ccxxi. but smile no more
Harriet woke from troubled dreams with a start.
She lay on her back in a comfortable bed, the clean sheets tucked under her arms, pale moonlight smeared on a familiar ceiling. She was in the infirmary, but in one of the private rooms, not the main ward. Every inch of her hurt in one way or another, most likely from the Cruciatus Curse, though her shoulder in particular throbbed as if she was being struck. It was the shoulder of the arm that had been regrown, and Madam Pomfrey had warned her the tendons wouldn't have the same resilience as they once did. A low, pained exhale left her as Harriet rolled her head on the pillow.
Professor Dumbledore sat in the armchair at her bedside, his tired eyes glazed as he stared into the distance.
"You let him go," Harriet croaked.
Dumbledore blinked and turned his gaze to her, "You should be resting still."
"You let Snape go."
"Professor Snape knows what he's doing."
"He's going to die." Harriet's expression pinched as she considered it might be hours later, and Snape might already be dead. She didn't want to cry anymore. She felt so worthless when she cried.
Why did he go? she wanted to know. What is so important? Why does it matter? There has to be other people, other ways, other spies—.
"We must have faith in his abilities and his judgment," Dumbledore said, though his hand tightened ever so slightly where it rested on his knee. "We have been planning for this day for some time. Severus did not step blindly into danger."
Harriet squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could believe him, wishing it was true.
"And, of course, the one serving the pretender. He will experience a taste of my power before his end—."
She swallowed, eyes burning.
"Where's the Flamels?" she asked, grasping for a different subject. "And Elara? Hermione?"
"Nicolas and Perenelle are asleep next door and will undoubtedly return to bombard you with their concern in the morning. Misses Black and Granger are with Sirius and Remus, and I believe Hermione was convinced to accept a Calming Draft so she could sleep."
"And Terry?"
"He is with his parents."
Harriet nodded, eyes on her knees. Terry. Terry was dead. Crouch had killed him for merely being an inconvenience. One of the smartest wizards Harriet had known, offed because he'd been worried about her.
"Go, please."
"No, I don't think I will. What do you think you're doing, Krum?"
"The wizard I didn't know. The one with red eyes," she said, abating new tears. "If you used the Atlas to bring me back, does that mean you saw his name? I—he didn't look familiar, but the eyes. I'd know those eyes anywhere."
Dumbledore didn't say anything, but he took a breath as if gathering his thoughts.
"He's like the others, isn't he?" Harriet asked, heart sinking. She'd hoped to be wrong. "Like—Slytherin, and Gaunt, and the Diadem?"
"Yes, we can safely assume so."
"What are they, Professor?"
She expected the Headmaster to prevaricate, to push off the question for a later date as he seemed to prefer doing—but he didn't. He considered her with apparent gravity in his face, resolve etched into the many wizened lines around his hard eyes, before he weighed his choices and came to a decision.
"In the many curiosities you are your friends have delved into, can you tell me if you have ever come across something called a Horcrux?"
The corners of Harriet's mouth turned down as she considered the word. "I don't think so, Professor. Should I know what that is?"
"No. In fact, I'd be quite concerned if you did." Professor Dumbledore removed his half-moon spectacles and wiped them clean on his sleeve—a careful, practiced move that involved balancing the glasses upon his knee for a moment. When Harriet shifted in discomfort, he waved his hand, and the potion waiting on the end table hopped into the air, pouring a thimbleful into a glass. Harriet took it when it floated over to her and downed the trickle, her pain dissipating.
"Thank you, Professor," she sighed.
"Not at all," he replied. "Ah, you must forgive me for needing to gather my thoughts. I don't find this particular branch of magic easy to speak about. A Horcrux is some of the Darkest and most vile magic you can ever find upon this earth. Even in Ancient Greece, it was considered the worst kind of perversion, the kind that slips beyond the bounds of nature and strikes at divinity."
"What is it, sir? Is it…is it something Voldemort did?"
Grim, Dumbledore nodded. "I won't go into specifics about the rituals involved. It's my belief some things should not be given voice, and though you are nearly fifteen now, dear girl, you are still a child, and I would not place the burden of such knowledge upon you. Suffice it to say that one of the most crucial components for creating a Horcrux is murder. Cold, premeditated murder."
A chill chased itself down Harriet's spine. She sat up despite the pain it elicited and lifted her knees, folding her arms around her skinny legs.
"It is not a subject that has much area of study. It is not something that has been used very often in history, thankfully, though the lack of information means we can't fully understand Horcruxes or how they…manifest." Professor Dumbledore replaced his spectacles. "The man you saw was a Horcrux, Harriet. Professor Slytherin is a Horcrux, as if Minister Gaunt. A Horcrux is a piece of a soul splintered from the whole and placed within an object for safekeeping."
Harriet chewed on her lower lip, wincing when her teeth dug into the still-healing bruise. "But…Slytherin isn't—none of them are objects. They're people."
"And in there lies a mystery we can only speculate upon, how it is fragments of a soul can find their own bodies." Dumbledore shook his head. "I digress. Do you understand what I mean by telling you this?"
"It's the same thing you've always told me, innit? That they're the same person." Harriet hadn't known how much they were the same, however. "Professor? If they're—connected, do they…I don't know. Do they have the same mind?"
"To an extent. Though, I obviously can't say for sure how much or how little that extent covers. What I know for certain is that the Horcruxes are all Tom Riddle—all born of the same mother, the same father, and all victims of their own self-abuse. Because you see, to split one's soul is to profane one's own being. It has afflicted his mind, has driven his cruelties to new and more frightening levels, and has stripped all vestiges of humanity for his person. With every Horcrux he made, Voldemort descended farther into his own depravity. Tom Riddle is mad, Harriet, in whatever incarnation he takes, and where there once might have been a boy worthy of our pity, there is only a man who has made the worst choices without hesitation or regret."
"Why would he do that? Why would he—break himself?" Harriet couldn't fathom. She couldn't fathom murdering someone, even Voldemort himself, so the entire concept was as foreign to her as an extinct language. "He's ghastly to see, Professor. He doesn't even look like a human."
"I would imagine it is a fault of having very little of his own self remaining. He did it because Tom is a coward, my girl," Dumbledore simply said. "While he claims to have plumbed the depths of magic to make himself more powerful, he has always been terrified of his own mortality. Every Horcrux was made with complete indifference to his own person and well-being, purely in search of immortality. So long as the Horcruxes exist, so too does Lord Voldemort."
Horror seeped into Harriet's mind like the feelers of a nasty insect crawling from beneath a rock. "That's why he didn't die that night, isn't it? That Hallowe'en? How you knew he'd return one day? And you—." She couldn't suppress the sudden burst of anger that moved through her. "And you think I can stop him?! You think I can do anything against him?! When it's not just Voldemort, it's—it's all of them! It's Slytherin and Gaunt and—and whoever else! Who knows how many of them!"
"It is a finite number," Dumbledore said, heedless of her anger. "There are only so many times one can split their soul before it shatters in its entirety."
"Well, bully for him!" Harriet shouted. "I couldn't—I couldn't do anything! I didn't stand a chance! I thought I'd died, that he'd gotten the spell off, when I opened my eyes in the office and thought—."
Professor Dumbledore laid his hand over hers, and the anger went out of Harriet, her fingers unclenching from tight fists.
"The journey seems longer if you concentrate only on the destination," he told her, his blue eyes intent upon her own. "But a journey is made up of many steps, and every step is just as noteworthy. While it seems impossible today, I promise you, Harriet, that if you remain steadfast, if you stay true to yourself and pursue all that is good, nothing is impossible. Tom Riddle will not win in the end, no matter how many faces he wears."
Harriet took one shuddering breath, then another. She shifted her hand so she could hold the Headmaster's, and he gave it a reassuring squeeze. It felt smaller than she would have thought but also warm. Grounding. Her own was covered in a smattering of scratches and fresh scars, bruises on the knuckles, and if she wasn't mistaken, Madam Pomfrey had regrown a few of the nails in their entirety.
"What happens now, sir?"
"Now, I believe you go back to sleep." Dumbledore stood, hand slipping from hers as he reached for another potion. "You rest, and tomorrow we mourn those who have been taken from us. Then, the day after, we begin the journey anew. We will strive to make certain those responsible for tonight's terrible things answer for their crimes. But, that cannot happen if you do not rest first."
Harriet accepted the potion without arguing, already familiar with the swirling, midnight color of Dreamless Sleep. She'd welcome the lack of dreams, if only so she didn't have to see Terry's startled, blank eyes, or have to think about what Dumbledore had revealed this night.
No matter what he said, she knew nothing would be the same again. Harriet would never be the same.
She swallowed a mouthful, then slumped into the pillows once more. Professor Dumbledore caught the half-empty bottle and moved it aside, drawing the sheets over Harriet's shoulders. The last thing she registered was the soft touch of a hand atop her head before she succumbed to the darkness of sleep.
xXx
It might have been a dream that woke her. She might have imagined the watery half-light of pre-dawn splashed upon the covered windows and the shadowed form highlighted above her bed, the red eyes of Professor Slytherin looking down at her, considering, calculating.
"What does he know that I don't?" he hissed. "What is it about you, Harriet Potter?"
Pale, soft fingers wrapped around her throat and pressed down.
"It would be easy."
After a moment, he let go, and Harriet breathed. The shadow of his cloak moved silently across the floor to the door.
It might have been a dream, or it might not have. Either way, Harriet remembered nothing when she woke.
A/N: The title is from Poe's "The Haunted Palace,": "And travellers, now, within that valley, / Through the red-litten windows see / Vast forms, that move fantastically / To a discordant melody, / While, like a ghastly rapid river, / Through the pale door / A hideous throng rush out forever / And laugh — but smile no more." About depression and sorrow, and how it overcomes a person's mind.
Dumbledore: "Should I tell her about the Horcrux in her scar?"
Harriet: *having the worst day of her life*
Dumbledore: "Gonna save that jar of farts for another day."