.
"We need to wait until tomorrow, Minister," advised an aide soothingly, "The public has yet to read your comments. I'm sure many of them will come around"
Scrimgeour ran a hand through his thick greying hair, not bothering to comment. He wished to speak again with his old friend.
"Leave me now. There's nothing more we can do for the moment."
Ten minutes later, he brushed the floo powder off of his black silk robe as he stepped into the vast sitting room of Jeremiah Harrison. Again, his friend appeared to be expecting him, for he awaited the Minister in a large dark brown leather chair. The two men shook hands, and within seconds, two house elves delivered two brilliantly polished silver platters, one carrying an equally polished teapot with two blue and white china cups and a creamer (the elves knew that the Minister did not use sugar), the second bringing a plate of scones. Scrimgeour had barely eaten all day, and he quickly devoured a couple.
"Long day at the office?" Jeremiah asked with a smirk. Only an old, trusted friend could have asked such a tongue-in-cheek question. Despite the unrelenting negativity of the day, Scrimgeour managed a tight smile.
"Let's just say I've had better," Scrimgeour replied, wildy understating the difficult day. He sipped his tea and reached for another scone.
"Should I have the elves prepare dinner for you? It would only take a few minutes." Scrimgeour shook his head, declining the offer.
"I can't stay long." Harrison remained silent, waiting for his friend to initiate the true conversation. Finally the Minister leaned back in his chair, opining, "I'll be lucky to survive this, Jeremiah. The letters. Worse than I expected, and I expected them to be bad enough."
He spent the next ten minutes recounting the events of the day, Jeremiah asking a question here and there. After bringing his closet adviser up to speed, he awaited his verdict.
"You will survive, Rufus. The public wants to blow off some steam, but nothing more. Your statement today will put some water on the fire. The fire may not be snuffed out entirely, but it will be manageable."
Scrimgeour nodded, agreeing with his old friend. His political instincts reached the same conclusion, but he wanted to hear it from Jeremiah.
Harrison continued, "You must now focus on your next steps. The boy is off limits; you know that, don't you, Rufus?" Scrimgeour grimaced, almost in pain, but he nodded his head anyway. He'd have to leave Potter alone. Now that the whole messy affair reached the eyes and ears of the public, he had no choice. Upon his return to the Ministry, he would call off the dogs.
"You were right from the beginning, Jeremiah. I should have listened to you."
Harrison received no pleasure from Scrimgeour's admission, though from the start he worried about the Minister's fixation on Harry Potter.
"Let the boy do what he wants. If he succeeds, we all benefit. If he fails, then you are free to act. Right now, you simply must ride out the storm."
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Of the four friends, Harry surprisingly seemed the least concerned with the aftermath of the destruction of Slytherin's locket. He informed the other three that he wanted to eat, so Harry and Hermione side-along apparated Ron and Ginny to Harry's hotel room in Hermione's home town. From there they walked to a nearby restaurant.
While the two girls mostly played with their food, and even Ron ate less enthusiastically than usual, Harry wolfed down his sandwich and chips and then finished the leftovers from the girls' meals. To top it off, he ordered a slice of pie for Ron and himself, since the girls declined. He seemed to be in an excellent mood, which only caused his friends to worry more. The Harry Potter they knew would not act like this.
Who was this Harry?
In the restaurant they avoided discussion of the horcrux, Harry instead giving Ron and Ginny a rundown of his week on the road. Finally in the late afternoon, the four returned to Harry's room, where Ron and Ginny intended to apparate back to the Burrow before Molly worried too much. They told her that they intended to spend the day in Ottery St. Catchpole and would return for supper.
Ron, at least, relaxed a little during the afternoon, and despite his misgivings, he enjoyed being back with his best mate. Spending every day with his younger sister bored him to the bone (of course, Ginny felt the same). He patted Harry on the shoulder, causing his friend to smile broadly. It felt great to be back together.
"So what do we do next, Harry? How are we going to find the next horcrux? We have no idea where they might be."
Harry stared at his friend for several seconds, and then looked off to the side, his eyes glazed, deep in thought. After an extended pause, his bright eyes moved back to Ron, and he smiled.
"Actually, I know where they all are. One is with Voldemort. One is at Hogwarts. And one is at the bottom of a lake."