The Trio who Returned
Chapter 11
by Technomad
Tossing and catching the silver locket in a gloved hand, Harry said, "Well, that's another one down. What's next, the cup or the diadem?"
"I vote for the diadem. It's easier to get to." Hermione yawned, revealing her long, sharp canines. "The cup is in the Lestrange vault at Gringott's; it's not going anywhere. At least not soon. The Lestranges' wills left everything to their friends, in lieu of Andromeda Tonks. Pity their friends have had so many awful accidents, isn't it?"
"Gee, you think someone has it in for them?" Ron grinned…or at least he showed his teeth. "I can't imagine anybody holding them in any ill-will, can you?"
"Don't need to imagine, do we?" All three vampires shared a long, unpleasant laugh. Harry glanced at the window, to see that the earliest light of dawn was just visible, off to the east.
"Time for us to be asleep, I think. It's been a longish night." At that, all three of them trooped off to the cellar, where their coffins awaited them.
The next night, they were back up at Hogwarts, having informed Professor McGonagall that they were coming. They were let straight into the Headmistress' office; Harry figured that Professor McGonagall might be their friend, at least on a personal level, but she did not want three vampires traipsing around her school ad-lib! He nodded. In her shoes he'd have done much the same.
The Headmistress now knew better than to offer them refreshments. She sat behind her desk, watching them carefully. "So, what brings you back here? You seem to have been busy lately." For a second, she smiled. "Apparently poor Dolores Umbridge had a dreadful accident of some sort last night. Do I detect your fine hands in the matter?"
Harry, as spokesman, leaned forward. "On that subject, ma'am, we are…coy. We're here to unearth one of the Dark Lord's horcruxes. It's hidden here in the school."
At this, McGonagall recoiled in horror. "A horcrux? In my school? That's disgusting! How many did that madman make, anyway?"
"Seven," Hermione answered. "Of those, four have been destroyed, we've located and obtained one, and we know where the other two are." She grinned wolfishly, clearly savoring her old teacher's discomfort at what she had become. "Once the last of them is gone, our dear friend is as mortal as you are."
"Merlin help us," McGonagall muttered. "Where do you say this object is hidden? I won't have it in my school, I won't! To think of the danger to my students…I want it out of here!"
"We're on the same page, ma'am," Ron said. "As for where it is…"
The four of them stood in the third-floor corridor, opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy's unsuccessful attempt to teach trolls to do ballet. Harry explained: "It's called the Room of Requirement. According to Dobby, the elves call it the 'Come and Go Room.' Basically, it'll appear when you need it for something. Riddle hid his horcrux in it."
"How do you open it?" Curious, McGonagall looked at the wall. "I don't see any sign of a door!"
"Riddle said you have to walk up and down in front of it three times, thinking about what you want. Shall I try?" Harry walked up and down, to no avail. Then Ron took a turn, and finally Hermione. "Damn it, what's wrong? This should work! By now, Riddle's so-called mind can't work well enough to let him keep any secrets from us!"
"I don't know. Maybe you should try it, Professor?" Hermione gestured to the wall, and McGonagall obediently stepped forward, walking up and down, up and down, up and down… "There! There it is!" A door had appeared in what had been a blank section of wall. "Maybe it's because we are…what we are…that we couldn't make it work. Is that likely, Professor?"
"It's quite possible, Miss Granger. Let us hope that the door does admit you." With McGonagall in the lead, as befit her status as Headmistress, the four of them entered the Room of Requirement.
"Will you look at this?" All four of them gazed around them in wonderment. All around them, piles of junk rose over their heads; the walls of the room were distant enough to be difficult to see. "How long do you think it'll take to find the Horcrux?" Ron shook his head. "It'll take days!"
"According to Dobby, the Room will provide what we need. We can stay here as long as we have to." Hermione began systematically examining one of the piles of debris.
"In that case, I've a school to run. When and if you find your Horcrux, please notify me immediately." McGonagall left, and Harry sensed that she was glad to be away from them. While she was a person of rigid self-control, anybody sane would be nervous next to three vampires. Vampires, after all, regarded people as a food source. If she knew what we've done to keep ourselves in blood, she'd never let us near her again, thought Harry.
Hermione organized the hunt. The room was divided into zones, and the friends combed through each object they could find in one zone at a time. Only when a zone was as thoroughly searched as they could do would they mark it as exhausted.
Most of what they found was junk; the house-elves had apparently used the Room as a catch-all for broken or useless items they'd found around the school for centuries. Broken potion ingredient jars, ripped and burnt books, and damaged furniture were everywhere. Pausing for a moment, Harry shook his head. "Good job there's never been a fire in here!"
"I know what you mean. This is a disaster waiting to happen!" Hermione looked at her watch. "Hey, it's getting on to dawn. What do you say we knock off?"
Harry nodded. "We'd better do that. This place doesn't have any windows, but I don't want to take chances with daylight. Wonder if there are any coffins here that we could borrow?"
As he spoke, three coffins, just like the ones in the cellars of Grimmauld Place, appeared out of nowhere. Harry's red-rimmed green eyes opened wide. "That's service! Guess they don't call this the Room of Requirement for nothing!"
"Dumbledore mentioned finding it once, and finding a chamber pot there, when he needed to pee, didn't he?" Hermione mused. "I'm surprised that he didn't investigate it in greater depth. He might have found that damned Horcrux."
"Well, we can't ask him now. Let's get to bed!" With that, Harry climbed into "his" coffin, and the others followed his example. Soon the sun would be up, and they had to be sheltered from its deadly rays.
When the sun went down behind the Scottish hills, the three friends felt life returning to them. Harry pushed the coffin lid open, seeing that Hermione and Ron were doing the same. "The red thirst is strong on me. I-" As Harry spoke, a table appeared with three plastic bags on it, labeled with the name of a Glasgow blood bank. "Blimey! This place is wonderful!" He grabbed one of the bags and drained it after tearing a corner off with his teeth. Feeling the blood hitting his system felt wonderful; he could feel his strength and vigor increasing. His friends followed his example. "Ah! The pause that refreshes! And no corpses to get rid of!"
"If the room can sense what we want, why not try using that to find the Horcrux?" Hermione asked, daintly dabbing at her bloodstained lips with a handkerchief. "It'd be faster than combing through all this damned garbage!"
"Let's concentrate on finding it." Suiting action to words, Harry closed his eyes, thinking as hard as he could: I need to find the thing Tom Riddle left here! I need to find the thing Tom Riddle left here! I need to find the thing Tom Riddle left here!
When he opened his eyes, he found himself staring at an old bust. On top of the bust was a diadem. "Is that it?" he whispered. He hardly dared believe it.
Hermione approached carefully, her wand at the ready. She cast several spells. "It gives off powerful magic, and radiates evil the same way the locket did," she reported. "I think we may have found it."
When Harry gently picked it off the bust, he could feel the same feeling-a tingling in his hands-that he'd got earlier from the locket. "Yes, this is definitely it. The Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw! Lost for Merlin-knows-how-long!" He felt a moment's sadness. "Pity we've got to destroy it!"
"I know what you mean. Let's get it out of here," Hermione said mournfully. "I'd like to come back here sometime and really go through this place, but right now, we've got a Dark Lord to destroy, and we've got to find those stupid Horcruxes!"
Several hours later, after a conference with Professor McGonagall, they were back at Grimmauld Place.
"The only one we still need to find is the cup of Helga Hufflepuff. At last report, it was in Bellatrix Lestrange's vault at Gringott's. How do we get into one of those?" Hermione mused, staring at the locket and diadem as though they were both deadly vipers.
"One of my brothers works at Gringott's, as a curse breaker. I'll ask Bill what he thinks." Ron spoke up. They all nodded. That was a good idea.
"Let's go decrease the local thug population!" Everybody liked Harry's idea, and soon three bats flew off the roof of Grimmauld Place, heading for areas where they knew they'd soon find the prey they desired. The packages of blood had been lifesavers, but there was nothing like the taste of rich, red blood fresh from the source!
END Chapter 11