Chapter 3 - Fates and Furies

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And should I then presume?

And how should I begin?

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

(T.S. Eliot)

Harry awoke with a start. It took a few moments before he realized that Crookshanks, Hermione's cat, was sitting right in front of his face, staring at him with his slitted eyes. He vaguely remembered dreams of a bird flying through a dark, strange house, while many shadows walked its halls towards dawn. For a second, he thought there had been a peacock.

"Come to spy on me, have you?" He looked angrily at Crookshanks, who'd started walking towards the door. "Tell her she can shove it-" He stopped. This was nonsense, of course. No matter how angry he was at Hermione, or the rest of the world, the cat couldn't relay a message. Not since they'd lost Sirius, he thought, with a sharp pain. He couldn't remember when he'd felt pain this fresh and sharp, or anger this seething. Dumbledore's office, one year ago, a voice inside him reminded him. He vaguely recalled smashing the headmaster's office, while the grief-stricken blue eyes watched him, sadly. Like they never would again. Stupid Dumbledore, trusting Snape, serves him right, the voice added. Yes, Harry realized. He HAD been stupid. Trusting. Like the rest of the Order, like his parents…

He could feel a burning sensation in his chest, in his eyes. Hastily, he blinked, threw the blanket off and got on his feet. The anger was back. Like a seething fluid, it leaked through his veins, devoid of reason, of sanity. How dare Ron and Hermione! How dare they go behind his back, tell the Order members he'd join them, after everything! He'd told them he didn't want anyone else to die for him! He'd clearly stated that after Cedric, Sirius, Dumbledore – he didn't want anyone else to stand between Voldemort and himself, as his parents had –

"Harry?" A voice asked from the hallway. It was Mrs Weasley. "Harry, are you awake? Do you want some breakfast, I've-"

He threw open the door and rushed past her, just as he had the night before. Ignoring the cries for attention, he stormed out of the house, into the blistering morning sun. sweat began to form on his chest and face, as he stormed towards the end of the property. He knew where he had to stop. Ron had reminded him last night, when he'd been pacing through the garden, refusing to speak to his best friends, while kicking the occasional garden gnome. He remembered Hermione's tears, remembered enjoying them, and guilt kicked in. The anger in his chest fought it. The anger won, it always did.

He glared at the little bushes that marked the line he could not cross, almost desiring to stride past it. He had his wand in his pajama pockets, he could…

"'Arry?" It was Fleur Delacour. She stood in the bright sunlight, shielding her eyes from it with one hand, balancing a trey of breakfast foods in the other. "Do you 'ave a moment?"

He glowered at her, pacing. He was behind the henhouse now.

"I brought you some breakfast. Ginny told me what eez your favourite," Fleur offered. "She eez still asleep, of course," she added, as Harry looked around. Ginny's name always distracted him. No amount of anger could stop that. "I 'ave come to ask you a question. Shall we sit?" She sat herself on the burned grass, her summer dress sliding across the dry, dark floor. She looked up at him, expectantly, her beauty as radiant and impossible as ever.

"Fine," Harry muttered, grabbing a piece of toast. She'd picked his favourite jam, he realized. The sugary and tarte tastes mixed in his mouth as he chewed, his mind racing. He ignored Fleur, knowing she'd probably come here to talk some sense into him for them.

"I 'ave decided to marry Beel as soon as posseeble," Fleur announced. "My parents, zey fear coming to England. Zey would like me to return to France at once, but I've made a promise to marry my love and I will," she looked up at him, defiantly, "as soon as possible. Saturday. War is coming and I will not miss a chance to marry my love. Who knows what will happen a week from now? Who knows whether we'll be alive? Molly is opposed to eet, of course." She shook her magnificent head, sadly. "She says my parents will want to be 'ere, my seester… I miss them, of course, but –" She looked at Harry, tears in her eyes. "I will 'ave no family at my wedding, but it eez better than no 'usband. Will you 'elp me, 'Arry? Will you walk me down the path?"

Harry stopped dead in his tracks. He had not expected this. "Walk you down the aisle?"

She nodded, beaming through the tears. He could feel the annoyance bubbling inside of him again. Always the tears… what good were they? He grabbed another piece of toast, chewing angrily. She'd done this to keep him from leaving, to keep him from his mission, he thought. Any second now, reinforcements would come to keep him tied in place, while he had things to do, important things…

And there they were! Holding hands – as usual. Harry glowered at Ron and Hermione.

"Theenk about it, will you, Arry" Fleur asked and left. The breakfast tray remained in the grass.

"Come to talk some sense into me, have you?" Harry spat at them. He couldn't stand their happiness, couldn't understand why they were mooning at each other while the world was basically on fire.

"Pretty much, yeah," Ron admitted, although he'd stopped smiling at Hermione's bushy hair and now looked at Harry in earnest. "Look, they really wanna help and they-"

"DIDN'T I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR," Harry bellowed at them, "DIDN'T I TELL YOU WHAT I HAD TO DO A MONTH AGO?"

"Yes, Harry, but," Hermione tried to interject.

"DIDN'T I TELL YOU I'D GO WITH OR WITHOUT YOU? THOUGHT YOU'D KEEP ME HERE WHEN YOU KNOW WHAT I HAVE TO DO-"

"We didn't want to-" Ron started, clearly hurt.

"THOUGHT YOU'D JOIN THE ORDER – FINE! I CAN GO ALONE I DON'T NEED YOUR STUPID-"

"Harry, we're sorry," Hermione rushed to say. Tears had formed in her eyes. "We know what you have to do, we know how hard it must be for you, we just wanted you to have help!"

"YOU KNOW NOTHING," Harry bellowed on. It felt good, wonderful, delicious to see their shocked faces, to be in control of others for a change. "YOU DON'T HAVE TO KILL SHIT, DO YOU? BUT I HAVE SOME STUPID PROPHECY SO I DON'T GET TO BE HAPPY AND SHOG AROUND WHILE PEOPLE ARE BEING MURDERED-"

"Hey," Ron piped up. "Shut up, okay? It's not our fault-"

"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO," Harry yelled, now enjoying their blushing faces, "YOU – I TRUSTED YOU AND YOU RAN AND TOLD-"

"You know," he heard a gnarly old voice behind him and smelled a whiff of faint pipe tobacco. "I like you much better than this." Aberforth Dumbledore sat out on one of the dining room chairs he'd obviously brought for himself. "The way Albus described you, you were some perfect little mini-me of his. Very unappealing. Like the world needs two of you!"

"YOU SHUT UP!" Harry snarled at him, and Aberforth merely chuckled, looking annoyingly like his brother. "YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING! WHERE WERE YOU WHEN HE WAS DYING? I WAS THERE – ALONE – I WAS ALONE WHEN CEDRIC DIED, WHEN HE RETURNED, I LOST SIRIUS, MY PARENTS – EVERYONE – HOW DARE YOU…"

"Don't you see, Harry," Hermione sobbed, while Ron rubbed her shoulder, staring to the ground. "That's WHY we did it, Harry! We don't want you to lose more people, we don't want you to be alone – You don't have to do this alone!"

"People are gonna die either way, man," said Ron. "But in case you haven't noticed, we're still here for you?"

"Oh, are you?" Harry hissed, but he could feel his eyes burning again. He blinked, angrily. "Haven't been too busy, have you, with your –"

"You're not the only one who's lost people, son," said Aberforth simply, blowing pipe smoke into the morning air. "My whole family's dead. Molly's brothers – gone. They killed Moody's wife and parents last time, you think he's alright? Sometimes I wonder… I wonder if it's all worth it."

"Worth it?" Ron marched up to him, towering over him. It was not exactly intimidating, as skinny as he was in his Chudley Cannons T-Shirt. "Your brother died for this and so did Harry's parents and godfather! Have some respect!"

"I can yell for myself, thanks," Harry muttered angrily.

"Oh, can you?" said Ron, as Aberforth glowered at them and got up, walking back towards the house. "I hadn't noticed."

Harry could feel laughter bubbling up in his throat, helpless, useless laughter – and then he was laughing in the sun and it hit him – all the pain, the responsibility, the loss, the prophecy – he felt as if he was drowning. He barely realized how hard he was crying, until his knees hit the hard ground, until four arms wrapped themselves around him. Hot tears leaked over his face, for what seemed like hours. It was freeing, more freeing than screaming had been. The harder he cried, the tighter Ron and Hermione hugged him. It felt like an eternity, until he could see the sun again. A burning red filter separated him from the daylight.

"It'll be alright," Hermione assured him. "We're all here for you. We'll do anything for you, you know that, right?"

Ron nodded fervently.

Harry nodded, too. That was what he'd been afraid of. "I don't want anyone else to die because of me," he whispered, more tears forming in his eyes. "I can't it – it's too much –"

"You're not the one causing this," Ron said earnestly, looking straight at him. He didn't look away, held his best friends' gaze. "This is not your fault, none of this! Don't you get it? You're their way out, not their problem. No – shut up – Harry, if you want to leave this minute, we'll come with you – if you stay, we stay. We're with you – I'm with you – whatever you decide."

Harry nodded, oxygen flooding his lungs again. "I – okay – okay, I'll stay." They hugged him again. He didn't fight it.

It was dark, after dusk.

Harry and Ron walked into the living room crammed with small sofas and chairs on which several Order members had assembled. The room was packed. Fleur had taken seat on Bill's lap, Hermione and Tonks sat on pillows on the floor at Mad-Eye Moody's feet, while others like Lupin stood in the background.

"Right," Harry started, his voice still shaking. "Right, so – we talked it over and we- we'll join." He exchanged a look with Ron and could feel his anger welling back up at the relief in his best friend's face. "I – I've had some private lessons with Dumbledore last year. He told me only to trust Ron and Hermione with what it was about. We thought at first, he'd train me at combat, but he never did. We… we spend that year looking at every memory about Tom Riddle Dumbledore thought I should see, everything that was relevant for the mission he was on. I'm not sure what he intended my role to be, had he lived longer, but he told me to go on before…"

"It's alright Harry," Lupin encouraged him, as he stopped in uncertainty. "We know he was searching for some solution. He told us he'd only involve you or us, in case he was worried he couldn't go on."

"So he knew he was about to die?" Bill inquired.

"Must have," Moody answered. "That damage on his hand was no joke!"

"He knew," Aberforth said behind Harry. "He came by my bar last July, told me he had about a year. Said he'd start preparing the boy," he gestured towards Harry, "just in case. I thought it was hogwash. This is a war for grown people, I told him. We had a few fights, that year, about what the prophecy meant and all. Nearly broke him, that time. He said he'd try to get all of them – not sure what he meant – before his death, so the war could end. But he stayed real quiet on what he'd have you lot do, if he failed. And I think he did."

"He didn't," Harry continued. "Not really. When I was with him, that last night, we went to retrieve a cursed object. A locket. We got it and came back, but it turns out, someone else got there, first."

He carefully placed the fake Horcrux on a tiny sofa table. Silence fell.

Then, finally, someone spoke up. "What is that?" It was Tonks.

"Horcruxes," Harry said, quickly, and saw shock in some eyes, confusion in most. "Voldemort made six. Two are destroyed, one by me, one by Dumbledore. Four remain. This was supposed to be the third find. I guess – I think – Dumbledore wanted to show me how to find them, how to destroy them, but when we came back – well, he died before he could give me further instructions…"

"What further instructions?" Arthur Weasley inquired.

"Six?" Moody murmured in horror, exchanging looks with Tonks. "Six? What in the…"

"What exactly IS a Horcrux?" asked Molly Weasley, who seemed to be on the brink of demanding that all her children should be excluded from this conversation.

"Cursed object," Bill answered, before Harry could. "We had strict instructions to leave them be, when I started at Gringotts, no matter how valuable the object is. The goblins don't want that kind of trouble. Almost impossible to destroy, see – if you lift the curse, most of them would lose their value anyway, because they'd be irreparable. But we've never come across one, their rare… They're linked to immortality magic, aren't they?"

Harry nodded. "Voldemort made them, to make himself immortal. That's why he didn't die when his curse to me backfired in 1981. We think he has six, because he asked Professor Slughorn about splitting his soul into seven pieces, when he was still a student. His theory was that seven was the most powerful magical number, so no one would ever be able to kill him."

"What are the others?" Moody asked. The rest of the room seemed too stunned to speak.

"The ring that destroyed Dumbledore's hand. Salazar Slytherin's locket, objects that belonged to the other founders, maybe the snake and… Ginny's old diary." Harry didn't dare look at Mr and Mrs Weasley, as he said it. He could hear Molly starting to cry. "He – the Horcrux used it in my second year at Hogwarts to possess Ginny. He made her write messages from the heir of Slytherin – Voldemort – onto the walls, made her point out students who were muggle born for a basilisk to attack. She fought back, tried to destroy it, that's when I found it. By then he was too powerful. He was able to kidnap Ginny, take her into the chamber of secrets. Ron and I followed him, but I was the only one who could enter. When I got there, I saw Tom Riddle – that's who Voldemort used to be – and Ginny, almost dead. He was able to use her life force to come back to life himself. He set his Basilisk – Slytherin's basilisk – on me. Fawkes came and helped me stop it. When it was dead, I took one of it's fangs to destroy the diary and that destroyed it for good."

He looked at Arthur. "Lucius Malfoy put it into Ginny's cauldron, when we were at Florish & Blott's," he explained.

"We were told," Mr Weasley nodded, "not what it was, but that Ginny was controlled by it, that the object was what caused all of this. But I had no idea-"

"No one did. Not even the Malfoys," Ron comforted his parents. "But Dumbledore said it made him see – didn't he, Harry – that You-know-who had made more than one, because he was so careless with that thing, leaving it with Malfoy, not explaining things…"

"Yes. The other one was better protected. The fake one." Harry gestured towards the locket. "The real one is Slytherin's locket. I've seen it in a memory, I've seen Voldemort's mother wear it. I'll recognize it when I find the right one."

"When WE find the right one," Lupin corrected him. "You're not alone in this. No ONE person could do this…"

"Dumbledore tried," Harry protested, but it seemed a strange choice, even as he said it out loud. Why this? Why the secrecy?

"Stupid git," Aberforth mumbled. Some people – Lupin and Hermione among them – looked at him angrily. Everyone else was still recovering from the news. "Told him to stop including kids in this – nonsense – told him when you lot joined-"

"We weren't kids," Lupin interrupted him sharply. "We were adults and we would have fought with or without the Order, we joined partly so we'd have back up. And so Sirius didn't attack his brother and cousin by himself, as he wanted to. Someone had to talk sense into him, slow him down. And I don't appreciate these references," he glowered at Aberforth now, "not after the sacrifices my friends made to stop this war. Lily and James weren't children. They fought and died as heroes."

"But what about the locket," Tonks interrupted the altercation impatiently. "What happened with this," she nodded at the jewelry, "what is this and who put it there, if you thought you had a real Horcrux? Maybe it is the real thing after all? Can they change appearances?"

"It's not," Harry said bitterly. "It was the right place. I saw a message, after … after everything was too late." He picked up the locket, opened it and read out the message on the bit of parchment inside:

"To the Dark Lord - I know I will be dead long before you read this, but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal once more. - R.A.B.

We don't know who that is, though," he ended. "Hermione looked in every book she could for similar names, but there's no one. So – ideas?" He handed the note to the others.

They all looked at the short letter. Silence fell. Harry thought he saw Professor McGonagall open her mouth for a second, but no sound came out. He felt his heart sink. Deep down, he had been hoping that someone, anyone, in the Order must know the initials R.A.B.

Then, at last, someone spoke.

"You should have shown this to us sooner. I might know who that is. I think it's time," said Remus Lupin quietly, "that you call Kreacher back, Harry."