Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-One - The Cave
It was early evening, but the hot, still air of Hogsmeade had been replaced by a cool, salty breeze. Waves crashed against the rocky outcrop on which Harry and Dumbledore stood. A towering cliff loomed behind them, a sheer drop and smooth, blank face. Here and there, large rocks jutted out of the churning ocean. It looked as though they had broken from the side of the cliff, crashing down into the sea below. There was no shoreline to speak of, the expanse of black rock unrelieved by any grass or sand.
"What do you think?" asked Dumbledore, as though he were asking Harry's opinion on the sight for a picnic.
"They brought the kids from the orphanage here?" asked Harry, who could not imagine a more bleak, desolate spot for a day trip.
"Not here, precisely," said Dumbledore, gazing toward the top of the cliff. "There is a village not far from here. I believe the children were brought to take in the sea air and enjoy the view. As for where we're going… If I am not mistaken, it was only Tom and his young victims who ever stepped foot in this particular spot. No Muggle could accomplish the climb without magic, you see. And boats cannot approach the coast. The waters are too dangerous. As for you and I, we must carry on."
Dumbledore beckoned Harry to the very edge of the rock. A series of jagged niches made slick, rudimentary footholds leading down to the half-submerged boulders closer to the cliffside. It was a treacherous descent, and Harry, seeing the way Dumbledore moved slowly, favoring his blackened hand, wondered why they did not simply use magic to make the climb.
"Lumos," said Dumbledore as he reached the boulder closest to the dark, turbulent sea. With his withered hand, he pointed out a fissure in the cliff, into which the water swirled. "See there, Harry?"
"Yeah, I see it," said Harry grimly.
"I take it you will not mind getting a little wet?"
Harry had promised to obey Dumbledore without question, but this was unexpected. He was certain he misunderstood.
"We're not swimming, are we?" he asked. "We can't use magic?"
"No, not yet," replied Dumbledore, placing his lit wand between his teeth as he prepared to make the plunge. His words were slightly muffled as he added, "We don't yet know what protections exist around the horcrux."
Harry watched in stupefaction as Dumbledore, with the agility of a much younger man, slid from the boulder and landed in the sea. Harry felt ashamed of himself as he watched the elderly headmaster swim toward the dark fissure in the rock. If Dumbledore could make the journey with so little effort, and with a wounded hand, surely Harry, young and healthy, could do as much. He stuffed his invisibility cloak back into his pocket, took a deep breath, and followed Dumbledore into the sea.
The water was cold. Harry's clothes billowed around him, weighing him down. He did his best to ignore his discomfort as he steadied his breathing and struck out for the shimmering light cast by Dumbledore's wand.
The fissure opened into a dark tunnel. At high tide, it must have been completely filled with water. A little further in, the passageway cured to the left, and Harry saw that it extended far into the cliffside. He continued to swim in Dumbledore's wake until he saw the professor rising out of the water. They had reached a set of rough steps that led out of the sea and into a large cave. Harry clambered up gratefully, water streaming from his soaking clothes as he shivered uncontrollably.
Dumbledore stood in the middle of the cave, his wand held high as he turned slowly on the spot, examining the stone walls and the stalactite-covered roof over their heads.
"Yes," he said, more to himself than to Harry. "This is the place."
"H-How can you t-tell?" Harry asked, his voice shaking with cold.
"It has known magic."
Harry cast his eyes around the cave, trying to detect whatever it was that Dumbledore could sense. But he saw only the dark water, the narrow fissure, and the harsh rock walls of the cave.
He shivered, though not from the cold. He had a sudden sense of déjà vu. He felt as though he had been in there before, but as Dumbledore had said, that was impossible. And yet he felt that he knew of this cave… A cave by the sea… As though he had heard of it in a fairytale long ago. But the Dursleys were never ones for sharing fairytales, and Harry could not remember who would have told him of such a place.
Dumbledore had continued to speak in a hushed voice as he examined the cave, murmuring, "This is merely the antechamber. An entrance hall… We need to penetrate the inner place… Now it is Voldemort's obstacles that stand in our way, rather than those that nature made…"
Harry watched as Dumbledore approached the wall and caressed the slick black stone with his fingertips, murmuring words in a strange tongue that Harry did not understand. Twice Dumbledore walked around the cave, touching as much of the rock as he could. Occasionally, he paused, running his fingers backward and forward over a particular spot. At last, he stopped, his hand pressed flat against the wall.
"Here," he said with no little satisfaction. "We go on through here. The entrance is concealed."
He turned to Harry with a smile, though it fell when he noticed the way Harry was shivering.
"I'm terribly sorry, Harry," said Dumbledore, "I think now we may, perhaps, risk a little magic."
He pointed his wand at Harry, and at once, his clothes were as warm and dry as if they had been hanging in front of a blazing fire. Harry breathed a sigh of relief, then watched as Dumbledore turned back to the wall, directing his wand at the stone. For a moment, an arched outline appeared before him, blazing white as though a powerful light was shining through the edge of a doorway.
Harry was about to congratulate him on his success, but then he saw a look of perturbation on Dumbledore's face. Gradually, the bright white light faded, and he remained motionless, staring at the solid cave wall.
"Oh, surely not," said Dumbledore after an unbroken minute of silence. He sounded somewhat disappointed. "So crude."
"What is it, sir?" asked Harry.
Dumbledore sighed, then reached into his robes and drew out a short, silver knife.
"I believe that we are required to make payment to pass," he said shortly.
Harry eyed the knife with suspicion, then disgust.
"Blood?" he asked.
"I said it was crude," said the professor with a disdainful sigh, as though Voldemort had fallen short of the standards Dumbledore expected of him. "The idea, as I am sure you will have gathered, is that your enemy must weaken themselves to enter. Once again, Lord Voldemort fails to grasp that there are much more terrible things than physical injury."
As he spoke, he shook back the sleeve of his robes, exposing the forearm of his injured hand. Harry was about to protest, to offer himself for the payment needed, but the sight of Dumbledore's arm silenced him. The curse mark had spread. Dumbledore's skin was blackened all the way up to his elbow, perhaps even further than that.
"Do not worry, Harry," said Dumbledore, noticing the look of alarm on his face, "Besides, your blood is far too precious to spill."
There came a flash of silver, a spurt of scarlet, and the rock face was peppered with dark, glistening drops of blood. Dumbledore, of course, simply passed the tip of his wand over the deep cut he had just made in his own arm, healing it instantly. Though the injury had apparently cost Dumbledore nothing but a moment of pain, the price was sufficient. The blazing outline of the arch appeared once more, and this time it did not fade away. The stone, splattered with Dumbledore's blood, vanished from sight, leaving a large opening into what seemed to be total darkness.
"After me, Harry," Dumbledore instructed before walking through the archway. "It should be safe to light your wand."
Harry accepted his suggestion, murmuring the spell under his breath as the tip of his wand ignited. He was met with an eerie sight. They were standing on the edge of a great black lake, so vast that Harry could not make out the distant banks, in a cavern so high that the ceiling disappeared in shadow. A misty greenish light shone far away in what looked like the middle of the lake. The green glow and the light from their two wands barely penetrated the darkness surrounding them. It was as though the atmosphere in this chamber were somehow denser than the air outside.
Again, that disturbing sense of familiarity swept over Harry. Beyond the cave, there was a big cavern… And in the cavern was a great, black lake… Who had spoken those words? Had Dumbledore warned him of what they would face? Or was it Tom Riddle himself, in one of the collected memories, who described this very location?
Harry couldn't remember, but he had a very bad feeling about this cavern. Experience told him to trust his instincts, and every fiber of his being wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. Feeling wary, he suggested to Dumbledore, "Should we try a Summoning Charm?"
"Certainly, we could," said Dumbledore, pausing in his inspection of the shore as he turned patiently toward Harry, "Why don't you give it a go?"
"Me?" asked Harry. Dumbledore gave him a nod. He suspected that Dumbledore knew something he didn't, but raising his wand, he said loudly, "Accio Horcrux!"
With a loud crash, something large and pale exploded out of the lake a mere twenty feet from where they were standing. Harry, startled, could not determine what the creature was before it crashed back under the water, leaving nothing but deep ripples across the mirrored surface. Harry stared at the water with a growing sense of dread. His heart was hammering against his ribs as he turned back to Dumbledore.
"What was that?"
"Something that is ready to respond should we attempt to seize the horcrux," replied Dumbledore, looking at the dark water. The ripples had vanished unnaturally fast. All was smooth and still again.
"I thought something would happen if we made an obvious attempt to get our hands on the horcrux," Dumbledore continued in a hushed voice. "There were bound to be protections around it, as there had been protections around the ring. Your idea was a good one, Harry. It allowed us to get an idea of what we are facing…"
"But I have no idea what that thing was," Harry argued.
"What those things are, you mean," said Dumbledore with chilling significance.
"Not making me feel better, sir," said Harry before he could stop himself.
To his surprise, Dumbledore smiled. "As it stands, I believe we should be fine, provided we do not try to swim across the lake."
"Yeah, no worries there," said Harry, who had pressed his back against the stone wall of the chamber, as far from the water's edge as he could possibly go.
Dumbledore seemed distracted again. He hadn't appeared to notice Harry's response as he continued to search the shoreline, murmuring to himself, "The trouble is, it must lie at the center of the lake. We will have to cross… But how? Ah!"
He paused, though Harry could not see the reason why. The edge of the bank looked exactly like every other bit as far as Harry could tell. But Dumbledore had detected something special about it, just as he had detected the hidden entrance into this cavern. Dumbledore began to run his hand through thin air, as though expecting to touch something invisible.
He gave another cry of pleasure mere seconds later. His hand had, in fact, closed on something in midair, invisible to Harry's eye. He watched nervously as Dumbledore stepped closer to the water, his shoes poised on the very edge of the bank. With his injured hand still raised, Dumbledore lifted his wand with the other and tapped his fist with the point.
At once, a thick, coppery green chain appeared in Dumbledore's closed fist. Dumbledore tapped this chain with his wand, and it began to slide through his fingers like a snake, coiling itself on the ground with a clinking sound that was immediately muted in the unnatural stillness of the cavern. The chain was pulling something up from the depths of the black water. At last, the prow of a small boat broke the surface, glowing as green as the murky light across the lake. It barely disturbed the surface of the water as it floated toward the shore on which Harry and Dumbledore stood.
"How did you find it?" Harry asked, his voice hushed, as though any loud noise would disturb whatever creatures lay beneath the water.
"Magic always leaves traces," said Dumbledore as the boat hit the bank with a soft thud. "I taught Tom Riddle. I know his style."
"So this boat…" said Harry, stepping away from the wall with trepidation, "It's safe?"
"I believe so. Voldemort would have needed a means to cross the lake without attracting the wrath of those creatures he had placed within it, in case he ever wanted to visit or remove his horcrux."
"So those… Things… They won't do anything to us if we cross in the boat?"
Harry couldn't understand why Dumbledore looked so amused, even in the face of such a chilling danger. Still, he smiled as he said bracingly, "Oh, I think we must resign ourselves to the fact that they will, at some point, realize we are not Lord Voldemort. Let us hope that moment comes after we have finished our business here…"
Dumbledore's assurances did nothing to soothe Harry's anxiety. He had a very bad feeling about the boat, but he allowed himself to be seated toward the prow, and soon Dumbledore had pushed away from the shore. The boat was very small. Harry could not comfortably sit, crammed as he was in front of Dumbledore. It was evident that Voldemort never expected another wizard to make this journey but himself, let alone two wizards.
The boat moved silently across the surface without aid of either an oar or motor. It was as though an invisible rope tied it to the green light in the center of the water, pulling them toward it. Harry's knees, jutting over the edge of the boat, were starting to ache. He both wished for a short journey, and yet was grateful that they moved so slowly. Perhaps it would help them avoid the notice of whatever lurked beneath those waters.
He glanced down as this thought crossed his mind. The reflected silver glow of his wandlight sparkled on the surface of the black water as they passed. The boat carved deep ripples in the surface, and yet Harry didn't expect to see anything beneath them. He assumed the water would be as impenetrable as the shadows of the cavern, where all sight and sound seemed magically dampened…
And then he saw it, marble white, floating inches below the surface.
"Professor…" Harry said in a strangled whisper, "I think I saw…"
"Yes, Harry?" asked Dumbledore when Harry struggled to finish the thought.
"I saw… It looked like a human hand!"
"Yes, I am sure it was," said Dumbledore calmly.
Harry felt a sick feeling rising in his throat, "Then that thing that jumped out of the water?"
"An Inferius, I believe," said Dumbledore, just as his wandlight slid over a fresh patch of water, revealing the face of a man, lying faceup inches beneath the surface, his eyes cloudy and white, his hair swirling around him like smoke.
Harry bit back a scream. He had learned enough about Inferi from the warnings issued by the Ministry, and more recently in Snape's classes. He knew the bodies posed no threat to them while laying calmly below, and he had no desire to awaken them with his screams. Still, the knowledge of the corpses resting beneath him, no doubt more victims of Voldemort's evil deeds, make Harry feel ill.
It felt like hours since he had met Professor Trelawney in the hall and had his confrontation with Snape. He had almost forgotten his feelings of anger and betrayal as he thought of the professor, anxious to remember everything Snape had taught him about fighting Inferi. They fear the light, he seemed to recall. Did he remember how to conjure flame?
Finally, they reached a small island in the center of the lake. It was a relief to feel solid ground beneath him again.
"Careful not to touch the water," Dumbledore advised as he stepped out of the boat.
"You don't have to tell me twice," said Harry, though he moved with unusual caution as he followed Dumbledore.
The island was no larger than Dumbledore's office. It was an unnatural structure, composed of flat dark stone on which stood nothing but the source of the greenish light. It was much brighter when viewed up close, and Harry at first thought it was a lamp of some kind. Then he saw that it was a stone pedestal, upon which rested a shallow basin, similar to the Pensieve.
Dumbledore approached the basin first, closely followed by Harry. They gazed down into the contents, seeing only an emerald liquid emitting a phosphorescent glow.
Again, Harry felt that nagging sensation that he had heard of this place. A small island… A basin of potion… He thought if he focused, he would be able to predict what came next. He remained motionless, gazing at the liquid in the basin, trying to remember where he had seen or heard all of this before. Then Dumbledore pulled back the sleeve of his robes, exposing his blackened arm, and reached toward the surface of the potion.
"No! Sir, wait…!" Harry cried realizing Dumbledore's intention too late to stop him.
But Dumbledore merely smiled. "I cannot touch. See? Try it yourself."
Sure enough, Dumbledore's fingers had not penetrated the surface of the liquid. Harry reached his own hand into the basin, stunned to find that there was an invisible barrier preventing his fingers from coming within an inch of the potion.
"Step aside, please, Harry," demanded Dumbledore gently. He raised his wand and made a series of complicated movements over the basin, muttering again in that language that Harry could not comprehend. Nothing seemed to disturb the liquid. Harry remained silent as he watched Dumbledore work, but inside, his mind was racing.
He knew this place… He had never been there, but he had heard someone describe it before. A cavern with a great black lake… And on that lake, a boat… A small island with only a basin of potion… Dead things in the water…
"I am certain the horcrux is here," Dumbledore said at last, "But how to reach it? This potion cannot be penetrated by hand, vanished, parted, scooped up, or siphoned away. Nor can it be transfigured, charmed, or otherwise made to change its nature. I can only conclude, then, that it must be drunk."
Saying this, Dumbledore had lifted his wand, twirled it in midair, then caught the crystal goblet that he had conjured out of nowhere. He was on the point of dipping the rim of the goblet into the now pliant liquid, but at that moment, all the pieces fell into place, and Harry remembered.
Kreacher had to keep drinking. Until the potion was all gone. Then the Dark Lord took out a locket…
Harry dashed the goblet out of Dumbledore's hand, sending it clattering against the stone ground.
"Harry!" Dumbledore cried in shock, "What are you…?"
"I can't let you drink it, sir," said Harry.
"But, Harry, you must understand, there's no other way to empty the basin. If we're to get the horcrux…"
"The horcrux isn't here!" Harry said, nearly shouting. "Not anymore!"
Dumbledore stared at him. "What do you mean?"
"It was Kreacher," said Harry in a rush, "I thought this place seemed familiar, and it's because Kreacher told me about it before Sirius… He told us that Voldemort had hidden a locket in a cave. He made Kreacher drink a potion that made him hear terrible things, and then he left Kreacher to die. It was only because Sirius's brother summoned him that Kreacher survived… Sir, I think this is the same cave! This is where Voldemort hid Slytherin's locket!"
Realization dawned over Dumbledore's face as he turned to look once more into the contents of the potion. "Then Regulus returned with Kreacher and stole the locket for himself…"
Harry nodded his head. "And that's why I was able to pull it from the Sorting Hat. You see, sir? Sirius already destroyed this horcrux!"
Dumbledore was still peering into the potion. He seemed almost disappointed by this revelation.
"You're certain this is the cave Kreacher described?"
Harry nodded his head. "Would Voldemort have hidden two of his horcruxes in identical caverns?"
"No," said Dumbledore with a wry smirk, "No, I daresay he is more creative than that. Very well, Harry. It seems the Black brothers have spared us the necessity of experiencing the effects of this potion, ourselves. And I think we can conclude, given that all the enchantments remain in place, that Voldemort does not know his locket is gone. This is good news for us, though I think we must resign ourselves to the possibility that as more of his horcruxes are destroyed, he may come to realize that we are hunting them… How shocking it will be when he comes to remove his locket, only to find that it is gone?"
Harry might have suggested that Regulus, being a brother of Sirius, may have left something else in its place, as a sort of practical joke to Voldemort. But at that moment, a strange sound reached his ears. He glanced toward the bank of the island. The goblet that he had knocked from Dumbledore's hand had rolled across the flat surface, coming to rest at the water's edge. The rim of the cup barely touched the surface, but its ripples had widened across the vast distance of the black lake.
Harry watched with horror as those ripples were answered. One after another, pale faces were rising from the water, their glassy eyes staring ahead as they made their way slowly toward the island. Before Harry could utter a sound, he felt a tug on his pant leg, and looked down to see a thin, bony hand gripping his ankle. The next instant, his leg was yanked out from under him. His chest hit hard stone with a heavy thud, knocking the wind from him, as he was dragged backward into the frigid waters.
Harry opened his mouth to scream, which was a mistake. Water filled his mouth and rushed into his lungs, choking him as even more pale, ghostly hands gripped onto his body, pulling him further down beneath the water. He was disoriented. He was going to drown…
Then, from high above his head, Harry saw a bright flash of orange. He couldn't speak, suffocated as he was by the water and those grimy hands, but he hadn't been practicing wordless magic all year for nothing. He lifted his arm, in which he still, miraculously, held his wand, and thought with all his might, "Ascendio!"
Harry burst through the cold hands, past the surface of the water, and onto the hard, rocky shore of the island. While he coughed and sputtered, retching as he spit up the fetid water he had swallowed, he saw Dumbledore mere feet away. The light he had seen from under the water came from a bright trail of flame that blossomed from the tip of the headmaster's wand. He waved it through the air like a whip, pushing back the Inferi who pressed upon them from all sides.
"Harry!" he called, his voice betraying real fear for the first time, "Harry, are you alright?"
Harry still couldn't speak. He was coughing too hard. But he managed to send a ball of flame hurtling toward one of the bodies who tried to follow him out of the water, forcing it back beneath the rippling waves.
"Good!" cried Dumbledore, closing the distance between them as he used his healthy hand to haul Harry to his feet. "Get in the boat! We must leave immediately!"
The lake was no longer still and smooth. It foamed and churned from the bodies still breaking the surface, closing in on their island. Harry couldn't understand how they were supposed to sail across without being dragged under. Then, Dumbledore cast another spell. His whip of flame was transformed into a ring of fire that encircled them, small at first, then widening as they made their way toward the boat. The Inferi fell back, shying away from the heat and light of the blaze. For a moment, Harry was afraid that the flames would engulf the boat, but they parted just enough to allow for Harry and Dumbledore to settle into the hull.
Distracted by the inferno on the island, the Inferi did not seem to realize that Harry and Dumbledore were making their escape across the frothing waters. Harry was shaking uncontrollably by this time, both from soaked clothes and the realization that he had nearly died.
"I-I'm s-sorry…" he stammered, "The goblet… I s-shouldn't have…"
Dumbledore's eyes were still on the island, on the flames that now engulfed it completely, and on the bodies that had escaped the blaze, slipping back beneath the surface of the water. At the sound of Harry's voice, he snapped out of his reverie, and waved his wand once more, drying Harry in an instant.
"Do not apologize, Harry," said Dumbledore as, once again, their boat landed on the distant shore. "Voldemort's protections were, after all, very well designed. I knew we would not be able to avoid the Inferi indefinitely. As it stands, your presence here tonight has very likely saved me from an awful fate. Who can tell what sinister effects that potion may have had?"
He meant to be encouraging, but Harry could still see the disappointment behind his eyes as he helped Harry out of the boat and back through the cave. Harry understood how he felt. After all of that, they were no closer to their goal. There were still three horcruxes left to find, and destroy.
