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Snape inhaled sharply, but he didn't say anything. He actually looked kind of alarmed, which probably wasn't a good thing.

Tom's eyes narrowed. "A horcrux? Dumbledore's?"

Bill shook his head. "Yours, if I had to guess, judging by the magic. The tracker is Dumbledore's though, like you suspected."

"You put a horcrux in the boy!?" said Snape, horrified. His jaw snapped shut the second Tom looked at him. "I apologize, my Lord."

Tom's gaze returned to Harry. "A horcrux," he said slowly, fingers coming up to his chin. "Yes, that would explain a few things."

"What the hell is a horcrux and why is this a bad thing?" Harry asked, starting to feel kind of panicky. Their reactions really weren't helping to calm him at all. There was clearly something bad here, but he had no idea what it was or why it was bad in the first place.

Bill sighed and scratched the back of his neck. "Let's get rid of that tracker first."

And so things resumed where they'd left off just a few minutes ago, with Bill placing his hand on Harry's head again and chanting away in that latin and other unfamiliar language mix, while Harry stood still with his eyes closed, feeling like he was being pricked with a bunch of needles.

And after what could have been seconds, minutes, or even hours, Bill's chanting stopped, and the second it did, Harry was overcome with a strange weakness. His knees gave out and he was just barely able to drop down into the nearby couch.

"How are you feeling, Harry?" asked Bill, kneeling down beside him, concern on his face.

Slowly, Harry raised a hand and stared at it like he wasn't sure what he was seeing. "...Feels differen'," he said finally, his words slurring slightly.

"Different how?"

"Like the feeling of being examined under a microscope for my whole life is finally gone?"

Bill nodded. "I'm not going to pretend to know what a microscope is, but I expect you feel that way because the tracker is gone."

Harry's head snapped up and his eyes lit up. "Really!?"

Bill smiled. "Yep. You got lucky. Dumbledore's magic is pretty damn strong, but I don't think you're all that far behind yourself. Your will is probably stronger than his too, and your wanting this thing gone as strongly as you did is probably the only reason it worked this easily. It's usually much harder than this."

Harry opened his mouth to speak, but his jaw snapped shut when there was a knock at the door. Without a word, Tom left the room, and when he returned a moment later, he had Remus in tow.

Harry blinked, and pushed himself up on the couch so he was sitting properly. "Remus! How'd you know I was here?"

"I couldn't even step foot onto the property next door, so I followed your scent," said Remus, tapping his nose. He looked around the room. "You seem to have picked up an interesting assortment of friends. Bill I understand, Severus too, to an extent, but I have to say, seeing Voldemort here is a bit of a surprise."

Harry cocked his head. "Not enough of one if you aren't freaking out about it," he pointed out.

Remus looked like he was caught off guard for a second, before he smiled. "Fair point," he conceded. "What's going on here, then? Why are you all here? And why can't I get into the other house?"

"That house is warded against magical creatures," said Snape. "And we are here to ensure Potter can be taken away from his abusive relatives permanently."

"Dumbledore put a tracker on him," said Bill. "It was telling him his approximate location at all times. I just finished removing it."

"It also seems that I may have accidentally turned him into a horcrux," said Tom casually.

'...Well, you've all been up to a lot, I see." Suddenly looking rather haggard, Remus sat down on the couch next to Harry. "I was planning on talking to Harry privately, but since it seems like you're all on his side, I may as well do this now. I'll question Voldemort's presence here in a minute." He looked at Harry. "You asked me about Sirius and his thoughts on everything."

Harry nodded. "I got a note saying not to trust the old man, and Snape thinks the handwriting matches Sirius'. I thought it was kind of familiar too. But we weren't sure why he'd have sent me something like that, or when he'd have sent it, seeing as he's...kind of not here anymore."

Remus sighed softly. "Sirius had plenty of reason not to trust Dumbledore. At least, after a certain point."

"What point?"

"You told Sirius about the Dursleys. Sirius told Dumbledore what you'd said due to his concern. And Dumbledore told him you were exaggerating it all. Sirius knew you weren't lying, and didn't understand why Dumbledore was insisting you were."

Harry frowned. "Was that really enough to make him stop trusting Dumbledore?"

"It wasn't," said Remus with a shake of his head. "But that was what started it for him. Sirius has…" He hesitated. "Sirius was always a little cautious of Dumbledore, right from our first year at Hogwarts. He was raised that way-raised to be cautious of the Light and by default, Dumbledore."

"But he told me he was against what his parents were always preaching," said Harry, confused.

"He was," said Remus, "but like them or not, agree with them or not, the opinions the ones who raise you have are ingrained in you. Sirius was no different. He disagreed with and rebelled against his parents, yes, but their disdain and distrust for the Light always remained somewhere in the back of his mind. Me, and Peter, and James especially, were Light, and so he made an effort to push away what his parents had taught him." Remus leaned back.

"He lost some trust in Dumbledore when he was locked up in Azkaban, and he lost more when nothing was done after he proved to all of us that he was innocent, and he lost even more trust when Dumbledore told him you were lying."

"But...what did he do?"

"He tried to get you alone," said Remus. "He wanted to tell you exactly what Dumbledore told him. He wanted you to know that he'd told Dumbledore what you'd said about the Dursleys and while he believed you, Dumbledore didn't, and that was why nothing could be done to help you. And he wanted to tell you Voldemort," he glanced at Tom, "was after the prophecy. Unfortunately, he was never able to do that."

"No one ever left you two alone long enough for that. I expect they were told to intervene if they noticed both of you were missing at the same time."

"But you weren't told that?"

Remus shook his head. "I wasn't, no. Likely because I would have questioned it and refused to follow it. Why would I want to stop Sirius from talking to his godson in private?"

"I was never given that order either," said Snape. "I suspect for the same reason. I made it very clear that I cared little for Black, so what would it matter to me if you two spoke privately?"

"What about you, Bill?" asked Harry curiously.

"I wasn't told anything like that either," said Bill with a shake of his head. "To be fair though, I'm not around all that often, and even when I am, I'm typically at work. We haven't really had the chance to talk very much."

"Sirius confronted Dumbledore when he realized that," said Remus, sounding a little tense. "But something changed after that conversation."

"Changed? How?"

"Sirius has always had some...problems, especially after the time he spent in Azkaban, but he became more irrational afterwards. Irrational in a way that was very unlike him. He kept talking about leaving headquarters to take care of things himself, and it always took me ages to talk him out of it."

"It happened multiple times?" said Snape. "I don't recall noticing anything different about Black."

"It never happened when you were there," Remus replied. "It was during the school year, so you were always at the castle. And yes, it happened a few times. Two days before his-his death, he took me aside and told me all of this and about his suspicions. He told me he'd been wanting to tell Harry everything, but had a feeling he wasn't ever going to be able to, and wanted me to do it for him if it came to that. The next day his behaviour changed again, and the day after that he rushed off to the Ministry and died."

"Then I was right," said Tom. "Dumbledore took advantage of Black's mental barriers being weak due to his time in prison, and planted various suggestions in his mind. Those changed his behaviour and manipulated him into doing what he did." He looked at Harry. "Of course, I will not pretend to have no hand in what happened, but his leaving the safety of the Order headquarters is, no doubt, due to Dumbledore."

Harry sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Then Sirius being the one to have sent that note makes sense." He paused, cocked his head, and said, "Well, him writing the note makes sense. I don't know how he could've sent it."

"It could have been the house-elf," said Snape.

"Kreacher? But he hated Sirius!"

"That could be precisely why it took as long as it did. He may have felt conflicted over following an order from Black after his death."

"Oh." Harry stood up. He'd spent way too long sitting down today, and he desperately needed to move around. "Okay, so Sirius doesn't want me to trust Dumbledore, and after everything I've heard from everyone and the tracker Bill just got rid of, I obviously don't trust him anymore and probably never will again." He moved to stand behind the couch so he had a bit of space to stretch a little. "There's still one thing no one's told me yet. What the heck is a horcrux?"

"Ah."

Remus frowned, looking between them all in confusion. "A horcrux? I don't believe I'm familiar with what that is."

"Few are." Tom leaned back and crossed his legs, frustrating Harry with how elegantly casual he looked. "Horcruxes are very dark artifacts, darker than most anything else you can think of."

"But what is it?" asked Harry, his dread suddenly starting to return. Them being super dark and Bill and Snape's reaction to these things really couldn't mean anything good for him if he had one of these things inside him.

"In simple terms, a horcrux is a container that holds a half of the creator's soul inside it."

"And in more detail that means…?"

Tom sighed. "I performed a very dark ceremony to forcibly split my soul in half. The half removed was then sealed into a container or vessel of my choosing, thus rendering myself immortal. I did this more than once, but it seems one of those times was accidental. When I attempted to kill you that fateful Halloween night, it seems a small piece of my soul entered your body and turned you into a horcrux."

Hands gripping the back of the couch tightly, Harry, looking very pale, stared at Tom. "I...have a bit of your soul...inside me?"

"Yes."

"Is that why I'm a Parselmouth? And why we have that weird mental connection thing?"

"I believe so, yes."

"So how do we get rid of it?"

"A horcrux must be destroyed in order for the soul piece to be removed."

"...Meaning?"

"If you want it gone you will have to die," Tom stated bluntly.

There was a long silence before Harry, in a faint voice, said, "Well, guess you don't have to worry about being killed anytime soon."

Hilariously enough, it was Snape who reacted first when he started laughing in disbelief.

That's it for now. Looking forward to reviews! Laterz!