Disclaimer: If ye know of Harry Potter, then ye know I don't own it- I'm male. Seemplz.

en extase- Thanks for the review! Your PM is blocked, so I'm replying here. I admit- things are slightly sketchy, and probably will remain so :( Its a point for me to improve upon, so thanks a lot!

FORGETFULNESS

WARNING: The below chapter contains 'M' rated material. If you are classified as 'underage' in your country of residence, don't be a retard- skip down to below the italic. You'll miss a nice image, though :D

The mask, still in Harry's rucksack, glowed slightly, as if feeling the tremors of lunar magic beaming down from the moon above. Its containing case opened, and the mask lifted out. Behind the eye slits, were two white orbs. The orbs, although stationary, seemed to be gazing at Harry. There was a wealth of experience and knowledge in those eyes, and they seemed only to yearn to pass it on.

In his sleep, Harry rolled over, baring his face to the ceiling. Seizing this chance, the mask floated over, and slowly settled over Harry's face.

Harry was having a dream. To be fair, if was bloody fantastic. He was in a gigantic bed, all alone, when Fleur Delacour sauntered into the room. She stopped at the edge of the bed, and slowly teased her nightgown off of her fair shoulders. Beneath, she wore nothing but the beautiful skin she was born with. And what skin it was! It seemed to glow in the moonlight streaming in through the bay windows, and her breasts poked up in a perky fashion. Her nipples stood erect, reacting to Harry's observations. Her cheeks flushed, the girl started to crawl onto Harry's bed, until she was holding herself over his prone form. Just as the goddess-like woman was about to press her sweet lips to Harry's, he felt a pressure on his mind. He could describe it no other way- just pressure. It increased, stealing his attentions from the vision before him. Damn! But- Harry was cut off mid-thought as the dream expanse faded from view. Replacing it was a simple, still image of a run-down shack, with the skeleton of a small grass snake nailed to the remains of the front door.

The view changed to show the view through the front door, into what could have once been the dining room. Now, it was a rotted expanse of wood, covered in large quantities of dust and dead leaves. In the centre of the room, underneath a piece of the large table was what looked to be a black stain. Harry suddenly realised he was seeing through the Mask. The stain must be Dark Magic! The view dissolved once more, this time showing a small box of useless trinkets- gold plastic lockets, a ring, and some beads. The ring, however, howled with barely contained agony. The aura surrounding it was trembling, as if the thing within was trying to break free. Harry understood what it was. It was as if the mask was sending him small snippets of information. A… Horcrux? Something to do with souls. And Voldemort, somehow. Harry could feel some kind of link to the ring, as if he shared some kind of bond with it. He also felt others. Seven bonds in all, two of them moving slightly, as if mobile. Those bonds were the weakest- as if there was less soul to bond to.

What could these Horcruxes be for? Souls… some kind of container? An anchor? If they are, then I doubt anyone will answer my questions. Hermione may even get the wrong idea, and tell dear old Dumbles…

The stain in the floor started to seep towards Harry. He tried to move, but he couldn't feel his muscles- it was as if the Mask was controlling him! The black stain reached for him, rose apart from the rotted floorboards, and turned into a small face. It looked remarkably like the Tom Riddle Junior from Harry's second year, and the Chamber of Secrets, yet smokier.

"Please! I don't know who you are, but kill me! I did not know what this ring was, when I entombed my soul within it! The voices! The voices of the dead! They scream and shout and rip my soul to pieces! Please! Release me!"

Harry was shocked- whether from learning the powers of the ring, or from learning that Riddle regretted tearing his soul asunder. A man that could willingly cage his soul in an object, so far from the beating of a heart, and the thrum of emotions, and still feel regret meant one thing- Voldemort was redeemable. And if he was redeemable, then Dumbledore would seek to capture him alive. If the Old Goat did that, people would die in the process, maybe even Harry himself. That's not gonna happen, mate thought Harry, as the Mask sent him yet another small piece of wisdom.

Horcruxes were encoded with a password, one that unbound the soul from the object without damaging it. According to the mask, this ring was not just a magical artefact- it was part of something greater- something Else.

At the same time as Harry's dreaming, the Headmaster of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, Chief Warlock of the British Wizengamot, Grand Sorcerer and Order of Merlin (First Class), Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was in a massive pile of shit. He had once again stooped to sheathing his wand in the foul Muggle scum Petunia Dursley. And, as always, he had memory charmed her to forget his suggestions, and merely use them as her own. The problem, is, see, his wand didn't work. No, not that wand! His magic one! The Elder Wand, the Stick of Destiny, the Deathstick. Or, as one entity knew it- an Aetherion Fragment. A shard of other-worldly crystal, shaped, moulded, and warped into magical conductivity. The Elder Wand was not to be used by mortals- their desires were so easily inflected to such items. So, when the wand finally sensed its master, the one who could control it, mould it, shape it, and assimilate it- it changed allegiances. Just like that, a burst of magic that transcended whatever level of activity Dumbledore could recognise. A flash, an instant of understanding that went unnoticed. And Dumbledore fucked up. Big time.

He held his wand to the post-coital Petunia Dursley, and incanted, as he had many times before, "Memoria subcintus". What he didn't notice, was that although the wand performed the magic, it did not appreciate being used by anyone but its master. So it revolted. The Wand of Destiny left no permanence to the charm, which would later cause Petunia Dursley much grief. Her beloved sister's son- who had so reminded the distraught woman of her- had been starved by that man's orders. She had carried a hundred-and-something old paedophile's child, and had coveted it like it was the last child on earth. She had neglected her beloved sister's boy! Oh, what have I done?! Petunia saw Dumbledore prattling away about what she should do to the boy. His casual dismissal of Harry as an object- a weapon- sparked severe, deep-seated hatred to emerge. The weedy housewife grabbed the nearest household accessory- an antique candle-stick. She gripped it by its top, and swung with all her might. The base- a solid block of silver- smashed straight into the old man's chest. He immediately toppled, his ribcage staved in.

She rushed forwards, in for the kill, when he twisted away, and into nothingness.

Petunia Dursley howled in anguish- she knew she would never see the man again, and he would never allow her say a word against him. The woman fell to her knees, her apron bunching up around her midriff. She collapsed, in a sudden fit of pain. Her heart, it felt like it was squeezing so hard, just too hard to-

A man swirled into existence in her line of sight, right before the fireplace. A man dressed solely in black, with a long, sweeping black cloak. He rushed forth, and fell to his knees at her side.

"Petunia! Petunia! What's wrong? What's happened? Why did you attack Albus like that? Why?" Severus Snape, the traitor-spy who worked both sides of the fence, saw the woman clutching her chest. Quickly- almost too fast to see- he whipped out a vial of green slime. He forced the contents down her throat, to her obvious relief. She crumpled to the floor, nose buried in the fluffy carpet she lovingly cleaned herself. Her one vice… Her nephew helped, now and again… Harry!

Petunia swung up again- rigid as a beanpole- and looked Snape directly in the eyes. "Severus, Albus Dumbledore has been raping me for fifteen years- he's been planting ideas in my head about Harry- like how he should be starved, and how I should set Dudley on him. Dudley isn't Vernon's- he's Dumbledore's son! He bound both Harry's and Dudley's magic! He made me treat him like a slave! Severus, there was never any love lost between us- but please- look into my mind- I know you can- see what my memories are!"

Snape- always the man to believe that Potter had lived the lap of luxury at his home in the summer peered into the mindscape of Petunia Dursley. At first, all he saw was Dumbledore's tiny pecker. Then, he saw the same wand- Dumbledore's- pointed at her, again and again and again. What he told her to do- to starve, to beat, to treat like a house elf- the Boy-Who-Lived. No wonder the boy was so starved for attention- no doubt the only people to pay him any attention were ones who beat him, hurt him, the ones who put him down. Like he himself had been doing, the last four years of the boy's life.

Well no more! Severus knew what it was like to be beaten. To be ignored. But not how it felt to be less than a house elf. He… sympathised with Harry. Suddenly, Severus remembered the circumstances of the ordeal- Dumbledore casting illegal Memory Charms. Had he been charmed? Time to check. His safe-words that nobody knew. The auditory reset for his memory scape:

"Tobias Snape, Eileen Prince, Half-Blood Prince."

Harry felt a new connection- one that felt much like the one to the ring. He noticed, with the typical apathy of the sleeping, that there were actually two bonds to the ring. One, he guessed, to the soul. And another to the ring itself. So, there was a set of items he felt an attraction to- for what, though, he didn't know. The soul trapped inside the ring continued to cry out for eternal release- but Harry, surprised at his own vengeance, sought another way to remedy the situation. A way more painful to the soul than anything else. A Horcrux was formed partially through the hate of the caster (and soul-ripper), and partially of the soul itself. So, using his sadistic capabilities, Harry thought of Dementors. They fed on souls. They especially liked the ones with plenty of negative emotions. There was one here, writhing in pain, anguish, and fear. Five-star gourmet, if ever there was one, Harry thought. All he needed was a Dementor. But how would he get one? That would be solved later. Right now, Harry wanted the Ring safe from the caustic soul encased within.

Dumbledore sat nursing his chest as Skele-Gro coursed through his veins. What the devil happened to my wand?! Dumbledore thought, as he turned the thing over in his hands. The fifteen-inch long wand was sparking lightly, and seemed to pulling in a south-easterly direction. Ever so slightly, but the old man could tell. Somehow, someone had managed to change the allegiance of the wand. The core, as he understood, was of a three-thousand year old Thestral. To use these, one must truly have conquered death. Or Death. Or some variation thereof. Except, for the first time in almost sixty years, Albus Dumbledore had wielded his own wand in aid of ascertaining the material of the core. This was merely a side-effect of trying to trace the new owner. But it side-tracked him, alright. The core was of something that the spell had never been used to determine before. No name was known. No properties understood. No nothin', as some Muggles would say. Zilch. Nada. Fuck all. He did know that if he let the wand slip from his fingers, its trail of blood would blaze through history once more.

In his old age, Dumbledore's old and age-frazzled mind drifted for a few seconds. Pulling himself back together, Albus set down both wands, and rubbed his eyes. He groaned a bit, and suddenly wished for something stronger than his usual alcohol-laced sherbet lemons. He finished rubbing his tired old eyes, and suddenly remembered something very important. He was not supposed to let the wand go. And yet, in his old-age, the Old Goat, the Master manipulator had forgotten to hold on to it. There was a small, two to three centimetre-wide hole in the coloured panes of his window. Dumbledore sighed. It was going to be one hell of a year.

A/N I'm no longer particularly happy with how this fic is going, but I promised a sequel, so I have to finish this one first. No, I'm kidding! I've just finished writing the first action-inclusive chapter (so, about 16 chapters in the future :D ) I'll not be posting on Friday evening (my time) next week, seeing as I'm in Tenerife (WAAAHHHEY). I'll try and post on the Monday/ Tuesday, but defo early the week. I may still be drunk as all heck, but hey!

Plus, I'd like to thank all of the reviewers giving constructive criticism, and Blorg13 again for being my FF homie. As yet, I have no beta, but being the perfectionist I am, I seem to think that my spelling is good. Obviously, any glaring continuity problems should be reported to the appropriate authorities (ME).

SaHFF