A/N: Continuing with the AU aspects of this story. Just go with it. I hope you enjoy this chapter. If you do, please, leave a review. Thank you for all your love! See you next time!

Chapter 18

Harry stumbled as he was thrown into the library, wincing at the pain in his leg and turning around with a small huff as Snape followed, door slamming shut behind him.

"Would you just listen?" he tried again, sighing when the dark eyes just flashed at him.

"You brainless child!" Snape shouted. "I will not listen, not when I just listened to that woman screaming about how you'd disappeared!"

"Snape, I—"

"Shut up and sit down!" Snape interrupted sharply and Harry did so with another huff. He flopped onto the sofa, dropping the folder next to him and crossing his arms over his chest. "Your complete lack of self-preservation and inability to think is astonishing!"

"I resent that," Harry grumbled, receiving an incredulous glare.

"You have given me absolutely no evidence to the contrary!" Snape yelled. "I asked one thing of you, one! Be smart and safe yet the second you had a chance, you ignore that and run off to confront Death Eaters!"

"That wasn't the plan or anything."

Snape glowered. "You are not making things better for yourself. Honestly! Do you have a death wish?"

Harry raised an eyebrow. "I mean—"

"Do not get smart with me!" Snape shouted and Harry snapped his mouth shut, unable to stop the slight glare that settled on his face. "Did you think at all?"

"I did actually."

"Beyond yourself!"

Harry scowled. "Yeah, I did. I thought of you."

"Not enough, clearly, otherwise I would not have been sat here losing my mind, thinking you had been kidnapped by the bloody Dark Lord and wondering if there was any chance to save you!"

"Even if I had been, I never asked you to save me!" Harry yelled back, suddenly feeling out of sorts over just why Snape was apparently angry with him.

"I made a promise, one you seem determined to make me break!"

"Acting like you care won't bring her back!"

Harry held onto his glare as Snape's eyes narrowed. He didn't know why he'd brought up his mother, but he was becoming aware of the small part of him that was convinced all the changes with Snape were still the man's way of redeeming himself to Lily Evans, not him.

"This has nothing to do with your parents."

"You sure about that?"

"Everything from the last five years was about them," Snape said, the shouting finally easing. "Surely you've noticed the difference."

He had, but when had anything anyone had done been about him and not his parents or Voldemort? He sighed.

"You can't save me."

"Is that the reason you did something so foolish?" Snape asked, moving to sit on the coffee table in front of Harry. "Leg up."

Harry lifted his injured leg with a wince, laying it across the table beside the professor. "I did it because I had to."

"I have told you repeatedly that you don't have to do anything," Snape replied, flicking his wand to summon supplies as he began pulling off the bandages taped to Harry's leg by the twins.

"Except I do," Harry told him. "I do have to fight him at some point and you've somehow convinced me to actually do that instead of just wait to die, so I did something that might let me survive the bastard."

Snape glanced up from Harry's leg. "And what's that?"

Harry briefly held up the folder. "He worked at Borgin and Burkes when he was still Tom Riddle. I saw the name I heard. I think he got his horcruxes there or at least some of them. Figured maybe we can find out what the horcruxes are and maybe we can find them."

"I suppose I can appreciate the initiative," Snape said, pouring a potion into the claw wounds. "However, I do not appreciate your methods."

"Yeah, I know," Harry said. "Though, to be fair, facing Death Eaters was honestly not in the plan."

"Meaning you had a plan?" Snape said, arching an eyebrow as he began applying bandages.

"I mean, I always have a plan, just never a very good one," Harry quipped.

Snape just sighed and rolled his eyes, banishing his remaining supplies. He moved to sit on the sofa next to Harry, holding out his hand.

"Very well. Let me see what you have deemed more important than your life."

"I never said that," Harry protested even as he handed the folder over.

"It is implied," Snape said, beginning to read through the folder's contents.

They were quiet for a time as Snape perused the stolen paperwork.

"Were you actually worried?" Harry asked.

"I've always worried, but for vastly different reasons," Snape said without looking away from the page he was reading.

"You didn't want to lose the chance to kill me yourself?" Harry said cheekily.

Snape smirked. "Among others."

Harry laughed lightly.

"While I agree this could be helpful—reluctantly, might I add, for I have no desire to encourage your headache-inducing recklessness—"

Harry scowled while also rolling his eyes.

"—I'm afraid cataloguing numbers do not provide us any assistance in identifying the other horcruxes."

"Fred and George are going to help with that."

"I am strongly opposed to you dragging others into your antics."

"They offered!" Harry protested. "You know I wouldn't ask anyone to do anything even remotely dangerous, especially not for me."

"Then cease convincing yourself to do them."

"I'm trying!"

Snape stared at him and he huffed.

"I'll try harder."

"You should not have to try," Snape said pointedly.

"Well, I do," Harry snapped.

"It should not take such effort to keep yourself alive."

"It does and you know that. Maybe once it didn't, but now…" Harry trailed off with a small shake of his head. "What could possibly make it so easy to want to stay alive? I've got no friends, I've got no family, I've got no future. Not one person gives a damn so why should I? I am here to exist as a horcrux, keeping the bastard alive until it's time for me to die so I can take him with me. What is there for me to stay alive for?"

"Everything you cannot see."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, just because you currently see no light, no path forward, it does not mean it does not exist because—"

"Interesting coming from you of all people," Harry interrupted, gaining an unimpressed look from the professor.

"—because everything you said is patently untrue," Snape finished firmly.

"I don't think it is."

"You are more than his horcrux and you are more than our world's sacrificial saviour."

"To who exactly?" Harry said skeptically.

"Many in this house, including myself."

Harry stared at the man for a few seconds, surprised and unsure of the admission. "How am I supposed to believe or trust that?"

"We have had variations of this same conversation several times, including just this morning. It should no longer bear repeating."

Harry sighed at his never-ending conflict. "I know. Guess I'm just having a hard time believing you'd care at all about me after everything and what…who I am."

"Despite popular opinion, I am capable, and repeat your despicable relatives' words again and I will silence you permanently," Snape replied, the threat said so casually.

Harry grinned. "But who would you have such scintillating conversation with?"

"One of Hagrid's beasts will do though that vocabulary was impressive," Snape responded.

"Oi!" Harry exclaimed.

"At least they run from danger instead of towards it."

"I'm sorry, okay? I won't do it again."

"I am certain you will and I will have jars ready when I skin you."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I appreciate the confidence, really."

"Going on six years, Potter, going on six years," Snape said, returning his attention casually back to the employee file.

"'Lo, gents. Am I interrupting?"

Harry turned to the doorway at the voice, finding Kingsley standing there, leaning against the frame and a file held against his side.

"Just Potter's inability to act responsibly," Snape told him and Harry shot him a scowl.

"And threats of my evisceration," he added.

Kingsley chuckled and joined them, taking an adjacent chair as he held his file out to Snape. "Found a couple things in Mysteries you might be interested in. In their archives, anyway. Working on getting full access. I just need Barlow."

"The Unspeakable?" Snape clarified, putting Harry's folder aside to open Kingsley's.

Kingsley nodded.

"I thought only Unspeakables were allowed in the department and they couldn't tell anyone anything about what's in there?" Harry wondered, receiving an amused look from Kingsley and an exasperated one from Snape.

"Potter, you understand you and your band of fiends broke into this very department mere weeks ago, yes?"

"I know that!" Harry said loudly, frustrated. "But we weren't allowed to be or supposed to be there, were we?"

"You—"

"You are also aware of the corruption in the Ministry," Kingsley added quickly before the verbal sparring could progress, gaining an eye roll from Snape and a glare at the professor from Harry. "I've got connection with Barlow. Winslow, however, I don't so I could only get to the front of Mysteries' archives and their collection log. Now, some of it is charmed so only Unspeakables can read it. The real 'mysteries' of the department, you know. I may or may not have removed said charm and duplicated a couple pages."

Harry snorted while Snape raised his eyes from the file, staring at Kingsley with an arched brow.

"An Auror manipulating his way into a restricted department, breaking privacy charms, and stealing classified information," Snape drawled. "What a role model."

"Says the Death Eater."

Harry worried for a moment that Kingsley had gone too far. His days and status as a Death Eater, former or not, was generally a sensitive subject for Snape. He was surprised, therefore, when the man's magic buzzed with obvious amusement and his lips curved into a smirk.

"But I do not claim to be a role model."

"You're a professor."

"Not by choice. Now, what am I looking at?"

Kingsley chuckled lightly again. "So, these pages are really just the index of what's in Mysteries and the things Mysteries has done; studies, experiments, that kind of thing."

"They've done that?" Harry wondered.

"Extensively," Kingsley replied. "I found two things: a study on horcruxes and an experiment involving magical tattoos of some kind."

"You think it has something to do with the Mark and Potter's Mind Hunting?" Snape said.

"Something similar at the very least," Kingsley said. "I don't much believe in coincidences and I know you don't either."

"Are you saying someone's made the Dark Mark before? Before Voldemort?" Harry asked, looking between the two men.

"I can't know anything for sure until Barlow gets me in, but I doubt it was the Dark Mark specifically," Kingsley said with a shake of his head.

"The Dark Mark is very specific to the Dark Lord so it was likely something with similar magical properties and connection abilities," Snape added, continuing to scan the papers.

"When did these things happen?" Harry asked, mind spinning with ideas.

"The thirties and forties," Kingsley told him.

"Could this have been how Voldemort found out about these things, how to make them?" Harry questioned. "I know we don't know when he made his horcruxes, but I assume he didn't start until he left Hogwarts. Dumbledore would've noticed, surely, especially since he was suspicious of Tom in his last couple of years."

"How do you know that?" Kingsley asked curiously.

"He told me in second year," Harry said dismissively. It didn't seem important. "He had to have done it all outside Hogwarts, but there's no way there's books on this type of magic at the school, not even in the Restricted Section. So, he had to have learned about it all somewhere else, maybe in the department."

"There are plenty of places to acquire Dark Magic knowledge that I believe the Dark Lord would have accessed before a highly restricted department in the Ministry of Magic," Snape said, clearly skeptical of Harry's theory.

"Maybe, but what are the chances the Ministry is studying horcruxes and magical people-controlling tattoos, and then he just happens to create both of those things himself?" Harry countered. "You just said neither of you believe in coincidence."

"Alright, make it hypothetical," Snape indulged. "How did he access Mysteries and ongoing studies?"

Harry thought for a moment. "He knew someone in the Ministry, an early Death Eater. No one knew him yet. He would've just been a shop clerk so no one would have been on guard for Ministry infiltration. There was no war yet," he theorized and turned to Kingsley. "We need to know who he went to Hogwarts with and anyone he came into contact with as Tom Riddle. Can you get files on him, on Tom Marvolo Riddle?"

"I'm sure I can find something," Kingsley agreed.

"If you can, anything on the Riddles and Little Hangleton too. I know they were a Muggle family, but they connected to a magical one at some point," Harry added.

"Aye, aye, captain," Kingsley said with a grin as he stood. "I'll be back in a couple days, hopefully with some updates."

"Thanks, Kingsley," Harry said and watched the Auror leave the library. "I think it's time to start looking for the other horcruxes."

"It's too dangerous. We have no idea the effect interacting with your horcrux and the others could have on you. For all we know, it could kill you," Snape argued.

"We need to find them. I need to know what I can see or hear," Harry said.

"Potter—"

"Come with me," Harry interrupted and Snape looked at him. "You want me to ask for help so I'm asking. Do this with me."

Snape gazed at him contemplatively.

"I'm dying either way," Harry said. "Might as well die and make sure the bastard comes with me."

"You are not dying to defeat him."

"Then help me and let me do this. I'm asking you to help me survive. That's what you want, isn't it?"

There was a long pause as Snape considered him.

"Very well," Snape finally agreed and Harry smiled. "Come."

They made their way upstairs to Snape's room. As they entered, Harry immediately felt the reach of the locket, a feeling he'd been able to ignore the last week by keeping his distance and it having been put in some kind of magic-dampening box. He rubbed the back of his neck at the trickling sensation, hating the way the locket felt as it connected and wrapped itself up in the horcrux in him and his own intertwined soul and magic.

"Potter?"

Harry glanced at Snape as the man sat in the armchair across the room. "I'm okay. I just really hate that thing," he said, looking vaguely around the room since he didn't know exactly where the locket was being kept. "Can't we just destroy it?"

"First and foremost, we do not know how," Snape replied as Harry moved to sit on the bed. "Additionally, I hope to study it in an effort to discover how to destroy the one in you without the act resulting in your death."

Harry chose not to comment on the professor's, in his opinion, optimistic but futile intentions, instead responding, "They do all seem to be connected so guess it might be helpful to keep it."

Snape inclined his head.

"Still hate the way it feels," Harry muttered. "Glad I can't hear it though."

Light understanding drifted briefly through Snape's magic.

"You said you spoke to the Dark Lord in your second year," Snape said. "How is that possible?"

"There was this diary of Voldemort's that Lucius got into the school through Ginny," Harry told him. "It held memories of Voldemort's and I talked to a memory of him. It's how I learned his real name and that his father was a Muggle."

"Memories? Like a Pensieve?"

"Not really. Not the memory of him anyway. He was outside the diary, I could talk to him, and he was becoming…real. He said he'd…preserved him…" Harry trailed off as his mind raced, speedily remembering everything he could about the diary and his encounter with Tom Riddle.

"Potter?"

"It was a horcrux," Harry mumbled in realization, jumping to his feet and beginning to pace, getting steadily more worked up and only vaguely recognizing his magic responding. "It was a bloody horcrux!"

"Potter!"

"He had to have known. He had to have known what it was," Harry continued. "He knew all this time and he never…son of a—!" he cut himself off as his hot rage exploded and he threw out a fist, hitting a nearby wall hard at the same time the window cracked, becoming covered in a spider web pattern.

"Harry!"

A hand curled around his aching fist as he pulled back to punch the wall again. He moved his eyes up to Snape, feeling his rage devolve into pained despair and betrayal. Snape was gazing at him with concern and sympathy, both washing gently through the man's magic. He slumped where he stood, allowing Snape to very gently pull his hand closer to examine his self-inflicted damage.

"He's known since I was twelve," Harry murmured, wincing just slightly as his fingers were carefully extended. "The diary…Riddle told me he'd preserved himself in it and he'd possessed Ginny through it. It was a horcrux which means he was a killer at sixteen."

"So it would seem."

"Dumbledore knew," Harry repeated. "He was never going to tell me, was he?"

"Perhaps not, but it no longer matters," Snape said, releasing his hand. "You do know so the question is not how long the headmaster knew, but what can it tell us?"

Harry gazed at the professor, fighting through his emotions to nod and allow himself to be guided back to the bed. Instead of going back to the armchair, Snape pulled over the desk chair to sit next to the bed.

"Now, tell me what you know from this diary."

Harry dropped his eyes to his hands, gently massaging his red knuckles as he thought back. "I got the diary after Ginny tried to flush it. She'd been talking to it all year and acting strange. Voldemort had used it to possess her. When I wrote in it, he brought me into a memory, showed me when a girl was killed last time the chamber was opened. He'd framed Hagrid for it when he was the one…he…I didn't know…"

"Of course you didn't," Snape assured. "You were twelve."

"He was there in the chamber," Harry continued. "He was so real, was becoming real by draining Ginny. He told me everything; how he'd killed Myrtle, framed Hagrid, how Dumbledore watched him so closely after that, how he'd preserved himself in the diary so he could come back one day, open the chamber again, and finish Slytherin's work. He set the Basilisk on me, but I killed it and destroyed Riddle."

"How?"

"I stabbed the diary with a Basilisk fang," Harry said, looking up at Snape when a flash of memory appeared in his mind of a gaze locked on his right forearm where there was a small puncture scar with tiny black lines stretching jaggedly away from it, an underlying emotion of fear accompanying the scene. "Yeah, same one that had been in my arm."

Snape scowled, unimpressed.

"Hey, I didn't exactly have a lot of options, I was dying, and it was instinct," Harry justified.

Snape rolled his eyes, very clearly holding back all manner of comments and his magic pulsing lightly with frustration which made Harry hold back a grin. "What happened to the diary?"

"It…bled, sort of, and Riddle more or less exploded," Harry said. "Since then, last I knew Dumbledore had it."

Snape hummed. "Unfortunate. It would be helpful to study both an active horcrux and a destroyed one."

"Destroyed?" Harry repeated, confused, only to be pinned with a pointed look. "Oh! I destroyed a horcrux! Wait, so we do know how to destroy them. Basilisk venom."

"Of which my supply is sorely lacking and it is not a way to destroy yours," Snape pointed out.

"Could it be?" Harry asked.

"It could be a possible component, but it would take research, experiments, and supply."

"Would venom still exist in the Basilisk's fangs?"

"Possibly, but how—"

"I could go back into the chamber, see what's left," Harry told him. "I could also get the diary."

Snape narrowed his eyes. "And how do you propose to do that?"

Harry shrugged. "I'm sure I could figure it out."

"Potter," Snape said warningly. "Desist."

"I haven't done anything! I'm only suggesting," Harry argued.

"Desist," Snape repeated.

Harry huffed and flung himself down on Snape's bed, pillowed head staring up at the ceiling. "Getting some mixed signals here, Professor. Do you want to find the horcruxes or not? Do you want to destroy them or not? Do you want me to live or not?"

"I want all of those things, but not through hairbrained schemes with no forethought or at the expense of the very life I am trying to protect and preserve."

Harry rolled his head to look at Snape again, feeling what he now knew was care flutter in Snape's magic. "Fine," he grumbled.

"I refuse to apologize for not allowing you to run wild and attempting to protect you. It is about time someone gave you some actual guidance and protection," Snape said and Harry sighed, hating when the man was right which was far more often than he would ever admit. "We will find what we require. Let us start with your original suggestion and examine your horcrux further under the condition that if I deem the danger too high, you stop."

"What if—"

"No," Snape interrupted quickly. "I tell you to stop, you listen."

Harry sighed again and sat up, crossing his legs and spinning to face the professor. "Yeah, okay. Promise."

With another look clearly meant to solidify the promise, Snape moved his chair closer and directly facing Harry. Withdrawing his wand, it was placed to Harry's temple and their eyes met.

"Legilimens."

They landed in the horcrux's part of his mind immediately and it pulsed brightly upon their arrival. The same green rope quickly wrapped around Snape's left forearm, making the man wince ever so slightly at whatever it made him feel, and Harry stepped closer to the orb, contemplating. He shuddered at the slickness permeating the space and sticking to his skin, trying to sink into him. He thought back to what had happened the last time he'd touched the horcrux; the voices, the jumping from mind to mind, the head pain.

"Try to focus on which connection you want to follow," Snape told him.

He nodded and thought of the voices he'd heard relating to Voldemort's father. He repeated them again and again, raising his hand to hover just before the horcrux. Glancing at Snape, he found a look of reassurance and, taking a deep breath, he pressed his palm to the orb. He was quickly pulled into its darkness, its slick feeling becoming heavy and suffocating all around him. There were voices everywhere, overlapping and blending together, while strong feelings of anger, hate, and terror made the atmosphere hot and even thicker.

He spun in the darkness despite there being nothing to see only to come to an abrupt stop and slapping his hands over his ears as the mess of voices became deafening. He cringed and gritted his teeth against the noise.

"Focus, Potter," Snape's voice suddenly broke through the noise. "Move quickly before you get hurt."

The comment made Harry remember the last couple interactions with his horcrux, the resulting red that replaced his green eyes and the blood that had trickled from his eyes and scar. He pushed through the voices, trying to find the ones referring to Voldemort's father. It was difficult to sift through the voices, especially when he encountered his mother's, but eventually, they all began to fade, leaving behind only two.

"Who are you?"

"Hello, Father."

"What do you—who are you?"

"I am your son."

"I have no son."

"You wouldn't given your abandonment of us."

"What are you—"

"You killed her. It was you she wanted, not me. I wasn't enough to keep her alive. You killed her and left me there."

"I don't know who you think you are, but I want you out! Get out of my house!"

"You disgust me. You both do."

"Out!"

"I will allow you to do one last thing with your pitiful life and repay me the life you stole with your abandonment."

"You—"

"Goodbye, Father. Avada Kedavra!"

Screams echoed around him again and Harry covered his ears once more. The voices he'd listened to dissolved into the numerous screams and the atmosphere pulsed heavily around him, tendrils wrapping around his throat, his spin, his chest. Harry winced as pain tore through his head, making him groan and curl his fingers against his skull.

"Potter!"

Snape's voice was barely audible through the deafening screams. Harry tried to focus on it, tried to use it as a tether to pull himself back to his body out of the horcrux, out of his mind. As he fought his way back, the screams continued and the darkness around him began to morph. Still covering his ears and cringing at the pain in his head, he watched as an extremely blurry image appeared. He frowned at it, just barely able to make out that it was a pale hand with red smudges and a black smudge on the ring finger.

"Harry!"

He heard Snape's shout more clearly just before he felt a sharp pull and he was suddenly somewhere else. The blurry image was gone and the screaming had stopped. He was now staring at a young man with long black hair and grey eyes, standing at the edge of what seemed to be a huge lake in a dark, rocky area. His mouth was moving, but Harry heard nothing. The green light of the Killing Curse hit the man whose wide eyes and mouth looked so familiar as he fell backwards, hitting dark water where skeletal hands reached up and dragged the man underwater.

Another sharp pain tore through Harry's head and he was yanked away from the scene. Just like the previous times, it was as though he was thrown back into his body violently and he had to catch himself from falling backwards on the bed.

"Bloody hell," Harry muttered, bringing one hand up to his head only for it to be caught.

"Drink and look at me."

He opened his mouth automatically at the touch on his chin and swallowed the Pain Reliever. As the pain in his head eased, Harry opened his eyes, blinking blurrily at Snape and feeling the concern in the man's magic. He swallowed thickly as he thought of what he'd just watched.

"Did Sirius have a brother?"