Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Chapter 5: Planning Murder(s)
Since the time Harry had begun to take learning Occlumency seriously, he had been spending an hour or so every night meditating. At first his foremost goal had been to learn to clear his mind and through that create Occlumency shields for himself. When he had begun to get a hang of that, he had begun to devote more of his meditation time into organizing his mind. It was part of an Occlumentic defense in which a person could appear to have their mind unshielded while at the same time revealing nothing of importance. Harry suspected Snape used this method to hide his traitorous thoughts from Riddle and Harry wanted to be able to do this as well. Not to be able to lie to Riddle, no, he wanted to level the play field when it came to the meddling old coot.
Unfortunately organizing a mind with as many wretched memories as Harry's was anything but pleasant. To hide things he didn't wish for others to find, should they use Legilimency on him, meant that Harry had to go through each rotten memory before pushing them in the back of his mind behind a thick and chaotic wall of memories of little importance. Of course, occasionally, he stumbled upon a pleasant memory in his search for the less savory ones. Like for example now.
He was playing Exploding Snap with Sirius in Grimmauld Place and they were laughing as Sirius was telling a story about a prank they pulled on the unsuspecting professors back when the Marauders were still in school. Ron and Hermione were arguing a few feet away and it somehow added to the relaxed atmosphere. Sirius pulled Harry in a one-armed hug and –
Harry's bed shook and he snapped out of his trance.
"Sorry!" Ron yelled without stopping. He had run into the bed-post of Harry's bed in his hurry to get into the bathroom before his roommates.
Harry hissed wordlessly in annoyance and quite a bit disappointment. It had been a good memory! He would've liked to enjoy it properly now that he wasn't hurting as much about Sirius' death as he had before Sanguini's supportive presence had gradually worked its magic.
He took a deep breath and tried to sink back into the memory but instead another memory flashed to the front of his mind. The locket! He shot up in his bed and scrambled up. He needed a place with no audience. He grabbed his Cloak and Map and practically ran out of the room and down the stairs. He ignored the looks he got as he hurried out of the Gryffindor common room, ran into the nearest unused classroom and locked and silenced the door before near yelling: "Kreacher!"
"What can Kreacher do for filthy – "
"I need you to bring me the locket", Harry cut the elf off hurriedly, "The locket that no one could open, the golden one with the green serpentine S on it. Find it and bring it to me and this is strictly secret!"
"The locket is no longer in Grimmauld Place, Master Harry, the locket was stolen by disgusting thieving traitor Fletcher, sir", Kreacher replied and muttered insults under his breath.
"What!" Harry shrieked and then growled: "Oh-ho, that rat is so dead!" Turning back to the house-elf he said: "Kreacher, find the locket. I don't care who has it. I want you to find it, steal it and bring it straight to me or if I'm in class then to Nigel. If you haven't been able to acquire it in the next five days, I want you to come report to me your progress and we'll go from there."
"What will Master Harry be doing with the locket?" Kreacher asked eying his master warily.
"I'm going to destroy it!" Harry growled, not really liking being questioned by the elf but as the question hadn't been accompanied by the usual insults, he figured he'd do the courtesy.
The elf went stone still, his eyes watered and then he sniffed of all things. "Kreacher will find the locket for good Master Harry." A decisive nod and the elf was gone leaving behind a most befuddled master.
"What... just happened..?" Harry asked the empty room. He shook himself out of the shock of hearing Kreacher of all people call him good anything, donned his Cloak and slipped out of the room. He made his way to Sanguini's office to share the recent turn of events. Occlumency was turning out to be more useful than he had thought.
O O O
Harry thought he had a pretty realistic picture of the abilities of house-elves and would have proudly claimed to anyone asking that he was one of the few who didn't underestimate the little fellows. He had to correct his estimate of house-elf abilities a little when Kreacher popped to him the next evening proudly presenting the locket.
"Kreacher brought the evil locket. Master Harry destroys it now", the elf practically demanded.
Harry gingerly took the offered locket and showed it to Sanguini who was sitting on the other side of the desk. "That's definitely dark and powerful enough", Sanguini confirmed.
"Good job, Kreacher!" Harry grinned at the elf who grinned back and while the grin was anything but pretty, it was sincere and made Harry feel a lot better about being his master. "Do you want to come with us to the Room of Requirement and watch it burn?" The elf nodded eagerly enough that for a minute there Harry feared the elf's head was going to fall off. "Alright, let's go!"
The three of them made their way to the RoR, invisible, as they wanted to avoid unnecessary attention. They asked and received the same bare room they had burned the Diadem and the cursed obsidian stone in and as before, Harry laid the locket in the middle of the room before retreating to next to the doorway.
As the three of them watched the locket melt, Kreacher sniffed and tears ran down his cheeks, "Master Regulus' will finally done!"
"Kreacher?" Harry asked tentatively. Seeing the elf cry made him uncomfortable. "Kreacher? What was Regulus' will?"
"Master Regulus asked Kreacher to destroy the evil locket! Kreacher tried and tried and tried but nothing worked!" The house-elf wailed. "Kreacher tried!"
"I'm sure Regulus would be very happy with you, Kreacher. You did good. The locket is no more so everything's fine now, right?" Harry tried to comfort the elf but felt inadequate at it.
"Thank you, Master Harry!" Kreacher wiped his tears and popped away.
After a short silence Sanguini said: "I think he likes you."
"An entire encounter without insults", Harry numbly muttered, "I think the apocalypse is coming."
Sanguini chuckled but then sobered and said: "Four down, three to go."
"Wait, do you think when Sluggie said seven, he meant there are a total seven pieces of soul instead of seven Horcruxes?" Harry suddenly asked.
"You mean to count the main soul as one of the seven", Sanguini hummed and said: "I think you're probably right. Seven is a good solid, magical number. At least in theory."
"So that's four down and two to go", Harry grinned.
O O O
Two weeks later found Harry sitting in Sanguini's office and staring into space. Eventually he asked: "How likely do you think it is that Riddle hid one of his Horcruxes in Gringotts? I mean Gringotts is one of the world's safest places if you want to store something valuable."
Sanguini stared at him silently for a while before answering, "Wouldn't you think that perhaps Gringotts is a bit too obvious a place?"
"Hmmm..." Harry hummed and bit his lip in thought, "Lucius Malfoy had the Diary. He kept it in his Manor."
"Which had little value unless you knew it was a Horcrux so there was little risk in anyone trying to steal it. It was probably best protected among the books in the Malfoy library", Sanguini said following Harry's unvoiced reasoning, "If Riddle gave one of his followers something precious, even without the the soul piece stored in it, then surely it would be stored in a high security vault in Gringotts."
"Bellatrix is Riddle's favorite, from what I've observed", Harry commented.
"And the only two other Lestranges with access to the Lestrange vault are Death Eaters as well. Lestranges are an old pureblood family. Their vault is no doubt one of the best guarded."
"How are we going to go about stealing from a place like that?" Harry asked worriedly. It was madness.
"It may not be as impossible as one might think", Sanguini mused, "All you really need, is a helpful goblin."
"Should we maybe try and confirm our suspicions before we try to break into the bank?" Harry suggested.
"I think it may be easier to simply go through with it and hope for the best", Sanguini replied with a small smile. His life had become much more interesting since he met Harry. "Oh, and we aren't doing anything. I will be doing this alone." Harry looked ready to protest, but the vampire didn't give him the chance. "It will be easier for me to do this alone, trust me."
Harry sighed in a very resigned manner and asked: "When will you be going?"
"Tomorrow after dinner."
"I'll bring you my Cloak. You'll be needing it if you want to leave the castle without being noticed."
"Thank you. It is probably better to have everyone think I'm still here. That way, if something goes wrong, no one will be pointing their fingers at me."
O O O
Harry was finding it ridiculously hard to concentrate on the essays he was marking. Were someone to ask him what the topic of the essays was, he couldn't tell them. He was alone in Sanguini's office, waiting for the vampire to return. The whole idea of stealing something from Gringotts was starting to feel more insane by the minute. He was worried, dammit. And he was seriously regretting letting the vampire go without him. He wasn't used to worrying about his friends. Usually when his friends were in danger, he himself was as well which left him a whole lot less time to worry about them.
It was about ten minutes to midnight that the office door opened and Sanguini stepped in. He looked whiter than ever and the shadows under his eyes were as black as they could get. He looked like a walking corpse.
"Sanguini!" Harry sighed in relief and ran to the vampire.
"Stop me", The man breathed and then in a flash of movement he had Harry against a wall and his teeth sunk in the bare neck.
Harry gasped and then he was whimpering. Unlike the usual bites, this one actually hurt. He knew it could have been a lot worse, but the vampire obviously wasn't in control enough to remember to be careful. He knew he was losing blood quickly from the cold feeling that was spreading through his extremities. The sounds of eager swallows and happy little moans were filling his head and he was beginning to feel dizzy. "Sanguini..." He tried to speak but his voice was barely a whisper. He lost consciousness.
When he came to, it was quiet in the room. He was lying on the floor on a cloak he quickly recognized as Sanguini's by the smell alone. He opened his eyes and whimpered when the light, even as dim as it was, made his head hurt. He looked around until his eyes fell on the figure sitting curled up against the wall on the other side of the room. "Sanguini..." He quietly said and made to get up.
"You shouldn't move yet", the vampire's voice was raspy and filled with something Harry had never heard in Sanguini's voice before. When Harry relaxed back down, the man continued: "I am so sorry, Harry. What I did was inexcusable."
"Come here", Harry softly said. The man made no move to obey so Harry added: "Either you move or I move. The end result will in either case be the reduction of distance between the two of us." The man reluctantly rose and moved closer sitting down on the spot indicated by Harry. As the man was now within his reach, Harry placed his hand on the man's knee and asked: "How are you feeling?"
Sanguini gave a sad laugh, "How am I feeling? I almost drained you dry and you're asking me how I'm feeling?"
"I'm fine", Harry huffed.
"I had to give you my blood, vampire blood to fix the damage I did and two Blood Replenishers as even the vamp blood wasn't working quickly enough on its own!" Sanguini shouted.
"And now I'm fine", Harry stubbornly insisted, "There is no permanent damage done." They had talked about the effects of vampire blood on humans before. In small quantities it could be consumed with no ill effects. It helped humans heal at a faster rate and it left the system in a week or two.
"I hurt you, Harry!" There was deep shame in his voice.
Harry smiled, "You weren't the first to hurt me but I don't think anyone has ever felt as guilty about causing me harm as you do."
"You have no idea how close to dying you came", Sanguini whispered, like saying the words aloud could somehow make Harry die despite his rabidly improving condition.
"I've been bitten by a basilisk, dealt with a dragon and had a fun meeting with Voldemort where I was tied to a gravestone while he was waving his wand in my face. I'm used to situations where death is near and I haven't yet kicked the bucket. In fact, one might say I'm notoriously difficult to kill."
"I'm supposed to keep you safe, not endanger you!"
"I forgive you. Let's forget all about this little episode and concentrate on the important things", Harry waved his hand in a dismissive manner. He felt strong enough, so he sat up. "Did you find a Horcrux?"
The man looked reluctant to change the subject but dug a bundle of cloth from his magically enlarged pocket. He carefully peeled the cloth – which happened to be a shirt of his – to reveal a golden cup with a badger on it.
"Helga Hufflepuff's, I take it?" Harry guessed eying the very telling animal design.
"It was in the Lestrange vault as we suspected. A goblin who owed me a favor or two helped me get it. Unfortunately we triggered some protective measure as we were leaving. He wasn't one of the goblins working in the lower levels so he didn't know about it. He had no trouble blending in the crowd of angry goblins but I wasn't as lucky. Escaping wasn't easy as there was a dragon and a few special bred guard dogs involved in the thief hunt", Sanguini said, "I should have found some muggle to feed from before coming here! It was very foolish of me underestimate my hunger."
"I think I prefer you drinking from me instead of accidentally killing a muggle in your blood-lust", Harry dryly commented. Sanguini shook his head but said nothing. "Let's go scorch the Cup."
On their way to the Room of Requirement on the seventh floor, Harry muttered: "Riddle used something of Slytherin's, Ravenclaw's and Hufflepuff's... Do you think he used something of Gryffindor's as well or was he like the average Slytherin and hated the house of lions enough to skip that particular founder?"
"We only have one more Horcrux to go, if our theory about six Horcruxes plus the main soul is indeed correct."
O O O
It was the second Wednesday of March that Harry had his next 'lesson' with Dumbledore. After the usual greetings (and a declined offer of lemon drops) the Headmaster said: "I'm afraid I have some bad news, Harry my boy", he sighed sadly, "I have been trying to reach Horace to ask him to meet you but my owls haven't been able to find him and the house we met him during the summer is currently empty."
"We need the memory, right?" Harry asked and tried to look as innocent as he could with the face he had been given. It had become easier to lie to the Headmaster now that he was confident his Occlumency skills were good enough to protect his secrets without shouting 'I'm hiding something!'
"We will have to do without", Dumbledore sighed again, "The memory would have no doubt ridden us of a lot of uncertainty." He then launched on to a recount on Tom Riddle's years at the end of his schooling and after. He told about how everyone had expected great things from Riddle and despite great job offers he had chosen to work at Borgin and Burkes of all places, though Dumbledore also admitted that Riddle had asked to teach at Hogwarts but had been refused because of his young age. He then showed Harry a memory of an old house-elf in which Hepzibah Smith showed Riddle two of her greatest treasures: the cup of Helga Hufflepuff and the locket of Salazar Slytherin. Harry wasn't surprised to hear the good lady had died mere days later and Riddle had quit his job at the shop.
Dumbledore then showed Harry another memory, this time one of his own. In it Riddle – no longer the stunningly handsome man he had once been – was again requesting the post of DADA professor though it was glaringly obvious he had little interest in it and already knew it would once again be denied from him. After the memory ended, all Dumbledore was willing to elaborate was that after the meeting no one had been able to hold the post longer than a year.
Harry was simultaneously irritated and amused. He was irked because of the lack of new and usable information. They had already disposed of both the locket and the cup and the curse on the DADA post was gone as well. The fact that he knew that but Dumbledore didn't amused him to no end. He knew he should keep his face blank, solemn enough to give Dumbledore no hints about anything being off but he couldn't help himself. Right before he turned to leave the room, he smirked at the old man, barely holding back the snigger that wanted to accompany the lone sign of his mirth. He could practically hear Dumbledore's cogs turning as he walked out of the room.
Whoops. He thought to himself. I hope Sanguini will forgive me.
O O O
When Harry recounted the lesson's contents to his vampiric friend, he received slight scolding and a truck load of amused smiles and laughs.
Harry was enjoying the situation wholeheartedly. He was so sick of having to live and act without all the facts and now he was in the position to actually be the one holding the information. And from Dumbledore of all people!
He knew it was a dangerous game he was playing. By refusing to share with the Headmaster, the Leader of the Light, he was taking more responsibility than a boy of his age should carry. He did have Sanguini and that was what tipped the scale. Without Sanguini he wouldn't have dared to act against the Headmaster in any way. He felt safe with the knowledge that Sanguini wouldn't hesitate to correct him if he went wrong and that the vampire wouldn't keep information from him for 'his own good' or for 'the Greater Good'.
Harry forced himself to come down from his happy high to ask Sanguini: "Do you think I should have another chat with Snape? Give him a status report and ask him if he has anything to share..?"
"You want to rub it in his face that we have made more progress than his beloved Headmaster", Sanguini translated.
"Yes! I confess!" Harry laughed.
"Go on then. It's still a while before the curfew", the vampire made a shooing motion.
"I'll see you tomorrow then!" Harry chirped and left with visible bounce in his step.
He ran into Hermione on the way as she was returning from the library. "Where are you going?" The witch asked.
"To see Snape", Harry honestly replied and then added a tiny little lie: "I have an Occlumency related question." It was no secret from his roommates and Hermione that he had been practicing the art on his own. The very thought of Harry voluntarily going to Snape for anything was enough to have Hermione gaping. Harry ignored this and continued on his way.
Snape wasn't happy to find Harry knocking on his office door, as was evident from the tick by his eye. "Come in." He reluctantly growled, slammed the door closed behind Harry and cast the usual protective measures.
"I've come here to gloat!" Harry announced before the professor had even had the chance to sit down. "We, that is Sanguini and I, have gotten rid of all but one or two more Horcruxes! The gloating is about the way we've found and destroyed several while the old coot has taken care of the grand total of one."
Snape looked at the grinning boy with a carefully blank expression and said: "Ah."
Harry frowned and scrunched his nose at the inadequate reaction and then brightened again, "Oh, you're purposely trying to tick me off!" Snape raised an eyebrow, neither confirming nor denying the accusation. "In addition to the gloating, I came here to ask you if you have something you wanted to share."
After a short silence Snape asked: "Do you happen to know if it's possible to make a living being a Horcrux?"
Harry blinked dumbly and then said: "Oh! You think Riddle made Nagini a Horcrux..." Something was bugging Harry about the thought. It was right there at the edge of his mind... "Oh shit", he practically whispered when it finally came to him. "Oh shit", he repeated a little more loudly as he shot up from his seat, "Shit shit shit shit shit..." he cursed as he practically ran out of the room leaving a very confused and slightly worried Potions Master behind.
He ran and burst into Sanguini's office, "We have a gigantic problem." He declared. Sanguini had the presence of mind to magic the office door closed, lock it and silence it as he strongly suspected the following discussion wasn't one for other people's ears. Harry was breathing hard from the running. Without further explanation he grabbed Sanguini's wrist and placed the man's hand on his forehead over the famous scar. "Feel it."
"What – ?"
"Feel it." Harry repeated with his most insistent tone.
Sanguini hesitantly turned all his attention to the scar he was touching and gasped as he felt it. "No..." He breathed.
It was enough for Harry to know he had indeed been right, he pulled away and practically shouted: "Why does shit like this always happen to me! Is it seriously too much to ask to be even a little normal!"
"Harry – "
"I have a piece of that murdering bastard in me!" Harry felt tainted. "I'm a Horcrux!"
"How did you know..?"
"Because Nagini is one as well and I'm able to see both through Riddle's and the snake's eyes. It was the most simple explanation to the connection we share. It may have been something else between me and Riddle but there was nothing connecting me to the snake until..."
"Until Riddle put a piece of himself into the snake as well", Sanguini finished for him.
"He won't be mortal before I'm dead", Harry's face was suddenly dead blank.
"Harry – " Sanguini began but was interrupted by a knock on the door. He magicked the door open and Snape walked in warding and silencing the door as he closed it behind him.
"Would someone be kind enough to explain to me what's going on?" Snape asked, his face's blankness rivaling that of Harry's.
"Nagini's a Horcrux", Harry said.
"That is what I was going to suggest before you ran out of my office like your tail was on fire", Snape said with a nod and barely visibly questioning look in his eyes.
"I'm a Horcrux."
A deep silence followed. Snape stared at the boy and then turned to the vampire: "We're going to have to kill him."
"Yes", Sanguini agreed with a solemn nod.
"Suffocation, perhaps?" The greasy haired man suggested.
"That would probably be the best."
"Could you plan my murder when I'm not in the room!" Harry wailed.
"Oh quit the dramatics, Potter!", Snape sneered, "It'll be only temporary. We'll bring you back."
"Huh?"
"Harry, you need to die, yes, but I see no reason why should stay dead", Sanguini gently explained, "We'll carefully plan how to kill you and then when the Horcrux is gone, we'll bring you back to life."
"This is insane", Harry whispered and covered his face with his hands.
Sanguini pulled the boy into a comforting hug and stroked the boy's back, "We'll do this right and there will be nothing to worry about."
Snape refused to look at the touching display and left the room announcing: "I'll start brewing potentially useful potions just in case."
"You're notoriously difficult to kill, remember?" Sanguini teased softly, "You'll be fine."
O O O
It was about a week before Easter Break that Kreacher brought Harry a note from Malfoy. "I found something. -D" it said. Harry rushed to the Room of Requirement that opened to him but no doubt refused to even appear to anyone else while Malfoy was occupying it. As soon as he entered the mini Slytherin common room replica, Harry asked: "What did you find?"
"Good evening to you too, Potter", Malfoy sneered, "Didn't anyone bother to teach you manners?" Harry didn't comment so he sighed and said: "The Dagger of Righteous Revenge." He showed the book with the information to Harry while explaining: "The book has a ritual to turn a dagger – or some other bladed weapon, I suspect – into something you can use to kill even with just a scratch the witch or wizard who has wronged you horribly and without provocation on your part. I figure your situation fits the requirements perfectly. You did nothing to him and yet the Dark Lord tried to kill you when you were defenseless."
"That's not the only time he's wronged me", Harry muttered eyes glued to the ancient pages of the book.
"Exactly!" Malfoy was very proud of his find.
"Righteousness. That's certainly something Riddle's never understood." Harry muttered thoughtfully. The ritual seemed like something they could work with. It didn't require sacrifice or anything else morally questionable. They would be needing a several different ingredients – often used in potions, he noted – and a new moon, which was quickly approaching, if he wasn't badly mistaken. And he rarely was. Almost becoming werewolf food back in his third year had taught him to always be aware of when the next full moon was.
"It's perfect, right?"
"It certainly seems so to me", Harry agreed, "Good job, Malfoy!" The blond preened and the fact that praise from Harry got such a strong and visible reaction was a little sad. "I'll have my allies take a look at this but if this looks workable to them then we're one gigantic step closer to killing the snake-bastard."
"I can stop looking through the books then?" Malfoy asked looking rather relieved.
"Yeah. I'll tell you what they say about this but you can definitely quit the search until we hear what they have to say", Harry grinned and added one more teasing praise before leaving the room: "You're definitely a Hermione-class researcher!" He laughed as he heard Malfoy yell an offended "Hey!"
Both the professors agreed the ritual seemed to be exactly what they needed. It was old magic and the magic used to create it had to be the deeply emotional kind. Someone like Voldemort, who lacked the ability to feel such emotions as love, longing, loss and righteous anger, would never be able to create the dagger.
All three of them agreed that they should do the ritual as soon as possible, which left them four days to prepare before the next new moon. Sanguini sneaked out of the castle and bought a suitable non-spelled pure silver dagger (and boy was that harder than one might think, near all the weapons in the Wizarding World were at the very least charmed to never go dull). Snape donated the necessary ingredients from his private stores and used his contacts to acquire the two that were too rare and hard to preserve to be kept in stock. Harry had to be the one to do the ritual so it fell to him to learn the long incantation in Latin and the correct wand movements and such.
When the new moon night arrived, the three of them made their way to the Room of Requirement which provided them a suitable open area with a marble floor on which they spend an hour drawing the ritual circle with salt.
"Are you sure you remember everything?" Snape asked for the third time that night.
"For the umpteenth time, yes!" Harry snarled. He was feeling twitchy, he didn't need Snape's badgering to make it worse.
"If you make a mistake you could very well – "
" – mess up the whole thing so that we'll have to wait another month until the next new moon if there's enough life in us to do anything after the room blows up, yes, I am still perfectly aware", Harry sniffed and walked to his place in the circle while the two professors retreated to the edge of the room, a good ten feet away. Harry looked the circle carefully over one more time checking that everything was exactly like the book had specified, with the silver dagger in the middle and the ingredients in place in different parts of the design around it.
When he was as certain as he could be that everything was perfect, he began the chant and the complicated wand motions. As soon as he began, he could feel the tug on his magic. Slowly the design on the floor begun to glow and change and the lines and the ingredients began to move towards the dagger in the middle. After the first half of the chant the ingredients began to get absorbed into the dagger and when he finished, there was nothing left on the floor but the dagger which had a rabidly dimming glow to it. When the dagger stopped glowing, Harry picked it up and stared at it. "That was surprisingly easy", he said and promptly fainted.
O O O
Magical exhaustion is a bitch, Harry decided. While he hadn't been unconscious longer than two hours or so, Snape had ordered him to avoid using any magic for the next three days. He never realized how much easier and faster magic made things before he wasn't allowed to use it. Sure he was without magic during summer time but it was different somehow. His usual routines at Hogwarts weren't very compatible with magiclessness. His hair took forever to dry without a handy little charm. It was ridiculously difficult to get rid of food and ink stains without a handy little charm. The snores of his roommates kept him awake at night without a handy little charm. He was dependent, alright! When the three cursed days were over he was relieved enough to cry (almost, it was a close call).
Posted 07-30-2012