Author's Note: Thanks to the overwhelming response to Chapter Nine, I've done as I promised and posted this today. I'm a girl of my word!! Keep reviewing, and I'll keep posting!

I slept late the next morning. When I finally awoke, I found Ginny sitting in bed and reading. Our other dormmates were nowhere to be found.

I rubbed my eyes. "Morning, Gin," I yawned.

Her eyes darted over to me. "Good, you're up. Get showered and dressed; the other three will be waiting for us in the Room of Requirement."

I was too sleepy to register much surprise. I got ready for the day as quickly as I could, then let Ginny lead me to the seventh floor.

"Oh," I said in comprehension. This was where their secret Defense group had met right after Voldemort had risen again.

Ginny didn't hear, just made the room open up and ushered me inside, where, as promised, Ron, Hermione, and Harry were waiting. On a table between the three of them lay a small black lump.

I knew what it was. I walked over and examined it. "The locket," I said.

If the four of them were startled, they didn't show it. "Yes, it did that when we finally opened it," Harry said.

"Congratulations," I said, turning to him.

"That's it, then?" Hermione asked. "It's been destroyed?"

"Look at it," I said, gesturing towards it. "It's gone."

"But WHY?" Ron demanded. "It basically self-destructed. We just opened it."

"How did you do it?" I asked.

"I have a penknife with blades that open any lock," Harry explained. "There's a very small blade that opened it right up."

I nodded. "Good."

"Charms wouldn't work," Hermione said anxiously. "Alohomora bounced right off and made a vase explode."

"Well, He Who Must Not Be Named would have protected against charms, but some things you can't protect against," I said, taking a seat next to Ginny on a loveseat.

"But how do you KNOW?" Hermione cried. "I've read every book I can get my hands on in the Restricted Section, and I can't understand what's going on!"

I sighed. "I'm going to tell you all what I know about these Horcruxes. I hope it'll help you to understand it. I'm not sure I fully understand it myself."

"Go on, then," Ginny said.

"Harry, you destroyed a particularly virulent Horcrux when you destroyed the diary. The diary was a neutral object when it was manufactured, but Tom Riddle did use it as a diary for some time before turning it into a Horcrux. His evil thoughts and deeds were recorded on that paper, and thus when he transformed it into a Horcrux, it was easy. The diary was an evil object, and so it took a good deal to vanquish it.

"The ring was the same. That's why Dumbledore went after it first. The ring had been worn continuously for a thousand years by people who, by and large, were not pleasant. It was infused with the thoughts and feelings of generations of bitter, evil-doing people. As an object in and of itself, it had evil inclinations. It made a very good Horcrux.

"The Founders' objects . . . ." I shook my head. "It was much more difficult for He Who Must Not Be Named to force pieces of his soul into those four objects. That's why there was the whole bit with the boat and the Inferi around the place where the locket was supposed to be, whereas the diary could be entrusted to a Death Eater. The Founders were four very good people, and their objects are artifacts that retain, very strongly, their moral compasses. The four Horcruxes that reflect the Founders should be much easier to destroy, because the underlying objects are inherently good."

"Wait a second!" Harry cried. "Slytherin wasn't inherently GOOD." He looked furious.

I winced. This part wouldn't be easy. "He . . . he was, Harry. I know it's hard for us to see now, in this age, but Salazar Slytherin --"

"He wanted to MURDER Muggleborns!" he shouted, pounding a fist on his armrest. "This is BOLLOCKS! He was evil!"

I shook my head. "Listen. Just listen, all right?"

"Harry," Ginny said quellingly, and Harry settled back down in his chair, though his expression was stormy.

"I know," I said. "I know about the Chamber of Secrets. I know it seems like the work of an evil man. But Slytherin had been married once to a witch named Catherine. This was years before the founding of Hogwarts. They had two daughters -- one of them is an ancestor of Tom Riddle. The locket that you destroyed, Salazar Slytherin had given it to Catherine when she gave birth to their first daughter. It had a lock of the first daughter's hair in it.

"One day when Slytherin was away from home, the Muggle villagers who lived nearby took Catherine from her home. She was feeding the younger daughter at the time; the older was outside playing in the woods, so she wasn't found by the Muggles. The Muggles took the baby and killed her, then killed Catherine. Suspicion of witchcraft. Their holiest book says, 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' Slytherin found their bodies dumped outside their front door when he returned."

Everyone was quiet for a moment. "But she was a witch," Ron said, though his tone was grave. "Why didn't she fight back?"

"This was before the founding of Hogwarts," I said. "Women weren't taught how to use their magic, except to do cooking and cleaning."

"That's why he helped to found the school," Ginny said, comprehenion dawning.

"Yes," I said. "He believed that every witch and wizard needed to know how to defend themselves."

"But why the hatred of Muggleborns?" Harry asked. "They're witches and wizards as well."

I sighed again. "He couldn't trust them. They had Muggle parents and siblings -- he feared greatly that they would reveal the location of Hogwarts, or the identity of other witches and wizards, and that anyone who associated with Muggleborns would become fodder for witchhunters."

"It wasn't about blood purity, then," Hermione said slowly. "It was about preserving the lives of his kind."

"Yes," I said.

"But a Basilisk?" Ron said.

"That was his last defense if Hogwarts came under attack," I explained. "If hoardes of Muggles were to try to take the school, he would unleash the serpent."

"That's absurd!" Hermione cried. "Hogwarts is a huge, easily defensible castle."

"It wasn't always," I said. "Hogwarts has been rebuilt many times over the years. Its incarnation as a stone castle only came after the school had been around for two hundred years or so. When they founded it, Hogwarts was a wooden structure, and it would have been easily burned and sacked."

"Slytherin was essentially good," Ginny said in wonder. "I never would've guessed."

"He hated people he'd never met," Harry spat. "It's rubbish."

"Harry," I said gently. "Don't you have a prejudice against people in Slytherin House? Isn't that hating people you've never met?"

He looked as though I'd just slapped him. "That's different! They're awful! They're Death Eaters! They kill people!"

"And that's how Salazar Slytherin felt about Muggles," I said.

He opened his mouth, then shut it. "I guess," he muttered.

"That's why the locket wanted to reject the piece of soul," I said, getting back to the point. "It was an object given in profound love from one good person to another. It didn't want to be used that way."

"Why did opening it destroy it, though?" Hermione asked. She was, surprisingly enough, more or less untroubled by the story about Slytherin. I supposed that she had done a good deal of reading on the medieval period and knew how vicious Muggles had been to the magical people of the era.

This part was harder to explain. I laid my hands palm side up on my lap and opened and closed my fingers a few times. "Objects . . . have functions." I paused. "Simple objects, like a locket, or a cup, they have one main function. As human beings, we invest them with a tiny amount of power when we use them in the capacity that they're meant to be used. As magical people, we invest them with magical power."

"We learned about it a bit in Arithmancy," Hermione interrupted. She looked enthralled. "When we get experimental errors in our spell calculations, it's usually because of the tiny amount of power generated in using the objects in question."

I nodded. "Right, that's right. In some sense, then, the locket wanted to be opened. And when you did manage to open it, it harnessed that power to destroy itself. It chose destruction over being used for He Who Must Not Be Named's ends."

"But HOW did we open it?" Hermione queried. "Voldemort must have wanted to ensure that no one could ever open it."

"He protected it against any charms," I said, "but he couldn't seal it off completely."

"He didn't seal it against magical instruments, then," Hermione deduced.

"That's my assumption," I said. "Protecting it against charms meant no one could Summon it or anything like that. But to use a magical instrument on it you'd have to actually have it in your hands, and I don't think He Who Must Not Be Named believed anyone would penetrate his defenses. Anyway, even if he'd tried . . . the penknife was another instrument of good, another object that was given in love from one good person to another." I swallowed and looked at Harry, whose face was a mask. "That little bit of good was all the locket needed."

"How will we destroy the other ones, then?" Hermione said, not to be deterred. "Lockets want to be opened, like you said, but Hufflepuff's cup will want . . . to be filled?"

I smiled and nodded. "Precisely."

"So, what, we just hold it under a spigot and wait for it to melt down?" Ron asked.

"It may be that easy," I admitted. "More likely, you'll need to fill it with something that is purely good."

I could see the gears in Hermione's head turning. "What . . ." she began, but Harry cut her off.

"Where's the cup, then?" he asked roughly.

I closed my eyes as if to See something. "London," I said immediately. "I think he lived in a flat in Wizarding London that's been abandoned ever since he left his job in Knockturn Alley. He must have kiled the witch who owned the cup, put a part of his soul into it, then set up his flat to protect the cup and left it there. He kept the locket when he escaped London and stowed it away on the coast, in the cave where you and Dumbledore found the fake, Harry."

"Right," Harry said. "Now we just have to find Voldemort's old flat."

"That shouldn't be too difficult," Hermione said unexpectedly.

Ron laughed, breaking the tension a bit. "Go on, Hermione, tell us it's in the Hogwarts Library."

Hermione started a bit. "Well, it is."

We stared at her. "Yes?" Ron continued.

"There's a Wizarding Floo Directory in the library that's updated every time the Floo Registry adds on a new fireplace," she said. "If Voldemort had his fireplace hooked up to the Floo, it would be on there -- or at least, it would have been in the Forties."

Harry looked at her intently. "Don't you think he would have disconnected his Floo when he left?"

"I do," Hermione said firmly, "but we could look at the book the way it was in, say, 1946 or so. We just learned the Antemorphean Charm a month ago -- I bet that would do it."

Her friends all grinned. "Hermione, you're brilliant!" cried Ron, and kissed her soundly on the cheek.

"Shall we take a trip to the library, then?" Ginny asked a bit sardonically.

"Let's go!" said Ron.

"And that is the first and last time Ron will ever be eager to visit the library," Ginny said. We all laughed.