Chapter 14: Al
He had finally arrived at the place. In one piece.
It had been an extremely difficult journey to have gotten to his destination. The return leg would be a lot easier, mainly because he knew he could Apparate to just outside the grounds of Hogwarts and then walk in from there into the school.
Or he could always head to The Hog's Head from there and go see Aberforth.
But all that was for later.
Right now though was going to be the toughest part of the task he had undertaken.
The destruction of one of Tom's Horcruxes.
He had refused to call him anything else. Not You Know Who. Not He Who Must Not Be Named. Not The Dark Lord. Not even Voldemort.
To him, calling Tom by any other name would be tantamount to accepting defeat. And he knew that Tom would see it in the same way.
That boy, no, he was no longer a boy. Albus wasn't sure if he could even be termed a man. He was a monster and more likely than not, a dark creature himself, having surrendered his mortal body the day he had attacked the Potters.
No, Albus was not going to think about the Potters now. It simply wasn't the time.
He had been thinking about pretty much only two things the past couple of weeks. One was about Tom's Horcruxes and the other about young Harry.
He knew that his time of reckoning was near. He had known right from the start what Tom's ridiculous demands would be, and how those who didn't meet those demands of his would pay the ultimate price.
He would make sure that he would do everything within his power to ensure the total and complete destruction of Tom Riddle, the once Head Boy and stellar student of Hogwarts, who, while he had not been a favourite of Albus' had still garnered his respect for his sheer magical prowess and talent.
But that boy no longer existed. And the monster that had taken his place needed to be put down. Once and for all.
His thoughts had then turned to Harry - he knew he had messed up with this boy big time. Mistake after mistake had been committed by Albus that had resulted most recently in the death of Harry's godfather, Sirius Black.
No, no more. Just as how Albus was willing to do whatever it took to finish off Tom, he was just as willing if not more to ensure that young Harry lived.
Albus though knew in his heart of hearts that that wasn't going to happen.
It had become clear to him from the moment he had figured out what Tom had done to achieve immortality that the probability of Harry surviving had dropped sharply and was currently close to non-existent.
But he would search till the very end to ensure that Harry survived.
He was done with playing chance and probability.
He would now leave no stone unturned in his quest to save Harry.
But if his hunch was right, he would need to turn a stone very shortly as he began his crusade.
The town of Little Hangleton was nothing out of the ordinary. Except for the fact that a ghastly triple murder had taken place about half a century ago and which was still the topic of great debate in the town's only pub.
Opinion was naturally divided on the different servants to have been employed by the Riddles (the family that had occupied the statuesque manor) on who the actual culprit was. And the version of the story had changed ever so slightly every single time it was told that the story that Albus heard in the pub was completely different from the one he had heard from his contacts all those years ago.
In a bid to ensure that the statute of secrecy was upheld, the wizarding and ordinary governments had long ago decided that every police team investigating any crime would always have at least one member who was magical. This had been an extremely clever plan, for it ensured an opportunity for the muggle born to feel useful while not threatening the livelihoods of the purebloods. More to the point, the muggle born were kept out of any high ranking jobs they might have aspired to, with promises of promotions and the like in the muggle force instead. Yes, it had been a very smart move.
It had sounded like a routine call to the police personnel on duty that day about fifty years ago. And they had responded as usual. A team had rushed to the spot, consisting of a single muggle born detective in their ranks. The detective had been trained at the Auror Corps as he had been quite an impressive cadet right from the start. Further more, the training officer had been mightily impressed with the detective so much that he taught him some advanced techniques, not just in spell detection but also in magical means of communication that could be used to alert the Aurors while being commonplace to the muggles.
The detective had arrived on the spot and the moment he had entered the house, his senses prickled. While it would have been funny in any other scenario and possibly with any other person, for him the tingling of his senses indicated that there had recently been a huge magical discharge. He wondered what it could have been and who it could have been that they had managed to slip through undetected for so long, even though the magical discharge was huge.
One of the first rules that had been drilled into the detective had been Occam's Razor or alternatively known as the Keep It Simple Stupid rule. And the application of that rule in this instance resulted in the rather elementary solution that there were known magicals nearby.
Storing that information away, the detective had begun to look around, discreetly using spells whenever possible to see if he could get a trace on the magic. But every single avenue that he tried failed. And then at last he came upon the crime scene.
Only to wish that it had not been him who had taken up this case.
The moment he had entered the dining room and had taken a look at the occupants, he had guessed what had happened. It didn't take a genius to work out that the reason for three people to all be dead, in a position that showed that they had been alive and well just moments prior, meant only one thing.
The Killing Curse had been used.
Repeatedly.
The detective was amazed and more than a little scared.
Three Killing Curses. The power and hate needed to cast the curses was immense.
And yet, the person who had cast the three curses had even managed to ensure that it would be impossible to track him or her back.
That spoke of phenomenal stamina and magical prowess.
And a personality that was well past bad and well into the realm of evil.
The detective shuddered. He was worried.
They basically had a manic killer on the loose.
Whether he was targeting specific people or whether he picked his victims at random, they had no clue.
They didn't even know his motive.
And it scared the living daylights out of him.
He looked at his colleagues and nodded to them, conveying to them that his investigation was complete. As he walked over to one of them, he moved his fingers in a particular pattern.
To the unobserved eye, it would seem to be that he was either drawing random patterns in the air, while to the more experienced eye it would seem as if he were trying to make sense of patterns that he had no doubt seen at the crime scene.
It was actually neither.
It was the method of communication that he had been taught that automatically transferred a copy of the scene, his memories and his thoughts on the case to the records in the Auror department and also alerted the Head of the Auror and Magical Law Departments of the situation.
A pretty handy spell indeed.
He knew what would follow. He would have to offer a convincing explanation to the rest of his police mates about why he wouldn't be able to solve the case even though he actually had.
Obliviating them was never an option. For one, the detective didn't believe in going down that route and even if he had been so inclined, it was something that had been banned by the muggle government. They had categorically stated that while it was understandable that the vast majority of the population not know about such incidents, it wouldn't do any good to have law enforcers struggling to remember important incidents pertaining to everyone's security. Hence in these situations they would explain that a near perfect crime had been committed and hoped that that kept most of the police force in line. Many grew to understand that something of interest wasn't being conveyed to them and had tried one of two approaches - keeping quiet and accepting or going after it hammer and tongs.
The detective hoped that his buddies remained in the first category as much as possible. He did not want to involve the higher ups unnecessarily.
The detective had also developed a close friendship with one Albus Dumbledore. True, he had been awed the first time he had seen the man, but had gradually become closer which made him reflect on the opinion that perhaps he could call himself Albus' friend (the reverse was definitely true)
In spite of being his friend though, the detective knew very little about his past. In fact it seemed to the detective that every time he tried to broach that topic, Albus would subtly and effectively either cut off the conversation or steer it in a different direction.
He knew that Albus would be very interested in this case and considering that he also held a very important role in the wizarding power structure, it wouldn't be seen as breach of confidence.
Feeling confident thus, Dedalus Diggle, for that was his name (his last name had caused quite a few laughs, quite literally as it rhymed with giggle), went about the next steps.
He wasn't looking forward to the session with the Head Auror and the Head of the Magical Law Enforcement. Both were tough cookies and had gotten to their posts because they were good, thorough and uncompromising.
Dedalus still felt uneasy though. There was something about the magic in the vicinity of the place that gave him the chills. Maybe it was the fact that he knew what had happened that he kind of expected this, but he wasn't sure.
He had never been a prodigy at anything but had been pretty decent at gauging the quality of magic. It was a skill that many possessed, for that was how many people, particularly those in the Auror force were able to anticipate their attacks. The muggles called it their sixth sense, the sense of perception.
And his sixth sense was telling him that something was very wrong. There was something else that was causing him this sense of unease.
But Dedalus was no fool. He was not going to investigate it by himself. He might be more powerful than the average wizard (generally the muggle born were reasonably powerful, with those classified as half-bloods being more powerful than muggle-born on average and purebloods less powerful than them, again on average), but he was no match to someone who had cast the killing curse thrice in succession (after all if it hadn't been in succession, then one of the other two would have called for help).
No he would bring it up before another person who had also been classified as a half-blood and was well known in the wizarding world - Albus Dumbledore.
Finishing up his task (thankfully his mates belonged to the first category), he quickly caught the first police vehicle that was making its way back to the police station.
The minute he reached, he requested permission for early release, claiming that he was sick after visiting the site. And the moment that request had been granted, he ran out of the door and disappeared into a deserted lane that lay adjacent to the police station and Apparated to the Ministry.
Strictly speaking he wasn't allowed to apparate, but considering this was an emergency, he had been given permission to do so.
Dashing off towards the lifts to take him to the Auror offices, he concentrated on happy thoughts as he sought to conjure a Patronus with a message for Albus.
Albus' reply came just as he was about to enter the Auror offices. He was relieved to hear that Albus would be joining them shortly and that he had sent this message to the other two as well.
Dedalus was glad that he didn't have to talk to either of the two people. While he had nothing to hide, the two had an ability to put you at unease with their words and their demeanour.
There was Barty Crouch, the Head of the Magical Law Enforcement and at whose name Dedalus a shudder ran through him. Bartemius as he preferred his juniors all address him (not as Mr. Crouch and not as Barty but by his full name), was one who was the very epitome of strictness and discipline. His dressing was always immaculate and his attitude was always uncompromising. He was rumoured to have clashed with all the other Heads at least once and wasn't well liked, but he was immensely respected. He was the kind of leader that you would want at the helm in troubled times.
The other person, the Head Auror, was one whom Dedalus had always greatly admired - Amelia Bones. In a world that was mostly male dominated (mainly owing to the fact that men had in general more brute strength which corresponded to magical power), Amelia had fought twice the fight to get where she was. Every opponent of hers that had underestimated her had done so at their own peril.
She was good. Scratch that. She was bloody brilliant.
All things considered they were not the two people he would like to face alone. Hopefully Albus would get there soon. His presence would indicate at the very least that there was one familiar face in the interview.
Albus arrived within a couple of minutes of Dedalus entering the conference room, dressed in a manner that confirmed that his sense of colours still at the same level of flamboyancy as before. In contrast, the other two occupants in the room with the exception of Dedalus were dressed in plain black robes, with only the logo of the Ministry of Magic and the rank of the person stitched on to it. (Dedalus having come directly from his muggle police force duty was dressed in typical muggle fashion, that allowed him to roam around without standing out, or as they called it, mufti)
The interview began. And it went on and on. The three were very sharp and precise in their questioning keeping Dedalus on his toes as they asked him questions related to the incident. True, they had gotten a copy of the memories, but the interview helped them to understand things more subjectively rather than only the objective viewpoint that the memory presented. After all, it is quite difficult to show even via memories, the feeling of chill that Dedalus had experienced at the site.
All the while, Albus asked relatively few questions. The vast majority was from Amelia Bones and it was natural that she be the one to ask that many questions, for it was she who would have to follow up on the crime. Crouch on the other hand, as Bones' superior, did not ask questions on the details of the case, but took on a slightly bigger picture.
But it was Albus that worried Dedalus the most. The few questions that he had asked had seemed to be rather esoteric mixed with the insightful - did Dedalus feel the chill coming off one particular area or if it was spread out the entire estate? Did Dedalus visit the nearby greenery and see if he felt the chill there as well? Would there be any investigation done to check if the three victims had died within moments of each other? Could it be categorically ruled out that while the killing curse had been cast on one, the other two had not been petrified and thus, the times between their deaths could be a lot longer, indicating a far less powerful wizard than what Dedalus had suggested?
On and on it went. Till Dedalus was so tired from his constant exertion of having to remember and relive every detail that he very nearly fell down unconscious while speaking. It was only at that stage that everyone present and conscious realised that the interview had stretched on for more than four hours and finally Dedalus was relieved of duty.
Thanking them profusely, after being given a Pepper Up potion, one that was always kept in every single room in the Ministry (they were notorious for having long discussions, very long meetings and extremely long Wizengamot sessions), he flooed back to his house.
Crouch and Bones had also left, having to investigate this mysterious occurrence and begin a trace for the killer.
Albus on the other hand, had remained sitting in the interview room itself. Being the Chief Warlock, he had permission to use an unoccupied room for as long as he needed, as long as it had not been booked for some other purpose by someone else.
Something did not seem right to him.
One name fitted perfectly with the possibility. One that was supposedly a student in the school where he was the Transfiguration Professor. One he was sure that he had the skills to commit murder and to be able to cover it up very well.
And one who was arrogant enough to think that he could not be found out.
Tom Marvolo Riddle.
He hoped to the high seas that he was mistaken. But Albus knew that such a hope was a futile one. To those who knew Tom Riddle, and knew him well, knew that he was well and truly capable of doing such a thing.
And while Dedalus had mentioned the name of the muggles who had been killed, there had been no recognition in Amelia or Barty, even though there was a Riddle in school now and he was already making waves in the wizarding community. Perhaps they had simply not made the connection, perhaps most of the their attention had been focused on the why and the how instead of the how.
Albus got up from seat. He knew what he would have to do.
He knew the boy still had family on his mother's side that he would need to pay a visit to.
The family that would need to account for itself.
It had taken him a while, but he had finally managed to track down Tom's mother's brother. The father was no longer alive, having died from injuries that he had sustained from a fight that he had picked up with the locals when drunk. The brother, Morfin, had been extremely difficult to track down. And the reason for it was quite clear.
A Compulsion Charm had been placed on him that kept him constantly on the move. Morfin had been charmed to not stay in one place for more than a couple of days and to make himself as prominent as possible so that he had valid alibis.
While to most it would have seemed like a simple compulsion charm, it was very clear to Albus that it was something more. It was in fact a light Imperious Curse that had been placed on Morfin. Actually, light wouldn't be the right word to describe it as any effort or suggestion to get himself checked by a Healer would cause Morfin to have painful fits that increased in intensity as he neared a hospital. And if Albus' guess was right, it would mean that Morfin would drop dead before a Healer could actually see him, in fact probably the moment he stepped into a hospital.
Briefly, Albus thought about getting a Healer over, but he was sure that the Curse placed on Morfin was such that if magic so much as detected someone (not just a Healer) coming to mentally aid Morfin, he would be dead before he could get out a single word.
It was going to be very difficult to get Morfin to talk as just one wrong word could end the man's life. And with no money, limited survival skills and even more limited magic abilities, Morfin did not have long to live once the Imperious had been placed on him.
It was smart work that had been done by Tom, for Albus was now convinced that only Tom could have pulled off such a thing. He hadn't outright killed the man probably out of a limited sentiment of being magical kin and a descendant of the House of Slytherin, but had enough anger and hate in him, not to mention, closing all escape routes that he had decided the other way instead.
It was an excruciating time for Albus, not knowing what would trip the man up and end his life. He always was on the outside, occasionally testing the boundaries but never fully venturing into the mind of Morfin with the aim of extracting the thoughts.
But even from the surface, he could pick up some proof that Tom had met with this man, for Morfin's initial disgust at what he first perceived to be his nemesis was still strong enough to come through the protection that Tom had added.
Unfortunately for Albus and Morfin, magic decided that those thoughts were in breach of the conditions of the curse that had been placed on Morfin and had decided that his life was forfeit.
Before Albus could so much as react, Morfin eyes rolled to the back of his head, and slumped down to the ground.
He was dead.
Albus knew that it was pointless to try and revive Morfin as he knew just how thorough Tom could be. He also suspected that if someone were to do a post-mortem study, they would find nothing more than heart failure which could always be attributed to the stress that Morfin had been under from the constant travelling.
No, the whole thing wouldn't get a second look.
Sighing to himself, Albus rose. Any insight he wanted to learn into the psyche of Tom through his relatives was now impossible.
The last of the original Gaunt line, with the exception of Tom, was dead.
Albus had gone to Little Hangleton and searched in vain for the shack that he knew Morfin had been living in. He had visited Riddle Manor and had felt for himself what Dedalus had mentioned - a chill creeping down his spine - though it had been a long while after the original incident had taken place.
While the manor house had been easy to locate, the house of the Gaunts wasn't so. He could detect residual magic in the surroundings, and it seemed to be getting stronger and stronger as he walked in one particular direction and then began to reduce again.
He hadn't understood it at first, but later on, a solution had presented itself to him.
The Gaunt Shack had been placed under a Fidelius, most likely by Tom.
To Albus, that was confirmation that Tom Riddle was involved in the whole matter. But it had also greatly worried him as he had been able to see no reason why Tom would want to hide the location of a nondescript shack.
Unless of course he had something in the shack that he did not want the others to know about.
Unfortunately, there had been no way for Albus to circumvent the Fidelius. There were only two ways in which one could see a place that had been hidden by the charm - they had to be either told about it, or they had to have died.
The very idea of Tom Riddle confiding in Albus Dumbledore, the location of teh Gaunt Shack had sounded absurd, even to Albus.
There was only one that thing that he could do.
And that was what he had done for.
For a very long time.
Soon after Tom had met his match at the hands (or was it forehead really?) of young Harry, Albus had tried to return to the location of the Gaunt Shack. He knew that buried at that location was a vital clue that he had needed.
But he had been unable to.
The days, weeks, months and even a couple of years following Tom's fall had been extremely busy for him, as he helped to rebuild the wizarding world.
It had taken until young Harry's end of second year at Hogwarts when he had shown Albus the diary that he had remembered the item that he had added to his to-do list, and one whose urgency status had gone up by a few levels.
Unfortunately for him though, problems continued to persist. Sirius Black, the one who was widely thought to have betrayed the Potters to Tom had broken out of the wizarding prison and young Harry's life was potentially at stake.
He had been forced, at the end of an annoyingly long (and for him, utterly pointless) debate on stationing the foulest of foul creatures at the grounds of a school that hosted young, impressionable minds and ones that would be helpless in defending themselves against the dementors.
It had been an eventful year and with Sirius being constantly spotted, he had had his hands full, along with keeping Severus from jumping down Remus' throat at every single opportunity.
Then had come the Quidditch World Cup fiasco. Where a group of muggles had been tortured by the Death Eaters as sport. Again the madness and the fear that it had spawned had given him little time to look into the matter of the Gaunt Shack. Add to it the pressures of both the World Cup itself and the Triwizard Tournament, and he had barely been able to string a couple of hours free, and that was before the Tournament began.
That was another nightmare. Every step of the way he had had to make sure that young Harry would survive. No, he didn't supply any clues or overt help to young Harry, but he was always in the background. During the first task, there was Dedalus Diggle himself, who had been Disillusioned with a Scent Removing Charm placed on him (so that the dragon didn't get at him instead), to step in and protect Harry in case things were about to turn ugly. For the second task, there was a merman who had been discreetly following Harry to ensure that he didn't get into trouble beyond what he could manage. Both of these were unknown to anyone else but the two parties and Albus and the two parties had taken oaths never to divulge this information.
It was the third task that had become his undoing. He had put in a word to Alastor, or the one he thought was Alastor, to keep an eye on all the champions. He knew that Alastor would get what he was hinting it and it seemed so did the imposter.
And then Harry had first vanished and then returned, clutching the lifeless body of Cedric Diggory.
Oh, not to forget about the right royal mess afterward. Royal because it had been mainly the Ministry's fault that had worsened an already tense situation.
The year after that had been hell for him. His every move had been shadowed, though Albus had outwardly shown no signs that he knew he was being followed. Fudge really was paranoid and like an ostrich burying its head in the sand in the face of danger, had decided to do the same thing.
The end result was that Albus had spent a year frustrating the very people who he had hoped to work with. Any move of his towards Little Hangleton would have sent that information to all and sundry and the last thing he wanted was for the newly reborn Tom to be aware of the fact that Albus suspected something was amiss in Little Hangleton.
And so it had taken him till now to be able to finally pay a visit to the Little Hangleton again, the Riddle Manor again, and for the first time to the Gaunt Shack. It also proved to Albus that his theory was right. Tom had indeed died that night, rather magic had deemed that he had died and consequently lifted the Fidelius from the Shack.
It was now or never for Albus to confirm his suspicions about Tom.
That he had created much more than one or two Horcruxes.
The destruction of the diary had been, quite frankly, an absolute fluke. It had also showcased that the Tom who had created that had been a lot younger and a lot more naive.
He didn't expect the task ahead of him to be easy.
To put it quite frankly, the smell coming from the house was something Albus could have done without. But when a place has not been taken care for so many years, it was bound to fall into disrepair, bound to be infested with insects and other creatures and was bound to have the smell of a dilapidated structure. And that was what the Gaunt Shack reeked off.
While Albus would have used nothing more than to cast a Freshening Charm over the entire shack, he refrained from it. He had no idea how the house would react to magic and if it would alert Tom to his presence as well. It wouldn't, if Tom had tied an alert only via the Fidelius, but Albus wasn't going to take a chance. The chill that he had felt when he visited the area previously had reduced marginally from his last visit (the laws governing the decay of magically residue he didn't remember, but he did recall that it was similar to the half life concept in the muggle world, though he had no idea how he remembered that bit of information) but it was still very high in his opinion.
It proved to be a boon as well, as it pretty much indicated to him that there was something hidden, with protective enchantments adding to the chill.
He reasoned that spells that were not cast on the shack would work. The freshening charm wouldn't work as it would displace the air within with fresh air taken from the outside. In that case, there would be contact between the structure of the house and the air that would have Albus' magical signature.
Basically that meant that the only spell he could be reasonably confident of casting was the Lumos spell.
And so he did.
Better to work with some light than no light at all.
Walking around cautiously, and peering about he first surveyed the different rooms in the shack. Admittedly it wasn't a large house (it was called a shack and not a manor, for a reason!) and so the inspection was done in short time. There were two main rooms - one that seemed to have served as living cum dining rooms with a mini kitchen off to the side, and a second room that served as a bedroom. The living room had a fireplace, nothing remotely grand or ornate about, just a functional one and to the side stood a chest of draws, made of wood (that had decayed due to the neglect and dampness and had also been charred slightly from being quite close to the fire) on top of which there was a small bowl, again made of wood, containing what Albus guessed was floo powder. There was very little powder in it and so Albus assumed that the Gaunts relied very little on floo to travel. In fact, he had never heard of them being traveller; they had generally kept to themselves, mainly out of spite and their sense of superiority over the rest.
Deciding to start with the second room, the one he had assumed to be the bedroom, seemed like a logical choice to Albus. It was the smaller of the two rooms and if nothing else he could finish it off soon before he checked out the living room. He was confident that something lay in the living room, but he wanted to comb through the smaller room nevertheless. While he didn't expect Tom to be careless, there was always the chance associated with having a big ego to think that leaving behind little trails would be overlooked.
Unfortunately for Albus though, there was nothing in the smaller room that seemed worthwhile. But his face did wrinkle in disgust as he noticed the large number of snakes (usually pinned on the door or the wall) and snake related stuff that he encountered. If there had been any doubt about the family being descendants of Slytherin, it was completely removed by this literal overdose of snakes.
It was then that an idea struck Albus. While he still could not cast the Freshening Charm for the air, what he could do instead was to create a spherical zone in which any spells that he performed (more than just the Lumos spell) would remain contained. Basically, any magical discharge within would be undetectable by anyone not in the sphere.
There remained a small issue though - the sphere, with Albus standing on the ground would end up hitting the ground as well, which was something that Albus wanted to avoid.
There really was only one choice out for Albus if he decided that he wanted to use the spherical zone of stealth.
He would have to levitate.
There wasn't any other choice. The problem that Albus faced wasn't so much as being able to levitate, that would be easy. The issue would be that a part of his power, in fact, if his estimates were right, about a third of his power would be spent in keeping him afloat, leaving only the remaining two-thirds for him to cast. While his power reserves (which essentially powered his magic) were impressive, he was taking on Tom's handiwork here. Anything less than a hundred percent would be a problem.
But he had no choice. It was either this way or no way at all and he really did want to get this done with. He did not know when an opportunity would next present itself and he wasn't willing to wait that long.
Clearing his mind like what he would do for Occlumency while taking a deep breath, Albus cast the levitation charm non-verbally and wandlessly. The non-verbal part was mainly for him to continue honing the skill (it tended to degrade very quickly) while the wandless part was to allow him to cast more focused spells with the wind.
He had no idea what he might find and how he might find it as well. His first thought was to summon the horcruz by using the Accio charm, but he quickly vetoed against it. Again, it would be equivalent to subjecting the horcrux to magic and possibly broadcasting to Tom that he was after his horcruxes.
No, he would go over the entire room with a fine comb. Scratch that. He decided on a different strategy.
He would start from the places most likely where Tom would have hidden such a thing. Albus believed that one did not have to read the minds of people to predict their actions. See them in action enough number of times and one could always make a reasonable guess as to their next steps (many people thought that he performed surface based Leglimency to get his information, but that was not the case; a good understanding of the person and the right usage of the keywords always allowed Albus to predict the actions of the other party)
And he would have to use the ability and skills shortly. The entire shack was giving off residue from powerful magic and consequently, he was unable to point out based on the residue itself, where exactly, if any the horcrux was.
But knowing Tom and the very fact that the shack had been under a Fidelius, everything pointed to the horcrux being in the shack itself.
The only question was where
He started off near the fireplace, beneath the woods that would have kept the fire alive (fires could be started magically, and the smoke could be vanished magically, but fuel was always needs for the fire to sustain). While it made it an obvious location to keep things hidden, there were a couple of issues with it - there was the very real threat of fire destroying the item (for which extensive fire-proofing charms would be needed), there was the fact that to Tom, the colours of the fire (orange and red mainly) represented the colours of Gryffindor and it would be something that he would have tried to avoid using in the House of Slytherin and the final fact that it was a very obvious hiding place.
No, it was not there. He turned away from the fireplace, intent on scanning the rest of the floor. Unfortunately for him, he happened to bump into the wooden cabinet that was very nearly at the end of its useful life causing it to collapse in a heap.
He had forgotten for the very small rotational motion that occurred when something was levitated. And consequently, he had started to move exactly as the same time that his direction vector changed - the end result being catastrophic, for the cabinet.
Cursing himself, Albus refrained from doing anything. The spin from the levitation was adding to his irritation of having broken the wooden cabinet. He couldn't it put together by magic and he definitely couldn't it put back together by hand. The last thing that he needed was to leave concrete evidence of his visit and it seemed like he would be doing just that.
Unfortunately for him, it also meant that the little floo powder that was in the wooden bowl had spilled over on to the floor. The dust on the floor contrasted with the white of the floo powder and together it ended up creating art. Unfortunately though, Albus was in no mood nor in any inclination to enjoy such a display, seeing it only as further proof that he had entered the property.
But it was as he was looking morosely at his mess did something occur to him. He was, in essence, dealing with Tom, the brightest student that Albus had ever taught. And where an ordinary person would have buried their treasure under a loose floorboard or the like, Tom would not have done that. In fact, in order to showcase his brilliance, he would have hidden the horcrux in plain sight, but with a trick or two and a twist or three.
And right now, Dumbledore reckoned he had cracked the trick or two part of Tom's hiding place.
His reasoning sounded logical. And there was no harm in testing it. But there was a missing ingredient that he needed if his idea were to work.
Unfortunately, the missing ingredient was the one that was on the floor.
Not the dust, but the one that had colluded with dust to seem like an art installation.
The floo powder.
Thankfully though, Albus always carried around some floo powder. He had had to make hasty exits in the past and looking around for floo powder at that time wasn't exactly the most efficient way of doing it. The result was that deep in Albus' robes, there was a bottle that contained a little floo powder.
Reaching out slowly, Albus took some of the wood from the cabinet and placed it on the fireplace. True, by bringing it within his sphere, he could have tried to fix it, but then he would have had to keep it in zone for extended periods of time till the magical residue decreased to an extremely unnoticeable level before he could put it back and not risk detection.
No the safer option was to dispose of the evidence.
He had decided to start the fire by hand as well. That was going to be slightly problematic as well as the wood was wet and would have great difficulties in catching fire. Thankfully, Albus had some knowledge of the muggle sciences and happened to have an assortment of random objects in his pockets. But as he began to rummage through its contents, an even simpler solution appeared to him.
Fawkes!
He gathered up all the wood and deposited the bulk of them into the fireplace, while retaining some of the larger logs and called for Fawkes who flamed in at the perfect height such that the flames generated by his arrival helped the logs to catch fire.
Thanking the bird, Albus placed the logs onto the rest of the pile and waited patiently. He could only hope that the rest of the wood would catch fire like the logs themselves had done (the Phoenix fire was not magical and was hotter and fiercer than the normal flame).
Fortunately for Dumbledore, the heat from the logs managed to somehow drive out the moisture from the rest of the wood making it dry and easy to burn. And so, within moments he had a nice fire going on. While he hadn't exactly been feeling cold, the warmth from the fire was very welcome indeed.
Rummaging through his pockets once again, this time round for the floo powder container, he located it and pulled it out. Opening it, he saw that there was more than sufficient amount of floo powder for his purposes.
Putting some into his hand, he put it into the fire, causing the fire to turn from its traditional red and orange to the floo ready green. Albus had no idea if the Gaunts floo was connected on any network, he suspected not, but he wasn't looking to travel by floo in any case.
No, what he was interested in was the floo ready flame itself.
The one that glowed green, the colour of the House of Slytherin and a shade that was remarkably close to the common room fires in the Slytherin Common Room in Hogwarts.
Where perhaps for the first time, Tom felt at home.
Albus paused for an instant. Now was the moment of truth. Whether or not he had understood Tom's psyche enough to have correctly guessed the floor fire as the one hiding the horcrux.
Mentally picturing what he needed, he summoned the Sword of Gryffindor, the one whose prowess had been increased by many fold courtesy of the Basilisk venom that had been coated on it.
The sword appeared in his wand arm, at the perfect height that he could hold the hilt of the blade easily, comfortably and tightly. The blade had been charmed by the goblins to never feel heavy for the one wielding it. For the one on the receiving end though, it was a different story.
Practising a few slashes in the space around him (Dumbledore had not used the sword before and consequently had no idea how exactly it would feel; he had only heard about the others using it, including young Harry, but till date had never had a need for it), Albus' confidence in the sword and his own abilities with one was restored.
Knowing that the sword had been designed to be fire-proof (the goblins had indeed put on every possible protection that they could think of), he plunged the blade into the hearth of the fire.
The blade did not seem to touch anything. As he swept the sword to the right, all he encountered was the bottom surface of the fireplace and the wood that kept the fire on. He was losing heart and beginning to doubt himself. All the past mistakes that he had made, particularly from the time of young Harry's first year at Hogwarts to that date came to mind. With each passing minute he felt more and more dejected.
He suddenly paused.
He knew he had struck pay dirt.
Not because he the sword had come into contact with something. But because he never let himself feel so down and as much as possible never let dejection take control of him that he simply wanted to quit and head back to safer shores.
There was definitely something that Tom had hidden here and the magic of which was interacting with Albus. A pretty smart and simple self-defence mechanism, the kind based off dementors in that it was designed to make one feel miserable.
Tom really knew how to play the game.
But so did Albus.
Taking a deep breath and clearing his mind, while adding more power to his Occlumency shields, Dumbledore got back to scraping the surface where the fire burned.
He was thankful that at the moment he did not have to perform so many spells as the efforts of levitating (he realized belatedly that he should always carry a broom with him, if for no other reason than for such situations) and keeping up his Occlumency were taking their toll on him. At the moment what he had was like only a third of his power left to perform any spell, a fact that worried him greatly.
But he pushed aside that thought as he focused solely on locating and obtaining the horcrux. He had no idea what it would be though. He suspected that it would be found under a loose floorboard at the hearth of the fire accessible only when the flames were coloured green with a hint of silver. He recalled how Tom had hidden away in a secret compartment in his wardrobe (which he was sure could not be accessed nor noticed by anyone who did not have permission) during his stay at the orphanage when Albus had gone to give him his Hogwarts letter.
There was definitely a secret compartment involved and if Albus understood it right, Tom would always demand a payment for it in blood to open it, not to check if the person was magical or not, but because this gave him a chance to catch the other person and cause them to bleed to death (magicals could always use Blood Replenishing Potions, something that was not available to muggles).
The issue was in finding out the location of the compartment. Albus always carried in his pockets, a silver dagger as well. He generally liked to be prepared for a variety of situations, particularly when he was venturing out into the unknown like the situation he found himself in.
Running the blade along the surface first from top to bottom and then from left to right, Albus closed his eyes and let his magic take over the detection. It was a difficult task, like looking for a needle that as deeply buried in a haystack, but he kept at it. He added more power to the Occlumency shields and while blocking thoughts from entering, used it to filter out the magic that washed past him.
There! He had managed to detect a tiny spike in the magic levels. It was very tiny and it made Albus hesitant.
Repeating the procedure, Albus' heart sank.
He was able to find the same small spike in magic levels at six other locations. It seemed to be random to him, the distribution of these points, till it suddenly struck him and which had been a source of great debate between himself and his friend and former professor Horace Slughorn.
Seven points in total.
Seven was the most powerful magical number!
The points that where had had encountered the spikes weren't random! They were the points that helped to design a heptagon!
The more Albus thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense to him. After all, even Tom could not be expected to remember where exactly he had placed the horcrux and would need to have a method to find it out. And knowing Tom, while it would have been possible for him to have left behind a memory, there was always the chance that the memory could be seen by someone else and also possibly be compromised.
And Tom trusted no one with the exception of himself.
That left only one possibility - he would have to leave seemingly innocuous bread crumbs that he, (and in his infinite ego) he alone could decipher.
Unfortunately for Tom, he had forgotten that Albus too was cerebrally gifted.
It was going to take some amount of effort for Albus though. Theoretically he could use floo powder to trace out the heptagon in a manner similar to what he had seen some of the muggles, especially the ones that were of South Asian origin, do.
In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that it was probably the only way he would be able to draw out the heptagon. But the question was how - he obviously couldn't plunge his hand into the surface and draw. And he definitely couldn't use magic as well.
That left having something like a long pen with floo powder as its ink. It could, again theoretically, work. He looked for a log that was long enough that could be transfigured into an equally long pen, one that he could "write" with from a distance (by holding the "pen" of course).
It took him a while to find a suitable stick that hadn't yet caught fire and could be used for the purpose. Holding the stick up so that it did not touch the ground, Albus transfigured it into a pen, but with a wooden nib (he was taking no chances) that he would carve out with his silver knife shortly. He transferred some of the floo powder into the ink holder region of the pen (his design had been based on the classic ink pens that he had seen and was most familiar with)
and hoped that the modified ink would pass through the carved nib. He had placed a little bit of water in the ink holder region to ensure that what came out of the nib was liquid.
Taking his silver knife, he quickly carved out the nib for the pen. Once it was done, he carefully placed the nib of the pen at the same location where he had placed the Sword of Gryffindor. Albus was sweating quite profusely by now, the combination of the strain on his magic (he clearly wasn't becoming any younger), as well as the heat from the flames (the heat could not be magicked away, only the smoke could be) showing their effects.
There seemed to be no adverse reaction and so he Albus went ahead and traced the lines of the heptagon on the hearth of the fire. He had had to draw each line a couple of times to ensure that he would still be able to see it at a later time, but not so long that it would remain even after he left the place.
Finally the heptagon was done. Now came the tricky part. Where he had to connect the opposing points of the heptagon to get the centre.
It again took a while, but Albus was finally done. While drawing the first "diagonal" line, Albus had felt nothing. But as he had drawn the second line, and just as it had crossed the first, he could begin to feel a spike in magic. The story repeated itself with every passing line, and it grew as the line approached the point of intersection, before reducing slightly in intensity later.
But there was a new problem now that Albus had not foreseen and for which Albus cursed himself.
Connecting the edges of an odd numbered polygon did not always yield a single common point. The way in which the edges were paired made a difference.
It was going to take him a long time indeed.
_
A/N: There you go. The biggest chapter, by a distance, so far! There may not be an update tomorrow, but I will try to. Cheers!