Chapter 4: Voldemort's Horcruxes
"Professor Dumbledore, do you really believe Voldemort made more than one Horcrux?" Sirius Black asks.
"I'm afraid so, Sirius." Dumbledore answers. "I'll explain more but just to you, Regulus, Harry, James and Lily." The other Order members leave.
"But we..." Fred says.
"Wanna know about..." George continues.
"You already heard too much about Horcruxes." Molly spats. The twins, knowing there's no point on arguing with their mother, give up.
"Now that we're all alone here, I'd like to tell more about Voldemort." Voldemort announces and then shows a pensieve. "In order to really understand him and know how to defeat him once and for all, you must know all aspects of his life."
Dumbledore then pours several memories inside the pensieve and invites his friends to see them. The first place they see is one Harry and Regulus quickly recognize.
"Hey, that's the house of Voldemort's father." Harry points out.
"And that's the shack where Voldemort's mother came from." Regulus points to an old shack.
Dumbledore then points to a carriage with a young couple. "Does anyone of them seem familiar?"
They look at them until Harry gives a response. "That's Tom Riddle!"
"Tom Riddle, Sr. Harry." Dumbledore replies. "Voldemort's father."
They then watch as the girl with Tom Sr asks him why his family doesn't tear down that "eyesore", as she calls the Gaunt Shack. Tom Sr explains that they don't own it and that it belongs to a crazy man who lives there with his son and his daughter. They then notice a Ministry official Dumbledore describes as Bob Ogden, the owner of the memory they're visiting. They see as Ogden explains he's there because Morfin Gaunt used a spell to attack a muggle named Tom Riddle, shocking all wizards who believed Voldemort to be a pureblood. Morfin explains he did it because his sister, Merope Gaunt, has a crush on Riddle. Marvolo, proud of being a pureblood who descends from the Peverell brothers and Salazar Slytherin, produces evidence of his purity in form of a ring whose rock he claims has the Peverell coat of arms – the Blacks and the Potters recognize it as the ring on Dumbledore's finger – and a locket with a snake shaped like an S, which Harry recognizes as a locket they found at Grimmauld place but decided to discard it. Dumbledore says he'll explain it later. Marvolo and Morfin don't take Ogden seriously and expell him from their home. The Blacks and the Potters took pity on Merope. As the comment after leaving the pensieve, they also find it hard to believe a beautiful and rich man like Tom Riddle Sr would have fallen in love with her, or that she'd become the mother of Lord Voldemort.
"I don't understand, Sir." Harry comments. "Tom Sr didn't seem to have the slight interest on Voldemort's mother."
"Well, after that incident, Ogden brought reinforcements to arrest Marvolo and Morfin." Dumbledore explains. "Morfin got three years in Azkaban for attacking a muggle and Marvolo got six months for resisting a Ministry official. Without either of them to oppress her, Merope must have finally felt confident enough to practice magic. My guess is that she, on a very hot day, convinced Mr. Riddle to have a glass of water with a love potion."
"Voldemort said his father abandoned them when he found out she's a witch." Harry comments.
"No wonder he grew up to hate muggles." Sirius adds.
"Again, I must guess, while expecting her son, Merope must have tired of living a lie so she might have decided to let the potion wear off, hoping Tom would already love her on his own or that he wouldn't leave her before their son's birth." Dumbledore comments. "However, he did abandon her. Which leads him to the next memory."
They enter a shop Harry recognizes. "Hey, that's Borgin and Burke's!"
"How do you know it?" Lily asks, shocked her son knows the inside of a dark shop.
"I was nervous at my first time using the Floo Network." Harry replies.
"I wish I had thought about it." James comments.
Before anyone, namely Lily, has a chance to reply, Dumbledore points to Merope, who's selling Slytherin's locket for ten galleons.
"Is she crazy?" Regulus asks, outraged. "Ten galleons is nothing compared to how much that locket is worth. Horcrux or not."
"Is that locket a Horcrux?" Harry asks, shocked.
"That can be discussed later, Harry." Dumbledore calmly replies. "Now, what do we get from this memory?" Nobody says anything. "Obviously, the pain of being abandoned made her so heartbroken she was desperate for any amount of money."
"What happened to the poor woman?" Lily asks out of pity.
"That question, Lily, leads me to one of my own memories." Dumbledore answers. They then see a memory of Dumbledore visiting an orphanage. There, the orphanage matron, Mrs. Cole, told Dumbledore that Merope Gaunt died there right after giving birth to Voldemort. Mrs. Cole also said Merope wanted him to be named Tom Marvolo Riddle. Tom after his father and Marvolo after his grandfather and that she expected him to become beautiful after his father. Mrs. Cole also told Dumbledore nobody ever came for the boy. No Tom, no Marvolo and no Riddle. After that, Dumbledore talks to Tom about the wizarding world. After knowing Tom is a Parselmouth, Dumbledore becomes wary of him. After that, they visit a memory of Morfin Gaunt when a teenager Tom Riddle meets his pureblood uncle. At first, Morfin mistakes his nephew for Tom Sr but when Voldemort speaks Parseltongue, Morfin realizes he's talking to Merope's son and asks about the locket she took with her when she eloped with Tom Sr. When Morfin tells his nephew that Tom Sr came back a few months after eloping with Merope, claiming he was tricked into marrying her, Voldemort hits Morfin with a memory charm so his uncle will forget the meeting.
Dumbledore, the Blacks and the Potters leave the pensieve. "Professor, was it the day Voldemort killed his father and his father's parents?" Harry asks and Dumbledore nods. The others are shocked. They know Voldemort is evil but didn't expect this. "Professor, Voldemort was still underage back then so, wouldn't the Ministry know what he did?" Harry asks.
"Not necessarily, Harry." Dumbledore sadly answers. "The trace that detects underage magic can't tell the difference between magic done by underage wizards and witches and magic done by others in the presence of underage wizards and witches. All the Ministry could tell was that somebody used Avada Kedavra to kill three muggles. They suspected Morfin, who once served three years in Azkaban for attacking one of those muggles, had killed them. Because Voldemort killed them using Morfin's wand and then modified Morfin's memory to make him think he had indeed killed them, the Ministry never considered the possibility of Morfin being innocent. The only regret Morfin had ever shown was losing the ring his father gave him." Dumbledore stops to give the others enough time to absorb all this. "Morfin was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in Azkaban for the murders. When I visited him in Azkaban to collect his memories hoping it'd help stop Voldemort, I noticed his memories of killing the Riddles had all signs of having been edited, I started suspecting he was innocent and tried to convince the Wizengamot to review the case since, despite all his faults, he didn't deserve to rot in Azkaban for a crime he didn't commit. Unfortunately, Morfin died before the Wizengamot had a chance to give a new verdict to his case."
Our heroes' tavel through memory lane is interrupted by Kreacher apparating inside Sirius' home with Mundungus Fletcher. "So, this is the half-blood thief who dared to steal from the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, Kreacher?" Regulus asks.
"Yes, Master Regulus." Kreacher proudly answers. "Kreacher brought this filthy thief back like Master Regulus ordered." The elf adds and then shows the locket of Slytherin. "And Kreacher brought locket back too, Master Regulus." He then starts showing sadness. "Kreacher is sorry for not being able to destroy it as Master Regulus ordered. Kreacher is a bad elf."
"It's okay, Kreacher." Regulus replies after Kreacher stops banging his own head against the wall. "Just get this thief out of this house and make sure he never steals anything from here ever again."
"Yes, Master Regulus." Kreacher eagerly replies. "Kreacher takes thief out." Kreacher and Mundungus then leave.
"Well, as we all know, Voldemort turned this locket into a Horcrux." Dumbledore says. "In order to destroy this one, it must be opened and it only opens when someone commands it in Parseltongue to do so."
They all stare at Harry. "Sir, I'd like to help but I can only speak Parseltongue when I see a snake or a figure of a snake."
"There's no problem, Harry." Dumbledore answers. "There's a snake engraved at the locket."
Harry then hisses the order for the locket to open itself. Before the soul fragment located inside the locket has a chance to corrupt anybody, Dumbledore destroys it with Gryffindor's sword.
"I didn't know Gryffindor's sword could destroy Horcruxes." Sirius comments.
"Ragnuk the First, the goblin who forged the sword, made it able to absorb all abilities of everything it touches, including venom from the basilisk Harry slew using the sword, Sirius." Dumbledore comments.
"So, that's how the stone in that ring got a crack." Lily comments. "You destroyed the Horcrux."
"And you and Regulus went to destroy the Horcrux." James adds.
"That and convincing a former professor to return to Hogwarts." Dumbledore replies. "But that's a later story."
Sirius makes the math. "So far we have the diary, the ring and the locket. Three destroyed Horcruxes. How many are left?"
"I am not sure yet, Sirius." Dumbledore answers. "I believe Voldemort's snake is one. If he has more, he most likely made it out of objects that have a special meaning for him. But now let's see another memory. This one is from Horace Slughorn, former Potions Master and former Head of Slytherin." Seeing it, they see how Slughorn believes Tom could become Minister of Magic in 15 to 20 years after graduating Hogwarts. The idea makes the Blacks and the Potters shudder. After all other students leave, Riddle talks about Horcruxes and tries to convince Slughorn to say what he knows about them but Slughorn refuses. However, the part of Slughorn refusing seems to be an edited memory.
"You should talk to Slughorn about this, Headmaster." James suggests.
"All at due time, James." Dumbledore replies. "Now to tell more about Voldemort's life. When Tom graduated from Hogwarts, he wanted to become the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Headmaster Dippet didn't know how Dark Tom is but refused to hire him, claiming no one who had just graduated, no matter how talented, would have the needed experience for the post. However, Dippet told Tom he could reapply a few years later. Then, much to the surprise of people who expected him to work at the Ministry, Tom took a job at Borgin and Burke's. Which leads me to the next memory, which I extracted from Hepzibah Smith's house-elf, Hokey."
Seeing the memory, they see Riddle visting Hepzibah as a courtesy from Borgin and Burke's. Riddle charms her into showing two valuable objects. A cup that she claims to be in the family since Helga Hufflepuff and she asks Riddle not to tell his bosses and a locket she bought from Caractacus Burke, who claims to have bought it from a poor ragged woman who probably stole it from somebody. Riddle recognizes it as Salazar Slytherin's locket. Then the memory advanced to a now dead Hepzibah and Hokey admitting to have accidentally spiked Hepzibah's tea. As they leave the memory, Regulus is trying to remember where he had seen that cup before and Dumbledore comments he believes Hokey became a frame-up victim like Morfin and that Voldemort stole both the cup and the locket.
"Headmaster, wouldn't they suspect Voldemort from the beginning?" Harry asks.
"Hepzibah never trusted her heirs with the hiding place she chose for them." Dumbledore explains. "By the time they eventually accepted someone mught have stolen them, Tom had long been missing. Which leads me to a memory of hime from ten years after Hepzibah's death." At the memory, they see Tom Riddle with already Voldemort-like eyes at now Headmaster Dumbledore's office reapplying for the teaching post Dippet denied him in the past. Dumbledore surprises Tom by revealing he already knows Tom now uses another name, thanks to someone eavesdropping on your meeting at the Hog's head, and that he suspects the only reason Tom wants the job is to use it to find more followers. They then leave the memory.
"That someone is your brother Aberforth, right?" James asks and Dumbledore nods. Not wanting to go deeper on his family matters, Dumbledore quickly resumes talking about Voldemort. "Ever since then Hogwarts never had a professor who kept the Defence Against the Dark Arts position for more than one schoolyear." The others are shocked at the idea of Voldemort being the reason behind the curse.
"That's it!" Regulus suddenly exclaims. Everyone turns their attention to him. "I remember where I've seen that cup before. Headmaster, I'd like to add a memory of my own to the pensieve, if you don't mind." Dumbledore silently consents and Regulus adds the memory. In that, they see him eavesdropping a meeting of Voldemort and the Lestranges.
"Bellatrix, are you seeing this cup I'm holding?" Voldemort asks.
"Yes, my Lord." She excitedly answers.
"Bellatrix, I want you, your husband and his brother to hide it in a safe place." Voldemort commands. "As long as it's safe, I'll never be destroyed."
The Lestranges accept the task.
The memory ends. "Unfortunately I never found out where the cup is hidden." Regulus comments.
"The Ministry officials would have known by now if any object left at the Lestranges' home were a Horcrux." Dumbledore replies.
"They could have a secret hiding place like the Malfoys." Harry suggests.
"It was already found." Dumbledore says. "We started looking for it after you tipped us about the Malfoys. But we'll have time to discuss this another day. I must go back to Hogwarts."
"And I must ask Harry how he knew about the Malfoys." Lily replies.
"Headmaster, before you leave, please tell me." Regulus asks. "Did Voldemort ever enter Hogwarts' seventh floor back when he reapplied to become a professor?"
Realizing the question might have some significance, Dumbledore asks Regulus to discuss this at his office in Hogwarts while Harry wonders if the former Death Eater knows about the Room of Requirement.
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