CHAPTER 72: Irreconcilable Differences (Part 4)
The Buried Gnome
February 20th, 1996
4:45 a.m.
Of all the pubs Harry had been forced to visit over the past couple of weeks, The Buried Gnome was by far the best of them. Built with strong Titus Oak walls that were clear of any holes or termites slowly eating it up, it was furnished with at least second-hand tables whose stains hadn't been there for more than a couple of weeks and stools that had legs of equal length. It wasn't the sort of pub for any deadbeat wannabe crook. In terms of people running from the DMLE, this was as pristine as it got.
Harry took a sip of his glass and retched at the taste. Two weeks of tasting piss-infused ale was far from enough time to acclimatise to the taste. He was sitting alone at the bar, trying to ignore the mingling odours of blood, corpses, and spilled drinks. It was a shame he was forced to rough up the place. The bastard had a lot more friends than Harry had expected. Then again, the lot of them seemed to have good money in their pockets. He'd make sure to leave it in the barkeep's pockets before he left, poor sod seemed somewhat nice. That and he didn't try to kill him like the last three fuckers. The money should be good for the cleaning bill and the concussion the healers would have to check him in for.
Just because he wasn't wearing his face didn't mean he could just let the arsehole go.
The man behind him groaned suddenly, and Harry could hear him struggle with the ropes that tied him to the shoddy chair. At least it saved him from having to revive him in a few minutes, he could feel his magic close to wearing out by now and couldn't risk letting his body shut down until after he was back home.
It was one thing to rationally know it would happen, to imagine the magic almost being sucked out of his body by Black's ill-fitted wand - a final fuck you from the fucker - and another to actually feel it. When Dumbledore had told him about the side effects, he hadn't realized just how debilitated they would leave him. It had only happened a couple of times before now, he'd crashed into the house Bedivere had set him up with feeling like a rotted-out body risen from the grave, and barely made it to the bed where he'd passed out for the better part of a day.
The first time he felt it, he had promised himself he wouldn't allow himself to fall to that level again. He'd carry more knives, more tools, even his own rope. He had learned how to do the knots himself while brushing up on the most efficient torture methods he could manage without the use of a wand or any sort of magic. Unfortunately, the first few times he'd asked for help on that subject in whatever shitty library he found first had brought the cops on him, especially when he'd also asked for books that taught rope knots. Because of course, people now suddenly gave a fuck when someone was getting tortured.
Either way, he had found what he needed in the strangest of places. A gangster film playing in a nearby theatre. People sure raised an eyebrow when someone asked for a book to help with torture, but they'd happily put the most creative methods in their own films. A couple of late-night marathons were all he had needed to get a few ideas. And here he'd been thinking he'd never learn anything outside Hogwarts.
Harry finished his pint, wishing it was as good as the shit in the Three Broomsticks before he turned around and stood up from his stool. And there he saw him, the bloodied mess that was Irwin Bunyip. The shittiest of everyone he had killed so far. A regular hire of the Knights of Walpurigs, they turned a blind eye to all the innocent people the bastard raped, murdered and butchered so long as he did his job. Even covering for him as a fucked up thank you gift for his loyalty to them. And his jobs were hardly benign in the first place. Murdering Eugenia Jenkins, the Minister for Magic when Voldemort first arrived on the scene, as well as threatening and torturing her successor Harold Minchum. And those were just the highlights of a very long and very fucked up career as a wand for hire.
And if Harry hadn't been pissed enough long before he arrived at the pub, the cunt was raving about the drunk muggle on the street he'd just killed not even two nights ago.
Irwin struggled harder as Harry slowly walked towards him, panting louder and louder, almost whimpering. He was scooting his chair backward, frenziedly trying to escape. But in his carelessness, Irwin lost his balance and fell to the floor, his hands breaking as the chair - and his body-weight - crashed on top of them.
When Harry reached him, he loomed over him, staring coldly down at the man, who by now had been reduced to tears, whimpers and incoherent pleas. But Harry ignored him, instead admiring his handy work. His jaw was broken, with six of his teeth torn from his mouth and one of his ears amputated. All his fingernails had been uprooted and one of his eyes had been gouged out.
It still wasn't enough.
Harry heaved the chair–and the man it– upright and clocked Irwin once in the face. His fist burned with the strike, and he was breathing hard, but it didn't stop it from feeling as satisfying as Firewhisky. And what was meant to be only one punch to shut him up turned into a full beatdown, turning his face into more and more of an unrecognisable mess until his hands were dripping with Irwin's blood and the man finally stopped mumbling.
Shaking his hands, trying to clean his knuckles of blood, Harry walked across the room and grabbed a chair. He pulled it all the way over to Irwin, letting the sound of it being trailed through the floor get louder and louder before he set it in front of the man. And when Harry sat down, he pulled out his hunter's knife from his back holster and stabbed it into Irwin's knee.
"AGHHHHH!" Irwin doubled over in agony, spitting out blood to the floor as his body shook from the pain.
"I'm going to ask you again," Harry said. His voice was as cold and emotionless as it always was nowadays. Like he felt nowadays. Nothing he felt was enough to fill the empty hole in him. Not the booze. Not the feeling of the bones of arseholes like this cracking under his fists. Nothing. He had been sleepwalking through this past week, functioning on nothing but alcohol, stubbornness, and wrath. "And I don't want any bullshit answers like 'I don't know' or 'suck my big fat cock you prepubescent shit'." Harry twisted the knife and Irwin screamed again. "Understood?"
"Yes!" He cried out, mumbling it over and over again.
"Where is Elijah Montague?"
"I don't know," Irwin whimpered, blood and snot dripping down his face. "I swear- please- I don't know anything-"
Harry ripped out the knife before jamming it back in again. And when Irwin wouldn't stop crying again, Harry slapped him. "You've been working with the Knights for over thirty years. Done more than a couple of errands for Montague personally. You know something. Maybe it's not where he is right now or where he'll be next. But you know."
"They don't tell me anything." Irwin rushed out. "We- we never meet at his place. Or his work. Or anywhere near him. It's always here. Or another shit pub. Or anywhere else that doesn't attract attention. Please. I swear. Please. Please. Don't hurt me anymore. Please."
Irwin had come a long way from the arrogant cunt he was when they first met, promising Harry he would kill him for murdering his friends and roughing him up. It took Irwin a little over a half hour to understand that he wasn't getting out of this alive. That Harry wasn't just some random kid trying to impress some gang leader or make a name for himself. That's when he started mouthing off about the Knights, their power, and how they would come after him and make him pay for killing one of their most useful allies.
If you think you're scarier than them, you're more delusional than I thought. Irwin had told him.
He hadn't mentioned the Knights in over two hours now.
Unfortunately, experience had taught him that someone who had undergone that massive shift - someone who he had managed to break as efficiently as he had with Irwin - wasn't lying when they told him they didn't know. When they were pleading for their lives, or worse, for a quick end. His work was done here. The fucker didn't know anything at all. It seemed that the Knights were as private as Yaxley had told him.
Still, it didn't hurt to torture the bastard.
Harry reached for his knife, still impaled in Irwin's leg before he hesitated as his fingers touched the handle. He looked up at the whimpering piece of shit in front of him. How many people had he killed because the Knights had paid him to do so? How many had he beaten and assaulted for shits and giggles? How many times had this worthless son of a bitch sprung a stiffy and picked some poor woman to molest? How many children?
Harry pulled out the knife, snarling as he did. He'd be fucked in the arse before letting a scumbag like this off with a bit of light punishment and a quick death. His heart was racing, beating so hard it hurt, and he started breathing heavily. He could feel the anticipation. Feel it as he began to yank down Irwin's trousers, and the man shat his pants in fear. As if all the anger he'd tried to bury was clawing upwards. That feeling of raw hatred, the need to inflict pain - to inflict torture and death so agonising it would have made the Dark Lord pale - the one that he had suppressed that night in Grimmauld Place. It wasn't stopping. Wasn't letting itself be tamed or subdued. It wanted blood. He wanted blood.
"Tell me, Irwin. When you killed Minister Jenkins," Harry said roughly, forcing down the man's underwear so hard, it ripped at the seams. "You also killed her nine-year-old daughter. Do you remember that?"
"Please," the man slobbered, convulsing in his seat, screaming, doing anything in a futile attempt to escape. "Ple- please. I promise you. I told you all I know. I swear. I swear. I don't know everything. PLEASEE! Please don't."
"I read the reports, Irwin. You raped her, didn't you?"
"PLEASE! MERCY PLEASE." Snot and spit flew everywhere as the man screamed as loud as he could.
"Did you force her?" Harry said coldly, so coldly it was almost scary how much like Graham he sounded. "Minister Jenkins. Did you force her to watch as you raped her nine-year-old daughter?"
"I'M SORRY! I'M SO SORRY! MERCY PLEASE! I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING. I WON'T DO ANYTHING AGAIN. PLEASE. BELIEVE ME. I WON'T. I'LL LEAVE. I'LL NEVER DO ANYTHING AGAIN."
"I believe you, Irwin," Harry said, pressing the knife against the man's flaccid cock. "I just don't care."
37 Castle Hill Road
9:15 a.m.
The sun had been up for a few hours by the time Harry made it back to his jolly abode. It was a nice house, expensive, the type the Dursleys would have creamed their pants at. Three floors, each the size of two large houses, it was a place big enough for six people to live in comfortably. Harry only needed the kitchen and the sofa in the living room.
He'd made a mess of the place in the short while he'd been there, and if it hadn't been for Kreacher, the floor would be overflowing with half-finished food and rubbish by this point. Setting himself up mostly in the living room, he used it as his base of operations, even installing his own murder board with all the information Yaxley had given him the other day. And besides the marathons he did while recuperating himself and his magic, eating whatever food Kreacher forced onto him - though at least it was good food - and sleeping, Harry rarely spent time in the house.
Not with Regulus' presence.
Harry didn't know why he had been so insistent on bringing him here. He could have easily stayed in the dungeons at Parkinson Palace, keeping an eye on his old friend and fellow defector Augustus Rookwood. Bedivere had been surprised when they'd found out about their pre-existing relationship, commending Harry for having the foresight to bring the painting. Apparently, Rookwood had been the one to snap Regulus out of the Voldemort craze he was in and get him to turn after the Kreacher-locket ordeal. Regulus had seemed genuinely sad at his old friend's current animalistic state. Not that Harry blamed him, he couldn't imagine seeing Theo or Pansy as unthinking rabid beasts, trying to kill anything and anyone that crossed their paths out of mind-addled survival instinct. It was only logical to leave Regulus there. It was his place. But Harry didn't. He still didn't budge on his insistence that Regulus should stay with him, even after Bedivere suggested he should stay. And that suggestion had sounded more like an order. But he hadn't obeyed. He'd brought him to the house and ignored him all that he could. Not that it stopped Regulus from trying to table a conversation with him.
"Bloody fuck," the portrait said as Harry closed the door behind him and turned on the lights. Regulus looked pale, and if he was a real person rather than a portrait, Harry was sure he would have puked. "Are- are you okay?"
Harry ignored him, dragging his feet across the floor, feeling the blood drip from his clothes as he disrobed out of Regulus' line of sight. Each garment felt like it weighed two elephants, and Harry didn't even flinch at the wet, sticky sounds they all made when they flopped onto the floor. When he was naked he slowly made his way through the stack of pyjamas that were piled on the floor, bringing them up to his face to smell if they were clean enough to wear. The first pair smelt the best, but in his carelessness, Harry had brought it all the way up to his face and stained the fabric with drying blood.
Kreacher suddenly popped in beside him and handed over wet wipes. "Thanks," Harry muttered, slowly cleaning his face and tossing the filthy fi ones onto the floor. Kreacher nodded, popping away with the blood-covered shirt and trousers before he came back and picked up the wipes as well. Fully clothed and somewhat clean, enough that he could live with himself, Harry made his way back into the kitchen where he saw Regulus eying him like a disappointed parent.
"Harry, I… I don't think you should keep doing this anymore." He said carefully as if fearing that Harry would suddenly stab his portrait and tear the canvas out of the frame. And in all honesty, the thought had crossed Harry's mind several times over the past few weeks. When Harry didn't answer, Regulus continued. "This… what you're doing. It's not good for you. It's not good for anyone. I know you don't think this right now, but it's hurting you. And if you keep doing what you're doing… you might not get a chance to come back from that."
Maybe it was the lack of sleep in the past thirty hours. The feeling of being so magically drained he could almost feel his bones crumble under the weight of his body. Or maybe it was the bitterness and resentment he had felt for Regulus that had finally reached its boiling point. Whatever the case, it didn't matter, Harry didn't put much thought to it as he grabbed a coffee mug and launched it at Regulus' portrait.
"What the hell, Harry!" Regulus cried out, some of the broken pieces of the mug piercing the canvas, creating small tears in it.
"Regulus, you're a fucking Death Eater!" Harry snarled from across the room. "You tortured your own bloody brother! Betrayed him. Betrayed my parents and everyone who gave a shit about you. So you don't get to come here and tell me what the fuck is right and what the fuck is wrong with what I do with my spare time."
"The fact that I did those things," Regulus' voice cracked with emotion as he spoke. "It should be enough to show you I know what it's like. I know how it feels to give into your anger, to let it ruin your life as you convince yourself you're doing the right thing. I didn't have someone to bring me out of it, not until it was too late. I want to be that someone for you, Harry. I don't want to see you make the same mistakes I did."
"The same mistakes?" Harry echoed. "You murdered people - innocent people! You tortured them. Did you fucking rape anyone?"
"NO!"
"And how the fuck am I supposed to believe that? When you're whining that no one was there to help you, to stop you, Sirius Black bloody tried, and he got fucked because of it! And funnily enough, it may have been that little bullshit incident that got me locked up and stripped of my fucking magic, you cunt."
"I…" Regulus faltered. "I didn't. I know, okay. Sirius was there. Your parents… they were too. Dumbledore. There were people there for me and I didn't listen."
"You're damn right," Harry spat. "You were a Death Eater. A vile piece of shit. And in my book, you still are. I don't give three shits you're dead, or that you died getting one of Voldemort's Horcruxes. You will always be that person, Regulus."
"But just because I didn't listen doesn't mean you have to go down that route. You can change. Be better. It's what your parents would have-"
"Don't you fucking dare!" Harry strolled across the room, pulling out the large hunting knife, still covered in Irwin's blood, and brought it up to the portrait. "We're not the same. What I do, hunting down and killing those evil cunts, people who have done just as much foul shit as you have, that doesn't compare to doing whatever the fuck Voldemort told you to do because he fucking felt like it at any given point in time. You tortured innocents. You killed… innocents. The filth that I put down… they've done their fucked up shit. They earnt what they got."
"That may be true," Regulus' voice shook, his eyes staying on the knife in Harry's hand.
"No," Harry snapped, interrupting Regulus before he could continue. "It is true. When the fucking lowlifes and the hit-men start going in large groups to their usual shit stains they call pubs, or Montague's bitchy little cronies start resigning en masse - that is me. That is the rightful fury of all the victims and corpses those pieces of filth have left in their wake. The recognition that the God of fucking Retribution has come to make them pay for all the shit they have done."
As the final word left his mouth, the room went silent. Regulus was breathing hard, looking at Harry as if he was a stranger, opening and closing his mouth but no words came to him. And before he could say anything, Harry felt a hit of electricity flow through his body. Harry looked down at his right arm and saw the tattoo Yaxley had inked on him had got bolder. Bedivere was summoning him. Harry shook his arm and the ink dispelled itself before he turned back to Regulus.
"I'm doing what I'm doing to honour Susan. To honour the wishes of my parents. To make them proud, for once. Don't you ever compare it to the shit you did as a Death Eater."
"You know, Harry," Regulus said softly just before Harry opened the door. "That's exactly what I used to tell myself too."
Parkinson Palace
9:30 a.m.
Harry hadn't been the only one who was summoned for this meeting. When Harry arrived at Parkinson Palace, barely able to stand from exhaustion, Yaxley received him. And almost as if he'd been expecting this, he pulled out a small vial filled with a bright yellow liquid from his robes. "Pick me up," Yaxley shrugged. "A much more powerful one than the ones you've seen at Hogwarts. It'll fully wake you up for these next four or five hours, but you'll crash even harder. You'll sleep like a drunken baby for days."
"Days?"
"Only a couple. Still, from what I've heard you've earnt the rest." Yaxley winked at him and ushered him into the house. Harry drank from the vial, immediately feeling as if his whole body had suddenly burst into flames from the inside. His eyes widened, and before he could scream in pain the feeling suddenly stopped, but Harry felt very much awake.
"How does this work with the magical exhaustion aspect?" Harry asked, his heart skipping a beat for a moment.
"Don't know, actually," Yaxley said airily. "Pull out your wand. Give it a try."
Harry didn't need to be told, his wand was already out before Yaxley finished his sentence. But when he tried to cast a quick levitating charm with it, sparks fizzled out of it with no luck.
"Shame," Yaxley said, though he sounded far from disappointed.
The two walked into Bedivere's study, where he was already waiting for them with Kieran by his side. And while Bedivere greeted them warmly, Kieran gave Harry a scowl.
"Grandfather tells me it was you who was behind the attack on the Montague properties and the pub murders." He said with distaste.
"What of it?"
"You're a moron."
"Is that so."
"Yeah," he said snobbishly. "It is."
"You know, Kieran, you remind me of an old friend of mine," Harry said sardonically. "Tell me, have you ever had the sudden impulse to dye your hair blond and mouth off about Mudbloods or tell everyone how good your father's hearing is?"
"Settle down, boys," Bedivere said firmly, walking behind Kieran and grabbing him by the shoulders. "We have much to discuss today. We can't allow us to be sidetracked with petty squabbles."
"Shouldn't Pansy be here?" Kieran asked.
"It's the middle of the week," Bedivere said with a touch of dismay. "I'm afraid your sister and Harry's young friend will have to sit this meeting out. It can't be rescheduled. I'll tell them both this weekend when I see them at Hogsmeade."
"You've been meeting with Theo and Pansy?" Harry asked.
"Oh, yes." Bedivere smiled. "Every weekend so far. I haven't told them about you, as we agreed, I've merely been updating them about the situation here in the house. Mostly it's been about finding Rookwood and obtaining the Horcrux, nothing much has happened beyond that."
"And what is so urgent we can't wait for the weekend, grandfather?" Kieran asked with genuine curiosity. "Have you found another Horcrux? Have you managed to destroy the one we have?"
"I believe Corban is best suited to answer your questions." Bedivere turned towards Yaxley and gave him a nod as if authorizing him to start.
"Thank you, Director," Yaxley said with a wink, and he ushered the four of them to stand around the three-dimensional map of Britain. Yaxley pulled out his wand, and the table began shifting, transforming from a map into a flat surface with seven equally sized podiums. On the one in the very middle, there was a floating black diary, with a floating locket on the one to its right and the rest merely having question marks hovering above.
"That can't be right," Kieran said, pointing towards the podiums. "There should be six, shouldn't there? If the Dark Lord's soul was split into seven pieces, then one had to stay within the Dark Lord's body."
"Indeed, but things have changed. I've managed to link the Horcruxes together, those that are left anyway, and there aren't five more besides the locket."
"There are six?" Bedivere asked.
"Indeed. The diary held a seventh of the Dark Lord's soul, that we know for sure. And the locket holds another seventh. If I were to be pressed to give an answer, I'd say the Dark Lord meant to split his soul into seven pieces - seven being the most magically powerful number and all - only something went wrong. Either he changed his mind near the end or something went wrong. But there are currently six Horcruxes still active, not including the Dark Lord himself."
"Merlin," Bedivere breathed out. "Have you managed to track them?"
"I'm working on that," Yaxley said ruefully. "Linking them was the easy part. They're all connected to an extent as it is, linking them was merely asking them to reach out to one another. Something that is common between them given the shared channel they have. But tracking them would require an active effort and it would be a long process. We still want to do this as stealthily as possible, don't we?"
"Obviously," Harry rolled his eyes.
"Then I'm afraid it's going to take a while."
"How early could you have this for us?"
"Beginning of the summer?" Yaxley said carelessly. "I don't know. At the very least. There are a lot of factors to consider, it isn't as easy as I make it sound."
"Beginning of the summer," Bedivere muttered, his eyes glazing into the depths of the unknown. "Yes. Very well. Do what you must, Corban. But make it as fast as you possibly can. We have very little time to waste."
"This isn't our only concern when it comes to the Horcruxes," Yaxley said. "But we'll get into that later, I have some good news about them, for once."
"Good news?" Harry asked. "The fuck does that mean?"
Yaxley smiled. "It means Fate doesn't want to fuck us in the arse as hard as we thought. Though don't get used to it, knowing your luck things will get shitty pretty soon." Harry gave him a bitter smile to which Yaxley winked. "As I said, all these Horcruxes are connected. They not only speak to one another, but they have a… relationship with each other."
"Which means?"
"A lot of things, actually. We already know we can track them with this bond, so that should go unsaid."
"Except you said it," Kieran said.
"The point is that all these Horcruxes are still connected to the Dark Lord."
"So he can feel them?" Harry asked. "He'd be able to feel when we find them? When we destroy them."
"Nope," Yaxley laughed. "That's one of the beauties of it, but I'll get back to that. The soul, something even we wizards don't know much about, is extremely important. As important as Magic and Fate themselves. And I don't think the Dark Lord knew about this when he made his Horcruxes. Soul, Magic, and Fate… they all interact with one another. And because of it, it means that the Dark Lord will have a weaker connection to it with every Horcrux that gets destroyed."
"You mean to say that with every Horcrux we destroy, we're essentially lowering the Dark Lord's raw magical power?" Bedivere asked.
"Precisely. Which is fantastic for us given how our poster boy for the war is a bratty fifteen-year-old with a lot of pent-up rage."
"I will fuck you up, Yaxley," Harry snapped.
"I'm just being realistic here." He said, still smiling. "Potter's a good dueller, he knows how to handle himself, he's proven that. On any normal day, he's the bloke you want on your team. But the Dark Lord is on a whole different level. Not only is he smarter, but he's decades of practice and knowledge ahead of Potter. This gives us the edge we need. If we destroy all the Horcruxes and the Dark Lord is left with only a seventh, or hell, a fourteenth of his raw magical power, and Potter studies a shit ton of magic and keeps up his duelling ability for… a decade or two, then we might actually have a chance!"
"We don't have a decade or two," Bedivere said.
"This is our best hope," Yaxley said, his voice serious for once. "We all know just how shitty and fickle Fate can be, so we know it won't be Dumbledore or anyone who's actually a match that will stop the Dark Lord. It'll either be Potter, or his pansy ass step-brother."
"He's not my step-brother."
"I hate to break it to you, Potter, but he is," Kieran gloated.
"No one fucking asked you, you shitting twat." Harry snapped. If anyone could get on his nerves, it was Malfoy. But if there was a second-place winner, it was Kieran. He didn't even hate the guy like he hated Longbottom, the cunt was just annoying.
"Let's just take this as an advantage," Yaxley said. "It's something we didn't know we would have and something that will make things much easier. The Dark Lord is a scary fucker when you have to duel him. I think we've all seen what he's capable of. The fact that he'll be depowered won't really change that. It'll only give the above-average folk a slightly higher survival rate."
"Agreed," Bedivere said reluctantly. "What of the bad news?"
"Finding the Horcruxes will be the easy part, with enough time we'll find out all their locations and be able to gather them all. The problem will be destroying them."
"We already knew this, didn't we?" Kieran asked haughtily. "Basilisk fangs aren't easy to come by."
"It's not just that, kid," Yaxley said, annoyed. "We assumed that Longbottom managed to destroy the Horcruxes by simply stabbing it with the fang and letting the basilisk poison do its thing. Unfortunately, things aren't as simple as they seem."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked. "I was there. Longbottom stabbed it. The piece of the fucker died. End of story. What else is there to it? Wait, will we have to kill a basilisk for every Horcrux? Are they connected to Voldemort's soul or what?"
"The Dark Lord," Kieran said snippily.
"Yeah, whatever," Harry rolled his eyes. "But if that's the case, then I back out. I already have to fight the overpowered raging psychopath. Some of you will have to pull your weight. Kieran, perhaps."
"Why me?"
"You're the Gryffindor, aren't you? What happened to chivalry and bravery and all that fucking nonsense."
"It's a fucking basilisk!" Kieran shouted. "Forgive me for not throwing myself at it like I'm a fucking corner hooker."
"It's not a fucking basilisk." Yaxley snapped. "Merlin fuck, this is why we don't have kids at meetings."
"He started it," Kieran said bashfully.
"Just shut the fuck up, you moron," Harry said
"What are you getting at Corban?" Bedivere asked tiredly.
"When Longbottom stabbed the Horcrux diary with the basilisk fang, it had already been possessing Potter for nearly four months at that point. Horcruxes are very dark and very powerful magic. Their aim is not just to survive as a backup plan for the creator, but to seek to become their own whole soul. And for that, they have to possess a living human body. The diary was doing that with Ginny Weasley before it felt that Potter was the better match."
"A Horcrux has to be in the process of possessing someone for it to be killed," Bedivere said.
"Not just in the process. It has to be on the verge of possessing someone. Like, at most an hour away from doing it. Otherwise, it'll just absorb the basilisk venom or whatever other method we try and just keep going. And even then, the Horcruxes each have their own defences. It's more than likely we'll have to fight shades of Riddle as we try to destroy the Horcrux while it's about to possess someone."
The room went silent for a moment before Harry muttered, "Well, shit."
"This… is troubling," Bedivere said.
"How much time does it take?" Kieran asked.
"The possession? It varies. With Potter, it was nearly four months, but given what we know of him that is on the long end of the spectrum. Two months is possibly on the short. So anywhere between that time period."
"Alright, so how are we doing this?" Harry asked. "Are we drawing straws? Oh, and I'm out, by the way. I've already been nearly possessed by one of the fuckers. I'm not going again."
"We could pick a random person from the street," Yaxley suggested. "A muggle, maybe."
"We're not kidnapping a random muggle and forcing a piece of Lord Voldemort's soul into them!" Kieran exclaimed. "Or people. We're not killing anyone, period."
"It wouldn't be killing," Yaxley said airily. "The whole point is to kill the Horcrux before the possession is complete. At worst, they'll just be traumatized for a couple of years and then get over it."
"That doesn't make it any better!"
"Oi, I was traumatized by one of them and no one was there to fucking cry about it," Harry said. "Besides, someone will have to fucking be. We're not just going to stop because now people will have to suffer a bit. Though, Yaxley, I'd advise against Muggles. The Horcrux might reject them as it did Ginny Weasley. Try to infect a powerful witch or wizard instead. Or just someone with magic."
"Fair point," Yaxley said. "We could kidnap the Weasley girl. She has experience with this. She can do all eight! Now it's only one person with a shit ton of trauma rather than six of them. A lot less loose ends as well."
"We're not kidnapping Ginny Weasley," Harry said harshly. "We're not even including her in this."
"Fine, Merlin, don't get your panties in a twist."
"This is a subject we'll need to address later," Bedivere spoke up. "Our focus now should be on finding the Horcruxes before considering how to destroy them."
"Fair enough," Yaxley shrugged. "I'll keep working on this and keep you posted."
"Thank you, Corban," Bedivere dismissed him, and after changing the table back to the three-dimensional map of Britain, he took his leave. And just as Harry was about to stand and leave as well, wanting nothing more than to crash on his couch and sleep through these next couple of days, Bedivere asked him to stay for a word. Kieran seemed to also want to stay, but understood the implicit dismissal of that request. When he closed the door behind him, Bedivere motioned for Harry to sit as he did the same.
"I gather you have questions." He said calmly.
"Questions?"
"Concerns and the such," Bedivere answered. "The subject of the Horcruxes is one that always rattles you, but never has it quite done as much as it did today."
Harry took in a deep breath. "Not questions, really." He said. "It's just… you wouldn't understand."
Bedivere gave him a grandfatherly smile. "Try me."
"I guess I was just hoping things would be more simple." He finally said. "To just force Longbottom to go into the Chamber and give us a basilisk fang and then just stab them all and be done with it. I didn't think I'd have to see another shade of Riddle again."
"It's understandable you feel that way. More understandable even that you are in no rush to play the martyr and nominate yourself to be the one to carry the burden. Horcruxes are the vilest pieces of magic ever created. To have been so close to being possessed by one, especially at such an early age, and manage to overcome it speaks a lot of your character, Harry."
"But I didn't manage to overcome it, did I?" He laughed bitterly. "I'm still as fucking terrified of them as I was when I was a bloody twelve-year-old."
"You'd be a fool if you weren't." Bedivere smiled.
"How are Horcruxes even made, anyway?" Harry asked idly. Bedivere suddenly looked pensive.
"There are two main processes to it," he said slowly. "The first is to split one's soul - though it's more like shattering it - and the second is to place a piece of that soul in an object. The latter is quite simple, conceptually speaking, and the ritual it requires, while being heavy Dark Magic, is nothing compared to the first step."
"What happens in the first step?"
"Well, it's not a single step, for starters. It's a process called The Thirteen Trials,"
"Thirteen Trials? And what are these Thirteen Trials?"
To Harry's surprise, the seasoned Unspeakable and Death Eater, a man who Harry would have thought had seen everything, looked almost green
"In order to create a Horcrux, one must complete the Thirteen Trials, thirteen tasks that progressively erode the humanity of the soul. The first seems almost innocuous, the last so horrifying that few even speak of it."
"What do you mean by innocuous?"
"You have probably heard that the act of killing another person tears at the soul. A mark of humanity, of knowing right from wrong, is the capacity for guilt and remorse. Feeling bad for the act of taking a human life even when the killing is justified. The first Trial is activated by a person that kills without regret or remorse, that takes a human life without anger or passion but instead without any emotion at all. A person that kills with no conscience or feeling has taken their first step to severing their very soul. The trials only escalate from there in their depravity, from the killing and eating of an infant to acts I dare not speak aloud."
"You have to give me more than that," Harry said, almost petulantly. "You can't just say that and not tell me."
Bedivere sighed. "The Thirteen Trials are a series of acts, the most horrid and vile acts a human can perform. These are not for the faint of heart… are you sure you want to know?"
Harry nodded. And so Bedivere told him.
Five minutes later, Harry was sitting in a chair and staring off into space with an empty glass of Firewhiskey in his hand. It had been full when Harry asked for it after Bedivere explained the First Trial.
Which involved an act of cannibalism.
"Jesus Fuck," the boy asked in horror. "He did all that? When he was my age?" Bedivere smiled mirthlessly.
"Tom Riddle has never been one to set bounds on how far he's willing to allow his monstrosity to be unleashed"
Then, the older man leaned toward Harry with an intense expression.
"The Trials… they change a person. It brings several side effects, but there is one that is more notable than the others."
"What is it?"
Bedivere's smile faltered. "In your opinion, Harry, what is it that makes us human?"
"Our consciousness? Intelligence?"
"No," Bedivere shook his head. "It's our ability to feel. The sadness we feel when someone we love betrays us, and the happiness when we accomplish a goal. The love we feel when we interact with our families. It's that ability to feel that makes us human, something we don't cherish often given how feelings can often feel like they betray us. When one goes through the Trials, when they began to crack pieces of their soul with the goal of completely shattering it, they began losing that. It starts simple as the loss of the ability to feel empathy, to feel for someone else. But that begins to spread to them as well. At first, it may feel like a reward, they stop feeling anger and sadness, fear and pain and betrayal. But in time, they also stop feeling joy and relief. They stop feeling until there's nothing to feel. Until they can't feel anything they touch, can't taste anything they eat. They can't feel the cold as they walk outside or even the warmth of someone they love. Their bodies, their very souls - or what's left of them - become animotophobic to the point where experiencing a feeling powerful enough could leave them in a physical state of shock."
"That's what makes Voldemort so dangerous, isn't it?" Harry asked. "Why you and Yaxley and the others turned from him."
"Precisely," Bedivere said. "A man like that, especially one with as much power as the Dark Lord, is one that cannot be bargained with. They have no loyalty other than to themselves. No regard for anyone else. If the Dark Lord does win, many believe that they will have won as well. But that is a lie. Because the moment they stop being useful to him, he'll turn on them."
"So what does Voldemort want?"
"Power? Respect?" Bedivere shrugged. "It doesn't matter. A man who can't feel is one who can't want. Whatever he may think he wants, he'll realise he doesn't really want it the moment he gets it. He'll then convince himself that something new will satisfy him. And on and on it will go until the entire planet has been brought to its knees. Until he kills everyone and is left with nothing to do except continue surviving. Living was out of the cards the moment he finished the Trials and shattered his soul."
Harry gulped and looked away. He hadn't considered it until now the weight he had chosen to carry. Or if Bedivere was right, the weight Fate had placed upon his shoulders. It had always been very abstract. With Voldemort out of sight and out of mind. So focused on his grief, on finding the person who killed Susan, he had failed to consider this matter seriously. But now the Horcruxes, the prophecy, the impending fight between them. It was all getting more real with every day.
"Do you regret it?" Bedivere said. "Our arrangement."
Harry didn't answer immediately, breathing slowly as he collected his thought before he looked back up at Bedivere. "No."
"Why not?" He asked gently. "Any other boy your age would have."
"Because it isn't about me. It isn't about you or anyone else in this shithole of a world. My parents… they died for me. Susan… she died because of me. The least I can do is to try to honour their legacy, do what they would have wanted me to do."
"And you believe this is what they wanted you to do?"
Harry nodded. "Without a doubt."
That's it for this chapter, thank you all for reading!
Next chapter we'll catch up with the kids at Hogwarts, as well as seeing more effects Harry's actions are having. Be excited!
By the time I'm posting this, I'm ELEVEN chapters ahead, and I am in the middle of the arc titled Checkmate, which is one of the final arcs before we reach the climax of fifth-year! If you are interested in learning how to get early access to them, join my discord server using the following link: discord . gg / jyPfbGqhJT
As always, thank you for reading, favouriting, and commenting! I appreciate all of you! :)