Conversations I

When Harry climbed down into his trunk, which had been moved back up to the, now, seventh-year Gryffindor boys dormitory earlier in the day, fifteen minutes later he found Ron and Mark engrossed in a game of chess while Ginny, Hermione, Neville, Luna, Joseph and Eileen looked on. Apparently Dobby and Winky had decided to call it a night and gone to bed. "Who's winning?" he asked as he wrapped his right arm around Ginny's waist and pulled her into a one-armed hug.

Ginny leaned comfortably into his side and smiled up at him. "Ron is. But I think he has made it his mission to teach Mark everything he knows about chess and strategy this summer."

Harry chuckled softly but even he noticed that there was something slightly off about his laughter. It wasn't the stress or strain of the war or anything like that – if it had been something as simple as that he would have cracked months ago – but something was definitely off and he was pretty sure it had something to do with what he had learned about the lengths to which Tom Riddle had gone to ensure his survival and solidify his immortality.

Everyone in the room looked over at him, curious and concerned expressions on their faces, but Joseph was the first to speak. "What is it, Harry?" he asked. "What have you learned that has affected you so?"

Harry looked over at his blood brother from the realm of the high elves and grimaced. "What can you tell me about horcruxes?" he asked softly.

While all of the humans in his sitting room were looking at him with blank expressions on their faces Joseph and Eileen's faces drained of all color as their eyes widened in shock and disbelief. "We know of them, of course," Eileen said haltingly, her normally confident and musical voice trembling with uncertainty and fear. "Why do you ask?"

Harry let his arm drop from around Ginny's waist as he let out a deep sigh of resignation. "Tom Riddle's goal was six," he said as he turned away from his friends and walked over to sit on one of the couches as Eileen let out a short scream and Joseph audibly gasped. "We don't know how many he has created thus far but his goal was, and perhaps still is, six."

Eileen's knees buckled as she fainted and Joseph quickly scooped her into his arms, carrying her over to the other couch where he lay her down as gently as possible and made her as comfortable as he could. When he was satisfied with her positioning he turned around and walked hesitantly over to sit down next to Harry, resting his elbows on his knees and bending over while taking several deep breaths that helped him regain some of the color he had lost moments earlier. "Six?" he asked.

Harry nodded sadly. Yeah. Six. I'm going to meet with Albus tomorrow to see if he has any ideas as to what the others might be and where they might be hidden but apparently I was able to destroy one of them at the end of my second year."

The chess game forgotten, the others had taken seat around the room and were listening intently to Harry and Joseph's discussion. Joseph turned his head and looked over at Harry, a look of suspicion and curiosity marring his features. "How?"

Harry closed his eyes and sighed once more. After he opened his eyes he stared at a brown spot in the center of the rug for several seconds before responding. Reaching out and taking hold of Ginny's hand he said, "That diary was a horcrux. After I killed the basilisk I pulled the fang out of my arm and used it to stab the diary."

"Did you know what you were doing?" Joseph asked.

Harry shook his head. "No. All I knew was that the diary had to be destroyed and that the fang was the closest thing at hand."

Joseph chuckled and shook his head then, a few moments later, burst out laughing. "Oh, Harry," he laughed. "Either Tom Riddle was supremely stupid when he created that horcrux or you were incredibly lucky to have been bitten by a basilisk!"

Harry grimaced. "I think I'll go with the former. If it hadn't been for Fawks I would not have survived that strike."

Joseph sobered almost immediately. "Fawks?" he asked. "Albus' phoenix?"

Harry nodded as he softly smiled at the memory of Fawks coming to his rescue.

"So you have been touched by basilisk venom and phoenix tears?" Joseph asked, a note of awe in his voice.

Harry nodded his head again. "Yeah, I guess you could say that. Why? What's so special about that?"

At that moment Eileen began to stir and Joseph jumped, quickly moving to her side. As she slowly came around Joseph said, "Oh not much. Its just that basilisk venom is one of the few things that can be used to destroy a horcrux and the only known antidote to basilisk venom is phoenix tears."

"Oh."

When Eileen woke up Joseph helped her sit up and then sat next to her.

"Excuse me," Hermione said hesitantly, " but what exactly is a horcrux?"

Eileen looked over at Harry, her eyes wide with terror, then slowly turned her head to look over at Hermione. "The creation of a horcrux is the darkest of the dark arts," she said softly, her voice still quavering slightly. "To create a horcrux you have got to intentionally kill someone with the intent of splitting your soul and placing the split portion of your soul inside a magical container. A horcrux is an intact magical object which contains a portion of a person's soul."

Hermione's, Ron's, Neville's, Luna's and Ginny's faces all paled as they realized just how cold and cruel a person had to be to create one horcrux, let alone six. Mark Evans, however, scooted himself as far back into his chair as he could and pulled his legs up, hugging them tightly to his chest. As the youngest member o this "family" and the only one who had not yet had any first-hand experience with the horrors of war his eyes reflected the terror his mind could not yet comprehend. They were wide with fear and shown with the haunted look of a man who did not need to experience war to know the horrors it entailed. "D-does that mean that the only way we are going to be able to get rid of him is by destroying all of his horcruxes first?"

Harry looked over at his second cousin and nodded, saying, "That's exactly what it means, Mark. If we don't get rid of all of his horcruxes first, even if we destroy all of them after the fact, he will remain a malevolent presence trapped on Earth without a body until he is able to possess someone's body. I don't want to give him that chance," he said as he gently squeezed Ginny's hand, "so we have got to destroy all of his horcruxes before the final battle."

Ron, who had been listening intently to the entire conversation, blew his breath out through pursed lips. "Great," he said. "Just great. I don't suppose there is any defense against a horcrux is there?"

Joseph shook his head. "No, Ron, there isn't. If we are going to with this war we have got to destroy them. All of them." Turning back to Harry he said, "If you don't mind me asking, Harry, where did this episode take place?"

Harry could feel Ginny's body tense as soon as the question was asked but, responding to the urgency in Joseph's tone, chose to answer his friend after squeezing Ginny's hand to reassure her that everything was going to be alright. "It was in the chamber of secrets," he said cautiously. "Why?"

Eileen's face lost most of its color again. "Why is it called the chamber of secrets?" she asked.

Harry looked down at his hands for several seconds. When he looked up he could see that both Joseph and Eileen were watching him with anxious expressions on their faces. "I really don't know why it is called the chamber of secrets," he admitted, "but I do know that it the password is in parseltongue."

"How was it opened?" Eileen squeaked.

Harry looked over at Ginny, using his eyes to ask permission to tell of her involvement in that chapter of the school's history. The look of grim determination in her eyes and he quick nod of her head told him all he needed to know and for the next several minutes he, Ron, Hermione and Ginny told the two elves about the events surrounding Ginny's first year at Hogwarts.

When they were finished Joseph and Eileen sat back in their couch, remaining silent for several heartbeats before expressing their concerns. "So let me get this straight," Joseph began, "you were able to open the chamber of secrets, Ginny, because you were being possessed by Tom Riddle's diary and you were able to open the chamber of secrets, Harry, because you are a parselmouth …"

"Which is an ability Dumbledore thinks Tom passed on to you when his killing curse failed," Eileen finished.

Harry nodded. "Yeah, that about sums it up," he said.

Joseph leaned back into his corner of the couch and studied Harry in silence, almost as if he were meeting him for the first time, for several minutes. "I think," he said after the silence had gone well beyond deafening and remain there for several minutes, "the time has come for us to pay a visit to Ethrindell."

Eileen nodded her agreement. "Yes," she said. "I agree. I'll contact the council first thing in the morning and see if we can set up a meeting for sometime later in the week."

"Ethrindell?" Harry asked.

Joseph nodded. "Yes. By blood, Ethrindell is what you would call a muggle. By magical talent and ability and levels of wisdom, however, he is essentially a god. No one knows how old he is or, indeed, even where he is from. All we know is that while he is physically a human being, he has been a part of our realm for as long as anyone can remember and even our earliest records make mention of him."

"He is one of our greatest teachers," Eileen added, "and he has been observing your world – this world,"

"But why should we want to meet with him?" Harry asked innocently.

Joseph leaned forward for a moment and then fell back into his corner of the couch. Then, with a sigh, he said, "From what you've said, Harry, I have a feeling that we are dealing with more than just a few horcruxes and, as bad as they are, if my suspicions are correct, what we may be dealing with is far worse than anything any of us could have imagined even three months ago. I want to consult with him because he has been observing this world for the past several hundred years. I want you to be there because you are a central figure in this war and I have a feeling that it is all going to come down to one of the most difficult decisions you will ever have to make."

Harry looked across his sitting room at his blood brother, a true elven warrior who had proven himself in the heat of battle more times than he could count. Sitting back, resting his shoulders against the scarlet couch's soft, velvety cushions, he looked up at the ceiling for several seconds and the slowly lowered his head until he was looking at Joseph again. "What do you suspect?" he asked.

Joseph blushed. It wasn't much but it was enough to tell Harry that even though his friend did suspect something he was not willing to commit to it due to his current levels of inexperience where practical divination in matters of magical endeavor were concerned. "I …"

Harry shook his head. "No. Don't worry about it. I have a meeting with Albus tomorrow afternoon. We'll talk about what he knows and suspects and take it from there. Do you know if he knows Ethrindell?"

"I believe he at least knows of him. As to how well he knows him, however, I have no idea."

"Do you think it would be alright if I asked him to join us?"