CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

I do not own Harry Potter

Feels like we had matching wounds, but mine's still black and bruised, and yours is perfectly fine.

-o0o0o0o-

"We're going to end it, as soon as we can." Harry spoke, his back straight and his eyes darting around the grand table in their dining room, looking at everybody who had ever meant anything to him. Sirius, Remus, Narcissa, Lucius, Andromeda, Ted, Dora, Frank, Alice, Augusta, Arcturus, Melania, Pollux, Neville, Draco, Theo, Hermione, Daphne, Blaise, Fred, George, Luna, Cedric, Fleur, Viktor, Cyrus, Rhea, Susan, and Amelia. Bill and Charlie Weasley were sitting with them as well, this entire collective of impressive and important people, sitting around him, the people he loved and adored beyond everything, deferring to him.

Lucius had briefed them on the things he discovered whilst in Knockturn, and they had taken him to Nathaira in order to confirm his suspicions. Tom Marvolo Riddle, the last remaining Gaunt from the female line. And he had one final horcrux they needed to take care of.

"Are you sure we should not wait, Harry?" Pollux asked softly, his eyes surveying Harry as he watched his young family member. Though he did not seem so young now, at 15 years old the boy was a Lord, a war hero, and was planning to end Voldemort once more before the man truly made any action.

There had been raids once more, the chill in the air that was on par with dementors permeated through even the warmest of hearth's. War was coming. And it was up to them, this small group of people, to stop it.

Harry passed around the Daily Prophet to those who have not yet seen it, and watched as there were sharp intakes of breath from several people around the table. The headline of the article read just so:

MASS BREAKOUT OF AZKABAN PRISON! FORMER DEATH EATERS NOW LOOSE AND POSSIBLY REJOINING WITH THEIR MASTER, YOU-KNOW-WHO

Hermione, who steadfastly refused to read that specific article, asked who escaped.

"Bellatrix Lestrange," Harry responded, noticing the hardening of Andromeda's face and the crumpling of Narcissa's. He also noticed, wryly, that Sirius had no discernible reaction. "Rudolphus Lestrange, and his brother Rabastan. Antonin Dolohov, Augustus Rookwood, and a few unnamed others. We know that Avery, Yaxley, and Mulciber got off with the Imperius Curse claim." His face was blank, his voice clinical and void of emotion. This was a briefing, to finally, after all this time, set the gears in motion.

"It ends this year, he will come after me, as he always does, and he will not have his fail safes. He will not have the advantage, we will be ready for them. He is using this time to bolster his ranks, the dementors have left Azkaban, the werewolf packs lead by Fenrir Greyback are on their way here from the continent, and he is recruiting more teenagers who don't know what they are getting themselves into by the day." Harry said, Daphne could tell the gears were spinning in his head as he spoke.

"So what do you propose we do?" Remus asked, raising a brow. "Who is going to go after that Horcrux?"

Harry thought back the vision he had when he was connected to Voldemort, via the horcrux in his scar. The vision of the ring, it looked unassuming, fairly simple, and he knew those were the most dangerous. "Bill," he said, looking at the handsome red haired man. Bill immediately looked at Harry, chin raised, eyes steady.

"Yes, Harry?"

"I know I have no right to ask this of you, you are under no obligation to–"

"I will do it. You think there is something off about it and we must be cautious, and I am a cursebreaker. I am trained in occlumency to be able to resist the allure and hypnotisation of the darkest of objects, I can dismantle wards with ease, and identify and undo curses that would kill other people. I can do this, Harry." Bill responded, not a hint of arrogance or bragging in his tone. Everything he said was matter of fact. As true as saying that Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Slytherin, and Ravenclaw founded Hogwarts.

Harry nodded tersely, his eyes showing his approval and admiration for the courageous and incredibly talented redheaded wizard.

Fleur was definitely not hiding her approval, gazing at him with blatant admiration from across the table. The only inclination that Bill realised this, was the faint blush that dusted across his high cheekbones.

A ghost of a smile played on Harry's lips before he schooled his expression. "Uncle Lucius, and Arcturus, you will accompany Bill, when we know the location of the Horcrux. It could be anywhere, and we don't know where to begin looking."

Hermione sheepishly said, "Um, Harry?" Everyone's gazes turned toward her.

"Yes, 'Mione?"

"So you said that the cup transported you to a graveyard, and that they needed bone of the father in order to complete the potion, yes?" When Harry nodded, she continued. "Okay so when we watched your memory, the grave of the father said Tom Riddle. Whilst I was at the Muggle Library, I looked up older obituaries published in the newspaper but now that everything is digital–"

"Get to the point, I beg of you darling." Draco lamented, trying to lighten the mood. Hermione mock glared at the blond before continuing.

"Yes, so I saw the Obituary, we know the graveyard was in Little Hangleton. I did some more digging, and convinced my parents to go there for a family trip while I slipped away and went to their public library. I went to their archives where they kept older newspapers and town reports. The entire Riddle family was found dead in their manor, the mother, the father, and the son, Voldemort's father.

"There was no trace of anything, no poison, no wounds on the body. As if they had all dropped dead." Hermione said, grimacing. "According to the article, the man that was arrested for it was Morfin Gaunt, who allegedly confessed. The shack they lived in was said to be located near the grounds of the Manor. Witness reports said the Riddle's wanted to get rid of it, they thought it was an eyesore."

The people around the table were looking at her with stars in their eyes, and she blushed heavily under their gazes. Theo soundly surged forward and pressed a hard kiss to her lips. "You are brilliant, Hermione."

She blushed. "It was nothing that you wouldn't have figured out," she demurred, smiling softly.

"But you saved us a lot of time, so thank you." Lucius said gratefully, and she nodded.

"Okay so we have a rough location of the shack," Harry said. "All that's left is to go and collect the horcrux, if it is there. Under no circumstances are you to touch, or wear, the horcrux. You will levitate it into a lead box, and bring it here where we will put it with the others." Harry said strictly, to which everyone nodded.

"I have commissioned each of us a goblin made dagger." Arcturus said. "We will imbue them with basilisk venom, and use those to destroy the horcruxes. I do not think six simultaneous streams of fiendfyre is a smart idea, lest we burn the Manor down."

Harry nodded, thankful, yet annoyed he didn't think of it. "I will take them down to Nathaira via the portkey when they arrive. They should be good in battle too. Thank you, Grandfather."

Arcturus nodded, smiling softly.

"Okay," Sirius said, clapping his hands. "Let's eat!"

-o0o0o0o-

Lucius, Arcturus, and Bill set out to Little Hangleton early in the morning. They made good time in finding the abandoned Riddle Manor, and set out to find the shack that was said to be an 'eyesore'.

It was perhaps ten minutes past when Bill announced that he found the shack, hidden behind trees and shrubbery. Old vines have grown along the walls of the decrepit home, and the feeling of death emanated from it. Lucius suppressed a shiver as he walked towards the little shack, ignoring every instinct that told him to run.

Bill gestured for them to stay back as he held his wand against what seemed like air, but a transparent yet black barrier began to shine. The winds seemed to pick up around Bill as he chanted in a foreign language that Lucius did not know. Egyptian, maybe?

Bill's hair was blowing in the wind, his voice getting louder and steadier as the barrier shone brighter and brighter, and cracks began to appear in the wards.

Lucius and Arcturus watched in awe as Bill held his wand firmly in his hands, and quickly jabbed at the wards, watching them all crack and shatter like shards of glass.

The boy was not even breathing heavily, as such a spell seemed particularly draining.

"The wards are fairly rudimentary around the house," Bill said firmly, his eyes calculating every inch of his surroundings. "Perhaps because the protection on the horcrux is not so rudimentary."

Arcturus pushed the door open and walked in, Lucius and Bill half a step behind him. The dusty inside seemed to be as old and as rotted as the outside. The wood table and cabinets were worn, the unuse and lack of upkeep causing everything to be falling apart.

They searched every inch of the little house, and did not find anything remotely suspicious. Until Arcturus seemed to step on a floorboard that creaked only slightly differently than the others.

Bill knelt down, and found the floorboard was extremely loose and came up with ease. Inside the hay and straw of the floor that was prepared for the floorboards– which was fairly mediaeval, the shack must have been incredibly old–was a glittering ring.

Bill felt the voice call out to his mind immediately, and yelled. "Step away."

He was a moment too late, as Lucius seemed to be clambering forward to attempt to get the ring. Arcturus pushed him back and invisibly bound him to the wall, watching in horror as he was writhing and struggling against the magic, trying to get to the ring.

A shadow of a serpent seemed to crawl out of the ring, and formed into what seemed to be a live yet poisonous snake. Bill cursed, and grabbed his wand, firing every curse against the shadow snake that had poison dripping from its phantom fangs. All the while battling against the voice trying to break his defences, and Arcturus was forced to use magic wandlessly to try to fight the snake as well as hold Lucius to his place.

Bill finally seemed to land a spell on the agile shadow and watched as it dissolved with a deafening shriek as the air was now filled with foul magic.

Bill focused his efforts on the ring, and did as many diagnostics he knew and cursed once he realised that Harry was right.

"There's a withering curse on this ring." He said grimly. Arcturus' eyes grew wide.

"Is it when the person touches it or wears it?" He asked.

"The moment the person touches it, the appendage will grow black, and the curse will inevitably spread to their heart. There is a way to prolong it, but no way to stop it save for cutting the body part off the moment it happens and immediately cauterising it with magical fire." Bill responded succinctly.

Arcturus looked as if he swallowed a lemon covered in the spiciest of spices known to man.

He took out the lead box from his pocket and unshrank it, and watched with trepidation as Bill Weasley levitated the ring and put it inside the box, shutting it immediately.

Lucius seemed to relax immediately. He looked pale and swallowed harshly.

"We're burning that one first." He said simply.

"Agreed." The other two men nodded, before exiting the shack.

Arcturus looked back at the shack for a moment, and stopped the others from apparating.

"Fiendfyre." He said the spill grimly, and a fiery chimera erupted from his wand. The three men stayed there until Arcturus extinguished the fire, and the shack was naught but ash.

-o0o0o0o-

"We should destroy them now, shouldn't we?" Sirius said as they stood in the room below the Manor where they kept the horcruxes.

"Do you think he'll know?" Narcissa asked, her eyes cold yet worried.

"No, I don't think so." Cassiopeia said. "Not if we destroy them all at once.

Harry nodded, stepping forward. "I will destroy the ring. Give me one moment."

They watched Harry disapparate for a moment, before coming back with a gilded chest.

Inside were silver daggers, all varying in shape and length, especially in the hilt. They were custom made for each person that was to hold it. "I had them imbued with the venom by Nathaira yesterday, when they arrived. She found your plan incredibly smart, Grandfather."

Harry didn't think he had ever seen Arcturus Black preen before until that moment.

"The goblins spelled them, and we need only add a drop of blood to the daggers. To ensure they will not cut their owners nor any of us, should..accidents happen." Arcturus said, looking pointedly to Draco and the Weasley twins, who looked anywhere except at him.

Each of them added a drop of their blood to the cache of daggers, and watched as they all glowed silver, before dimming once more.

Bill and Charlie marvelled at their own daggers, or more accurately, their athames, these were now possibly the most dangerous weapons outside of wands known to wizard kind. They heartily thanked Arcturus for it once more, but the man merely waved them off.

Harry walked over to the ring. He felt the most drawn to it. Lucius to the diary, since it was in his possession. Sirius to the locket. The locket that his brother died for. Harry felt a pang of sympathy for his father figure, as he watched Sirius stiffen his trembling hands.

Arcturus went for Hufflepuff's cup, and surprisingly, Theo went over to the diadem.

Harry looked at him in confusion. "We all fought over who'd destroy the horcrux." he said simply. "I won."

His friends grumbled behind him, and Harry laughed, his nerves going steady.

They all exchanged a glance, before nodding. In unison, they plunged their basilisk venom imbued weapons into the horcruxes. All together, except for the locket, black smoke billowed out. The ear splitting screech filled the room, watching as the magic writhed and fought against the rapidly working venom, before it died out. Sirius was angered.

"Nothing happened to the locket!" He snarled.

Harry was perplexed for a moment, before he realised it must be opened. He walked over, and in parseltongue, hissed Open.

Black smoke filled the room, Harry was dragged away from it by Daphne and Hermione, and he watched in horror as the likeness of what could only be Regulus Black emerged from the smoke. Andromeda and Narcissa gasped, whilst Sirius staggered back.

Hello, Brother. The evil magic crooned, a cruel smirk on the handsome face. It seems you finally did something worthwhile in your pathetic life.

"You're not real. You're not Reggie." Sirius whispered, his eyes wide. Harry cursed, trying to go to him but he was held back by his friends. He struggled against their grips, but it was no use. The strength of them all kept him rooted firmly to the ground.

You abandoned me. You left me there whilst you went off with your precious brother. The false Regulus sneered. The brother you always wanted. You never cared for me. You never cared that I died.

"That's not true." Sirius protested, his resolve slightly weakening before he steeled himself. "You are not my brother." He growled, before lunging forward and stabbing the open locket, and watched in awe and horror as Regulus shrieked, turning into a skeletal shadow, and then disappeared.

They all stared dumbfoundedly at the destroyed relics, no longer holding a piece of a soul. Harry stepped forward to the ring, frowning.

"It has the Peverell sigil on it." He whispered, picking up the stone.

He twirled it in his hands, trying to find any other identifiable features, before his heart dropped to his stomach as he heard a familiar voice.

"Hello Harry." His father, mother, grandparents, and surprisingly, Regulus Black now stood in front of him.

In front of them all.

They stared, shocked to the point where speech or movement was impossible. Sirius and Arcturus seeing long dead best friends and brothers, and Harry seeing the blood family he secretly yearned for.

"James." Remus whispered, eyes welling with tears.

"It's the resurrection stone. From the Deathly Hallows." Arcturus said, his voice choked and gravelly.

Charlus nodded to his best friend. "Yes. Harry, you now have two hallows in your possession. The Cloak, and the Stone. Dumbledore has the wand."

"You're here." Harry croaked, disbelieving. "I can't believe you're here."

"Harry, my son," Lily spoke, her beautiful, melodious voice sounded choked up with tears. "You are more than we ever imagined. We are so proud of you, sweet boy."

Tears were now streaming down his face, as he reached for his parents' hands, and watched as his own faded harmlessly through the spirits.

"You have done so well my boy." James whispered, love in his eyes. "So well. We love you so much, Harry. And we will see each other again, preferably not too soon." he japed softly, smiling a watery smile. "You've got a long, beautiful life to live with your friends, family, and the lovely Daphne."

Daphne blushed furiously, smiling. Dorea looked at every individual in the room.

"Thank you all, so much, for looking after our Harry." she whispered. Arcturus whimpered slightly at the sight of his sister. Cassiopeia could no longer hide her tears.

"Sirius." Regulus whispered. "I am so proud of you. I'm sorry for not coming to you, or telling you that I turned, but I am so proud. Thank you, for doing what I failed to do." Regulus said.

Sirius seemed to try everything he could to stop himself from bursting into sobs. "I love you all. I miss you all. You were my first and will forever be my family. My two brothers, and the sister and parents of my heart."

"Sweet Sirius, we love you too." Lily whispered.

"I'll see you on the other side, mate." James grinned. "You too, Moony. But do me a bloody favour, yeah?"

Remus smiled through his tears. "What, James?"

"Let yourself fall in love, Moons. You're worth it. And if you say no because you're a werewolf I'll kick your arse."

"You're transparent.." Remus said, trying to calm his emotions.

"And we'll still find a way." Lily smirked, grinning. "We only came by so we could say our final goodbyes, and to let you know we're all waiting to be reunited once more."

"Goodbye, Harry. Goodbye brothers, and sisters." James said, smirking at Andy and Cissa who were openly crying.

"Goodbye my loves, and Frank and Alice, Neville is absolutely lovely." Lily said.

The echoed words of I love you echoed in his mind, his parents voices in his head, as the shades disappeared. It seemed everyone get their own personal messages in their minds, as they fell quiet, with tears streaming down their cheeks and smiles on their faces.

Daphne immediately hugged Harry, and he kissed her on the top of her head as he hugged her back, trying to smother down his tears and sobs.

They all retreated to separate rooms in the manor, to be alone for a moment.

And Harry tucked the Stone into a small spot only he knew to find, to keep it safe.

I love you too. He said to his parents, and he knew, in his heart, that they heard him.

a/n: this was soooo hard to write. I didn't know how I wanted to go about this chapter, but I am satisfied with the outcome. Let me know your thoughts in the reviews please. I appreciate the feedback. Also this was lowkey so emotional. I hope I gave them all the closure they deserved. We are in the final stretch, the final year, and the horcruxes are finally destroyed. I'm excited, are you? xoxo