A/N: A bit of a mixed response to that last chapter, though everyone seemed happy enough that I did not go into detail with regards to Harry's nightmare.
Anyway, on with the show…
Darkened World
The Horcrux Issue
Rose was sitting at the table, flicking through the pages of a book without really focusing on what the book was about. There was a problem, and it was weighing heavily on her mind.
The Horcrux.
She wanted to question Harry about it. She wanted to know why it was still here, why Harry still had it and why he hadn't destroyed it.
She wanted to know why he spoke to it.
She wanted to know how much progress, if any, he had made in the last twenty years with regards to finding and destroying the soul anchors that allowed Voldemort to defy death itself.
The problem was how to bring up the subject. Despite years of hearing stories about Harry from her mother, and even though he had managed to open up to her a little the night before, Rose did not know Harry. She did not know how he thought, how he acted, he did not know all his little quirks… and even if she knew Harry as well as her mother had known him, there was no telling how twenty years of solitude with that horrible locket might have changed him.
She could not really afford to make him retreat even further into himself than he already was, but at the same time she needed to know the situation so that plans could be made. Voldemort needed to fall, and for Voldemort to fall his Horcruxes needed to be destroyed. And for that to happen, Rose would have to know what Harry had done, where he was successful, where he had failed, what he knew, what he could guess at and where he was clueless.
Only then could they go forward.
The entrance to the tent opened and Harry came back inside from doing… well, Rose wasn't entirely sure what Harry had been doing, but she had assumed that he had gone for a pee against a tree or something.
He must have noticed the thoughtful look on her face, for he asked brightly "You alright Rose?"
"Yeah I'm fine." she replied automatically.
"You look like you've got something on your mind." he said.
Rose blew out a breath and thought 'Well, I might as well just bite the bullet and ask.'
"I, uh…" she began weakly "I saw you talking to that locket last night."
Harry seemed to stiffen slightly "You did, did you?"
Rose gave a nod.
Harry stared at her for a few moments, and then he brought his hand up to his neck, where he hooked a finger through a thin golden chain. He pulled the locket out from under his shirt and held it up.
"Do you know what it is?" he asked.
Again Rose nodded, and said "It's an heirloom of the Gaunt family line that once belonged to Salazar Slytherin. You-Know-Who turned it into a Horcrux, an anchor containing one of seven pieces of his soul."
Harry gave her a puzzled look, to which Rose simply shrugged her shoulders and said by way of explanation "My mother told me."
At the mention of her mother, a pained expression once again found its way onto Harry's face, but he quickly hid it was a cheery smile that was so horribly false "Of course she did."
Rose smiled weakly. It was time to ask the most important question of all "Harry, have you made any progress at all with the finding and destroying of the Horcruxes?"
At her question, the golden locket began to hiss, causing her eyes to dart worriedly towards it. Harry glanced down at it with an annoyed look before taking the chain from around his neck and setting the locket down on the table.
"Don't touch it." he said warningly before turning away.
Rose watched him go before turning her eyes nervously back towards the locket. She noted the emerald serpent on the front of it. It sent shivers down her spine and she quickly tore her eyes off of it again, and looked back to Harry who had approached one of the armchairs. He tilted it up and reached underneath it. When he drew his arm back, Rose saw that he was holding a small wooden box. She set the armchair back down and brought the box over to the table. He pulled out the chair next to her and sat in it before placing the box on top of the table.
He drew his wand, tapped it on the box and the small lock on the front clicked open. Harry lifted the lid and revealed what was inside.
Rose found herself looking at a small golden cup with two finely wrought handles and a few tiny jewels added for decoration. But it was the animal depicted that drew her eye. It was a badger.
"Hufflepuff." she muttered, with a small amount of awe.
Harry gave a nod of acknowledgement "Yes. It was created by Helga Hufflepuff herself, and passed on down her family line until the Smith family came to own it. Hepzibah Smith was the last recorded owner of it, and she made the mistake of showing it to a young man who worked for Borgin and Burke's as a buyer of valuable items for the shop to resell. That young man was Tom Riddle, known today as Lord Voldemort. He stole the cup from Smith, and even used her murder to turn the item into a Horcrux."
Rose gazed at the cup in wonder. To think that such a small and beautiful trinket, one associated with people who were just, loyal and true, could have been corrupted to become so deadly and foul.
Without thinking about it, she raised her left hand and reached out for it, but Harry closed the list and drew the box away from her.
She blinked, and felt as though she had come out of a kind of trance.
She looked at Harry, who was looking right back at her with an expression of warning on his face.
"That is their power." he said.
"How did you get it?" she asked.
Harry did not answer right away. Instead he picked up the locket and opened the box again. With some difficulty it seemed, he managed to place the locket into the box and close the lid on it. With a tap of his wand he locked the box again and he carried it back over to the armchair and he slid it back underneath. As he stood again he began to speak.
"Not long after your parents abandoned me" again the mention of her parents seemed to hurt him "I learned, almost at the expense of my life, that Voldemort had but a taboo upon his name. This enabled Death Eaters and Snatchers to detect anyone who said his name and apparate directly to their location, the idea being that whoever was so bold as to say his name out loud would be an opponent of theirs. The group that came for me were dumb, and I had a lot of anger to put behind the curses that I threw at them. As the last of them was dying from a Sectumsempra spell I questioned him and he told me all about Voldemort's ingenious little plot.
Harry smiled unpleasantly "Voldemort did not realise that he had handed me a valuable weapon against him. Of course, Voldemort always was big-headed, so it never occurred to him that someone might turn his brilliant plot against him. And let's face it, the average wizards and witches usually don't have a drop of logic about them, so it's no real surprise that none ever thought of the plan that I came up with following that incident.
"There is a major fault with apparition: you cannot see the location where you intend to arrive at. Usually this is not a problem, most wizards and witches do not leave wizarding society, and most places within it, like the Ministry, St. Mungo's Hospital, Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley contain their own set apparition points, you arrive there and nowhere else. But beyond those places, you really do have a problem, and very few witches and wizards like to think on those problems because those problems point out that their magical abilities are not are flawless as they like to think. And that was the key."
Rose shifted in her seat uncomfortably as a thousand ideas raced through her mind, there were so many possibilities.
"What did you do?" she asked finally.
Harry gave a shrug and said "The first time I found a pond, swam to the middle of it, shouted Voldemort's name and apparated back to the back. Nine Snatchers arrived and found themselves shoulder deep in water. Before they could disapparated, I used a "Glisseo Maxima" spell to freeze the water and thus them.
Rose's eyes widened "You froze them?"
"Yup."
"Did any of them survive?"
"Not a single one."
"What did you do with the bodies?"
Again Harry shrugged before answering "Had a fire. And that gave me the idea for my next trick."
"You burnt them alive?"
"Well they weren't alive for long. Splash around in a pool of diesel that someone adds a flame to and you don't last long." said Harry by way of defence "And anyway it's not as if these people were innocent bystanders, I did all this in remote locations to make sure there were no innocent bystanders. The people I killed were the ones rounding up the Muggleborns to hand over to the Ministry, or just simply killing them outright."
"Where did you get diesel from?"
"A fuel tanker." was all Harry offered in answer.
"And Voldemort didn't wise up to this?"
"Oh, he did in the end, though it took him a lot longer than I thought it would. Shortly after the Battle of Hogwarts, he realised that something was putting a massive dent in his numbers, and so he decided to send some of his inner circle, and I got Travers, Avery Senior, Jugson and Nott Senior all in one go, along with a few of the lower ranking guys. But then I was afforded a real treat. Although badly burned, Rabastan Lestrange managed to crawl out of the fire. I was running out of diesel at that point. This was my chance to get some answers out of a high ranking Death Eater so I stunned him, hosed him off with a massive Aqua Eructo, shoved a potion or two down his throat to keep him from dying on me, bound him to a chair and then revived him."
"Did he talk?" asked Rose
"He most certainly did." replied Harry
"Did you use Veritaserum?"
Harry shook his head in the negative and answered "Torture."
"You used the cruciatus curse on him?"
"No. I used muggle means. My Uncle Vernon made drills for a living, and you'd be surprised what one of them can do to a kneecap. I only got through one before Rabastan was telling me anything I wanted to know."
Rose nodded thoughtfully. Such violence was not in keeping with the Harry her mother told her about, but then this was a different Harry to the one her mother knew. And being tortured by muggle methods would certainly have been a massive knock to the pride of a Death Eater like Rabastan Lestrange.
Harry continued "Amidst a lot of screaming and inane babbling I was able to discover from him that Voldemort once had Bellatrix place something very precious to him inside the Lestrange family vault inside Gringotts Wizarding Bank. Following that I healed the worst of Rabastan's wounds, placed the imperius curse on him and we headed off to Gringotts, with me under my invisibility cloak."
"Voldemort hid something inside Gringotts Bank?" queried Rose.
"It's supposed to be one of the safest places in the country." commented Harry.
"It's also supposed to be a mad idea to try and rob the place." retorted Rose.
"Guess I'm mad then." said Harry with an uncaring shrug "Because I got in and got out with that cup."
Really that was all that Rose needed to know, but the story was just too intriguing.
"How did you do it?" she asked.
Harry smiled, a genuine and pleasant one this time. Rose supposed he was proud of his achievement and this was probably the first time he was able to tell someone about it.
"It was easy to get in. I just followed along after Rabastan, hidden under my cloak. The Goblins didn't suspect a thing and one happily led us to a cart that took us right down to the Lestrange vault, one of the deepest located.
"We hit a slight snag when we fell afoul of something called "The Thief's Downfall" which basically threw off all disguises and enchantments. It was easily solved though; I put stunned Rabastan and left him on the ground. Then I put the imperius on the Goblin and on we went. We got inside the vault, where there was a slight problem with a gemino and flagrate curse, but I got the cup and got the hell out of there. By this time of course the alarm had been raised and a group of low ranking Death Eaters turned up, dressed as Law Enforcement Officers. So I stole a dragon."
Rose blinked in surprise and asked dumbly "A dragon?"
"Yeah, a dragon. They keep them as guards of the high security vaults. I got onto its back; broke its chains and it roasted the Death Eaters for me. Then Rabastan came around from the stunning spell I hit him with, and the dragon ate him."
"It ate him?"
"Yeah, two bite and that was it; gone! Then the dragon began to climb upwards. It took ages but eventually we came out in the main lobby of the bank. The Goblins ran for it, and the Dragon got another three Death Eaters. I got two. Then it broke through the front doors and went out into Diagon Alley where it roasted a group of Snatchers who got it into their heads that they could take it on. Then it gave roar, beat its huge wings and we were off. I jumped from his back as we were passing over a lake and swam ashore."
"Did Voldemort know that it was you?" asked Rose.
"Unfortunately yes." said Harry "He wasn't happy and he killed a few of the Goblins, and he tortured Rabastan's brother Rodolphus into insanity before killing him for his brother's mess up. Voldemort knew then that I was hunting Horcruxes, and he inadvertently revealed to me information with regards to the last two. One is his pet snake, Nagini. The other, well, all I know about it is that it is something that once belonged to Rowena Ravenclaw and that he hid it somewhere in Hogwarts."
A dark, sombre expression passed over Harry's face now "The snake never leaves his side, and he has Hogwarts, which is virtually impregnable now."
"Couldn't you use your cloak to get in?" asked Rose.
Harry shook his head "It's not as simple as that Rose. Hogwarts is now Voldemort's headquarters. I went into the surrounding mountains and monitored the situation there for a week. It was crawling with Death Eaters then and there was no way for me to get in. I've been back about a hundred times since but to chance of entering has presented itself, the place is always bustling with activity, day and night, and all the entrances and exits are either sealed off or guarded. It's like a military training ground, every kid in Europe is brought there to be trained up to join the ranks of the Death Eaters. The place is filled to bursting point with them, and there are fully-fledged Death Eaters there, either teaching, if it can be called that, or on guard. And there are Trolls and Giants patrolling the grounds on guard duty as well. And there are Dementors everywhere; the things had bred like mad. Unless something happens to cause most of that force to move out, then there is no way that we can get in."
"What about destroying the Horcruxes?" asked Rose "Have you found out anything on that front?"
"Just Basilisk venom." said Harry "And the only ways I know of getting that are either through use of Gryffindor's Sword, which I don't have but am now fairly certain that it must be at Hogwarts somewhere, or getting down into the chamber of secrets at Hogwarts and see if the corpse of the one I killed there still has any venom about it, and we can't exactly go there. I've tried the killing curse, but it didn't work. And I don't have the incantation for fiendfyre, nor the ability to control it if I could cast it. Beyond that… I don't know."
He hung his head sadly.
Rose watched him for a moment before she turned and grabbed up the book she had been flipping through earlier.
Harry looked up at her in surprise "What are you doing?"
"Well there must be something in one of these books." said Rose "There must be something useful mentioned somewhere."
Harry shook his head and said "I've been looking for twenty years, Rose, and I've yet to find anything."
"Maybe you didn't look right." replied Rose, not looking up from the book.
Harry gave a sigh and shook his head.
As he stood and walked away, Rose was certain that she heard him mutter "Just like her mother."
A/N: There you go, as promised, reasons and explanations. Harry did not just give up on his mission, he has really tried but the odds really are stacked against him. As for the killing curse not working on the Horcrux, just remember what you know about the killing curse (you've got to mean it). And yes, Harry has done more besides this. You just have to wait for him to reveal it to Rose. For those of you waiting for action sequences, they are coming in a few chapters' time, I promise. I realise that a lot of this is exposition, but that's just the way the first part of this story has to be, I'm afraid. On a side note, this is actually the longest chapter of this story so far. Yay.