Chap. 35: Gringotts, Voldemort, North Uist, Dumbledore, the WWW, and Hogsmeade Saturday.
Harry glanced over to Gareth who was standing behind him in his grey robes, with his hood up, and asked, "So, the gadget has been pointing toward one in this vicinity as the closest?"
"Yes, and we're hoping it's in there," Gareth said, but his voice was disguised.
"Did the Goblins lift all the protective curses in the vault?"
Here, Gareth gave a nod just as the huge vault's door opened.
Harry stood back and allowed Gareth to go first, who was holding a glass orb, and floating inside of it was Voldemort's ear. The earlobe became the pointer, and it was pointing toward the back of the vault.
Harry followed the unspeakable around the stacks of gold, which was now his, and much of the artifacts which made up his G 5,000,000.00 award total, along with Lestrange Manor. What few items that were left went to the ministry.
When they reached the back of the vault, the ear began to slowly spin.
"We're near one, Harry," Gareth said in a low voice, as the two looked over the artifacts on the shelf.
"There," Harry said as he pointed up at the highest shelf, "it's Hufflepuff's cup, I'm sure of it. Tom stole that from Hepzibah Smith, along with the locket."
"Levitate it down," Gareth said, "and we'll dispose of it outside."
Harry's Mayhaw wand shot into his hand, and he aimed it at the cup, which floated from the shelf down to him, and rested in the air about two inches in front of the wand's tip.
"You can fill the wickedness oozing from it," Harry distastefully said as he started toward the vault's entrance with Gareth following behind. He also noticed the Badger on the side of the cup.
"Yes, it's definitely dark magic, which I became attuned to in my line of work. He must have thought that nobody would think of destroying a so-called priceless artifact, but I, like you, have no compunctions about it.
"Let's do this, and we can perform our next operation."
Harry levitated the cup to the stone floor outside the vault, and there were several Aurors, Hit Wizards, and Unspeakables standing around, as well as three Goblins.
"Isn't that...," one Auror said.
"Helga Hufflepuff's missing cup?" An Unspeakable finished.
"Yes," Harry stated as he stood back about five feet from it.
"What are you going to do with it?" Another Auror asked.
"You'll see," Harry said as he withdrew Gryffindor's sword from a pocket in his robes that had an expansion charm on it. "Shields ready, everyone. I don't know what kind of protections the cup has been sullied with."
"You're not going to...?" Dawlish shouted.
Harry brought the sword up over his head, and with all his might, he brought it down onto the cup, which sliced into it, and crumpled it at once. Sparks shot off the stone floor when the blade grazed it.
Immediately, a black mist started to form, so Harry stepped back, and using his Mayhaw wand, he cast a mage's shield around all of them. Everyone could feel the hairs on their arms and the back of their necks stand up at Harry's magic.
Sure enough, the black mist turned into Voldemort's head, screamed, and tried to make a run at those assembled as if it would try to possess them, but could not make it past Harry's shield.
Everyone looked on in awe as the figure continued to writhe and scream as if throwing a tantrum before it dissipated into nothing.
"Another one down," Harry said as he dropped the huge golden dome-shaped shield.
"What was that?" Dawlish asked.
"Something very dark and dangerous," Harry remarked as he walked off. "The worst sort of magic there is..."
Voldemort was sitting at the head of the Malfoy's long dining table, and his recently escaped followers were sitting along the table on either side.
"This new ministry must be taken; it must fall!" Voldemort exclaimed.
As the "hear-hears" were given, Voldemort grabbed at his chest, and he felt suddenly sick. In the next second, he felt as if someone had set fire to him, which caused him to shriek out in pain, and fall to the floor.
"My Lord!" Bellatrix said as she rushed to his side.
"Everyone, out," Voldemort scathingly said through gritted teeth as the pain began to dwindle. He did not wish for his followers to see him weak, and if they knew of the soul curse, well, some might try to replace him.
"Call Severus!" Voldemort said from his fetal position on the floor. Not once did it ever hit him that his Horcruxes were being destroyed, since he laid everything off on the curse.
Three carts full of Aurors, Hit Wizards, and Unspeakables stopped in front of a small high-security vault, number 713. Here, they noticed Harry step off onto the ledge, and make his way to the vault, where he withdrew a long wooden wand box. When the Goblin opened the vault's door, he sat that on the shelf and made his way back to the cart. Many's eyebrows were raised, wondering what this was about before the carts took them back up to the bank.
Beforehand, when they had entered the bank, Harry had made a big show of handling the wooden wand box, and speaking about it containing an important wand, where many inside the bank were listening, and then he loudly stated to the Head Teller that he needed a high-security vault, preferably vault 713, if it was available. It was, so he paid the fee, and the group left for the Lestrange vault.
Harry and Gareth apparated three times after that, and ended up on North Uist island to the west of Scotland, and at the Barpa Langass, which was a 5,000-year-old Neolithic chambered cairn. It looked like a huge pile of stones about seventy-two feet wide, but it held a cave of sorts, inside, where the roof was constructed of two massive slabs with a third slab superimposed. It was a burial monument and tomb.
Here, Harry levitated several stones at the top into the air at once, and placed another wooden wand box, which was inside a muggle plastic rubbish bag, in that spot, and then slowly allowed the stones to settle back over it, thus, hiding it away.
"Well," Harry said to Gareth, who now had his hood down, "that job's taken care of."
"Let's hope that he searches high and low for it," Gareth replied with a chortle. "He'll never find it here, especially after laying our false trail. A giant goose chase indeed!"
"Shall we go visit Dumbledore?" Harry inquired.
At Gareth's nod, the two disapparated.
Harry and Gareth were walking along the seventh-floor corridor when Gareth suddenly spoke up.
"Harry, wait."
"What is it?" Harry asked, who noticed Gareth fishing around in his right-hand robes pocket.
"I felt a vibration from our project," Gareth said, who was now holding the glass orb. Inside, the ear would slowly rotate, and then stop, but point at the stone wall to their right.
Harry noticed where they were, then, so he cast a privacy spell.
"The Room of Requirement," Harry said. "It's showing one to be in there, but what version of the room, which we would have to call up, would it be hidden in?"
"I'm not sure," Gareth replied, "but we need to speak to Dumbledore, and then we can decide when to start a search for it."
"Harry, Gareth, please come in," Dumbledore said as he sat back in his golden throne-like chair behind his desk.
"Headmaster," Gareth and Harry said at once and took the two seats in front of the desk.
"What brings you here, today?"
"Two more horcruxes have been destroyed," Harry said.
Albus' eyes shot up at this. "Which two?"
"Slytherin's locket and Hufflepuff's cup," Harry replied. "We think we know where another is located as well."
"The cave?" Dumbledore asked.
"No, the locket was at the Black Townhouse in Islington, believe it or not. Kreacher had it, and together, we destroyed it.
"Evidently," Harry explained, "Regulus turned on Tom, and figured out what he had done, because Tom had borrowed Kreacher to hide the locket in the cave, and had left Kreacher there to die. Later, Regulus had Kreacher take him there, and they swapped the real one out with a fake, but Regulus was killed by the Inferi in the underground lake.
"It was the locket that Sirius threw away, which is why I thought it looked familiar."
"Hmmmm," Dumbledore hummed out. "And the cup?"
"In Bellatrix's vault," Gareth said.
"So, that leaves two," Dumbledore remarked as he stood, and poured all three a glass of Scotch, "an unknown artifact and Nagini. Probably another piece from the Founders, if he could have found another."
"We think it's here, Headmaster," Gareth said, "and off the seventh floor, in a hidden room."
"The Room of Requirement, I take it?"
"Correct," said Harry. "However, we might need to wait until Nagini is dealt with before we destroy the last one, as he may be able to feel it when we do, we're not sure. We would like to come back and do a search for it."
"Most assuredly, Harry, but I am running out of time," Dumbledore said as he held up his black right hand.
"Severus said that he has a poison for Nagini, but he said that it must be introduced into her bloodstream."
Here, Harry and Gareth thought that over while sipping their scotch.
"Will she have acid in her stomach?" Harry asked.
"Hydrochloric acid," Gareth remarked.
"I think that I may have a way of doing it," Harry said with a chortle, "but it will give the snake a very bad case of indigestion.
"Instead of a wet-start firework, what about an acid start? Place that in some fresh meat, with the phial of poison, and let the acid do its thing. Boom! It will even be time-delayed, allowing the perpetrator to escape."
"You have a sinister mind, Harry," Gareth remarked, but he then laughed out. "The snake's spleen lies toward the bottom of their stomach, a direct blood path, plus there are arteries and veins running all about. Merlin, the explosion, itself, might be enough to do her in."
"Who would have thought," Harry said with a smirk, "death by a rack of lamb!"
Dumbledore looked gobsmacked at the two.
"I'll have the twins to cook up the explosive," Harry told Dumbledore, "so just have your spy handy with the poison and fresh meat."
"Well, then," Dumbledore said, "allow me to tell you both about Voldemort's recent health problems."
Harry was standing in the back of the WWW with Fred and George, where he was speaking of his requirements.
"Hmmmm," George hummed, "Potassium Permanganate should do the trick for the fuses, but we'll need to waterproof them, probably with some thin tallow-based wax that won't react, but will dissolve with the acid. The, er, explosives will have to be bound to the phial so they can't be separated. How big of an explosion is required?
"As big as you can get in a small package, and about the size of a small phial."
"Let us work that out, Harry," Fred stated, "and give us about a week.
"Now, allow us to show you our new shield hats..."
"So, dear, that has been my week," Harry said.
Daphne was looking at her husband and was slack-jawed. He had been busy, she knew that now, and he had started by telling her Kreacher's tale, which made her feel sorry for the old elf.
"You think one's here?"
Here, Harry nodded and took a huge gulp of his stout.
"When will you be in the castle to look for it?"
"Hopefully, the coming week," Harry replied. "Dumbledore is becoming sicker from the curse."
"Really?"
"Yes," Harry said, "and he seems to think that he hasn't much longer to live; maybe to this spring."
"Oh, Harry," Daphne worriedly said, "what will the students do?"
"If we can't end You-Know-Who by then," Harry remarked, "he might make his move on the ministry and the school. Dumbledore told us that he has asked Snape to ask for his position if that were to occur and that Snape promised to secretly look out for the students the best that he can, which, I presume, won't be much. They'll never allow Minerva, Horace, nor Filius to have the job."
"What is holding everything up?" Daphne questioned.
"Killing You-Know-Who's snake, Nagini, and she is up to Severus to dispose of."
Here, Daphne sighed. "Are we ready to go?"
"Yes," Harry said, "let me pay our bill."
Harry paid Rosmerta their bill, and the two began walking down through Hogsmeade toward Honeydukes when a vile voice cackled out.
"Itty bitty Potter and his whore; just who I was looking for," Bellatrix screeched as she dropped her hood. "Are you ready to play?" Here, Bellatrix drew a dagger from her cloak.
As fast as lightning, Daphne's arm came past Harry's from behind, and from her wand came a sickly yellow curse, which hit Bellatrix mid-abdomen.
Bellatrix dropped the dagger, now wide-eyed and mouthed, before she dropped to the cobblestone street, and threw a right tantrum, with wailing, feet stomping, and fist pounding.
"You've killed me, you dirty whore!" Bellatrix shouted for all to hear. "I will kill you!"
"Stay behind me," Harry said, who was holding the Mayhaw wand, which he gave a flick. From the tip shot a gust of air at hurricane speeds, which bowled the now-standing Bellatrix over, and sent her tumbling down the street a good fifty feet.
"I disown you, Bellatrix Black, from the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. This I say, and this I do," Harry said and his house ring flashed.
"If you so much as move, Bellatrix, I will end your sorry life here. I'm not the 'ickle bitty boy' you met at the ministry! I will lop off your head as soon as to look at you!"
Bellatrix turned on the spot and disapparated.
After Daphne came to herself, she hugged her husband tight.
"What curse did you use?" Harry asked.
"The Twat Rot," Daphne mumbled into his chest, which made him smirk. Bellatrix was aimed toward a very painful, irreversible, and slow death over the next month. Harry was rather proud of his wife at the moment, and, he thought, that revenge was best served cold.
A/N: Thanks for all the reviews!