Chapter 33
Come Meet Your Brothers
Mr. Granger demonstrated to Harry how to use the band saw located in a back room of the office, which also contained a number of other tools. Hermione previously explained that her father was the handy type and liked working around the house, though less so now than in the past. The dentist examined the relatively small cup and adjusted several knobs and dials to provide enough blade on the band saw to cut through the entire cup. He then replaced the used blade with a brand new one. Evan, Ron, Hermione and Ginny all hovered a few feet behind them, and thickness from their combined nerves filled the small room.
Harry merely nodded at Mr. Granger's instructions. Perhaps it was difficult for home improvement projects, but for his purposes, it could not be much simpler. Turn it on and slowly but firmly push the cup into the blade.
"I've got it, Mr. Granger. Let's do it." Again, Harry spoke with a cockiness that still surprised his friends.
"All right, Harry, let me set it up for you." Dr. Granger tightened a clamp to ensure that the settings would not shift before he stood aside.
Harry turned to his friends, and reminded them, "OK, stand outside the room. You can look through the window, but if it works, stay away from me until I'm done." He appeared focused but not especially nervous.
Once again, Hermione could not avoid the comparisons. In the past, Harry possessed bravery in full measure, but he suffered when faced with his many trials. How could she forget the agonizing wait with him before he challenged the dragon during the Tri-Wizard Tournament, or before he entered the final room to rescue the Philosopher's Stone, or in the Ministry. On those occasions, his bravery overcame his nerves; now he seemed not to have any nerves. Just like Dumbledore. Just like Voldemort.
She vaguely heard the others giving Harry final words of encouragement while filing out of the room. Ron patted him on the back, and Evan said some final words of advice which she did not hear. Finally they left the two of them alone, and Harry looked into her brown eyes and could see that she suffered from enough nerves for the both of them. She had suffered for him before throughout their many adventures, but now that more existed between them than mere friendship, her suffering intensified.
Harry smiled, and the two embraced, wrapping their arms around each other with all their might. She buried her face into his shoulder, and they remained in that position for a long time.
Finally Harry whispered in her ear, "I'll be OK. I know what I'm doing now. It can't hurt me; you know that. I just hope you'll still like me afterwards; maybe I'll turn into a bigger git than I already am." He smiled at his attempt to lighten the moment. Hermione did not smile, but instead looked into his bright green eyes again.
"It doesn't matter, Harry. I'll love you no matter what. Whatever happens, we'll deal with it, but you're not going to get rid of me that easily."
Again, Harry smiled, but at the same time his heart filled with emotion. Until that point in their short romance, neither had uttered the word "love," and perhaps the moment for such language had not yet arrived under normal circumstances. But these were not normal circumstances. He ran his hand tenderly through her brown hair, and then they embraced briefly again. Wordlessly, she turned around and left the room as well, closing the door behind her.
Hufflepuff's cup sat innocently on a white linoleum counter next to a number of tools and old dental implements no longer used by the dentists. The band saw buzzed behind him as he lifted the cup with his left hand, staring at it. Almost staring into it. The last one, he thought.
In a matter of seconds, the extraordinary events of the past six weeks passed before him. Dumbledore's death, his flight from Little Whinging, Melissa Montgomery, escaping from Evan, bouncing all over Great Britain, Dumbledore's letter, Hermione, and absorbing the two horcruxes. Now he held the last one.
From the corner of his eye, he saw his friends bunched together looking through the window to his left and slightly behind him. Ginny and Hermione, being the shortest, appeared to have to strain their necks to obtain a good view. He took a deep breath and stepped to the saw, whirring before him. Carefully he grasped the cup with both hands, the open top in his left, the bottom in his right, leaving about four inches between them. Carefully he edged the cup closer to the blade.
When the cup touched the blade, it almost jumped out of Harry's hands, recoiling backwards. He almost dropped it onto the white tile floor, but gathered himself just in time.
Concentrate! he chastised himself. He could not hear Hermione's gasp from outside the window, where she stood trembling. His nerves remained calm, however, and again he carefully pushed the cup into the blade, this time tensing the muscles in his forearms to ensure that the cup remained in place.
Red sparks flew off of the silver where the blade met the cup, and Harry held it in position for a good minute before he finally removed the cup to assess his progress. Which was none. Not a scratch appeared on the surface of the cup, which did not even feel warm to the touch where the blade rubbed against it. Hermione gritted her teeth when she saw it, but Harry did not change expression.
In fact, he did not feel the least bit surprised. He tried it the "normal" way, not putting any of himself into the effort. But he knew both from pounding the locket and from the effort he put into the inflammare spell against the trophy, that more would be needed. He had to attack it.
Inhaling deeply, he again gripped the cup with both hands and closed his eyes, concentrating intensely on the space between his hands. Only briefly opening them to locate the blurred blade, he again placed the cup against the blur, and then closed his eyes. He recalled the aggression he felt when destroying the diary, the locket and the trophy, and his face automatically screwed itself into an ugly grimace.
Hermione could just see the side of Harry's face, but could sense that he meant business now. She bit her bottom lip and moved closer to Ron. He understood how she must be suffering, so he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She barely noticed, but moved into him another inch or two, finding a small measure of comfort.
A full minute passed with Harry's eyes squeezed shut in intense concentration. Sparks flew off of the cup just as before, showing no improvement from the first attempt. Hermione's heart began to sink as she realized that the saw may not work as Harry believed. Her expression of fear changed into one of disappointment.
"It's not working, Ron. I don't think it's the right way."
Before Ron could respond, however, Evan interjected, "Just wait. He's feeling it right now. Give it a couple of minutes." The auror's confidence buoyed Hermione, and she looked back at Harry, wordlessly trying to convey her support to him.
Harry had little concept of the passage of time, so trance-like was his state. Gradually he felt warmth in his hands which little by little increased in temperature. At some point, he realized that the cup had heated considerably, and he knew he could do it. With that certainty, he pushed slightly harder on the cup.
The sparks doubled both in quantity and intensity, glowing a bright red, and the friction of the whirring blade against the silver cup created a piercing squeal, almost as if the cup were screaming. Harry pushed a little more, and his hands felt so hot that he almost could not hold on to the cup any longer. I'm so close, he thought.
Hermione and the others stood breathlessly, understanding that a change had occurred. They all gasped, however, when Harry suddenly opened his eyes wide, for through his protective goggles, they could see the bright reflection of his glowing green eyes off of the metal of the cup and saw and from the corner of his eyes. He screamed like a weightlifter attempting a new world record.
They heard the tell-tale snap, and in an instant the blade cut through the silver cup as if it were a mere branch from a birch tree. Harry pulled the two evenly sized pieces of the cup apart and stepped back, breathing heavily but still conscious. Within seconds, the familiar mist emerged from each piece of the cup, merging together and coalescing in a helix.
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"Now they will know that I am still a force to be reckoned with!" sneered Lord Voldemort, observing the huge tongues of fire below. In rapid succession that morning, he had destroyed the house of a random wizarding family in Kent, presumably killing its residents, caused a bridge outside Glasgow to collapse, killing and injuring scores of commuters, and created a huge forest fire in a wooded area in central England.
At all three sites, he displayed the dark mark in the sky so that the wizarding world would not doubt that he retained the ability to create havoc. Yet a part of him resented the need to lower himself to such petty mischief-making. He had death eaters for that purpose, except that through his own negligence and the incompetence of his followers, he lost nearly his entire force. With few exceptions, those that remained lacked skill and experience. Worthless hangers-on that he chose not to include on the attack on Hogwarts.
From atop a mountain, he spied the first muggle fire fighters arriving at the devastating blaze, which would take days of toil to control, much less extinguish. Normally, he would have exulted at the chaos he created, reveling in the imposition of his power over them. But he took little pleasure in his handiwork, all a sideshow to the main act. The horcruxes and Harry Potter.
He had planned to invade and occupy Hogwarts only for a day, but he failed to follow the plan that he himself devised. Upon defeating the anticipated minimal forces at the castle, he would then erect wards of his own creation to exclude the Ministry's aurors from the grounds.
When he found the castle abandoned, he relaxed, and failed to follow the procedure that he himself had dictated. Instead of erecting the wards, he moved directly to the trophy room. An inexcusable error. His foot soldiers retained their discipline only until such time that they determined that the enemy had fled. With their leader otherwise occupied, they sunk to their natural base instincts. Disaster followed, and he had to flee.
Thus until he devised a better plan, he decided to wreak enough havoc to remind the wizarding public that he remained a force to be feared. Now what?
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By midday, the euphoria that swept through the Ministry evaporated as the first reports of Voldemort's retaliatory actions arrived. Complete chaos resulted, as the Defense Ministry tried to assign aurors, obliviators, and other officials to the three sites. Already exhausted from the previous night's hostilities, aurors drug themselves to the apparation point to travel to their designated locations, but they had been given little information or instruction. Essentially, they needed to figure it out as they went.
Everyone thought some version of the same worry: Will there be more? Is this just the beginning?
Evan Harrington's supervisor vaguely recognized that Evan had not reported for duty that morning, but given the pressing crises, he took no action with regard to the absent auror. With no personnel available, he could do nothing at the moment anyway, so he pushed the thought out of his mind.
Same as his subordinates, Minister Scrimgeour's mood also returned to earth from the stratosphere. While the news from Hogwarts would still be seen as a resounding success, these latest tragedies would temper any political gain he had hoped to enjoy. Moreover, he intended for his forces to pursue He Who Must Not Be Named and his remaining forces as vigorously as possible. Even if the dark lord himself could not be captured, as seemed likely, if the Ministry could round up most of his remaining followers, his abilities would be greatly diminished. Now, the Minister had no choice but to devote his forces to deal with the aftermath of the dark lord's attacks.
"Two steps forward, and one step back," he muttered to an advisor, "At least we are making some progress."
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Little did Harry Potter realize or care that Minister Scrimgeour could be the beneficiary of his actions, should he succeed in defeating Lord Voldemort. For the moment, he directed all of his attentions towards the image of Tom Riddle which had just coalesced in front of him.
This Riddle appeared significantly older than the Hogwart's era Head Boy that Harry met in the Chamber of Secrets, but well before the transformations which converted him into an almost inhuman creature. Again wearing a normal black wizard's robe, Tom appeared to be in his late twenties, perhaps as old as thirty, still young but with the first signs of aging.
The horcrux briefly scanned the extremely unusual room in which he found himself, for Tom Riddle never in his life had set foot in a modern muggle dental office. Floating several feet above the ground, his eye level reached about Harry's neck.
Harry's wand pointed directly at the chest of the horcrux, and he breathed heavily as he recovered from the exertion of destroying Hufflepuff's Cup. On the other side of the window, Harry's friends looked on, as did Evan and an astonished Dr. Granger. Since they were in his office, they could hardly force him to leave. All of them held their breath.
"Hello Tom," Harry spoke quietly, "Fancy seeing you in these parts." The horcrux's face sneered at the belittling comment.
"Why have you released me, boy? You should not delve into matters of which you have no knowledge. By releasing me, you have doomed yourself to be my servant."
"Oh, but I do have some knowledge, Tom Riddle, illegitimate son of a muggle father. You're a half blood, Tom, just like me. I'm an orphan too, just like you were. We have a lot more in common than you'll ever realize." Harry smiled at the irony and added, "You might even call us soul mates." He could not suppress a chuckle.
"Who are you?" Tom asked suspiciously, "You seem familiar to me, but I do not recognize you. You are much younger than I, so we did not attend Hogwarts together, but I feel I know you."
"And well you should, Tom, well you should. And in a moment, you'll come to know me much better."
Hermione gritted her teeth at this far too lengthy conversation, which she could barely follow. Just do it, Harry!
In fact, Harry decided the conversation had ended and directed his wand at Tom's chest.
"Put that wand away, boy, you have no . . ."
"ACCIO," Harry snarled, cutting him off in mid-sentence. Immediately Tom found himself moving involuntarily the few feet towards the young wizard who seemed so familiar. At first he tried to resist, but found that to be impossible. Since he needed to possess someone anyway, Tom allowed himself to be pulled.
"This boy has a lot of spark," Tom thought, "He'll serve my purposes well."
When it arrived just a foot from Harry's stomach, the young wizard whispered, "Come meet your brothers." The horcrux dissolved into a mist and quickly shot into Harry's midsection. Harry barely felt it this time, suffering no adverse effects. In fact, he found the process to be quite pleasant.
Mr. Granger stood dumbfounded, having no idea what he just witnessed. Hermione rushed away to run into the room, but her father attempted to grab her first, afraid for her safety. Suddenly, his eyes glazed for a few seconds, and he stood still. Evan quickly lowered his wand.
"Well, were you able to take care of that little business of yours?" he asked Evan in a most pleasant, unworried voice, "I hope the saw did the job."
"Yes, quite," Evan assured him, "We've just finished, and I'm happy to say that the saw worked perfectly."
"Excellent, excellent," the dentist replied, "Well, I must be off. I have a one-ten appointment to prepare for. I'm afraid she won't find this to be the most pleasant of procedures." He turned around and paid the wizards and witches no further attention.
Meanwhile, Hermione met Harry and embraced him again with all of her might, fighting back tears from the tension of witnessing the absorption of the final horcrux. Ron and Ginny filed in behind, both slightly wary of how this horcrux may have affected Harry.
"You did it, Harry," Hermione whispered in relief and admiration, "It's over. That's the last one."
In response, Harry sneered. An ugly sneer, one that his friends had never seen before.
"No. There's one more to go. It's time to catch the big fish."
For a second Hermione trembled, but she promised herself that she would not fear Harry, no matter what. She would accept him for whatever he may become, because she knew that the real Harry still existed and would ultimately prevail in the battle of wills.
"You're right, Harry. There's one more to go, and he's ready to take our hook, if we put on the right bait."
Harry looked down at her, into her eyes, and that same warmth passed through him. The anger he felt a few seconds before disappeared, and he smiled genuinely.
"Why all the fishing analogies?" he laughed, "I don't even like fishing." The four friends laughed, relieved that Harry still displayed a sense of humor.
Their laughter ceased, however, when Harry's eyes glowed again. This time, however, they brightened and ebbed randomly, and Hermione felt him lose his balance. She tightened her hold on him, but his momentum pulled her backwards, towards the still whirring saw. Ron and Ginny both jumped forward to grab their friends, and managed to steady them before they completely lost their balance. Harry's eyes continued to glow at differing intensities, as the four friends remained in a huddle.
Evan entered after them and immediately flicked his wand at the saw to turn it off. He stepped forward and examined Harry's eyes and face carefully, though without the expression of worry on the young wizard's three friends.
"What's happening to him," Ginny finally asked breathlessly, "Is he going to be all right?"
"There's a lot of magic going on inside of him right now," Evan answered calmly, "Sometimes it needs a release, and in Harry's case, the release is his eyes. I think he needs some time to assimilate this new horcrux. Where can he lie down?"
"Follow me, Harry," Hermione ordered, yanking him by the hand. Ron stayed by his side, with an arm on his shoulder to steady him. Hermione dragged him into the back room where just a week or so before Harry had whipped off his invisibility cloak, showing Hermione his short, bleached-blond hair. That seemed ages ago now. She helped him to lie down on the sofa.
Harry lay his head back the padded armrest, and Ginny quickly found a small pad on a nearby chair which she placed under his head. He closed his eyes and relaxed for a few seconds, when again his muscles tensed and he felt dizzy. His friends suppressed gasps, and Hermione bit her bottom lip.
They could see the green glow right through his closed eyelids as he fell asleep.
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"You've done well, Harry. You've been everything I always believed you would be. I could not be more proud."
Harry saw Albus Dumbledore move behind his desk in the headmaster's office. To the side, the office blurred in his vision; he could only see clearly straight ahead.
"But I'm losing it, sir," Harry replied fearfully, "I'm becoming him. My eyes glow like his. I don't feel like myself anymore. I don't know who I am."
The deceased headmaster walked around the desk, leaning on it directly in front of the young wizard.
"Was I wrong all along?" Harry asked, "Was there a different way? Why didn't you tell me? You destroyed the ring. You knew how to do it, but you wouldn't tell me."
"And I lost use of my arm in the process. You had to destroy four more. I could not allow you to use the method I employed. You would have disabled yourself to the point where you could no longer function. No, Harry, I could not allow that. For me, an excessively old man, the loss of an arm seemed a worthwhile exchange for the destruction of a horcrux."
"But is absorbing them any better? I'm not Harry Potter any more. I'm a stranger. A dangerous stranger."
"No, you are not a stranger. You are a simple young man placed into an extraordinary situation. That simple young man will never leave you." Dumbledore spoke with his normal confident calm.
Harry shook his head, arguing, "But there's so much of him inside of me now. Three horcruxes, plus whatever happened when I was a baby. There's more of him in me than there is in Voldemort himself."
Though Harry's voice ached with despair, Dumbledore merely smiled as he tilted his nose down to look over his half glasses.
"But you forget, that there is no Harry Potter within Lord Voldemort, and THAT is your advantage." He paused a moment before continuing, "Only one element has been lacking so far, Harry, in what you have accomplished. Can you think what that is? Try to recall our many conversations in this very room prior to my untimely death."
Harry did not need to consider the question for more than a second. He looked at the aged face of his mentor before dropping his eyes to his feet.
"Love. I haven't used the power of love. I know it, but I don't know how. I can't feel it anymore! There's too much of him inside of me, too much hate, too much evil. I can't overcome it."
"Yet yesterday you admitted your love for Miss Granger, in a most spectacular way. Have you lost it already."
"No. I love her, but that's different. That's . . ." Harry could not find the words, "That's just normal love, boy and girl love."
"And your mother simply had the normal love of a mother for a child. Her love for you did not exceed the love of any mother for her child, yet you know the power of her love. It countered the killing curse, turning it around on the caster. It protected you in your home until your seventeenth birthday. The simple love of a mother for her child. 'Normal love,' as you call it, is the most powerful kind, for it is the most difficult to break."
Harry stared at him impassively, trying to comprehend Dumbledore's words. It made no sense to him. He could not feel it.
"I don't know sir. What am I supposed to do, throw a 'love spell?' Maybe that's taught in seventh year. Unfortunately, I don't know if I'll be able to attend that class."
"You need no instructions, Harry. Love is so much a part of your essence that it can never be separated from you. Allow it to control. When you feel that hatred is overcoming you, pause and focus on your friends, Miss Granger, Mr. Weasley, even Miss Weasley. There are many forms of love, all of them simple, all of them powerful. When the time arrives, you will know what to do. That is the way of great wizards. Do you think that I plan my actions when in battle? Of course not, I simply trust my instincts and my abilities. You have become a great wizard, Harry; you demonstrated that in the lake. Trust your instincts. Trust your friends. Trust the power of love."
While he spoke, the old man walked back around the desk to his seat, which he stood behind. He faded away as the final words left his mouth.
Hermione simultaneously paced, fretted, frowned and grimaced as Harry slept fitfully on the uncomfortable sofa. Many thoughts passed through her mind, but she most worried that the changes in Harry would somehow change his feelings towards her, that just as his feelings for Ginny dissolved, so may his feelings for her. Would their romance end before it even started.
She could face the possibility of death, but the possibility that they may die without the mutual love they now shared caused her to work herself into a frenzy. The attempted words of comfort from Ron and even Ginny could not assuage her.
Finally after half an hour, Evan placed a hand on her shoulder, preventing her from pacing further. With his other hand, he directed his wand at a metal folding chair, moving it next to the sofa.
"Sit, Hermione. Take his hand. He needs you now. If you take his hand, he'll feel it. He'll know."
The words of the older man calmed her, and she nodded. Sitting down, she lifted Harry's hand, enveloping it with both of hers. The contact with him settled her nerves slightly, and she gazed thoughtfully at his face. He had accomplished so much in such a short period of time. Less than two months before, when they mourned the death of Professor Dumbledore, she never would have believed that all the horcruxes would be destroyed already. Like everyone else, she assumed they had months at least, maybe years. Now they were speaking of hours.
At times she could see Harry's eyes glow under his eyelids, while at others, she could not. Even his hand would suddenly warm in her hand, only to return to its normal temperature seconds later. Clearly a lot was going on inside him.
Finally after another half an hour, Harry began to stir, his head moving back and forth a few inches. Hermione increased the pressure of her hands, and Harry squeezed back, lifting her spirits enormously. By the time he opened his eyes, she greeted him with a loving smile. Ron and Ginny moved behind Hermione, so that he could see all three of them. Evan remained off to the side.
"Are you OK, Harry?" Hermione asked softly, "Is there anything I can do for you."
"You're already doing it," he whispered back. His eyes no longer glowed, but he looked about the room quickly, his eyes flitting back and forth across the room. He took a deep breath, and with a pull from Hermione moved into a sitting position. An idea developed in his mind.
"Let's go," he finally said, standing up abruptly, "I need to see Pettigrew again. And Draco."