Chapter 20: Ho

He had managed to evade them again. He wasn't even sure if he was the one being chased, but the minute he had seen suspicious characters, he had upped and changed his hideout.

And it was tiring him.

He stayed in a place no longer than two weeks at a maximum and kept mostly to himself.

Well, he was forced to keep mostly to himself owing to the fact that he would stand out if ever went out in public.

The pureblood that he was, he never bothered to learn the muggle way of doing things. While that was all well and good during times of peace, it was a bad thing to be stuck with during a time of unrest and conflict.

He had very little places where he could blend in.

He sighed to himself. He should have paid much better attention to his muggleborn classmates and friends when they had told him about their adventures and way of living in the other world.

Truth be told, Horace knew that even if he were well equipped to survive the muggle world, he would still be moving at the frequency he was.

He was running from all possible danger.

He was also, trying to run away from himself.

With little success.

No matter how much he tried not to dwell upon it, his thoughts always drifted to that one conversation that he had had with his favourite student of that time, a Tom Riddle.

He knew, right from the start that Tom was playing him, with the careful flattery and the hesitation in the questioning.

He had always known what a charmer that boy was.

He had guessed what the consequences of him revealing that information would be.

Unlike what the others thought, Horace Slughorn was no fool. He had been the Head of Slytherin house at that time and there was often mysterious incidents that happened. Some of them pointed to a genius level intellect that were needed to accomplish them and Horace could think of very few who were so capable.

Of which one definitely stood out.

Tom Marvolo Riddle.

If it took sheer genius to pull off those incidents, it required the same level of intellect to cover one's tracks as well.

Of which there was only one capable of doing that.

Again, Tom Marvolo Riddle.

He didn't know what had happened to that boy, but he hoped that the boy had failed in his quest to create those seven hor-, no he would not utter the word, those seven abominations that would tether their creator to the world of the living instead of moving on to the world of the dead when the time came.

But again, Horace Slughorn knew he was only kidding himself.

He was far smarter than what others gave him credit for and with a different set of skills, he had been able to piece together the stories of Tom Marvolo Riddle and Lord Voldemort. Again, connecting the dots he had realized that his former prized student was definitely the one who had become the dangerous and utterly evil Dark Wizard, in fact the darkest of them all till date.

And Horace knew he had had a hand in creating that monster.

And so Horace had started drinking.

Oh, never so much that he was sloshed all the time.

Just enough most of the days that he could forget this incident.

That he had the blood of hundreds if not thousands of men, women and children on his hands.

A stain that could never be wiped off.

One of which happened to be another of his favourite students and a near prodigy in the class - Lily Potter nee Evans.

All because he had been hoping to get favours from the boy at a later date.

He could not fathom how he could have been so blinded by his own desire and not see the big picture. He had had access to so much of the boy's records, and although much of it was clean and in fact rather stellar, he had done nothing to inform someone else, particularly after the hor-, no, abomination episode.

He had continued on as if nothing had happened.

But he was sure that everything had changed following that conversation. Whatever Tom had been planning till that point was probably only child's play once he came to the conclusion that the more of the abominations one created, the more certain one could be of avoiding death.

Shaking his head, Horace forced the issue out of his mind. He could not afford to get drunk trying to forget the past now.

His two weeks in this place were up and he would have to move soon.

And he wanted to move soon even if the two weeks were not up.

He knew an old friend and colleague would be actively looking for him. While Horace knew that part of the reason was because the old colleague, now Headmaster, needed a new teacher at the school, he also knew that the friend in Albus wanted some information from Horace.

And while he had indeed been hiding effectively, Horace knew that if Voldemort wanted to find Horace, he would be able to do so easily.

Horace was sure that Albus would dangle the carrot of the security provided by Hogwarts as another incentive for him to resume his teaching position.

Again, Horace knew the implications of such a move.

He would probably be bumped up from Minor Annoyance to Annoyance to Be Exterminated if Possible on Voldemort's list, if there was one. Idly he wondered how big both sets of lists were, and if Voldemort even had a Major Help and Best Friends Forever list entries. He suspected that the second category would not exist and for the first, Voldemort wouldn't acknowledge any or even if there was a debt that he had to pay, he would pay it off in a different manner.

Horace sighed again. He knew what he was going to do. He also guessed who Albus would try to use in an effort to get him to resume his old teaching position at Hogwarts. Horace would let Albus play his game, let him think that he had been tempted by the prospect of teaching the Boy Who Lived or the son of Lily Evans son and had made the decision to return back to Hogwarts.

But it was a decision that Horace had made a long time ago.

It was a Slytherin thing to do, naturally, cunning and ambition being their most well-known traits.

Courage and bravery were not and so he was going to make sure that he publicly declare his support to Dumbledore, even though implicitly and tacitly he would be supporting for the Headmaster and the Boy Who Lived. He did not want to be murdered in his sleep by Voldemort or his followers. There was no point in achieving anything if you were dead. And Horace was sure that he still had a lot left to achieve.

Loyalty and friendship too were not his strong suit. But there was a small part of him that knew that he owed Lily Evans and the many that had come before her that had been his favourites and yet targets of Voldemort's ire and displeasure in one form or another.

He owed it to Frank Longbottom.

He owed it to Lily Evans.

He owed it to himself to make amends for the mess he had made so many years ago.

But he would ensure that he survived through this coming storm.

With that thought set in his mind, and with a renewed confidence, Slughorn packed his single suitcase with a wand (he had broken into a magical home in a muggle town and so there was going to be no problem with using magic here) and then Apparated to the new place that he had found on his travels yesterday.

Along the way he made sure to leave bread crumb trails that only Dumbledore would understand.

After all, he needed the Headmaster to try and coax him into accepting his old position at Hogwarts, didn't he?

A/N: Updates will now be once every two days, partly because I am busy with other things and to buy myself some more time for the sequel. Cheers