A/N) Thank you for all the reviews so far! This chapter is the last proper memory chapter, there are no more after this one. So those that have been less then thrilled about them can breathe a sigh of relief!

Chapter Sixty-Four: Lord Voldemort's Request

Monday 8th March 1996

Unfortunately for Harry he had been unable to acquire the memory from Slughorn in time for the next lesson. He had been talking to Hermione about the best way to bring his mother up in conversation however she was as stumped as he was about how to go about it. The only thing they could even think up of doing was Harry going directly to Slughorn and asking if he could talk to her about him, but both agreed that would look suspicious and figured that would not be the best route to take. Caught up in Quidditch practice, lessons with Sirius and trying to juggle the pile of homework he was getting every night was causing Harry a headache. The OWLs were coming up and the teachers were adamant that all their students would pass. Harry barely had the chance to do anything about the Horcruxes memory he had to collect.

Harry was not surprised when Dumbledore said he was disappointed in his failure to procure the memory for him and he promised harder to extract it from him. Dumbledore took him at his word, but Harry still felt bad that he had failed in what had been requested of him.

"Now then," began Dumbledore, hands clasped in front of him as always, "can you recall where we left off at the end of our last lesson?"

"Yes, sir," said Harry quickly. He recited what he and Sirius had learnt, ending with Riddle asking Professor Slughorn what he knew about Horcruxes.

"I hope you will remember what I told you at the very outset of these meetings of ours that we would be entering the realms of guesswork and speculation?"

"I do, sir," confirmed Harry.

"I am sure you will agree that I have shown you both reasonably firm sources of face for my deductions as to what Voldemort did until the age of seventeen?" Both Harry and Sirius nodded. How could they dispute that after all they had seen? "But now, things become murkier and stranger. If it was difficult to find evidence about the boy Riddle, it has been almost impossible to find anyone prepared to reminisce about the man Voldemort. In fact, I doubt whether there is a soul alive, apart from himself, who could give us a full account of his life since he left Hogwarts. However, I have two last memories that I would like to share with the two of you." Dumbledore indicated two little crystal bottles that stood gleaming beside the Pensieve. "I shall then be glad of your opinion to whether the conclusions I have drawn from them seem likely."

Sirius and Harry exchanged a look. Whatever these two memories contained it had to be important for the headmaster to seek their opinion on them.

Dumbledore explained that Voldemort left Hogwarts with the top grades a student could obtain at Hogwarts, how all his teachers expected spectacular things from Tom Riddle; how Slughorn, himself, had offered to set up appointments at the Ministry of Magic for him and how he had refused them all, and how Voldemort had wound up working for Borgin and Burkes, which had been the last thing the Professors of Hogwarts at expected of such a talented boy. Dumbledore told them that they would see the attractions the place held for Voldemort when they had seen the first memory that had come from the mind of a house-elf named Hokey. Borgin and Burkes was not his first choice of job; Harry and Sirius were stunned to hear that he had approached the then Headmaster, Professor Dippet, and asked whether he could remain at Hogwarts as a teacher. Dumbledore believed he had several reasons for wanting to stay at the school, the first of which he felt was important was that Voldemort was more attached to the school then he had ever been to a person. Hogwarts had been where he was happiest, the first and only place Lord Voldemort had felt at home. The second reason, Dumbledore explained, was that the castle was a stronghold of ancient magic, and undoubtedly Voldemort had penetrated many more of its secrets then most of the students who passed through, and that he may have figured that there were still mysteries that needed to be solved, stores of magic to tap.

"The third reason is that as a teacher, he would have had great power and influence over young witches and wizards. Perhaps he had gained the idea from Professor Slughorn, the teacher with whom he was on best terms, who had demonstrated how influential a role a teacher can play. I do not imagine for an instant that Voldemort envisaged spending the rest of his life at Hogwarts, but I do think that he saw it as a useful recruiting ground, and a place where he might begin to build himself an army."

"Why didn't he get the job, sir?" asked Harry.

"He was too young," said Sirius. "Remus tried to apply when he left but was told to reapply when he was a bit older and had a few years of life experience. Eighteen is too young; you've only just come out of education yourself. You need that life experience to teach at least. That is my opinion."

"You are correct, Sirius, Professor Dippet did indeed tell him that. I advised Armando against the appointment of Tom Riddle – I did not give the reasons I gave you two, for Professor Dippet was very fond of Voldemort and convinced of his honesty. I did not want Lord Voldemort back at this school, and especially not in a position of power."

"Which job did he want, sir? What subject did he want to teach?" questioned Harry, though he knew the answer before the Headmaster had answered. He was proven right when the answer was Defence Against the Dark Arts.

Dumbledore continued informing Harry and Sirius about Voldemort's work at Borgin and Burkes. He was no mere assistant as his former Professors had assumed, he was given particular jobs; sent to persuade people to part with their treasures for sale by the partners, and he was, by all accounts, unusually gifted at doing that.

"And now, it is time to hear from Hokey the house-elf, who worked for a very old, very rich witch by the name of Hepzibah Smith." Dumbledore stood his chair and took hold of one of the bottles, pouring the fragment of memory into the Pensieve. Sirius went in first, followed by Harry, landing in a sitting room where a fat old lady was busy powdering her cheeks. Beside her was the tiniest and oldest house-elf that Sirius had ever seen.

A doorbell rang in the distance and the elf scurried out of the cramped room. Sirius ran his eyes over the cabinets which were full of little boxes, there were cases full of gold-embossed books, shelves of orbs and celestial globes, and many flourishing potted plants in brass containers. The house-elf returned within minutes, followed by a tall young man that both Sirius and Harry knew immediately was Voldemort. He was plainly dressed in a black suit; his hair was a little longer than it had been at school and his cheeks were hollowed, but all of this suited him. The way he picked his way through the room, proved to Sirius that he had undoubtedly visited many times before. He bent low before Hepzibah and kissed her fat little hand, producing a bouquet of flowers from behind his back.

"That must be a common thing for Voldemort to do, for her at least," said Sirius, almost to himself. "She already has a vase waiting on one of her tables." He pointed towards one of the tables where an empty vase stood.

Hepzibah Smith quickly got down to business, enquiring why Voldemort was there. It became clear that Mr Burke had sent him to offer money on something Hepzibah owned that he desired, but the old lady shushed him down and quickly asked whether he could keep a secret and not to tell Mr Burke. She explained that what she wanted to show him, he would appreciate it for its history, not for how many Galleons one could get for it on the market. She ordered Hokey to bring two treasures to her; the trinkets were held in two leather boxes, which the house-elf placed on the lap of her mistress.

The first object was a small golden cup with two finally wrought handles. On the cup was an engraving of a badger, which both Sirius and Harry noticed, as did Voldemort when he lifted it up out of its box.

"It can't be..." breathed Sirius.

"What is it?" asked Harry but before his godfather could answer the question, Hepzibah answered it for him.

"Helga Hufflepuff's, as you very well know! Didn't I tell you I was distantly descended? This has been handed down in the family for years and years. Lovely, isn't it? And all sorts of powers it's supposed to possess too, but I haven't tested them thoroughly, I just keep it nice and safe in here..." She hooked the cup back off Voldemort's long forefinger and restored it gently to its box. A shadow crossed Voldemort's face as the cup was hidden from view.

"He doesn't like that..." murmured Sirius.

Hepzibah then ordered Hokey to take that particular box away and then turned her attention to the other box that was still her lap. Lifting up the clasp that locked the box, Hepzibah lifted the cover, explaining that she had purchased it from Burke years ago and that he would dearly love to have it back one day, and inside the box was a heavy golden locket. The light played upon an ornate, serpentine S.

Sirius gasped. "I've seen that before..."

Dumbledore gave him a sharp look, query in his eyes, but Sirius continued to stare at the locket that Voldemort now held.

"I had to pay an arm and a leg for it, but I couldn't let it pass, not a real treasure like that, had to have it for my collection. Burke bought it, apparently, from a ragged-looking woman who seemed to have stolen it, but had no idea of its true value –"

"Merope Gaunt," whispered Sirius, "Slytherin's locket," explaining to Harry what it was.

"- I daresay Burke paid her a pittance but there you are... Pretty, isn't it? And again, all kinds of powers attributed to it, though I just keep it nice and safe..." Hepzibah reached to take the locket back and for a moment it looked like Voldemort would not relinquish it, but then it slid through his fingers and back onto its red velvet cushion. Once the locket was safely locked back in its box, she passed it to Hokey, ordering her to lock it away again.

Suddenly, Sirius felt his feet rise from the ground, they were leaving the memory. As soon as they were back in Dumbledore's office, the headmaster sat down at the desk, indicating for the two of them to sit down. "Hepzibah Smith died two days after that little scene. Hokey the house-elf was convicted by the Ministry of poisoning her mistress's evening cocoa by accident."

"No way!" said Harry angrily.

"I see we are of one mind," said Dumbledore. "Certainly, there are many similarities between this death and that of the Riddles. In both cases, somebody else took the blame, someone who had a clear memory of having caused the death -"

"Hokey confessed?" asked Sirius. The injustice of it all. Just like what happened to me.

"She remembered putting something in her mistress's cocoa that turned out not to be sugar, but a lethal and little-known poison. It was concluded that she had no meant to do it, but being old and confused –"

"Voldemort modified her memory just like he did with Morfin!" interrupted Harry angrily.

"Yes, that is my conclusion too," responded Dumbledore. "And, just as with Morfin, the Ministry was predisposed to suspect Hokey because she was a house-elf. She was old, she admitted to have tampered with the drink, and nobody at the Ministry bothered to inquire further. As in the case of Morfin, by the time I traced her and managed to extract this memory, her life was almost over – but her memory, of course, proves nothing except that Voldemort knew of the existence of the cup and the locket." He continued to explain that by the time Hokey was convicted, Hepzibah's family had realised that two of her greatest treasures were missing. By the time they learnt this, Voldemort had resigned from his post and vanished, his superiors had no idea where he had gone, and that was the last that was seen or heard of Tom Riddle for a very long time. He carried on with his explanation, informing them that he believed that was Voldemort's first murder since he had killed the Riddle's.

"But," said Harry, frowning, "it seems mad... Risking everything, throwing away his job, just for those..."

"The locket was rightfully his," replied Sirius. "That doesn't excuse him from what he did though."

"But why take the cup as well?"

"It had belonged to another of Hogwart's founders," explained Dumbledore. "I think he still felt a great pull toward the school and that he could not resist an object so steeped in Hogwarts history. There were other reasons, I think... I hope to be able to demonstrate them to you in due course." He stood once more from his chair behind his desk. "And now for the very last recollection I have to show you, at least until you manage to procure that memory from Professor Slughorn. Ten years separates Hokey's memory and this one, ten years during which we can only guess at what Lord Voldemort was doing..."

The memory they were shown last of all belonged to Dumbledore, and it was set in the office they had just left. The only difference to the office they had just left and the one they were in now was that outside it was snowing, whereas in the present the sun was just beginning to set. A few minutes passed and Voldemort entered the room. He was no longer the handsome Tom Riddle he had been in the previous memory, but he was not yet the person he had been when he had emerged from the cauldron in the graveyard nearly a year ago. He was wearing a long black cloak, and his face was as pale as the snow glistening on his shoulders.

The following conversation was quite civil, at least to a point, with Dumbledore offering Voldemort a drink and accepting. It seemed, to Sirius at least, that Dumbledore agitated Voldemort by referring to him with his birth name, but his usage of that name was also a refusal to allow Voldemort to dictate the terms of their meeting. Dumbledore answered Voldemort's question as to why he was still at the school, explaining that there couldn't be anything more important than passing on ancient skills to young witches and wizards. It quickly became clear that Voldemort was at the school for a purpose: to ask for a position at the school. Dumbledore told Voldemort that the rumours of what he had been doing had reached his old school and that he would be sorry to believe half of them, but Voldemort counteracted that pronouncement by claiming that what he had done had inspired greatness and that he had experimented and pushed the boundaries of magic further than they had ever been pushed before.

Voldemort grew livid when Dumbledore told him that he was still woefully ignorant of some forms of magic; this Voldemort scoffed at, claiming that he had seen nothing that supported his belief that love was more powerful than his own kind of magic. Dumbledore suggested that he had been looking in the wrong places. Stunning Sirius with his next words, Voldemort asked his old Headmaster if he could return to Hogwarts to teach, let him share his knowledge with the students and that he placed himself and his talents at his disposal.

Dumbledore's expression was all Sirius needed to know that, that Voldemort would never get a job at the school. He politely enquired about those that Voldemort commanded himself, the Death Eaters. It was clear Voldemort had not expected Dumbledore to know that name.

"My friends," he hissed, "will carry on without me, I am sure."

"He called them friends?" said Sirius, eyebrows raised.

"He did indeed," said the present-day Dumbledore, "but I do not believe that he meant that. It was to placate me, as you can see by my response, I do not believe him." Sure enough, the younger Dumbledore had just said that he had been under the impression they were more his servants' then friends.

Voldemort told him he was mistaken about that however the Headmaster casually said that if he were to go to the Hog's Head, he would not find a group of them then, awaiting his return. He even listed the names of those Voldemort had been travelling with and it unnerved him that his former head teacher knew that. Dumbledore then asked his former student to be open with him and to tell him why he had really requested a job he knew that Voldemort did not really want.

The younger Dumbledore basically explained that he didn't intend on giving Voldemort a job and asked once more what his purpose was in wanting to return to Hogwarts, but the other would not elaborate. And then Voldemort left the office, and the older Dumbledore's hand grasped Harry's shoulder and Sirius's before taking them out of the memory completely.

"Why?" asked Harry at once, "Why did he come back? Did you ever find out?"

"I have ideas," said Dumbledore, "but no more than that."

"What ideas, sir?" continued Harry.

"I shall tell you when you have retrieved that memory from Professor Slughorn," said Dumbledore. "When you have that last piece of the jigsaw, everything will, I hope, be clear... to both of us."

Harry nodded. Dumbledore walked to the door and held it open for him. "Sirius, I require a word with you, if you don't mind?"

"Not at all," he replied, sitting back down in the chair he had vacated earlier.

Harry glanced back, but Sirius waved him onward.

"I'll see you later, Harry."

Once Harry was gone, Dumbledore shut the door and proceeded towards his desk, rounded it and then sat down in his chair. "Now, Sirius, you said you have seen Slytherin's locket before. May I enquire as to where you could possibly have seen it?"

"Grimmauld Place. I am sure of it," said Sirius. "We've sort of been cleaning out from Grimmauld Place, getting rid of all the dark objects that my family kept... I remember seeing Kreacher try to take a locket from the pile of rubbish last year... but I took it from him. It looked exactly like the one we've just seen and there can't be many lockets out there that look like that... He might have stolen it back again... but if Voldemort made a Horcrux, which it is obvious he did and he had the locket, why is the locket in my house? And is it a Horcrux itself?"

Dumbledore sighed. "I do not know Sirius... but if it is the same locket, we cannot assume it is a Horcrux without seeing it firsthand. The fact that Voldemort survived that night at Godric's Hollow proves that he had at least one Horcrux, but we do not know what object contains the part of his soul... we cannot blindly assume that the Horcrux is the locket, which I know is what you are thinking. We also cannot assume that he only has one Horcrux. That is what I am hoping Horace's true memory can tell us. I should also not be surprised that you even know what a Horcrux is and yet I am..."

Sirius shrugged. "My family library held a lot of books on dark magic. When I was a kid I had to read all of them and memorise them word for word. It was in one book only, but I recall reading about Horcruxes. I've suspected for a while that Voldemort might have one... I don't like the idea of him having more. But," he bit his lip, "I find it suspicious that the locket – and one that is exactly like the one that belonged to Slytherin and got into Voldemort's possession – is quite possibly in my house."

"If it is Horcrux we will be able to confirm that in time, however, Sirius, I must ask a favour of you. You do need to find out if the locket is still in your house. If it is, instruct Kreacher to guard it with his life. I do not wish to investigate it just yet until I know for sure; keeping it under safe guard is the best thing to do now."

"Fine," said Sirius, though he had no intention of obeying Dumbledore's words and leaving the locket if it was still within his reach. If it was a Horcrux, it needed to be destroyed, most urgently.

"You always disappear off at odd times," said Ginny, as Harry clambered through the Portrait hole, "and for hours on end. I never noticed it before, until Ron and Hermione hooked up, than I did. I guess hanging around with you, one would notice those things."

He and Ginny had been spending more time together since their little Hogsmeade 'date'; he made a point every morning to wait for Ginny to go down to breakfast with her and to sit with her at lunch and dinner, and though Ron and Hermione were with him most of the time, they were more preoccupied with each other. Harry didn't mind, at least Hermione was happy, that was the main thing to come out of all of this.

He grimaced as he approached her. "I guess I'm not careful enough."

"Well it's true. You, Ron and Hermione seem to disappear every Saturday and Wednesday nights and that really annoys Angelina because she'd rather be doing Quidditch practice but can't because you're off with Sirius. Oh, don't look so surprised," she snapped, "I've seen Sirius mostly on those days. Why wouldn't I make a connection about that?"

"I had hoped we wouldn't be noticed," said Harry lamely.

Ginny laughed. "Everyone notices you, Harry. You're the Boy-Who-Lived."

"I know," he grated. "Look, the reason we're not around on those days is because Sirius is teaching us stuff, things beyond seventh year, skills that I need and will need in the coming months. You've heard all the rumours about me, Ginny; surely you can see that they are true. I have to prepare for the inevitable, and so does Ron and Hermione; Sirius is merely helping with that."

Ginny was stunned. "You're really destined to kill You-Know-Who?"

Harry nodded. "Yes. I shouldn't have told you that but at least you know why we disappear. Ron and Hermione are going to be there every step of the way, its only right they learn what I am as well. If it helps all three of us survive, then that is the best thing we can hope for." He sighed and ran a hand through his jet black hair, causing it to stick up even more. "Look, Ginny, I'd appreciate it if you kept this to yourself... no one is supposed to know that Sirius is teaching me stuff."

Ginny blinked. "You can rely on me, Harry. I won't tell anyone. I am capable of keeping a secret when I need to."

"Good," his lips twitched up in a smile, "because I really shouldn't have told you that, but I trust you, Ginny Weasley." Harry beamed.

"I'm glad you do," she whispered softly, watching him walk up the stairs to his dormitory. Once Harry was gone, she gathered up her quill and parchment from the table she had been doing her History of Magic essay on and went to bed, her head whirling with the idea that a fifteen year old boy had to defeat the greatest Dark Wizard of all time. How will he be able to do it? She wondered that before sleep overtook her.

To be continued...

Please let me know what you think!

Next chapter: The Cost of Success - in which Voldemort strikes.

Previews below:

"But what are they waiting for?"

"I think this counts as an emergency, don't you?"

"Why would Voldemort wait?"

"You can stop this you know."

"I don't know if I managed to stop them from completing the Kiss."

Will be posted on Monday!

Until then,

the-writer1988