Disclaimer: Nope. Still don't own him or her or any of the other things in this story you know I stol…umm, borrowed, yeah, borrowed, let's go with that. The brilliant story plot is mine though, I thought that up.

The Big Surprise

Okay, so I lied a little bit. Yes, if I tried to change one element into another, I would get a mushroom, but if I wanted, I could transmute bronze back into its constituent parts of copper and tin, or vice versa. Any alloy or compound actually. As long as I wasn't trying to split or fuse atoms, I was fine.

I didn't need to tell them that though.

While they were still trying to get their brains working, I glanced up at one of the shelves and saw something interesting. "Hey, Hat! How about sorting me?"

"It's what I do, young lady." It answered.

I levitated it down silently, with only one minor slip. It was a slightly higher-level spell and took a bit of concentration over anything I'd done so far tonight, and the practice couldn't hurt. I slipped it on my head. "Hi!" I thought cheerfully. "I hope you have a name because it seems awfully rude to keep calling you Hat."

"I'm rather partial to Clarence, thank you very Great Founders you're…"

"Yeah, I know, and I'd prefer you didn't spread that around just yet. I'm also a man."

"No, you're not."

"The hell you say!"

"I do say. It's just as you discovered: you are a woman."

"Not if I have anything to say about it."

"You don't appear to. This…Spooky…as you call him, it, seems to have taken quite care of that."

"Damn it."

"As you told the Dungeon Bat…suck it up. Anyone who can save your life after your heart has been pushed out of your body through you spinal column, shove you into another body, even if it is a woman, give you power such as I've never heard of and drop you into a world out of books you have read, is not someone I would believe you wish to have angry with you."

"Did Godric give you that personality or did you just grow into it?"

"I believe I have done quite well with it, and you are too old to sort into a house."

"Oh, come on! I only missed the deadline by three hundred and twenty-six years."

"I guess it wouldn't hurt to at least look at where you might have ended up."

"I was thinking Slytherclaw."

"What!? There's no such house!"

"Raverin?"

"No!"

"You've got a lousy sense of humor."

"You try sticking your mind into the heads of thousands of pre-pubescent brats and see how much humor you have. And no, I can't tell you what I've seen in any of them."

"Didn't want you too. I just wanted to ask if you could tell me what you know of Dumbledore, what you've seen of him from up on your perch."

"Let me just say the man is no more of the Light than I'm a full set of robes."

"That bad?"

"In all my centuries sitting on a shelf observing the people who have occupied this office, I have never seen one as slimy, manipulative, self-centered, narcissistic, dismissive, controlling, self-serving, power hungry, dishonest, perverted…"

"The goat thing is actually true?"

"Don't stop at goats. If it belongs in a barnyard and is male, he's up for it."

"MALE!?"

"He is gay, you know."

"I thought that was for Grindelwald."

"He calls them all Gellert."

"Oh, God… Wait. How do you know that? He doesn't…not in here!"

"He does have a mastery in Transfiguration you know. Usually in his bed chamber, just up that little flight of stairs there."

"That's enough."

"Fortunately, I'm turned so I can't see up the stairs most of the time."

"Clarence…"

"But, oh the things I have to listen to."

"Do you want me to give you to the Weasley twins and tell them you were contemplating telling their mother about some of the things you saw in their heads?"

"…? That's low."

"Look inside my head and see just how much lower I can go."

"And you say I have no sense of humor."

"So do you think he's setting Harry up for failure when he meets Riddle?"

"He's never said anything out loud, but I'd bet he's imminently capable of it. And what makes you think Riddle is your target?"

"What?"

"What makes you think Riddle is your target? Spooky said 'He', not Riddle by name and young Potter is apparently already set against him by fate and prophecy."

"…" "…" "Shite. Does he have a horcrux?"

"What's a Horcr…Oh…Oh, damn, that's a nasty piece of work."

"Yeah. Think he's got one?"

"Based on his aversion to killing anyone, I'd say no, but if he could justify it under that 'for the greater good' saying of his, who knows?"

"Crap. Thank you so very fricking much for not spoiling my so thoroughly rotten evening."

"You're welcome."

"Well, Poppy is here so I better say goodbye. Been nice talking to you."

"Don't you want to be sorted?"

"You didn't want to put me where I wanted to go and I'm to chicken to be a Gryff and too much of an ass to be a Puff."

"But you're too old to be sorted, remember?"

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"Heh, heh!"

"Don't! Don't you dare!"

I ripped the hat off my head just as it shouted "Gryffinpuff!... Or Huffledor, whichever."

I turned it so I could look it in the face. "Really? Gryffinpuff?"

It chuckled at my indignation. "Tell me I don't have a sense of humor, will you?"

"Humor this, why don't you?" I flung it upwards and levitated it back to its place on the shelf…facing the door to Dumbledore's bed chamber.

I heard a muffled 'Damnit' come from its direction. I smiled.

"You had an argument with the Sorting Hat?"

Hermione's voice sounded incredulous at such a thing. I chuckled. "Yeah, but it cheats, that whole 'it can read your mind' thing". I glanced over to where Poppy Pomphrey was waving her wand at Harry.

"Miss R'vensBl'ud." Madam Bones asked, sounding a little vexed at how the evening was going with my seeming lack of attention to what she wanted to know. "Can you tell me how you seem to know so much about what has occurred tonight? As the Headmaster has noted, someone with the knowledge you've shown would almost certainly be counted as a suspect in what happened to Mister Potter and this so-called resurrection of the Dark Lord."

I turned and grinned at her. "You mean Voldemort?" All of the adults reacted in some way to the name. I almost laughed. "I read all about it in a book."

"What book could possibly tell you what happened tonight?" Dumbledore asked.

"The Tales of Peter Cotto…" I groaned and dropped my head against the back of my chair in frustration. "Come on, damnit! It's just a book! Do you think they'd even believe me?"

"Well, whether anyone believes anything, I'm finished with Mister Potter, Albus." Poppy had turned to the headmaster. "Various cuts and bruises, and lingering aftereffects of the Cruciatus but I gave him a potion for that curse, and he should be fine in a couple of days."

"Thank you, Poppy." The old man replied. "That should be all I believe."

Time to drop my bombshell. "Madam Pomphrey? Before you go, could you check my magical core? I've done some very high-level spells tonight and I'm feeling a bit woozy."

"Certainly, my dear." The medi-witch said as she pointed her wand at me and spoke an incantation. I levitated one of Dumbledore's knick-knacks over my hands, to the man's obvious displeasure, rotating it in the air as she looked a little confused at the results before she did it again.

Dumbledore noticed. "Poppy, is there something wrong?"

She waved a hand at him as if telling him to be quiet, then started a third incantation, a different one.

I was grinning as Hermione leaned over to me. "Esbet, what's going on?"

Dumbledore heard her. "Yes, Poppy, what's going on?"

"She doesn't have a core." The elderly woman mumbled in consternation and a touch of disbelief.

"What?" came from both Snape and Bones, while Dumbledore's eyes widened considerably.

"I said she doesn't have a core!" Poppy exclaimed.

"You mean she's a squib?" Bones asked.

"No!" Poppy exclaimed again. "I mean she's a muggle!"

I grinned widely at a still wide-eyed Headmaster. "I told you I wasn't a witch." I told him, as the gadget spun in the air above the tip of my finger.

"But she's doing magic!" Bones declared, pointing at the floating knick-knack.

"No, she's not." Poppy replied with a shake of her head and a confused look. "I don't know what she's doing, or how, but without a core it's not magic."

"Sorcery." Hermione almost breathed out in a wide-eyed, fascinated way.

I saw Dumbledore's eyes go from surprised to speculative…and felt/heard a click in my head.

My headache had just been taken care of.

Like magic, sorcery had a form of mind reading. Unlike legillemency however, which was relatively easy to do and mostly danger free, it is a time-consuming, exhausting and dangerous thing to do. Both the subject and the sorcerer had to sit within a ritual circle, gazing into each other's eyes for a long time as the sorcerer slowly maneuvered their way into the subject's mind. Even with a willing and helpful subject, it was far too easy to damage or even destroy the subject's mind because of the amount of power being used. The sorcerer had to have a fine degree of control over the power they used to move into and within the mind.

If you wanted to fry someone's mind however, you just blast your way in.

As hard as it was to do a mind link however, it was ridiculously easy to enter another's mind if they provided you a pathway…such as the mental probe Dumbledore had just pushed into my mind. I figured the old fart would try something like that the moment he realized I wasn't magical, therefore having no occlumency or defenses to stop him, or even detect he was there.

There was just one itsy bitsy problem with that plan…he was wrong. I did have defenses which could detect just such a probe and he had just triggered it.

Imagine a thick stone block…that's my mind. Imagine a hole big enough to stick your head into…that's the way into my mind. Now, imagine large pointy hooks imbedded around the perimeter of the hole. On the back of the shank on these hooks are long pointed needle-sharp rods. These are the trap Dumbledore had stuck his mind into. Upon triggering the trap, the hooks had sprung down and punctured the fabric of his probe, preventing him from withdrawing it. The rods, however, pierced his probe in the other direction, preventing him from going any further in. While the description was metaphorical, it still meant the same thing: he wasn't going anywhere until I let him.

Like slipping into a river, I slid my consciousness into his probe and began swimming upstream. Protected by the probe, the extension of his own mind, I moved past his defenses and found myself in… Hogwarts.

Figures. He knows the place like the back of his hand, and with just a little imagination he'd have literally millions of places to store his memories. As I leisurely wandered in the direction of his office, I would open the odd classroom door, finding everyday mundane items stored in each: parchment work needing done for the school, grocery lists of items he needed from Hogsmeade, songs he remembered, books he had enjoyed.

I felt shudders through the castle as I moved, signs of the old man trying to escape and return to stop me. I hope he didn't try too hard; he'd likely shred his own mind.

I really wasn't looking for anything important. There were too many ways to hide information like that: turn the memories into the very stone of the castle, make hidden rooms with no entrances or exits that only he knew where to look to find them. He'd had decades to perfect this place and I didn't have the time to look for them and just blasting my way through would leave him a drooling occupant of the Janus Thickey ward at St. Mungo's, keeping Lockhart company. As much as I would like to do that, I had no real proof he deserved it and it would cause me too much trouble anyway.

As I approached his office, the gargoyle, a lot uglier with larger claws and even sharper, pointier teeth, leapt at me with a roar, arms outstretched to rend and tear.

It exploded into a cloud of black ash at the first touch of my hand, the castle shaking like a minor earthquake had hit it. I wasn't kidding when I said how dangerous I could be in someone else's mind.

I entered the office and looked around at the prior Heads of Hogwarts as they started to climb out of their frames, wands in hand. "You know what I just did to the gargoyle, don't you?" They hesitated, then, one by one, eased back into their frames. "I won't be long, and this should only hurt a little bit." I reached out with my hand towards the desk and began writing on its top with my fingertip. I felt the floor shivering as I burned letters into the wood. When I was finished, I stepped back to read what I had written: TRY THAT AGAIN AND I'LL TURN YOUR MIND INTO GROUND MEAT.

Pleased with my accomplishment I turned to leave, trying very hard to ignore the sounds of bleating sheep and goats and the braying of a donkey as I closed the door behind me.

It was much faster returning to my own mind. I removed my trap then sat and smirked at Dumbledore as I watched him sag back into his seat, raising his hands to his temples. Damn right he had a headache.

Poppy noticed. "Are you alright, Albus?" She, like everyone else, hadn't noticed my little trip through the headmaster's mind, it had taken such a short time.

"I'm fine, Poppy. Just a slight headache from tonight's events. You may go."

She departed, giving me a curious glance as she shut the door and Hermione immediately jumped on the biggest question in the room. "You're a mundane?"

"Yes, I am, and it's sorcery, not magic." I looked over at Snape sitting on his stool. "The next time you see Riddle, you can tell him what you like about me when he asks, and he will, but if you could manage to not tell him I'm not magical I'd appreciate it. He already doesn't like me."

"Riddle?"

"You mean dear old Albus hasn't told you?" I asked at his confused look, glancing over at the man himself.

"Miss R'vensBl'ud." he stated huffily. "That information does not need to be spread around."

I sneered as I turned back to Snape. "Tom Marvolo Riddle, Voldemort's real name, son of Tom Riddle, a mundane, and Merope Gaunt, an inbred pureblood witch, last of the line of Slytherin. She died in childbirth, Tommy boy killed daddy."

"Miss R'vensBl'ud!" I turned my gaze back to an irate sounding Headmaster. "I told you that information didn't need to be spread around."

"I heard you." I replied. "I ignored you, but I did hear you. Besides, it's a bit late now. I told everybody at the cemetery in Little Hangleton," I looked to my side at Amelia, "the site of Riddle's resurrection. One of those people was Lucius Malfoy. The git was too stupid to even leave his mask on. You can probably get the rest of the names from Harry's memory." I told her as I pulled my stick from my belt.

"What's that?" Amelia asked, pointing at the stick.

I held it up to show her. "It's a stick." I replied, as I proceeded to stick it down the back of my collar to scratch an itch I knew I couldn't reach with my hand. Fortunately, there was no bra strap to get in the way.

Oh crap! I'm not wearing a bra and I thought about it so casually. I may kill myself just so I can meet that SOB again and kick his ass!

Yeah, right! Look how well that went last time!

Curiosity satisfied; Amelia turned to Harry. "Mister Potter, would I be able to get a memory of what happened tonight?"

"I'm afraid I can't allow that just yet, Amelia." Dumbledore interrupted. "As Harry's magical guardian…"

"You're not." I did a little interrupting myself as the two of them turned to look at me, Amelia in surprise, Dumbledore in irritation. "You illegally sealed the Potters wills so the named guardians in them couldn't have him, but I will bet every secret you have your name isn't one of them. Frank and Alice Longbottom, yes, Sirius Black, yes, possibly Remus Lupin, maybe even Minerva McGonagall and Amelia Bones, but for damn sure not yours. And you know damn good and well there is a statement in there to the effect he was never to go to the Dursleys'."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Snape sit upright, eyes widening as he looked at the headmaster, before looking at Harry. His eyes narrowed as he looked back at the older man.

So, the old man never told him where he'd hidden him away, hmm? I thought. That was interesting. Maybe not so much the spoiled little prince after all, eh, Snape?

"Is this true, Albus?" Amelia didn't sound happy at all.

"Now, Amelia, there are things in those wills that can do irreparable harm to our society, especially now that Voldemort is back. For the Greater Good I had to seal them away."

"And so, the Lesser Good has to suffer the consequences of your decisions." I cast out at him, once again gaining everyone's attention. "They get no say in what is to happen to them because the great Albus Dumbledore is all seeing and all knowing, picking and choosing who benefits from his decisions, and who doesn't, who lives and who dies." I cocked my head at him. "Who made you the arbiter of life? I doubt anyone in this room declared that you could make life determining decisions for them. Whether they would live…or die."

By his glowering scowl I knew I'd really riled the old man up. No grandfatherly figure here. "That is a detestable accusation to make." He gritted out through clenched teeth as he leaned over the desk. "Unconscionable, unfounded, and untrue. I will not sit here and be accused of such a horrid action."

"Didn't stop you years ago to decide that Harry had to die to defeat Riddle though, did it?"

That made everyone sit up and take notice, Harry and Hermione with cries of "What?" Snape coming to his feet as Amelia gasped in shock, the old man with a shocked expression that lasted just long enough to look at Harry before changing to righteous anger as his gaze snapped back to me even as he came to his feet. "How dare you?" he practically roared. "How dare you baselessly accuse me of such a thing?"

"What was it?" I started. "Did you go 'Oh my, poor little Harry has a piece of Tom's soul in his head. That means Tom can come back and since I can't remove it, according to the prophecy…"

Dumbledore's expression immediately morphed from outrage to concern. After all, I'd just outed two of his biggest secrets. "Be quiet!"

"…he'll have to die…"

"I said silence!"

"…in order to finally defeat Tom."

"NO MORE!" his arm came up, wand in hand…

"Pull. Byumm."

If I wasn't such a sneaky bastard, I'd have felt sorry for Dumbledore, but I was so I didn't. I mean, I'd been sitting with my stick pointed at him almost from the moment I'd pulled it from my belt. It's not my fault he thought it wasn't a proper wand, therefore harmless.

If he could, I'm sure Albus would have been astounded at how easily his wand leapt into my hand. He probably was, after all, my Statue spell didn't turn him to stone or anything like that. It merely locked his muscles into the position they were in when he was hit with it, which I had always wondered about the petrificus totalis spell of the books. It left you like an unwrapped mummy: arms rigid by your sides, straight up and down to let you fall flat on your face or crack open the back of your head.

I looked at the wand I'd just caught as Amelia gaped at the frozen Dumbledore and Snape reached out to touch him, the kids staring at him with wide eyes. About a foot long it had a series of five globular berries along its length, larger towards the rear and diminishing towards the tip. Huh. The Elder Wand. The Death Stick. I wonder what happened when it tried to connect with a non-magical person.

"Is he alright?" a question interrupted my musings.

"Hmm?" I looked up at Amelia and then the frozen old man, half leaning over his desk, arm raised, beard hanging down. "Oh, yeah. He'll be fine, he just can't move. He can think, hear, breathe, feel, his heart beats, his blood flows, and all of that is just going to piss him off because he has to stand there and do nothing but listen as I give away a few of his precious secrets."

"Like, what you meant about a prophecy?" Harry asked.

"Or what you meant about him having a piece of Tom Riddle's soul in his head?" Hermione asked, indicating Harry.

"Or how the man could survive to be resurrected?" From the other side of me came Amelia's inquiry.

"Yes, to all of those." I replied. "But first, I'm going to have to fix something. Professor Snape, you're a master occlumens, correct?" Hey, he's a dick but I'd already showed him who was boss. I could afford to give him another chance.

He nodded and I turned to Amelia. "How about you?"

"I have been for years." She answered. "Why?"

"Because even though the old man hoards information from even people who need it to survive, this time he has a good reason. So, what I'm about to tell you doesn't leave this room." I stood up. "Since these two young people don't have occlumency, they need protection."

"But what can you do for them?" Her brow furrowed as she tried to think of what I could possibly do for them.

I looked at Snape. "What do you think he did the moment he found out I wasn't magical?" I nodded at Dumbledore.

He snorted. "Read your mind to find out everything about…" he suddenly straightened, his face turning contemplative as he stared at the frozen man. "No. He tried to read your mind!" He turned back to me, curious wonder on his face now. "That headache he had earlier. You stopped him somehow."

I smirked back at him. "Gave him a spanking he won't forget for a while." I looked down at the two teenagers. "That's what I want to give you two. You won't have to know how to do anything, it's all automatic. It's a mind trap. It will stop any probe into your mind, trap whoever is trying to read your mind, and allow you to decide whether to hold them while you interrogate them, let them go, or destroy them."

The two's eyes widened at that last statement, and of course it was Hermione who asked the question. "What do you mean 'destroy'?"

I knew my smile wasn't pleasant looking at all. "Using their probe as a leverage point, you'll be able to draw in as little or as much of their consciousness as you want and shred it. Think of it as a woodchipper."

Both of them turned a little pale as Amelia spoke up. "What's a woodchipper?"

"It's a large muggle machine used when trees are cut down or trimmed." Snape told her. "You throw the branches, and even small logs, into the back of it into a set of spinning cutters and it spits out small chips of wood. There have even been accidents where workers got to close and got pulled into it." He looked over at the headmaster. "If Albus did attempt a mind probe on her, he should be grateful she seems to be very tolerant."

I saw the woman had paled as well at his description as I looked back down at the teenagers. "So." I stated. "Do I give you a defense for your mind, or ask you to leave?"

Harry spoke up immediately in a resolute voice. "I'm staying."

"Was that headache thing you did on the way here what you're talking about?" asked Hermione. At my nod she got a determined expression. "Then I'm for it."

I nodded, did the motions to gather the power I needed, which was ridiculously easy in this place, spoke "Ya'hatai!", placed my fingertips on her temples, and released the spell.

She twitched with a gasp. "Whoa!"

A concerned Amelia asked, "Miss Granger?"

"I felt that!" the girl exclaimed. "It felt weird."

"Kind of like a click, as if someone tried to flick your forehead, but hit your brain instead?" I asked. At her nod, I continued. "Then you're set. If you feel that again while looking at someone's eyes, they just tried to probe your mind and got caught. Don't look away or you could do quite a bit of damage. You can think at them and communicate, release them by thinking it, or think about pulling their probe into your mind and shredding it. Do enough of that and they'll need a whole lot of reeducation."

"Personality death?" she squeaked, eyes wide at the implications.

I nodded. "Change your mind? I'll remove it if you want."

She bit her lower lip for a moment, then shook her head.

"Right." I turned to the young man. "Mister Potter?"

He nodded in a determined fashion. "I want to know. But what happens if there's someone we want to let read our mind, for whatever reason?"

I shrugged. "Come see me, or tell them about it, let them in and trigger it, let them go and then start again." I explained. "It's a one-time thing. As long as they don't struggle against it, it doesn't do any harm."

He nodded. "I'm ready." I performed the spell. "I see what you mean." He said when I finished, looking at Hermione.

I leaned back against Dumbledore's desk. "Okay, now that we're all protected, answers." I turned to the young man. "Harry, you've asked him," I nodded at Dumbledore, "why Riddle came after you, haven't you?"

"Yeah." He replied, with a glance at the old man. "He never told me, just said I was too young, that I should enjoy my childhood."

"Well, it's because of a prophecy, one given to him by your alcoholic Divination professor." I explained. "Yeah. Hard to believe, isn't it?" I said when I saw the disbelief in their faces. "Anyway, what it boils down to is someone born at the end of July, to someone who has defied him three times, marked by the Dark Lord as his equal, will come that can vanquish him with a power he knows not. Not will vanquish him but can. One of you has to kill the other because neither of you can live while the other survives."

"Shite." Harry said, as he sagged in his chair, a stricken look on his face.

Hermione said nothing about his language, merely reached over and took his hand in comfort.

"Yeah, sorry about that." I sighed. "Kinda sucks, but Albus, being the brilliant leader of the light that he is, and having flunked out of first year divination, immediately took the prophecy to the Department of Mysteries and gave it to the experts to decide what it meant…oh… wait, no he didn't. He decided somewhere along the line he was the greatest wizard since Merlin, the prophecy was given to him, and he was the only one with the brilliance to understand what it meant. So, he set out to use it to set it up so Harry could defeat Riddle. Or get killed by Riddle and then he would defeat him. Either way it was a win-win for him."

"Damn it, Albus!" Amelia exclaimed heatedly at the frozen man. "Even I know you should never try to manipulate a prophecy!"

"But how did Riddle find out about it to decide to kill Harry before he could become a threat?" Hermione asked.

"One of his spies overheard the first half of it before he got chased away." I explained, carefully not looking at the corner where Snape sat on his stool.

"No need to debate which outcome he wants." Snarled Harry in a sharp-edged voice. "No special training, not even knowing about magic until I'm eleven, refusing even to tell me about things that directly affect my life. Well, fuck you very much, old man!"

I grinned. I liked him. If I could get both teens to not trust the old fart, we might just make Riddle dead a lot sooner and save them a lot of pain and hardship. Not to mention save a lot of lives. "Yes, well that's nothing to why he thinks you have to die." I had everyone's attention with that statement. "It's about what's in Harry's head and how Riddle was able to be resurrected. The two are connected, and it's called a horcrux."

"That's what you were singing about earlier, isn't it?" Amelia asked. "That's why Albus didn't want you to talk about it."

"Yes, it is." I agreed. "It's about as dark as you can go in magic and Riddle made several. What it is, is a ritual murder of an innocent to split the soul and put a piece of it into a prepared vessel called a 'soul jar'. It anchors the spirit to this plane in the event of death so it can be resurrected with a proper ritual, such as the one Riddle performed tonight."

Amelia looked at me in horror. "He did that multiple times?"

"He would." Snape murmured from his corner. "He would not be content to trust his existence to just one."

"And you think Harry is one." Hermione spoke up. "In his head, probably his scar."

"Weeellll," I started, rocking my hand back and forth, "that's kind of iffy."

"What do you mean? Is he, or isn't he?" Amelia wanted to know.

"Oh, I'm pretty certain he's got a soul piece in his head," I replied, "but I'm not certain he's a horcrux."

"Doesn't your…book, tell you?" asked Snape.

I looked at him, not quite certain if he was being snarky and sarcastic or not. "It has a lot of addendums."

Once again Hermione spoke up. "You said a 'prepared vessel'. Riddle didn't have time to do anything like that to Harry. He went there to kill him, not turn him into one of these soul jars."

"Then how did a piece of his soul get into Harry's head?" Amelia asked.

I heaved a sigh. "I don't know. Best guess? Whatever Lily did to protect him somehow interacted with it, trapped and encased it against the magic protecting him. That's why I don't think he's a horcrux because it's not acting like one."

"How would you know how one acts?" Snape actually sounded curious.

"Remember the diary, Harry?"

He looked up at me. "Kind of hard to forget."

Amelia looked interested. "What diary?"

"Two years ago, Lucius Malfoy slipped Riddle's diary from when he was a student back in the 40's into Ginny Weasley's pile of books before she came to Hogwarts. It was blank so she thought her father gave it to her and began writing in it. It wrote back."

Her eyes widened. "Oh, shite!" Obviously, she was aware of Arthur Weasley's admonition about not trusting anything if you didn't know where its brain was.

"Yeah. Long story short, it gave her advice, talked like a friend, possessed her and eventually began to drain her life force in order to regain a body. Harry tracked her down to the Chamber of Secrets where he had to kill a 60-foot-long basilisk, that was controlled by the shade that was forming, with the sword of Gryffindor…"

"Thanks, Hat." Harry called out.

"Happy to help." Came the reply from up on the shelf.

"…got bit in the process and almost died before Fawkes cried into the wound, stabbed the diary with the broken off tooth he'd taken out of the wound and destroyed it with the venom from it, one of only two ways I'm aware of to destroy a horcrux."

Both Amelia and Snape were staring at Harry, she openly gaping at him, he with a look of concentration that gave away nothing of what he was thinking. "Merlin!" she exclaimed. "The Chamber of Secrets? A 60-foot basilisk? Killing it with a sword? What the hell is going on in this school?" she demanded.

"Albus only said he'd killed one, not how large it was, or how." Snape looked again at the frozen headmaster. "Another of his secrets." He turned his gaze back to the teenager. "Mister Potter, how is it you have never spoken of this?"

The young man shrugged. "It didn't seem important at the time. Ginny was alive and I didn't want her to be blamed for everything Tom had made her do, Hermione was still petrified and he," he nodded at Dumbledore, "had Lockhart as a scapegoat."

"So," I said, trying to get the conversation back on track, "That horcrux started trying to get a body as soon as it could. Another one will do the same thing to these two in the future if the timeline goes according to the book."

Both kids sat up straight at that little declaration, eyes widening in worry, if not fear.

"Horcruxes are beguiling, persuasive, ready to play on your dreams and fears to get what they want." I pointed at Harry. "However, he has had a soul shard lodged in his head for over a decade and it's done nothing but give him headaches when Riddle is close by and the occasional vision of what is going on with the man at various times. That doesn't sound like a horcrux to me."

"How many of these things did he make?"

"Five, one of which, the diary, has already been destroyed. Then there's Harry, and he'll make one more out of his familiar, a large snake."

"He split his soul that many times?" I could hear the disgust and horror in Amelia's voice as she asked the question.

"Seven." Snape said. "A powerful magic number, but he is unaware one is destroyed."

"Yeah, about that." I sighed. "I screwed up tonight and told him Lucius had lost it."

"Whyever did you do that if we need to destroy them?" an indignant sounding Snape asked.

"I had just arrived, I was way outnumbered, I was trying to distract him away from Harry, and admit it, Malfoy is a wuss who deserves whatever kind of punishment Riddle gave him for getting one of his toys broken. How could I pass up a chance like that?"

I could see a big grin on Harry as he contemplated the fate of a man he detested, Hermione was trying not to show one of the same and Amelia had a little smile that was way too smug, so I guessed they weren't too pissed at what I'd done.

"You said basilisk venom was one of two ways to destroy these things." Said Amelia, whether or not it was an intentional attempt to deflect the subject. "What's the other?"

"Fiendfyre."

She facepalmed. "Oh, crap." She groaned. "Are they that hard to destroy? Wouldn't your little disintegrating thing work?"

"Maybe, but we're talking soul magic here and I don't know if my sorcery would destroy the soul shard or just release it from the container as that vanished. I'm a little leery of finding out what a loose soul shard would do in that circumstance. Better to talk to the goblins and see what they can do."

"Not the Unspeakables?"

I could understand her thinking, buuut… "Admit it. If they got Harry down there with that thing in his head, he might never come out again even if they did manage to get it out without killing him. That doesn't even consider the fact they may want to examine an actual piece of a soul and not want to destroy it, leaving Riddle alive and kicking. Not a good idea.

The goblins, however, have some of the best curse breakers in the world, they hate the damn things for a variety of reasons and they're going to go apeshite when they find out they have one in their bank."

"In the bank?"

"Yeah, in the LeStrange vault," I explained, "which is going to make the goblins really unhappy, and protected by a bunch of curses on other items with it, which will just make their whole day. I'll talk to them and see if they'll help with it."

I turned my attention to Amelia once again. "You, however, need to set up surveillance on the Malfoy estate. Riddle enjoys his comforts and lording over his followers and if he wants to rule over Malfoy, doing it in his own home would double the insult. It's probably a good idea to put someone on watch at the old Riddle estate in Little Hangleton as well. He won't want to stay there, the place is a dump, but since nobody seems to know who he really is, it would be the last place he would expect anyone to look for him."

She nodded in understanding. "And the soul jars?"

"We'll start collecting them soon, but we need Sirius Black to get one of them, so we need that kiss-on-sight order rescinded and a trial for him so he can. It also wouldn't hurt if you talked to Saul Croaker in the DoM about them. Might need a backup plan if the goblins don't want to cooperate."

Her left eyebrow quirked upward in surprise. "How did Black get one and how do you know Croaker?"

"Short answer, his brother Regulus decided Riddle wasn't what he wanted everyone to believe he was and when he found out about the soul jars and where one was, he stole it and sent it home with a house elf, before the protections for it killed him."

There was a gasp from behind me and I heard a whispered "Reg…" I turned to see Snape looking pensive. He saw me looking. "I knew him. He was a friend. We thought the dark lord had killed him."

I turned back to Amelia, who had stood up. "Right. Get rid of the kiss, get a trial, if we can get in contact with Black to let him know to show up for it, talk with Croaker and convince Cornelius that if we have two dead men sitting in my holding cells very much alive, there's a damn good chance of there being a third one running around."

I grinned at her. "If we can get his trinkets gathered up quickly enough, we should be able to make him dead a lot sooner than he would like, I'm sure. Just be careful of any sympathizers in your department."

Her face darkened as she scowled at me. "You think I have traitors on my force?"

"You think you don't?"

She regarded me very intently for several seconds. Then she nodded and turned towards the door. "Stick around, I'll keep in touch."

Snape stood as well, with a significant glance at Dumbledore. "I'll take care of him." I told him. He nodded and followed Amelia out the door.

I turned to the two teenagers. "Why don't you two head up the tower but meet me in front of the tapestry of the dancing trolls on the seventh floor."

Of course, it was Hermione who asked the question. "Why?"

"We need to talk and there's something I want to show you." I said quietly, lest the old man overhear. "So, go on and I'll see you soon."

They both nodded and departed, leaving me with the only other occupant in the room: the headmaster statue.

A/N: No, I did not write this story just so I could slap Dumbledore around…but it's a good excuse to do so. Fun, too. With more to come. Hope you like it.

Tork01: Umm, thanks for the comment about Narcissa, but could you tell me what continent you live on so I can move to another, any other, because if you ever decide to become a Dark Lord, I want to be on the other side of the planet from you? Thanks. And they call me evil!

Keht-Jelicho: Maaayyyybeee.

W0lfgang: Toe-may-to, toe-mah-to. I just think -ph- is more upper-class English than just -f-, and it's my story in my AU so it's going to be 'Pomphrey'. Besides, Jo may be the one who misspelled it. Did you ever think of that? Huh?

Shivers82: Or maybe quivering in anticipation?

Cam1812: It's Esbet. 'Ez-bet'. Please get it right from now on. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.