Chapter 41
"Crouch was sneaking around Snape's office when he's supposed to be too ill to work?" Remus asked. "Something's definitely wrong there."
"He may think he can find something on Snape, be trying to catch one more death eater," Sirius said. "But after what happened with his son, he's almost obsessed with proving he keeps the law. Breaking in somewhere doesn't sound like Barty Crouch Sr. This is really strange."
"That's why he fired Winky? Because she was blamed for what happened at the Quiddich World Cup?" Harry asked. Sirius nodded.
"Anything or anyone that could link him to dark magic had to go."
"So what happened to his son?" Harry asked before suddenly feeling he wasn't going to like the answer.
"He died in Azkaban while I was there. Not many people lived long in that place. When the only thoughts in your head are your worst memories and every bit of happiness is sucked from you it becomes a daily struggle just to keep the will to live." Seeing the look on Harry's face he quickly added "Don't feel bad for me Harry. It wasn't quite so bad in my case. I was able to focus on knowing I was innocent and being an animagus helped too."
Something about what Sirius said got Harry thinking. Animagus?
"Do you think you could teach me to be an animagus, Sirius? I have to find a way to breathe underwater for an hour so I thought if I could turn into a fish or something-"
Sirius shook his head.
"It would take too long. There would be no way to teach you in time. And even if I could, there's no guarantee that your form will be a water animal."
"Besides, you're far too young," Remus added. "A lot can go wrong with an animagus transformation, even if your magic is fully developed and ready for that."
Harry was definitely disappointed. He'd wanted to start learning now, and he was actually hoping his form wouldn't be a water animal, because he had a different reason for wanting to be an animagus. Although he couldn't tell his dad that. He would flip if he knew.
"But my first dad and Sirius started learning in their second year."
"And if I'd known what they were planning I would have stopped them," Remus said. "They could have been trapped in animal form or somewhere in between. They might have critically injured themselves. Don't look so disappointed though. I'll let Sirius teach you when you're older and ready. It wouldn't help you in the task anyway." Remus' voice was as gentle as always, but he gave Harry a suspicious look. He'd been through this before, being taken by surprise finding out his friends had secretly become animagi. The look in his eyes said "don't even think about it" clearer than any words could. Harry knew it was time to change the subject.
"So, any clues to what would help?"
Both Sirius and Remus were quiet, thinking.
"Transfiguring yourself into something that could stay underwater is too dangerous," Remus said, starting to list ideas.
"So is drowning," Harry pointed out bleakly.
"Dumbledore won't let anyone drown," Sirius said. "He's taken too many precautions to make sure this will be safer than the other times. Of course, he was supposed to take precautions to be sure nobody under age could enter in the first place," he grumbled.
"Thanks, Padfoot. That really helps my worrying," Remus said sending a look at his friend.
"Sorry, I was just frustrated that Harry even has to go through this" Sirius said. "You know I'm worried sick about this whole thing too." He looked into the mirror again. "I'm sure Dumbledore will have ways to get you to the surface if you run into trouble. The dangerous part will be the creatures in the lake, and you already know how to deal with them. One of us will come up with something, Harry."
It turned out the answer was in one of Neville's books the whole time. Harry was beginning to think it was best to look for answers in less obvious places. Still, he couldn't help thinking it was too easy. After all the looking he an everyone else had done, Dobby was able to find the answer out of nowhere? And could just eating a weed really let him breathe underwater? But when he asked them, they'd said gillywed would work fine, even though it was very rare so it wasn't used often. Again it struck Harry as strange that Dobby had been able to get some for him. Strange though it was, however, as Harry plunged into the cold water he was just grateful he'd gotten what he needed in time.
An hour later Harry broke through the surface of the water along with Ron and Gabriel Delacour. All the hostages were all right. Harry was the last one up, but he'd made it inside the time limit, saving Ron and Gabriel from being lost forever, or so he'd thought.
"Harry you prat! Did you really think Dumbledore was going to let us die?"
"But- but the song," Harry protested.
"That was just to be sure you finished in the time allowed."
Harry went from feeling like a hero to feeling stupid in about two seconds. Hadn't he been told Dumbledore wouldn't let anyone drown? Why hadn't he realized that applied to the hostages too? At least Fleur was grateful, giving him a kiss. Ron got a kiss too, much to Hermione's annoyance for some reason Harry couldn't understand. And since the judges agreed to give him points for moral fiber, he'd finished second in the task meaning he was tied with Cedric for first overall. Things could be a lot worse, and there would only be one more task until the whole thing was over.
"Two events down, one to go," Sirius said.
"I won't relax until this whole thing is over," Remus said tiredly.
"Neither will I, but he's made it this far. We'll get him through this."
"Remus closed his eyes. "I just wish we could have even one year where Harry wouldn't be in danger. His second year was terrible."
"Worse than his first year?" Sirius asked. "He told me he ended up facing Voldemort. I can't imagine being only eleven and having to do that."
"You're not going to like what happened in his second year at all. He ended up facing both Voldemort and his basilisk. It turns out that was what was hidden inside the Chamber of Secrets. Padfoot? BREATHE Padfoot!"
Indeed, Sirius did seem to have stopped breathing. After a couple deep calming breaths he was able to speak again.
"I- I think I'm all right now." He took another breath. "Knowing Harry faced a basilisk would be enough to give anyone heart failure."
"My reaction exactly. I nearly fainted when I found out he actually went into the Chamber."
"So how exactly did Voldemort get into the school a second time?"
Remus paused a moment, unsure of how to explain.
"Well, it wasn't Voldemort exactly. Harry said he bragged how he preserved his memory inside a diary. Harry stabbed it with a basilisk fang, and when he killed the book, the memory preserved in it was killed."
Sirius looked confused.
"What do you mean he killed them? Books and memories aren't things you can kill."
"I'm not sure," Remus answered. "That's just how Harry described it. He said there was something like tar or blood that came out of it, and then the memory version of Voldemort was destroyed. Hey, what's wrong?"
Sirius was staring into space and mumbling things like "he couldn't have," and "no, that can't be right."
"Sirius will you please tell me what's going on?" By now Remus was almost as alarmed as Sirius, who was slowly coming back to reality.
"Moony, you know how Voldemort was almost destroyed when the killing curse he aimed at Harry rebounded on him?"
Remus nodded. "Dumbledore said Harry survived because of Lily's sacrifice."
"That saved Harry, but it wouldn't have saved Voldemort. Even being reflected, the curse should have killed him. So the question is, why didn't it? And I have an awful feeling I know. The way you talked about the diary, I'm afraid it was a horcrux."
Never having heard of such a thing, Remus asked "What in Merlin's name is a horcrux?"
"You know how most of my family were,' Sirius sighed, starting to explain. "Most of them loved anything to do with the dark arts. You saw how the house was loaded with dark objects. Well, one time one of my uncles brought home an object that was about as dark as it could be. He called it a horcrux. I have no clue where he got the thing or who's it originally was, but he said it was a piece of someone's soul. They're meant to keep you alive even after your body is killed, but you have to split your soul by committing a murder to make one. From what I understood, the only way to kill a person who makes a horcrux is to destroy whatever object they turned into one."
The very idea was sickening, and exactly the type of thing Voldemort would use.
"So you're saying that diary must have been a horcrux. But now that it's destroyed, if Voldemort ever gets a human body again he won't have anything anchoring him to life anymore if he's killed, right?"
But Remus knew things had never been that easy, and the look on Sirius's face confirmed he was thinking the same thing as he answered "Unless he made more than one."
AN: Sorry it took me so long to update. I was having a hard time changing this from cannon and had major writers block. I want to let everyone know though that I won't be abandoning this story and hopefully it won't be so long between chapters in the future.
Oh, a comment about the second task. I know everyone was hoping to see a change in that, but except for having a different hostage I really couldn't think of a way to do it that would work with the rest of the story, and I figure the hostage would have to be someone at Hogwarts so Ron was still the most likely candidate, and I had to make it so it would be obvious to them later that the fake Moody was helping. So I hope everyone isn't too disappointed at the similarities.
Thank you to PaddyandMoony for getting me out of my slump (having Sirius know about horcruxes was her idea) and to Mosiac Muse for her help as well. She gave me some inspiration for later chapters even though I couldn't use her ideas for this one. Again, these were great ideas and I'd be interested to see her write her own fanfic with them.
Oh, and I figured people would want to know about the horcrux Sirius' uncle had. It wasn't one of Voldemort's or his own, just one he happened to get ahold of. We know Voldemort didn't invent the idea of a horcrux, so I'm sure even though they were very rare there were others out there. So, with that said, I hope you all enjoyed it and as always I look forward to your reviews.