There was a tense atmosphere in the long grey corridor of the auror department. Two masked hit wizards were guarding the small silver door that gave access to interrogation room three. The complete floor had been cleared of any personnel that was not essential to what was happening today, the two rune crafting aurors that had set up the recording stones had just left. Amelia took one last deep breath and steeled herself before she unlocked the door with the runic ring on her hand. She walked in and her partner for this investigation, Senior Auror Moody followed her.
The room, that had walls completely covered in silver to resist magical energy, contained but a single chair. The figure that sat in the chair had his arms chained to the arm rests and was further secured by dragon leather straps. He was blindfolded to avoid the vicious mental attacks that this creature was capable of, a lesson they had learned the hard way when one of the guards had been carted off to the mental ward of St Mungos.
The creature was technically a man, but he was hardly recognizable as such. Over the last week the body of Voldemort had been shutting down and over this short period his appearance had changed. His skin colour had faded, his hair had fallen out, he had lost a lot of muscle mass and his nose had become less pronounced. They had to maintain a strict potion regiment to keep him somewhat stable. Amelia would not have cared too much if the situation would become fatal, if it were not for the answers that they still required. It was clear that their time would be limited and their investigation focussed heavily on two questions: how did Voldemort return from the death and how could they avoid any more resurrections?
Considering the unstable condition of Voldemort, they needed to move this investigation forward fast, which is why they would take a risk today. Exposing him to a high dose of veritaseum would put a large strain on the body of this creature that was already exposed to such a high amount of potions that barely kept it alive. But it was required to break the impressive mental barriers of Voldemort even in this state. This might be the only chance they had to ask anything in this way, so the parchment which Amelia held in her hands contained a list of carefully prepared questions that she and Croaker had composed.
Next to her Moody started up the procedure: "This is Tuesday the fourteenth of April 1992, present in the room are Senior Auror Alastor Moody, Head of magical law enforcement Amelia Bones and the wizard known as Voldemort. As approved by the special Wizengamot session of last night, I will now administer five drops of Veritaseum and then we will proceed with the interrogation."
"Proten Lingua" Moody called, casting the tong stretching curse that forced the creature to open its mouth and present its tongue. "One, two, three, four, five" the auror counted aloud as he administered the drops. They waited for one minute for the potion to take full effect.
Voldemort, who had been sitting silenty until now, started spewing words at them. "I will give you some truths Head of magical law enforcement Amelia Bones, it was me personally that killed your brother. But I did not take him quickly, no, me and my Death Eaters had quite some fun. I remember how Bella…"
It was expected that he would apply tactics to avoid answering questions under influence of the truth potion. Delaying tactics or misinterpretation of questions were usual techniques applied by criminals, so verbal assaults like these were not a surprise. Even though his words cut Amelia like knives, she would not be distracted and let him win. She had to interrupt him and push on with her list, while the effects of the potion lasted.
"Did you create a Horcrux or more than one Horcrux?" she asked in a commanding tone.
The Creature answered with some slithering noises that she could not understand.
"Do not answer in parseltongue, you will answer in English!" Moody ordered Voldemort, the veritaseum would force him to obey this order for a short while. "Did you create a Horcrux or more than one horecrux?"
After a tense moment of silence, the creature answered "Yes". But he immediately followed up with his delaying tactics: "Do you remember the day we took that eye Alsastor? It was…"
Again Amelia interrupted him: "How many Horcruxes did you make?"
Again it took a moment of silence while Voldemort was fighting the potion "Six. Why don't you take off my blindfold, we could have such a…"
"What is the object that you used to make your first Horcrux?"
Now it nearly took ten seconds before the answer came "The locket of Salazar Slytherin."
"Where did you hide the locket of Salazar Slytherin that is your first horcrux?"
This time Voldemort really remained silent for a long time. His grey head grew slightly red and he was taking short huffing breaths while he was fighting. He finally stumbled: "The cave… the cave… the cave near the beach…"
Amelia considered for a moment diverting from the script and asking which beach, but it was clear that it would be difficult to get through all the horcruxes this monster had created before he would successfully fight of the effects of the potion. So she asked: "What is the object you used to create your second Horcrux?"
Voldemort was struggling in his chair, trying to release his body from the straps and screaming. Finally he fell silent again and then said, almost whispering: "My Dairy…"
"Where did you hide the dairy that is your second Horcrux?"
This time Amelia thought that Voldemort was actively trying to swallow his tongue. The only sound he made was "Lu…, Lu…,Lu…,Luuuuuaaaaaa…" He started screaming again, his body started convulsing and drool was seeping from his mouth. His head was leaning backwards as the screams became more and more inaudible. Until finally Voldemort opened his mouth wide and a dark spectral form flew out of it. It shot through the ceiling as the lifeless body in front of them grew completely limp, Voldemort's soul had just left this body.
Some tension left Amelia's body as she heard Moddy swearing besides her, they knew that this would have been a possibility when they had taken this risk. The last days the potion Masters and Healers of the department had had lively discussions on the amount of drops that were required to force Voldemort into submission while still keeping his body alive, she was happy they did not go for six drops, which would have been double the standard dose. The information they had gotten had at least confirmed their suspicions and they had gotten some leads, but finding the unknown Horcruxes would be a challenge.
Together they left the room, informing the guards that a mediwizard was required to investigate the scene. They proceeded to the debriefing room across the hall where they met Croaker and his team of three masked unspeakables. "So, it is as we expected, the damage to the his soul was of course an important indicator. But it is good that we have confirmed our theory." Croaker, who had been able to follow the interview from this room, said.
"Still, it is strange that your measurements suggested that he had split his soul seven times, was he lying when he said he had done it six times? Did he find a loophole in our question?" Amelia asked worriedly.
"Mmm, we have our own theory regarding that, which may tie in with the other great mystery we still have to solve, the survival of the killing curse by Mister Potter. We believe that the Dark Lord might have been unaware that he split his soul a seventh time, which would mean he was telling the truth as he perceived it. When he attempted to kill Mister Potter as a baby his soul must have been quite unstable, then it is possible that an extra piece was torn off and attached itself to the most suitable object present, the receptive young soul in the room." Croaker explained in his monotone voice.
"And this would explain Harry's survival of the killing curse? Do you mean that he might be a horcrux?" Amelia asked as her eyebrows raised.
"Our readings show that he is definitely not a horcrux at this point, but there is some residual magic present that might suggest he was up until recently. It is possible that the Dark Lord has eliminated this piece when he was casting his unforgivable curse. We are very interested in the account that young Mister Potter could offer of these events." Croaker explained further while the other unspeakables watched on silently. They were an eerie bunch to work with.
Amelia thought for a moment before she replied. "I have some other topics that we would like to discuss with Harry, but I agree we should ask him questions regarding this at an early stage. For the moment we did not want to disturb him. The mind healers determined it would be essential for him to find at least some sense of security before we could approach him. Even if he is ready, we will have to thread very carefully."
"And where will young Mister Potter find this sense of security, if I may ask?" Croaker said.
"He is currently living in with the Greengrass family, who have started up an adoption procedure. Apparently him and Daphne, the eldest daughter of the family, share some kind of bond. I am planning to send a female junior Auror to ask him some questions, that might be less intimidating for him than me, Moody or a team of masked unspeakables." Amelia explained.
They fell silent for a minute, while everybody was pondering over the information they had learned that day. Finally Amelia started talking again: "Right, I have to go and report on the results of our investigation. The Minister will not be happy, but we did what we had to do. Moody, you will meet with the observation teams and report back to me afterwards. What will you and your department do next Croaker?"
"We will try to work on a way to detect the remaining Horcruxes," Croaker said, "we will also compile a list of questions we have for young Mister Potter, it would be appreciated if over time we could talk with him ourselves, but we realise the circumstances will not allow this at this time. Also, after the autopsy is completed, we would like a look at the body ourselves."
With a firm nod, Amelie rose from her seat and the others followed her example. Even though the death of Voldemort was a setback, they had the feeling that they had taken steps forward and that they could get some results if they continued to combine their efforts. They all left, determined to reach their goal of finding out Voldemort's secrets.