Chapter 17: Al
It was done. Finally.
He had battled for hours to get to this point. And in the end it was finished.
Tom was now one horcrux shorter. But Albus had no idea if the self proclaimed Dark Lord would feel the loss of it. All he could hope for was that he did not. If he didn't, then there would be no reason for him to move the rest of the horcruxes. And that was something that Albus was desperately hoping did not happen. It would be disastrous if it did. As it was he had no idea how many horcruxes he had created. Compounding the problem by constant transfer of horcruxes was something Albus wished to avoid at all costs.
But as it were, he doubted very much if he would live to see that. Granted, he had already known that his day of reckoning was near. But it had been sped up considerably with the heroics of today.
He had very nearly killed himself.
It had taken him multiple tries after having traced out the heptagon and the associated diagonal lengths to get to the literal point which would act as the entrance to whatever was being used to hide the horcrux.
Even that part hadn't been too difficult and as he had anticipated, he had needed to supply a fair amount of blood to act as the key to open recess on the ground.
The minute the recess had opened up completely, a small box had popped up with its lid open with an onyx coloured ring in the centre. This was no marriage proposal though.
Albus had felt compelled to put on the ring. It seemed to be the most important thing that he needed to do.
With the power he had already expended, the first to suffer had been the Occlumency barriers. As a result, the voice in his head that would usually advise him on such things was very nearly muted. He hadn't heard the voice strongly say that he shouldn't touch the stone.
The minute he touched the stone was when it had all gone wrong.
First, he could not pull his hand off the ring. It seemed to have been stuck together and no amount of pulling by Albus seemed to reduce the adhesiveness.
And that was when the second attack began. One that ensured that Albus' attention was so focused on the stone and its display that he would be blind to everything else.
For Albus, the sight the stone showed very nearly broke him down. For a person who had been instrumental with the development, construction and working of the Mirror of Erised, this should have been child's play.
But it wasn't.
For the simple reason that the mirror of Erised merely showed the heart's deepest desire.
It did not communicate beyond smiles and frowns.
It did not talk.
But the stone did.
And it had Albus' undivided attention.
Albus saw first his mother Kendra and then his sister Arianna appear before him. While initially he had been extremely happy to see them, not caring if they were illusions or spectres, that happiness quickly turned to despair.
Kendra's posture indicated her anger at her eldest and her voice was colder than the depths of Hell, and which had Albus shivering and shaking. She was dressed in her usual home clothes, but there was not even the remotest sense of warmth radiating from her.
Arianna on the other had was dressed in the clothes she had worn on that fateful day. The day she had died.
And the expression on her face was one of sadness and disappointment. It was clear from her looks that she held her brother responsible for her death and that she was severely disappointed in him.
Her voice had been hollow and had none of the sweet quality that he remembered. It served as yet another reminder to Albus that he had failed them all, had failed his family.
As if in response to the conclusion he had reached for the nth time, three more figures joined the fray. Aberforth, his father, and last but certainly not the least, Grindelwald, the one who had been responsible for Albus' life taking such a dramatic turn.
In each person's face he could see anger and disappointment in equal measure. He opened his mouth to apologize several times, but nothing came out.
In the meanwhile, the insults and the taunts were getting bolder and bolder.
Dumbledore fell in a heap, sobbing like a child. While his rational mind would have figured out that while he was responsible for their fate, the sorrow and depression he currently felt were unnatural.
Unfortunately for him, his rational brain had been drugged. The minute Albus' eyes had been locked on the spectacle in front of him, a thin needle had made itself known and had managed to keep its presence unknown when it jabbed into Albus' palm.
What should have served as a wake-up call for the powerful wizard had instead caused him to fall deeper into his despair with the potion in the needle doing further damage.
Albus could no longer separate reality from illusions. He had gotten back up (the spherical zone had dissolved the moment he had fallen to the ground) and was waving his wand about furiously with only a single thought.
I will save you all, I will make it all right, I will save you all.
He kept twisting and turning fending off demons that only he could see.
The potion in the needle had done its job exceeding well. It did not have to induce nightmares. It simply had to lower the resistance that people naturally put up against them.
On and on Albus fought, tiring himself as he fired weaker and weaker spells and the swing of the Sword of Gryffindor becoming more and more of a strain and a burden.
The saving grace for Albus was that while Tom had designed such precautions to guard his horcrux, he had been arrogant enough to think that no one would ever breach his fortresses.
The end result was that there was no alert system in place for Tom. Had there been, then it would have been a code red situation for him (not that he would have understood the muggle reference anyways)
It took a spell to the roof causing parts of it to crash on his head for Albus to come our of his daze. He looked around in shock at what he had done and the sheer amount of magic and spells he had used. No one would have any doubt now that magic had been used very recently at the Gaunt Shack.
Noticing that he still held the stone in hand, he quickly dropped it and watched fascinated as the forms of his family and former friend still stayed put, their sneers and unhappiness on their faces, still intact.
Hesitating briefly but having realized by now that they were illusions from the horcrux itself to make a mental wreck of the one who held it, he raised the Sword of Gryffindor high above his head and brought it down and jabbed the point with extreme force on to the stone.
It was then he realized that he should have applied a Silencing Charm somewhere.
Whatever was within let out a shriek that rivalled that of a banshee's as it cursed out loud and dissolved into a mist of green vapours that slowly faded.
The minute he had finished, he dropped the sword. A sharp pain had begun in his left hand, the hand in which he had held the stone and ring.
Belatedly he realized that he was losing all sensation in that hand and that it was steadily turning black.
At the same time he was overcome with a powerful wave of nausea causing him to throw up at first and then dry heave for a long while later. He realized that his body was also shivering and he was feeling extremely cold as well.
With rational thinking faculty having returned, at least to a fair degree, it didn't take Albus long to realize what had happened.
He had destroyed the horcrux and had paid for it with his life.
It was a deal he would be willing to take all over again of necessary.
Though he was sure he would prefer a lot less drama.
He had been poisoned, not that he was surprised about it. It had always been Tom's way of doing things. If he could incapacitate you in several ways, then you could be rest assured that he would do that in many ways (he wouldn't do the several, it would mean he had too little faith in the protective charms that he had placed).
Albus was now in a quandry. Looking around he realized that he had made a right royal mess of the whole place. In fact, his visit was now as evident as a china shop after a rampaging bull had decided to make a quick stop and a purchase, but someone had ended up waving a red flag in its face causing it to take out its rage on the wares in the shop.
He sighed. He realistically had only one course of action that he could possibly take.
And that was what he was going to do.
He sighed again.
He sighed because of the effort it was going to take for him to recast the Fidelius charm on the property. Not because he was going to do anything illegal (well not technically anyways; after all if one didn't know about the Shack, then there was nothing wrong in hiding it right?)
And it was going to eat into the time that he had before the effects of the poison became more prominent.
Technically, performing the Fidelius charm with just one person was risky. Because it involved a Secret Keeper who would have to divulge the knowledge, it was always best to have a second person so that any potential confusion once the Fidelius had been applied could be taken care of.
But right now he didn't have a choice.
Neither did he have time.
Rummaging through the pockets in his robes helped him locate a vial of Pepper Up potions (bless Madame Pomphrey and her insistence that teachers always carry a vial around in case they encountered any energy-sapping situation, particularly in these dark times) and downed it in one go.
With his energy now mostly back, Albus focused on the task in front of him and cast the Fidelius charm.
Once he was sure everything had been completed for the charm, he took a look around, nodded to himself and Disapparated.
Only to fall down vomiting blood at the back door of The Hog's Head before fainting.