Chapter 4 : Burning down memory lane
Out of the great vaulted windows of the bridge, they could see the chunks of rock, ice and clouds of dust that made up Saturn's rings drifting beneath them as Requirement completed its lap of the planet. With the station now complete, they had resumed their travels around the solar system. He had no doubt that many of the crew were enjoying the view in the early hours of the evening on the various observation decks of the ship. Marveling at the wonders of their home system was not the only reason they were flying around, however.
"Alright, now bring us close to that big asteroid to starboard and turn us around."
Cho and Marietta, leaned over two opposite consoles at the front of the bridge, were hard at work calculating new trajectories on the fly and entering them in the flight computer. It was something that they had discovered while they continued to translate the ship's systems. They could plot more complex courses instead of just inputting the coordinates of their destination and let the computer come up with the quickest path. That allowed them more freedom in their travels, at the cost of complex calculations they would be hard pressed to complete under pressure.
"Get more power to the front shields. We don't want any stray debris hitting us."
Near the left wall, Katie gave a nod before moving and turning a command stone on her own console. They could see the shield shimmer for a second outside the windows before disappearing again. Not far from her, Ernie monitored the readings of the ship's internal and external sensors from his own station.
"We're currently eight m-Sorry, fourteen kilometres away from the asteroid and going around it. Shields are stable and power consumption is within acceptable parameters."
Yet another change they had to get used to. Knowing they were planning on recruiting magicals from all over the world, Parvati and Michael had insisted the crew start using the metric system. Harry would have preferred it the other way but he could see the logic since only a handful of countries used imperial units.
"Well done everyone, I think that's enough for today. Cho, get us back to the station, please."
"Aye aye, captain."
With the Room now connected to the station, and the fact that they couldn't open it from this side, the ship had lost its permanent link to Hogwarts. Gone was the door in what they had come to know as the entrance to the ship. On the occasional days where they decided not to get back to Neptune to dock the ship, one of the crew members that stayed behind on the station would go back to Hogwarts and open the Room to Requirement. It wasn't a smooth process but it would work until the engineers found another way to travel between Earth and the station.
Tonight, however, they'd stopped the ship next to one of the station's arms and stepped through the docking tube that had automatically extended at their approach. The crew dispersed, some going to their respective sections of the station to rest or work on their own projects, while a majority of them talked and laughed as they made their way to the communal deck. They spread out across the room in small groups, talking in hushed voices, reading books or just enjoying the view and each other's company.
"So, when do we get to see something new?"
As Harry picked up a couple bottles from the fridge, turned his head to see Zacharias, leaning on the counter they had installed.
"Something new?"
"Don't get me wrong, this is amazing," He turned and raised a hand to show the view of Neptune that took a significant portion of the observation bay. "and I doubt I'll ever get bored of it. But we've gone around the system a few times already. Isn't it time we moved on?"
His wide gesture drew some attention and the conversations around them slowly died out as people started listening in. Harry gave a sight and stood up before closing the fridge behind him as Seamus joined the discussion.
"Wasn't that the point of this whole thing? To get out there and see stuff? To find the aliens who built this ship?"
"Yeah, we got an entire galaxy to explore. Why are we limiting ourselves to our own system like that? It's not like the ship can't make the jump."
Harry sent a bottle in Ron's direction and opened his own, taking a gulp before he answered.
"Believe me, I'd like nothing more than to tell you that we'll go tomorrow. But it's not that easy. We can't just up and leave in the middle of a war. The trip itself could take weeks for all we know."
"And what if something breaks down and we get stuck out there? We would be leaving everyone we know to Voldemort's mercy." Ron added, opening his own butterbeer.
Not that he had any...
That put a damper on everyone's enthusiasm for a minute, as they shivered at the thought. Not all of them had lost family during his first rise to power, but everyone had heard the tales and knew many who did. Things down there were already taking a dark turn, and it was only the beginning.
There is, however, something to be said for the stubbornness of teenagers, and pleading voices could soon be heard once more.
"Couldn't we go, just for a short while? Like, we take a weekend and go visit another system while being extra careful. And I'm sure we can do something about the travel time."
"Screw that! If we go, I want to stay at least a week to visit everything."
"You know how big a planet is, right? I mean, look out the window man, you'd barely see anything in that time."
The room quickly filled with a hubbub of voices as everyone wanted to share their opinions on the matter and couldn't wait for the others to finish.
In Harry's mind, a little voice kept needling him, and even he had to admit that the prospect of just taking off and start exploring the stars, of leaving this country that saw him as little more than an attention seeking nutjob to fend for themselves. Even just for a weekend so he could rest without having to think of the war...
Harry shook his head to scatter these thoughts and took a big swing of his drink. Ron had been right, and he knew himself well enough to know he'd never be able to relax while thousands of innocents were suffering as he played around.
The sound of a book being closed forcefully was quickly followed by a shout of a voice he knew all too well.
"It wouldn't work anyway!"
The cacophony toned down at Hermione's exclamation, and every head turned to look at her. She looked supremely annoyed at all of them and clearly regretted that she hadn't gone to her office earlier.
"We ran some numbers and we found out that with our current rate of energy generation, we are unable to maintain a stable hyperspace jump long enough to go the whole way to another system."
Disappointed looks came upon most of the people present, but a few of the more technologically literate still held their hopes.
"Isn't the whole point of hyperspace the fact that you don't have to cross the whole distance but a fraction of it?"
"That's true, but the energy required to open a stable hyperspace window and then maintain our speed while also keeping the shield up to protect us is ridiculous. It doesn't even compare to what we use to move around the system." Lee followed up.
"If it's just a question of energy, can't we just take a whole lot of fuel with us and make pit stops to fill up the reserves? We're not exactly lacking the stuff now that the station is up."
"That's one solution. Refueling takes time though, and we'd need to open a new window each time to go back to hyperspace, which is the most energy-intensive part of the process. We would be stuck in-between systems for a while, waiting for the energy reserves to fill up again until we can make the next jump. And we're not exactly talking about a couple times either."
"You have to remember that this ship is supposed to work with a vastly more efficient fuel. With it, the aliens could have crossed half the galaxy without needing to refuel."
"So we can either stay here until we find a better solution, or spend months trying to reach the closest system? This sucks !"
All around, grumbles of discontent rose once again at the news. People were starting to break out before Lee spoke once again, a big grin on his face.
"Oh come on, it's not that bad. Besides, there's still tons of cool stuff to see in the system. Like, Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, is one big ball of ice! Anyone else up for ice skating down a mountain?"
The golden rays of the setting sun bathed the Gryffindor common room as flames crackled in the hearth, offering them some respite against the cold of the Scottish autumn. A few of their housemates were playing or talking in hushed voices, and a group of seventh years were practicing the non verbal transfiguration of a table into a hippopotamus with mixed results.
Harry, Ron and Hermione sat at a table so loaded with books one would think they were on the eve of their N.E.W.T.s. Very few of them were related to magic however, though some would say astrophysics and micro-engineering were magical in a way. Hermione was evidently one of those people, seeing how she devoured the dense volumes, taking extensive notes and stopping every few minutes to cross-reference some things from the half-dozen other books she had opened around her. From time to time, she had to take out a new book from the pile next to her, earning herself some annoyed meowing from Crookshanks who had decided to sleep rolled up atop of the pile.
But far from these scientific preoccupations, Harry and Ron were hard at work over lengths of parchment covered with runes. Open next to them were two copies of the same red leather-bound tome, completely identical, down to the handwritten annotations and notes about the ship's variants of the runes added by Hermione and Angelina and the butterbeer stain on page sixty-height.
"... And with ehwaz and raidho it means... The horse rides the morning sun?"
"Nah, It's mannaz, not ehwaz. The rider went to the east."
With a groan of defeat, Harry burrowed his head in the book. They had been learning runes for a few months now, and while Ron did encounter some success, Harry was still incapable of reading a single phrase correctly.
"Why do I even have to learn this? Can't we just use Angie's dictionary once she finishes it? Or better yet, I could ask Ernie to translate for me when I need it?"
"Because you need to know how to read if you are to quickly issue orders during dangerous situations." Hermione answered without looking up from her own studies.
Harry groaned again
"But it's not like we're going to read runes forever! Terry assured me he was making good progress on his translation program."
"Eeeerh, I'm pretty sure he only told you that so you'd get off his back, mate. You've been bugging him about it for weeks."
"We're still years away from understanding enough of the computer's inner workings to even attempt modifying it like that. And that's without taking into account our other projects and the actual programming of the translation software."
Harry gave a sight and took his head out from the book. Despite his reticence, he understood that he had to do this, but this book was even dryer than a history of magic lecture. At least Binns talked about fun stuff sometimes, like the two days rebellion of Grektuk Coppertongue who rebelled against the Goblin nation to establish the right to eat cakes in the underground cities.
"I'm just thankful we only have to learn these runes and not all the other alphabets they teach in the class. That would have been the death of me." Ron said as he stretched his legs.
"It really wasn't that bad. Professor Babbling is a great teacher who knows how to make her subject interesting. She had us write and translate jokes to each other sometimes."
"Like Snape had us try out each other's volubility solutions that one time?"
"Maybe? But we didn't end up with a talking gerbil infestation at least."
One of the rare good memories Harry had of his five years of potion classes. He'd also heard rumors that one gerbil had escaped and could still be heard pondering the mysteries of the universe in the dungeons' walls. Maybe it took a page off the Basilisk's book and made its nest in the castle's pipes?
His zoological musings were quickly interrupted by Ron however.
"Come on mate, let's get this over with."
Another week of training and monitoring the crew had come and gone and the whole thing had begun to feel like a routine for Harry. A tiring and mostly boring routing but it did have its exciting moments. Now however, coming to break this well oiled machine was the first weekend of October and his second lesson with Dumbledore. The headmaster seemed to have his own worries and had been a rare sight in the castle these days. His seat was empty more often than not during meals, and it had been a while since anyone had seen him walk around the halls like he loved to.
Two days ago however, a ghost found Harry busy in the fourth floor's bathroom to inform him of his availability this weekend. Once the embarrassment passed, curiosity took its place. Their first session had only been some cryptic talks of the prophecy and memories about Voldemort's past, which did provide some context. Harry still didn't see how that was supposed to help him fight against him.
It was with a head full of questions that Harry climbed the stairs to the headmaster's office that Saturday evening. He'd made sure to leave his stone on the ship before coming. Not that he wouldn't share the important parts of the lessons with the crew, but he had promised Dumbledore to be careful with what he learned.
He knocked on the door and entered the office when invited to. Dumbledore sat on the side in a heavily padded purple armchair that clashed with his vibrant yellow robes. In front of him, the pensive had been placed on a low table, sending ripples of silver light to the ceiling.
Memory night it is then.
"Good evening Harry. I must apologies for the sore lack of news this past month. Though I was asked quite rudely to leave my positions in the ministry and the international confederation, I find myself to be quite occupied."
"It's fine sir. I've had a lot to do myself."
Dumbledore tilted his head forwards slightly with an amused look on his face. He watched Harry from above his glasses as he sat down across from him.
"Oh? And may I ask what exactly kept you awake these last few weeks? You do seem terribly tired these days."
Harry squirmed uncomfortably on the plush armchair, his eyes looking everywhere but at Dumbledore's.
"I'd rather not say, sir."
That got a chuckle off Dumbledore.
"Then I won't pry. I will however ask you the same courtesy regarding my activities outside the castle."
That request soured Harry's mood quickly.
"Do not be so dispirited. I did not forget my promise of keeping you informed and I will tell you all I know soon. First, however, there are things you must see so you can understand."
No poker for me then.
With his good hand, Dumbledore brought Harry's attention to the pensive. His eyes, however, were drawn to the blackened and ghoulish hand immobile on the armrest. Another reminder of things he would be told "in time". He was beginning to think that this newfound trust and partnership with the headmaster was a two steps forward, one step back kind of deal. But it was still better than last year, at least. And if there is one thing he'd learned by having to keep his crew in check, it was patience, he thought as he leaned forward.
For long minutes afterward, the silence of the room was only perturbed by the wheezing and rattling of the various devices exposed around the office as the two wizards kept their heads in the engraved stone bowl. When they finally emerged, Harry's agitated expression was a far cry from the reaction expected by the headmaster.
He stood up, pacing around the room wide making wide gestures to punctuate every word.
"I got it! That's what I missed the first time! I couldn't get a good look at it in the Gaunt shack, but It was so clear now!"
Dumbledore tried to get up to calm him down, but in his haste put his weight on his bad hand. He fell back down heavily on the armchair with a small cry of pain. Pulled out of his frenzies, Harry hurried to the headmaster's chair and keeled next to him.
"Are you alright sir?"
In this instant, Harry could not see Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, greatest Wizard of this age and headmaster of the most prestigious school in the world. All he saw was a tired old man trying to find his breath as he fought the pain from his hand.
"I... I will be alright, Harry. Thank you."
"I"m sorry, i shouldn't have-"
"Do not apologise for my mistake, Harry. Everything is fine."
Things sure did not look fine right now though.
Crap, was this how Mme Pomfrey felt every time he ended up in the infirmary? He owed the matron an apology.
After a moment, Dumbledore's breathing returned to normal and his drawn features relaxed. He looked up at Harry.
"Tell me, what did you see in Burkes' memory that shook you so much?"
"It's... The locket sir. The Gaunt's. Slytherin's. I found it in Grimmauld place last Christmas. The thing was giving me the most painful headache until I locked it up."
Dumbledore's eyes widened and if not for his painful arm, he had no doubt he would be the one pacing around this time. Instead, he grasped Harry's arm with his good hand and looked him straight in the eyes, his own full of concern and urgency.
"Did you touch it directly? Do you still have it?"
Taken aback by his reaction, Harry could only stare at the distress in the man's eyes for a moment. It's not like Dumbledore had the strength to hold him tight enough to hurt him in his current state, but he had never seen the headmaster afraid before now.
"I-No, I moved it with a fire poker. It's in a box, in my trunk."
Without losing a second, Dumbledore dropped his arm and called to the air.
"Filzib!"
An aged house-elf with tufts of white hair coming out of his ears and dressed in a relatively clean pillow case sporting the Hogwarts emblem, appeared with a soft pop in the room.
"Head-professor Dumbly called?"
"Could you please go and retrieve young Harry's trunk in his dorms and bring it here, please? A dangerous artefact may be stored in it. Take every precaution and do not touch it under any circumstance."
Wait, in his dorm room? The empty one where no one had slept in for weeks now?
"Errrh... Sir? I don't think that's really necessary."
Dumbledore brought his attention back to him for an instant, before turning his eyes to his decayed hand.
"I made the mistake of underestimating these artefacts once, Harry, and I paid dearly for it. I do not want to risk another incident."
"I mean... Now that I think about it, I didn't want to risk another headache so I hid it somewhere in the castle. I can go get it right now."
The scrutinising gaze of Dumbledore pierced him for a tense moment, as if the headmaster seeked to somehow see the truth in his words through him.
"Please... Trust me."
With a heavy sigh, Dumbledore sat back in his chair.
"Alright. But promise me that you will be careful."
Harry did not waste any time and left to retrieve the locket from its hiding place, which happened to still be at the bottom of his trunk, presently stored in a corner of his room on Requirement. When he returned to the office, it was with a small chest made out of solid silver that he held at arm's length. The elf was gone and Dumbledore was standing next to his desk.
"Quite an impressive box you found. Another forgotten heirloom you found in Grimmauld I presume?"
"Er... Yes, sir."
It wasn't technically a lie. He had first seen it there, thought it had been made on the ship and sent to him via owl.
After setting the box down on the headmaster's desk delicately, Harry took a step back and turned, only to be met with the sight of Dumbledore offering him the sword of Gryffindor.
"If you would do me the honour of disposing of it. I am afraid my strength is not quite what it used to be."
Awkwardly taking the sword by its ruby encrusted hilt, Harry hesitated an instant. Sure, the locket was definitely a dark artefact, one passed down by Voldemort's family, but stabbing it with a sword seemed a bit overkill. Dumbledore, however, did not seem perturbed in the least. He watched Harry with a serious look, all traces of the joyful headmaster searching for the castle's mysterious chamber pot room gone.
Harry opened the box and was instantly taken by a severe headache. Whispers of words he could not make out filled his ears and his scar throbbed in pain. Gritting his teeth, he took the sword with two hands and raised it above the box before thrusting the blade downward.
The instant the tip of the blade made contact with the locket, the whispers became incoherent screams of fear, rage and agony, and thick black smoke spread from the box as a black liquid boiled from the locket's wound.
The moment seemed to last an eternity, until Harry felt a hand rest on his shoulder. The sights and sounds blurring his senses calmed down, the pain and his strength fading away as Dumbledore guided him to a chair. He sat down heavily and lost his grip on the sword, which fell to the floor with a metallic clatter. Dumbledore carefully picked it up and stored it away in a display case on the wall before he sat down at his desk
They stayed like this for a moment, Dumbledore giving him the time to settle down before he spoke once more.
"I need your word Harry, that you will not speak of what I am to tell you to anyone, for as long as you live. The task ahead of us is perilous and you will be tempted to share it with your friends. Its secrecy is vital however if we are to ever win this fight against Voldemort and any who would rise to replace him."
Forget the step back, it seemed like tonight was a sprint to the finish line.
"Of course, professor."
What followed was a long retelling of Dumbledore's quest of these last few years. He had always suspected Voldemort somehow managed to escape death that fateful night, but his suspicions as to how began when Harry brought him the remains of the diary. This was a magic so dark and obscure that few dared speak of it, and fewer still to record traces of its existence. The very purpose of the magic made its secret both its best defence and the greatest insurance against its use. One could not create or destroy what they did not know existed. Dumbledore did however manage to gather enough information to make an educated guess as to the nature of these artefacts, before finding century old texts describing them.
Horcruxes. Phylacteries. Soul jars. They had borne many names since ancient times but those abominations could be found spread out throughout history if one knew what to look for.
He was unsure of how many Voldemort made but he had a lead to obtaining this information. He searched for any artefacts linked to the founders and Voldemort's own past that he could have used to host fragments of his soul. He'd even considered Hogwarts to be the hiding place of one such object but he did not find anything after searching the castle from top to bottom. It was only this summer that his search bore fruits, when he found the ring and lost his arm to its protections. The last thing he revealed were the very rare and dangerous ways of destroying a Horcrux and the importance of the sword in their endeavour.
The moon shone high in the sky and the candle on the office melted the last of its wax when he finished.
That... Was a lot to take in. But it also explained a lot. And as long as these Horcruxes were out there, Voldemort would keep coming back to haunt them. Harry's traitorous mind was quick to imagine the worst possibility however. While they were on earth, the artefacts could be found and destroyed. But if Voldemort ever managed to send one into space...
They talked for a while about what they would do and how Harry could help with the search. They agreed that they would continue to explore Voldemort's past, looking for clues, and once Dumbledore managed to track down another Horcrux, they would go retrieve it together.
"... I fear however, that the hour is drawing late, and we could both gain from some rest. We can continue our talk during our next lesson."
As he got up and ready to leave, a thought came to Harry's tired mind. One that had nagged at him those last few weeks. He stilled as he picked up the now empty box before he gave an apprehensive look to Dumbledore.
"Professor? I've thought a bit about that memory of the orphanage you showed me the last time and... I can't help but think that the way you used magic on the director and to intimidate Riddle was just plain wrong. The scale isn't the same but it's the same thing the ministry or the Death Eaters do, playing with muggles and bullying people into compliance."
Since the day Hagrid had burst into his life and showed him the wonders of magic, he had seen amazing, beautiful things. Even today, while they used it around the ship, it never failed to surprise him. It certainly had its darker aspects, a perversion of nature's gifts, but he knew that it wasn't what magic was at its core.
He had expected Dumbledore to look shocked or at least a bit angry at the accusation. For the man to take offence to being compared to what he fought against his whole life.
Instead, the headmaster gave a deep sigh, looking at his empty hands.
"Yes, I can see how it can seem like that. I never claimed to be perfect Harry, no matter what others say about me. I am but a silly old man who made as many mistakes in his life as the next man. And my approach of the young Tom was no doubt one of the greatest among them. I did not try to understand him or his reasons. I thought I could give him a little scare, to put him back on the right track. I failed spectacularly, permanently marring his opinion of me and helping to create the worst disaster of our time. When I understood my error, it was already too late to fix it. The damage had been done."
Dumbledore looked up at Harry.
"Instead of suspicions and punishments, I should have guided him with forgiveness and kindness. I was not as empathetic as I should have been, battling as I was with the rise of Grindelwald and my own ego. I would like to think that I have changed for the better since then, however I cannot stop wishing that I had acted differently."
"Great minds have spent their lives pondering how things could have been different if some events had happened differently, though I will leave those musings to the historians. Could Tom have grown to not become Lord Voldemort? Perhaps. Would the world be a better place or would something worse have happened? No one knows. I personally prefer to spend my time trying to improve what I can instead of pondering questions without answers. It is only by working on improving the present that we may build a brighter future."
"If there is one thing you learn tonight Harry, please make it this one: Fighting with hate and anger instead of empathy and understanding will only lead you to grief."
In the early hours of the next day, the castle slowly came to life as students and teachers enjoyed the peace and warmth it provided them on a Sunday morning before the start of another week of scholarly pursuits.
Detached from this peaceful dawn, a lone figure watched the sun rise above the mist-covered forbidden forest from one of the balconies, holding on tight to the stone railing with the vigour of rage and desperation.
The only sound one could hear was that of tears falling down to the stones below him.
At his feet lay the crumpled remains of a special edition of the daily prophet. The front page was almost entirely reserved to a picture of the smouldering ruins of what must have been a great manor surrounded by beautiful gardens.
Below it, the headline announced the death of Augusta Longbottom and Amelia Bones.