"I wonder Harry, if you might join me on a trip to find an old friend? You see he was Tom Riddle's head of year and knowing Tom he would seek out Horace, as such I feel obliged to seek out and offer Horace protection personally." Dumbledore had found Harry reading in his library. Harry had been back at Dumbledore's for a few days now and had started devouring books.
"Sure, I wasn't planning on doing anything today"
They had first gone to a stately home in the woods, the wards around the home were impressive. Not as good as Hogwarts wards but Harry estimated they were even better than Dumbledore's. Next to the house but still inside the wards was an equally impressive garden that was filled with magical plants of all variety.
"If you would follow behind me, I do not believe Horace is home and it would do to keep an air of caution." Dumbledore said solemnly
Dumbledore waved his wand and opened a hole in the ward that allowed Harry to step through, Harry looked at Dumbledore questioningly as he didn't know of any magic that would allow someone to change the wards of someone else.
"As I helped set up these wards I can grant entry, it's a well known issue when hiring ward makers… I believe your mithril wards will also have a similar issue where as the mithril is made from your magic any ward made by them will obey you above all else."
When they reached the home Dumbledore knocked sharply and they waited, after a few moments had passed Dumbledore knocked again. When the door still didn't open Dumbledore drew his wand and waved it in a slow arch over his head, Harry felt the wave of magic that passed over him.
"It appears he's not in"
"Should we come back another day?"
"Perhaps although I suspect it would do us no good, if I am correct Horace has already received a visitor. If you wouldn't mind unlocking the door… Preferably without breaking anything."
Harry wasn't convinced it would be a good idea to break into somebody's house even if they were a friend Dumbledore "Are you sure this is a good idea?" Harry asked nervously
"A man's life may be in danger Harry, suffice it to say that if any trouble does come our way I will make it clear you were only acting under my orders."
Shrugging Harry accepted the answer and held his arm near the door, he had recently added the mithril key he had made at the Malfoys into the mithril sleeve. When he added the key he had discovered something curious, when he maintained physical contact with his mithril he could change the ideologies of the mithril easily.
He suspected this was how the gauntlet had originally accepted the Stone, he had wanted to pick up the Stone and make it impossible for Voldemort to get it, the mithril had therefore taken the Stone and combined it with itself making it so only Harry could use it. If he wasn't touching the mithril then he was limited in how he could affect it.
But the mithril he had put inside himself acted differently, for starters it didn't act like a solid and it seemed his subconscious was capable of modifying it instantly. The liquid mithril in his arm not only summoned and activated his shield, it could also summon any type of magical shield he could imagine and with some thought could unlock almost any lock.
His dreams had also been affected, before he had put the mithril in his head he would forget his dreams when he woke up. But now he was aware of his dreams, he guessed it was like being a lucid dreamer except this seemed so much stronger. Now his dreams saw him standing on the sideline as he watched two great forces fight, it was impossible to tell anything about them but Harry could tell the result of the battle would be cataclysmic.
The mithril quickly unlocked Horace's door and together he and Dumbledore entered, it didn't look like he had been attacked and a quick look at his bedroom revealed his clothes missing.
"Perhaps you might be able to shed some light on where Horace might have gone Harry?"
"Err… okay? So you said he was Tom's teacher right? Well Tom wouldn't just go after any teacher which suggests he could've been his head of year? Well Tom was a Slytherin so Horace must've been a Slytherin too. If I had taught Voldemort and suspected he was back I would hide, but I would also want to keep up to date with the news. Maybe a disguise?"
"Excellent deduction, yes Horace was a Slytherin and he liked to help promising students, he prefers to lay in the background you see. So when his students rose to succeed they would remember the teacher that gave them that boost."
"I'm assuming by the plants outside he was either a Herbology or Potions teacher… and I suspect a young Voldemort would've been more interested in the potions teacher. He would need to have some form of income so he would need access to potion ingredients, it would be too obvious to come back here for the plants and the only other place I can think of that might have those types of plants would be the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts."
"Marvelous, well fortunately for us I happen to have a portkey destined for the forest that leaves any moment now, shall we?"
They arrived in a large clearing and Harry could feel the wards around them that would ensure any dangerous creature would stay clear
"Did you plan this entire thing?" Harry asked dryly
"I wasn't about to bring you into a potentially dangerous environment without checking it out first, but this is as far as I got before the trail went cold."
Harry Looked around but all he was able to see was magic with a hidden signature, as they were near Hogwarts wards his mage sight was dulled. But despite the fact his sight was only at half its power he was capable of scraping away the outermost layer of the magic to reveal Dumbledore's unique magic.
"Horace's magic… it wouldn't happen to have a dark purple aura would he?" Harry had stripped away a residual spiral of magic and had unearthed dark purple instead of Albus' indigo. "I assume you tracked his apparition here but was unable to track him further?"
"Correct, I determined he had not traveled further and wasn't followed. It was then that I realised I would need to take the risk and escort you into uncharted territory, however I do feel confident in saying you will not be in any danger."
Harry Looked at the apparition point carefully and tried to memorise the exact colour of the magic, once he knew what to look for he began scanning the forest floor. It seemed Horace had applied a low level silencing charm on his feet, Harry followed the trail and just hoped Dumbledore would ensure they wouldn't run into any dangerous creature.
The footsteps lead out of the forest and into Hogsmeade but before Harry could leave the forest Dumbledore stuck out his arm "Perhaps disguises of our own? I fear Horace may try and run if he sees me and the attention you will bring will make it harder to follow the trail."
"Oh… yeah that's not a bad idea." Dumbledore was about to apply a disguise to Harry when the boy activated his gauntlet, assuming Harry had his own disguise sorted Dumbledore began transfiguring himself to look a few decades younger and changed his hair from its original dark brown to black. Few would recognise him as he had turned himself into a mix of Gellert and Harry, two people he could picture easily.
When he turned back to Harry he recognised it as the same disguise Harry had used over the summer, the only difference is he now had a pale green glove where the gauntlet had been. "You can apply disguises with your mithril?"
"Sort of, it drains the mithril so it needs a power source, which is why I'm using the gauntlet. If I return it to its ring form I'm fairly sure my disguise will run out. At Malfoy manor I was able to mimic Tonks' metamorph powers by having my mithril send out a short burst of magic rather than a continuous stream… But that was only my hand, I don't want to test that with my whole body."
"Perhaps I could arrange a meeting with Ms. Tonks? As you know I don't want you to be at risk but I want you to have your freedom, an auror guard would be enough to make Tom think twice."
Dumbledore had no doubt that if Harry put his mind to it he would become the first person to become a metamorphmagus without being born one.
Now with their disguises in place they continued their journey, once they entered the village the magic became harder to track and Harry could only guess where they had gone "I believe he entered that pub, but I can't tell if he stayed there."
The pub in question was the Hogs Head, Dumbledore took the lead and led Harry inside, Harry looked around the pub in interest and was caught off guard when he saw the bar keeper. It was as if he was looking at a Dumbledore that had gone wild and didn't care for his appearance, Harry wondered if this was Albus' brother Aberforth.
The man glared at Albus but didn't say anything, Harry then started Looking at the patrons of the pub and zeroed in on the lone figure at the back, like almost everyone in the pub he had a large hood obscuring his face but Harry easily see through the cloaks obscuring magic and saw Horace's signature.
Harry tugged at Dumbledore's arm and led him over to the man, they both sat opposite the man and Albus threw a silencing ward over the table so nobody could overhear them. Harry then formed a ball of mithril that he made give off a strong notice-not and placed it in the middle of the table.
As they were outside of the rich magic of Hogwarts the mithril would use up magic slightly quicker than it could replenish but Harry figured it would last at least two hours.
"Good afternoon Horace, I must say I am disappointed in how easy it was to find you."
"You shouldn't have been able to find me, I guess Aberforth told you of my arrival? I didn't think he would sell me out like that" Horace said grumpily
"Oh Aberforth didn't tell me anything, may I introduce you to Harry Potter?" Albus said cheerfully
Horace's eyes snapped to Harry and Harry let his disguise fall, he trusted the notice-not to keep his identity secret.
"So the rumours are true? The boy-who-lived has the sight of the gods" Horace said, a mix of awe and satisfaction in his voice
"Sight of the gods?" Harry asked nervously
"It's the popular term for mage sight, it's said that people can only see magic in its pure form when they have been blessed by a god." Dumbledore explained patiently
"Now Horace, I must admit I didn't just come here to introduce you to Harry… a sixteen year old Tom Riddle has returned to the world of the living."
"Obviously, the writing was on the wall for any who cared to see. The chamber opening again and students being attacked, although I don't know what you mean by him being sixteen…"
"That is what I came to talk to you about, did Tom ever come to you and ask about a way to undo death?"
Harry started at that, it seemed the parallels between himself and Voldemort kept growing. Ever since Hermione had died Harry had looked into ways to bring people back to life in his spare time and now he heard that Voldemort had done the same.
"He did nothing of the sort and even if he had I would never have told him anything!" Horace said angrily
"Very well, I shall not press the issue… It just makes my job that much harder as to get rid of Voldemort once and for all I first need to determine how he escaped dying, given how you didn't seem surprised he hadn't died I had hoped you held the answer, I see I was mistaken…"
Horace looked down in shame but didn't answer, Harry could tell he did know but just didn't want to tell Dumbledore
"So what will you be doing to protect yourself Horace? You can't just hide in the Hogshead for the rest of your life."
"I'm going abroad, I'm leaving for America at the end of the month. You could help me by explaining why you haven't told the ministry he is back and instead kept the information to yourself.
"Horace, just think for a moment. If I told the minister Voldemort was back without irrefutable evidence he would deny it, all that course of action would achieve would be me losing any influence I have left in the ministry and tell the remaining death eaters their master was back. In fact I had hoped you would help me convince Cornelius Voldemort was back without, but if you are set on leaving then I guess I shall have to do it alone."
Horace paled at his words which Harry took to assume he agreed with Dumbledore's stance, he knew Albus was talking to people to try and fight Tom and Harry was happy to let the adults deal with it for now.
"Well I shall be sorry to see you go, I hope you will stay in touch? I would hate to lose yet another friend to this war. My door is always open to you."
With that Dumbledore stood up and made to leave, Harry followed his example and had just shuffled to the end of the bench when Horace stopped him
"Wait Albus… Tom did come to me… he wanted to know about horcruxes, specifically how many horcruxes somebody could make"
Dumbledore turned sharply and looked at Horace sharply "And what did you tell him? Please Horace, with this information we can be free of him once and for all"
"I told him the truth, that to split your soul once would be bad enough… But he wanted to know if it would be possible to split his soul seven times."
When they returned home Albus turned to Harry "I suspect it would be too much to hope you don't know what a horcrux is?"
Harry had come across them mentioned briefly in the journal of an old dark lord that had tried to bring back his dead wife. He had considered horcruxes but had dismissed them, Harry had followed the man's example.
"I know of them, I read the journal of Arnald the ageless and he mentioned considering making a Horcrux but said it would only make him immortal, not bring his wife back. As I already have the philosopher's stone and could probably make myself immortal with my mithril I didn't see the point in looking further into Horcruxes."
"A wise decision, to make a horcrux you must knowing raze the soul of an innocent and send it to oblivion. Such an action splits your soul irreparably, you must then bind that soul into an object you hold a great attachment too. While that object exists it acts as an anchor which prevents the main part of the soul passing on.
"But there is a great cost, in order to preserve your own soul, the soul that has been razed can never be retrieved, either as ghost or memory. It also means your own soul is tainted forever and that taint will affect your body, mind and magic in turn." There was a gravity in Dumbledore's voice that Harry had rarely heard before, after a moment spent in silence Dumbledore started a lighter conversation.
"You may be pleased to know Argus Filch has recently been cleared to learn magic, he refused to say who helped him but the magical signature under his skin is quite distinctive. I was planning on asking some of the teachers to help teach the students affected by the Chamber anyway and I was going to invite Argus along too."
"That's great, I kinda forget I helped Filch since there was an attack right after I did it."
"An understandable distraction, although with matters that involve others it would do you well to remember them."
The Dumbledorian university of Transfiguration was a marvel to behold, from the outside the building was an unassuming stone brick building. Harry figured the university's architects must have been extremely liberal with expansion charms as the entrance hall alone was bigger than the outside.
In the very center of the hall was a gigantic statue of Dumbledore, the robes of which kept changing into different materials. Sunlight streamed down from the roof despite the lack of windows and Harry swore that when the light hit the statue's eyes they twinkled exactly like the real Albus Dumbledore.
"Blimey, I almost regret not coming here now!" Harry looked over at Tonks who was gazing around amazed. Dumbledore had invited her to join them as both Harry's body guard and a transfiguration prodigy, constantly changing her body made her an expert in human transfiguration.
Dumbledore chuckled merrily and led them through the building "This used to be an old monastery but was then taken over by the ministry and turned into a fortress to defend the country from scandanavian sorcerers that sailed with the Vikings. The fort was then steadily abandoned with the decrease in raids, eventually it was turned over to the university. As you may notice they completely scrapped the interior and designed their own, if it weren't for the ley line that runs close to the building the amount of expansion charms would've been unheard of."
"I didn't know we had forts against the Viking sorcerers!" Tonks seemed shocked at the idea and Harry thought he knew why, with the invention of brooms and flying carpets forts became obsolete.
"Ah, but keep in mind back brooms were easily tracked and couldn't travel very far over sea, magical forts like this where made that lined the same ley line, which happened to follow the coast. If an enemy sorcerer wanted to invade Britain they needed to get past the forts, for a time wizarding Britain even had a navy before the Muggle's developed ironclad ships."
The few students that remained in the university over the summer greeted Dumbledore and only paid Harry a cursory glance, it was Tonks who received the most attention. Eventually they reached the lecture theatre, Harry and Tonks got to sit at the front and Harry was rather excited to watch people come in. There were only a few students that lived local enough to attend, with most of the students being international.
Eventually Dumbledore got the go ahead, Harry sat back and waited for his idol to begin.
Don't see many people have Horace Slughorn involved in warning the world of Voldemort, he would've been potions teacher for Fudge and it wouldn't surprise me if he put in a good word for him to become minister.
As for Harry's mithril disguise it took him slightly longer than Dumbledore to disguise himself but would be obvious he was under a magical disguise while Dumbledore would only be obvious with his signature. While Tonks can disguise herself almost instantly and only have her signature giving her away.
The name Arnald the Ageless is the old English name for Arnold and is not a spelling mistake.