[Author's note: Thanks for the reviews! Your encouraging comments make me want to write more! And yes, I'll try to make the chapters longer...]
..
That night, Harry couldn't sleep. The image from the Pensieve swirled in his mind: Tom Riddle, the charming schoolboy, asking innocently about horcruxes, an angel taking his first step towards damnation. But it was not the memory of Tom's face that kept Harry awake, but the recollection of Slughorn's expression at the moment Tom asked about the forbidden magic. There had been no mistaking the look on Slughorn's face as he had looked at Tom: It was an expression of desperate infatuation.
Slughorn had been in love with Tom Riddle. Harry kept turning the thought over in his mind; it was both disturbing and strangely mesmerizing. The desire he had seen in Slughorn's face during that one unguarded moment was unlike any that he had encountered. He had seen people in love, and had felt an occasional twinge of emotion himself, but nothing like this, nothing like the haunting obsession he had seen on the master's face.
What had happened next? Slughorn had told Tom about the horcruxes, of course he had. But had he also told Tom about the hunger in his heart? Harry tried to imagine what it would be like to be Slughorn, gazing into the beautiful face of the yet unfallen angel, reaching out to touch him, stroking his cheek, pressing his mouth against the soft curve of Tom's lips...
Oh, what madness had come over him? Harry felt his face burn in the dark and buried his head in his pillow.
"Not sleeping tonight?" The stranger's voice in the dark was as haunting as the images in his mind.
"No."
"What's on your mind?"
"Too many things."
Harry felt hands reaching for him in the dark, the now familiar arms pulling him into a comforting embrace.
"Let me go!" He knew it was too late; he knew the stranger must have felt his embarrassing arousal against his body as he pulled him close. He heard a sharp intake of breath.
"Harry?"
"I -I just need to be alone right now..."
Silence. Then a hoarse voice came out of the darkness: "You want me to leave?"
"No!" Harry's reply came much to quickly, before he had time to think. Then he answered more gently: "I want you to stay here always. Just... just don't touch me right now."
"Of course. I won't."
Harry closed his eyes and tried to sleep. His heart was beating much too fast, and he tried to will it to slow down. He listened for the stranger's breath in the dark and tried, yet again, to imagine what his face looked like. Somehow, this only made Harry's heart beat faster, and the shameful swelling under his sheet even worse.
...
Harry found Slughorn in one of the greenhouses, carefully snipping leaves from a plant that seemed to have a mind of its own.
"Professor, may I speak to you for a moment?"
Slughorn lit up at the sight of Harry and pulled his hand away from a delicate green tendril that wrapped itself around his wrist with deadly playfulness.
"Yes, of course, my boy. Any time. What's on your mind?"
Harry took a deep breath. "Professor Slughorn, Dumbledore wants me to ask you about horcruxes. He wants me to get the real memory of the conversation you had with Tom Riddle about horcruxes from you, not the altered version you gave him."
Slughorn stood frozen for a minute. All his pompousness had left him now, and he looked frightened. "I don't know anything about..."
"It's all right, professor. I don't need you to tell me. I already know."
"You know-?" Harry could see Slughorn trying to pull himself together. "I - I really don't know what you are talking about, Harry."
"That's all right. I know you told him about the horcruxes, how to make them..."
The scissors in Slughorn's hand fell to the floor with a soft thud. A moment after, a tendril appeared out of nowhere, and the scissors disappeared in a flash of green.
"It's not your fault, professor. You didn't know, then, what he would become."
"I should have known better." Slughorn's voice was barely above a whisper. "I should have known better than to tell a student about such dangerous magic. It was my fault... I created Voldemort..."
Harry put a hand on Slughorn's arm, gently. "He would have found out anyway, you know."
"Perhaps." Slughorn's face was white.
Harry leaned forward. "Professor, did you ever tell him your secret?"
"My secret?"
"Did you ever tell Tom Riddle how you felt about him?"
Slughorn was so still that Harry wondered if he was still breathing. When he turned to Harry, he looked positively ill.
"How did you know about that?" There was wonder in his voice, and fear as well.
"It doesn't matter. I just know. I will never tell anyone else; your secret is safe with me. I just need to know -"
Slughorn was silent for a moment, and then he sighed softly. There was a distant look in his eyes. "He was so beautiful," he whispered. "He had a face like an angel..."
Harry felt his heart beating. "I know," he said softly. "I have seen him too. But only as a memory..."
He felt Slughorn looking at him thoughtfully, and he flushed a little.
"You know, then." Slughorn's voice was gentle. "Oh, I have met many beautiful people, before and after, surrounded myself with them, like a collector of precious artworks. But Tom was different. There was something about Tom's beauty that tore at my heart. You must think me a villain, Harry, for speaking this way about a schoolboy. I never touched him; I have that much decency. But I wanted to, I desperately wanted to. I used to fantasize about love potions... Yes, I know it's absurd, but I thought as I looked over my supplies of amaranth, that perhaps I would make a potion and put a little in a cup of wine for him. In my mind, I saw him drink it, and I saw his grey eyes grow dark with desire, and I imagined him giving himself over to me, willingly, passionately... Don't worry. I never did it. How could I? Although he was almost a man by then, more than my equal in learning, it wouldn't have been right..."
"You never told him, then?"
Slughorn shook his head. "No. But I think he knew. Tom always knew what others were thinking, even then. Perhaps that's why... why he knew that I would tell him about the horcruxes when he asked. That I would have told him anything, anything at all..."
"When-?" Harry didn't quite know how to ask. "When did your feelings change? When did you stop loving him? At what point in his transformation-?" A picture of Voldemort's terrifying form, pallid and serpentine, rose in his mind.
Slughorn looked at him for a minute, a little smile on his lips. Then he said, simply: "Oh, I never stopped loving him, Harry."
And he retrieved his stolen scissors from the plant and went calmly on with his task of collecting leaves.
...
As Harry entered the Great Hall for tea, he found Dumbledore waiting for him. Curious. Dumbledore usually walked straight to the teachers' table and resumed his place in the headmaster's seat. What made him linger by the door like this?
"Harry, I saw you from the window. I saw you go into the greenhouse to talk to Professor Slughorn. Very good, my boy; I must admit I hadn't expected you to act so quickly. Were you able to get him to give you the memory?"
Harry considered. Slughorn had shared a memory, that was true. But Dumbledore was expecting a little silver swirl in a stoppered bottle, wasn't he?
Harry looked into the blue eyes, twinkling so genially behind the half-moon glasses. "Yes and no, headmaster," he said thoughtfully.
"Yes and no? What does that mean?" Dumbledore looked mildly irritated. "Did you find out more about...horcruxes?" The last word was said in a whisper.
Harry nodded. "Yes, headmaster. I know everything about the horcruxes."
"Harry! Keep your voice down!" Then Harry felt Dumbledore's hand pat his arm gently. "I doubt, I very much doubt, that you know everything about them, my dear boy. But I will be very curious to learn what you have discovered. Come to my office at ten this evening, and we will talk."
Harry nodded briefly and scurried off to the Gryffindor table. He hoped his unnecessary conversation with the headmaster would not take too long; he suddenly felt that he could not bear to miss a moment of the precious darkness.
Conversation at the Gryffindor table was languid. Hermione, more radiant than ever, looked steadily at her plate without eating, a shadow of a smile hovering about her lips. Someone was watching her; Harry could feel it. Draco, yes, and Blaise... And then Harry saw Snape. His eyes, impossibly black, were fixed on Hermione, and there was an expression in them of the utmost tenderness... Oh. Harry looked away rapidly.
Then Harry's glance fell on Draco. Draco had seen it too, seen Snape's lingering gaze. Harry saw a sudden look of comprehension in Draco's eyes, and then his pale face flushed furiously. A moment later, a chair scraped against the stone floor, and Draco hurried to the door.
Pansy got up and was starting to follow him, but someone else said: "Leave him alone; he said he is feeling ill..." and Pansy sank down into her seat again.
Hermione, playing idly with her food, did not appear to have noticed. Neither had Ron, who was lost in some dark thoughts of his own. But he looked up, abruptly, when Ginny's voice came from a few seats down the table:
"I got a letter from Mum today. She is worried about Lupin."
"What's wrong with Lupin?" Ron's voice was almost steady, almost casual.
"Don't know. He's been spending some time at the Burrow, you know, helping to plan things for the Order. But Mum says he's been out of sorts lately. He doesn't seem to be sleeping well, and he seems to be spending most of his time writing letters. But he never sends them, he just writes them, and then flings them in the fire and starts over again..."
"Does he...?" Ron whispered.
...
Harry found his way to Dumbledore's office that evening, as arranged. For once, he didn't find the whimsical passwords charming, merely sinister. Acid Pops. Dumbledore's passwords used to make him laugh, but now they reminded him, eerily, of Aunt Petunia's constant warnings to Dudley about accepting candy from people he didn't know...
"There you are, my boy. Sit down." Dumbledore waved him into a comfortable chair and looked at him expectantly. "Harry, tell me, what did you find out?"
"Well, let's see..." Harry paused. Should he? "A horcrux is a fragmented part of a murderer's soul, left behind in a significant object. Voldemort created several horcruxes: Tom Riddle's diary, Marvolo Gaunt's ring, Slytherin's locket, an object that belonged to Hufflepuff, and one of Ravenclaw's, and the serpent Nagini..."
It was worth it. Dumbledore's face was ashen as he looked at Harry in utter incomprehension. It was, Harry thought, rather satisfying to play games with Dumbledore, for once.
It took a while for the headmaster to find his voice. "How... How is it possible that you know all this, Harry? Did Slughorn tell you all of this? Impossible, he wouldn't know the details..."
He stretched his hand out. "Harry, give me the memory, let me see exactly what he told you."
Harry shook his head. "He didn't pull a recollection from his head and bottle it, professor. We merely talked."
"Then let me see what you talked about, Harry. Show me your recollection of the conversation between you and Slughorn..." Dumbledore's wand was out, and Harry wondered if the headmaster would try to extract the memory from his head by force. Somehow, he didn't think magic worked quite like that.
"No, professor. What we talked about is between him and me." Suddenly anxious that Dumbledore would seek out Slughorn, Harry hastened to add: ""He only told me what I think you suspect: That he was the one who told Tom Riddle what horcruxes are and how they are made."
"I see. But where did you get the rest of this information, then, Harry? About the identity of the horcruxes?"
Harry wasn't going to implicate Snape either. He merely gave a shrug and noted with some satisfaction that the gesture appeared to irritate Dumbledore.
"Well, once I knew what a horcrux was, it was easy enough to guess, wasn't it? Tom Riddle lived on in the diary, so it was clearly a horcrux..." Harry's mind lingered pleasurably on the shadowy boy from the diary for a moment before he went on: "...and the ring you are wearing appears to contain a dark magic strong enough to destroy your hand. As for the other items... This is the only home Tom Riddle ever knew. Wouldn't it make sense for him to choose to embed his soul in relics associated with some of the Hogwarts founders? And Nagini must be precious to him, since he always keeps her close..."
Something stirred in his mind as he said the last words. She is precious to him... Where had he heard those words before? He pushed the thought away for now and studied Dumbledore's reaction to what he had said.
Dumbledore sat motionless, clearly thinking furiously. Then he said, a grim note in his voice: "I have obviously underestimated you, Harry." But then he smiled, and his smile was as kind and paternal as ever. He said softly: "I think we must go on a little journey, you and I, Harry."
"What kind of journey?"
"Well, Harry, I have reason to believe that one of the horcruxes, the silver locket, is hidden in a cave by the sea. I cannot destroy it alone. I need someone to accompany me there. Can I count on you, Harry?"
Harry thought about it for a while. Did he trust Dumbledore enough to do this?
"We should go at once, Harry." Dumbledore got up and reached for his traveling cloak by the door."
"Now?" No, he couldn't go. It was already dark, and someone was waiting for him.
"I will come with you tomorrow night, professor. But not now. I am much too tired, and I need to be more alert for a dangerous quest like this. Give me a chance to rest first."
Dumbledore considered for a moment, then put his cloak back. "All right. Tomorrow, then, Harry."
He smiled, a kind and tender smile: "You have done extremely well, my boy. I am so proud of you. Now go and rest."
...
"I thought you'd never come."
Harry smiled to himself at the sound of the now familiar voice. This time he was the one who searched for the stranger in the dark and he who folded the unknown monster in his arms.
"I thought you didn't want me to touch you-?"
Harry laughed. "I was just embarrassed. I didn't want you to feel what my body was doing..."
"Oh." Gentle fingers through his hair. "You don't need to be embarrassed about that, you know. You are only human, with human desires and longings."
Harry's fingers tried to read the stranger's face. "What about you?" he whispered. "Are you human?"
There was no answer, only a soft breath against his fingers. Impulsively, Harry bent down and pressed his mouth against the stranger's lips. They felt warm and trembling against his own. His heart was racing. He parted the soft lips with his tongue, and found the stranger's tongue... The stranger moaned against his mouth, and his arms clasped Harry harder.
"There!" Harry pulled away, breathlessly, and stroked the stranger's face. The skin was warm to his touch. "You are human after all."
"Perhaps I am." There was a hint of surprise in the other's voice.
"I may not be here tomorrow," whispered Harry, pressing a kiss against the stranger's ear as he spoke. "Dumbledore wants me to go with him to destroy a horcrux."
"What?" Why was there a sudden terror in his voice?
"There is a locket, hidden in a cave by the sea."
"The locket in the cave..." There was something in the stranger's voice now that was positively dangerous. "And Dumbledore wants you to help him destroy it? He wants to take a boy with him, past deadly curses and Inferi? Why?"
"I don't know... I have destroyed a horcrux before, you know. Tom's Riddle diary..."
"So you have..." The stranger's voice was soft now. "A horcrux destroying a horcrux... If only the Dark Lord had known..."
Harry felt a gentle kiss against his lips. "The locket in the cave is of no consequence. But I will not let Dumbledore risk your life to get it."
"What will I tell him, then?"
"You don't need to tell him anything. Just sleep now, my love. I will see to this."
And Harry nestled against the warm body of his protector and slept until morning.
When he woke up, he was alone, as always. But something glittered on his pillow in the golden haze of early morning. Harry held the silver locket in his hand and looked at it with wonder.