Chapter 16: Out of the Box

Krait twitched the goblet out of Dumbledore's hand.

" Honestly, GRYYFINDORS! It cannot be affected by normal spells or muggle methods of penatration…..from the top. It cannot, I'm sure, be tipped, poured, rocked or disturbed….but there are tools you may not know about, tools my father would despise even if he knew about them….and he takes short cuts. He was so busy setting it up so that only a goblet would penetrate it I bet he forgot that a bowl has sides and a bottom as well as an open top " Krait looked at the goblet Dumbledore had summoned and concentrated, turning it into a brace-and-bit. She frowned thoughtfully at the bit.

"Carborundum" she said. "With a diamond-tipped drill – which I wager he's never heard of - and magic to turn it so we don't tire with physical effort we can drill a hole at the bottom of this basin….if it doesn't work we can always fall back on your plan A sir. Though in that case, Harry and I should drink…."

"Harry must be preserved….and my dear, you are in an interesting condition again…."

Krait blushed.

"Ah….I thought I was late" she said. "Well, let's hope it doesn't come to it; though you do have a blood link to us, we can feed you strength….what ever is the Latin for drilling? Ah yes, rotatum…rotao?" She set the drill bit against the base of the basin. "Might not be a bad idea to persuade the rock to change shape to make a channel and a basin to hold it…." She suggested "We don't want it running into the water, it might wake up our slumbering friends…."

Dumbledore nodded, and pointed his wand at the rock beneath the basin, forming a runaway channel.

"If you have a vial or bottle on you it might not be a bad idea to have Severus analyse it…." Suggested Krait. "My guess is it's something like the opposite of Felix Felicis….with the green glow it'd not surprise me if he used essence of person killed by Avada Kadavra, or liquidised Dementor or something equally nasty…I bet he never expected to pit wits with any but a Gryffindor, with all that excruciating nobility, straightforwardness, honesty and self sacrifice….we Slytherin are nasty, sneaky, convoluted, pragmatic and constructively cowardly and I don't want to touch that stuff or have anyone I love touch it either…."

Dumbledore produced a small bottle from his robes laughing gently.

"Slytherin are also supposed to be ambitious to the point of selfishness…." He said.

"If Salazar Slytherin had been wholly selfish he'd not have helped endow a school" said Krait. "He might have taken a select band of apprentices…..ambition has more than one face, House Slytherin has been corrupted over the centuries. After all, was he not a friend of Godric Gryffindor before they quarrelled? And I bet the quarrel started off as something silly because nobody can hurt as deeply as the ones we love most…."

"My dear child, you really ARE Slytherin's heir" said Dumbledore. "And to call yourself cowardly – constructively or no – is a misnomer."

"Meh….call it cautious then." Said Krait, commencing drilling.

The sound was high and chilling like the scream of a Dementor; but the diamond tip made progress. Harry gritted his teeth against the awful sound, glancing uneasily at the lake, lest it wake the sleeping dead; and Krait drilled on, her teeth gritted and sweat running down her face.

"Your go" she gasped. "It's tough….it vibrates…."

Harry pushed the drill into the hole she had made and muttered the spell; and felt immediately what Krait meant as the spell-driven bit vibrated the whole tool.

Suddenly the bit jumped and ran fast as the resistance ceased; and Harry pulled it back hurriedly. Dumbledore caught a portion of the jet of eerie green fluid in his bottle as it shot out.

"Blast" said Krait. "I forgot the pressure….Luke, look out, we're going to have company!"

Harry gave a wry half grin and took a firm grip on his wand.

The army of men, women and children emerged slowly, dull and sunken-eyed from the water as soon as the green liquid touched it. Harry acted first, trying to use petrificus totalis, Impediment and Incarcerous in turn; and a few were held, bound or slowed.

"Incendia" said Krait and her wand sprayed a jet of fire. Dumbledore set up a ring of fire, emanating from his wand like a lasso, around the island, driving back those who were approaching; and Krait and Harry exchanged a look.

"Fire will free them…" said Krait. "We must release them all from their torment…."

Harry nodded; and methodically they set fire to each of the faltering figures, driven by a need to reach their quarry yet driven back by Dumbledore's ring of fire. They called on the blood group; for this needed ongoing strength.

The thin high keening was terrible; and Krait shuddered as she deliberately set fire to more, forcing the fire to burn on under water as they attempted to escape. Hermione was the mistress of the waterproof flame; and Krait had listened to her friend often enough to use her knowledge, with help from the blood-bond. Swallowing hard she transfigured the top layer of the lake into petroleum and the sheet of flame engulfed the keening writhing inferii.

Absently Krait cast a bubblehead spell on herself. The oxygen in here would be used pretty soon with so much fire; and relieved she noted Dumbledore and Harry copying her.

At last it was over; and Krait sank down on her knees, offering up wordless prayers for the unfortunates whose bodies were corrupted and used by her father. She had no way of knowing if any consciousness was stolen from the souls of the dead; and she fervently hoped not.

-/-

When Dumbledore scooped the horcrux from the basin it was almost anticlimactic.

Krait glanced at it.

"That's not grandmama's locket" she said flatly. "It's too small…and there's no S-monogram on it. What's the parchment?" for there was a scrap of parchment lodged in it.

Dumbledore opened the locket and unfolded the parchment.

"To the Dark Lord" it said "I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen your Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match you will be mortal once more. RAB"

"Meh!" said Krait. "I SAID the locket was the one in the Black house….Regulus Arcturus Black, clever little bastard, made off with the thing but died before he could destroy it….I was hoping this would be the cup of Hufflepuff. And if you'd drunk that crap it would all have been for nothing. Let's go home….I'm cold, weary and irritable."

"It does appear our efforts have been in vain" said Dumbledore ruefully. "But we had to come and check this hiding place….perhaps our next efforts will be less fruitless."

"I hope so" said Krait. "Glad you didn't have to drink it….chances are there'd have been some way to make waking up our erstwhile playmates inevitable anyway. Shall we go?" she shimmered back into Hippogriff, drawing from the blood group to do so.

-/-

The gateway had shut again; and Dumbledore reactivated it with more blood. Krait concentrated and changed into seal to negotiate the sea swim; and undertook drying as part of the transfiguration back to human.

"I guess it was educational" she said philosophically. "And every one of Riddle's machinations we go against teaches us more about how the enemy's mind works. Not nice, but useful."

-/-

Horace Slughorn's party may have contained a few surprises but on the whole he was pleased with it. Severus Snape rejoined it after he had seen his little girls and the babies to bed; and if he was a trifle preoccupied it was not so morose a preoccupation as Slughorn recalled had been his wont.

The party was at its height when several members stiffened suddenly and exchanged glances. Gradually they drew close to each other; and shortly a small, pyjama clad figure came in the door. It was Bil Prince; and she walked up to Severus and hissed. It sounded like a query.

Severus shook his head and hissed back. Could he be a Parselmouth too? It seemed incredible. Bil Prince nodded and took herself off. Severus reached out and took the hands of Draco Malfoy on one side and Ginny Weasley on the other; and Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom, Ron Weasley and Sirius Black linked hands through each other to them. Harry's bodyguard. Severus was chanting quietly; and there was a curious thumping noise, lub DUP, lub DUP! that sounded through the room like a muffled drum. It came from the group that held hands; and Slughorn's other guests stared at them curiously.

"Severus my dear boy…are you all right?" Slughorn ventured.

The entire group turned their gaze on him; hard, blazing looks.

"Get them out" said Severus. "Let us be alone….."

Slughorn swallowed and set about breaking up his party. He had just persuaded his last guest to go when there was a muffled POP! And Dumbledore, Harry and Krait turned up in the centre of the little circle. He stared open mouthed. Apparating within Hogwarts was impossible!

"Did you get it?" it was Ginny who asked.

"Yes and no" said Harry wearily. "We got it, but somebody else already got there first." He passed the note to her. she read it quickly and passed it round the group.

"But that's okay, isn't it?" she said. "If this RAB destroyed it…."

"He didn't" said Krait harshly. "it's in Padfoot's dustbin… I bet RAB is Padfoot's brother and I told you all I recognised it when we'd seen the Pensieve… and we need to decide whether to use a summoning charm, go personally, or send Kreacher to find it, assuming he may have concealed it to keep…you sent him on the odd errand to go directly there and back, Sirius, but I bet you never told him not to rescue rubbish while he was there."

"I didn't think of it…I was busy finding ways to forbid him to pass messages or contact anyone else" said Sirius. "I'll go and look for it first, let's not give Kreacher any more information than we have to. I can always try a summoning charm within the house."

Krait nodded.

"Use the penseive memory in the Gaunt house to see what it looks like….it may help you visualise what you're summoning."

"My!" said Sirius in mock admiration "And will you explain what an animagus is to me as well?"

Krait laughed.

"Your point, Padfoot….sorry to state the obvious. I suppose I spend too much time with small people….you want to worry when I tell you to look at the big red train going choo-choo."

"I don't often score one on you….I shall cherish the experience" said Sirius cheerfully, and went off whistling brightly.

-/-

"Would anyone mind telling me what's going on?" Horace Slughorn asked plaintively.

"My dear Horace, I thought you might have worked it out" said Dumbledore. "Krait, Harry and myself went to retrieve a horcrux…we ran into a little trouble in the persons – can I say persons about corpses? – of some inferii; and we returned after determining that somebody had substituted the horcrux for something else. It was a somewhat frustrating but not wholly fruitless trip. Ah, Severus, handle this carefully….you'll want to analyse it, perhaps Horace might like to help you…"

"What is it?" asked Severus.

"Bottled malice" said Krait. "He set up a situation to force Albus to drink it….we found a way round my father's pea-sized imagination."

"My dear girl, do not underestimate Tom Riddle, he is brilliantly clever!" said Slughorn. Krait turned a thoughtful violet regard upon him.

"Clever, I grant you. But he lacks vision, clear understanding and imagination" she said coolly. "He has blind spots. Many of them are fundamental. Besides, I am many times cleverer than he, as well as far more ruthless than he can imagine."

Slughorn took exception to that.

"You say so, my dear but you are gentle and compassionate beneath the pretence…."

"I am a mother, Horace" her voice was clear, level and light; yet somehow chilling. "There is nothing I would not do in the defence of my children….or indeed any I hold dear to me. HE kills for some warped pleasure and to try to prove that he's not a dickless wonder. He claims to be too far above us all to be bound by normal morality; in fact it's just an excuse to hide that amoeba surpass him on the evolutionary scale, and maggots laugh at him." Contempt dripped from her voice.

Slughorn swallowed.

"Er….quite" he said. "Severus, if you'd like a second opinion…."

Severus nodded.

"You and Krait and I should be able to unravel it all….you are a specialist in analysis after all."

Slughorn did not quite preen.

-/-

If Horace Slughorn was surprised and disturbed that the rest of the group followed them to the potions dungeon and sat waiting quietly on the desks he did not say so. Ron kicked his sister.

"You're the youngest….you put cocoa on to brew" he said.

Ginny made a face at him; but uncoiled her legs from where they were tucked up beneath her and went to get out the cauldron Severus used for the MSHG cocoa ritual.

"Did Hermione, Draco and Harry want to try their hands at analysis?" Slughorn suggested.

"I think not" said Severus. "We like to keep the innocence of the nicer members of our group intact….there's a great difference being told what may be in here – and I can guess – and feeling it at the end of your own wand." He smiled cynically as Slughorn shot an uncertain glance at Krait. "My wife is well inured to horror, I assure you….and if I didn't let her help she'd nag me besides."

Krait stuck out her tongue at him.

-/-

The three testers used the revelaspell; and Krait and Severus also cast it in Parseltongue. They exchanged glances.

"Well?" demanded Ron.

"The usual hallucinogens and several nasty things to induce pain…." Said Krait "And the pensieved thoughts of a dying man under the kiss of a dementor." She gulped. "And a man who had been tortured himself and had watched his loved ones tortured to death to intensify the dementor's effect….it would bring pain, despair and hallucination of one's self and one's dear ones in agony, allied with a terrible guilt feeling, for he was told it was his own fault that this was happening, I think, brainwashed, like HE brainwashed Bella Black until she enjoyed pain….what was there burned with the inferii. Let us burn this. Excuse me." she rushed out of the room.

"Wha…" said Ron.

"Idiot, she's gone to be sick" said Ginny. "Shall I go to her, Sev?"

Severus nodded.

Ginny thrust the spoon into Ron's hands and went off to the staff toilet where Krait was throwing up and sobbing.

"Dumbledore was going to drink it…." She whispered when she emerged from the pan. "Honestly, GRYFFINDORS!"

Ginny hugged her and passed her a mug to rinse her mouth.

"I'm a Gryffindor" she said mildly.

"Yeah, but you're a woman….more brain cells then testosterone" said Krait. "It's not just the nastiness….I'm probably pregnant again, it does funny things to you."

Ginny nodded.

"I guess I'll have to remember that" she said wryly.

"Hmph….if nobody else has played silly buggers with Horcruces we should have killed Fishface by the time you wed Harry, so being pregnant is all you have to worry about" said Krait. "And getting Harry to work on time….he's hopeless first thing in the morning."

Ginny laughed and linked an arm through Krait's to draw her back to the others.

The cocoa ritual was calming and comforting.