"All of that to protect this?" Vance asked, regarding the tiny, decrepit shack that seemed to be the end of the dungeon. She, Remus, and Shacklebolt all looked pretty banged and scratched up from their own ordeal on the other side of the hill, their hit points bars under half and recovering slowly.
Everyone's endurance meters were pretty low, as well. For all that it was tiny, the shack was at the highest point of the hill they'd had to climb back up from either side. The original owners likely didn't let trees get so close to the building as Voldemort had, giving them a commanding view of the nearby area. But, to increase the defenses of the dungeon, the dark lord had found hearty trees that could thrive in the rocky soil and encouraged them to grow their branches well over the cottage to hide it from the air.
Now that they knew precisely where it was, could they have flown brooms directly in, or were the trees enchanted to attack those that tried? Given the protections on Azkaban he'd been told about, Harry assumed that there were as many nasty surprises above as along the ground. At least the tree cover was thin enough that the area was a little brighter in the midday light than the surrounding woods.
The tiny three-room shack itself might have been quaint when it was originally built, probably well over a century earlier. But it had fallen into advanced disrepair, with the nettles and moss growing on it the only obvious thing keeping the ancient wooden cottage from falling right over. The sagging interior beams were visible through the many fallen tiles of the roof, and the windows were only a few shards of broken glass, like vitreous mouths, waiting to devour interlopers.
A snake's skeleton was nailed to the door, seemingly having been hung there when it still had flesh.
"Let us assume that there are many other protections upon such a mean-seeming dwelling," Dumbledore cautioned them. "Tom appears to have repaired it not at all from the state I understand it was in over fifty years ago, but that is likely just a ruse." He began flinging out detection spells once he finished speaking.
"I'm getting dense wards," Shacklebolt said.
"Something nasty on the skeleton that's almost hidden by the curse on the door," Vance added.
"The glass in the windows isn't really original," Remus observed. "I'd bet poisoned."
"Roof won't hold any weight, but the walls are stronger than they look," Harry shared, having been inspecting different parts of the house.
"All of that, and there are several cursed objects hidden amongst the detritus inside," the headmaster finished. From the windows, they could see that the interior of the house was full of piles of trash and rusting kitchen implements, the Gaunts having been early hoarders, or just unwilling to clean.
"Well, let's start unweaving what we can from out here, and see what happens?" Vance suggested.
Harry tried to take in everything the adults began doing with their wands, his spellbook creating several beginning entries for advanced wardbreaking magic. Remus and Shacklebolt were erecting strange shields to protect from any backlash, while Dumbledore and Vance attacked the threads of the defensive wards. Harry just tried to keep his combat log and map in view to see if anything unexpected happened.
It took twenty minutes, and the adults were almost empty of magical stamina by the time they felt they'd gotten everything they could. "Think we could just set the rest on fire?" Vance wondered, massaging her wand hand.
"There will certainly be backup protections against such an obvious gambit," the headmaster disagreed.
Harry figured, "Or just one of those items that puts out fires like my shirt."
"Those might even be original to the house, since it looks like it's always been a firetrap," Remus nodded. "It's honestly surprising so few people burned to death in the thousands of years before modern electric or magical lighting."
"What about fiendfyre?" Shacklebolt suggested. "We're trying to destroy this thing anyway. Not many magical protections that can hold up against that."
"It would likely absorb the remaining curses and burn the entire forest," Dumbledore shook his head.
"And good riddance to it if we can get out first," Remus shrugged. "Harry should be able to tell us if the ring is destroyed, even if we're miles away. If the fire somehow doesn't get it, it will be easier to come back and search the ashes."
The old man pursed his lips, beard bristling, as he finally admitted, "I am hoping to recover the ring with only the minimum damage necessary to break its ability to house the soul fragment. I suspect that it might be extremely valuable… to our cause."
Harry and Remus shared a look as both of the other Order members seemed inclined not to press that question further, Harry saying, "Sir? What do you think it is?"
Sighing, Dumbledore paused for a few seconds before explaining, "The third Hallow. I have a memory of seeing young Tom wearing a ring his last year of Hogwarts, and, given the rest of your quest, it seems very likely to me that the black gem set in the ring might be the Resurrection Stone."
Remus remembered, "Which the locket was trying really hard to get you to go after?"
"I believe it was only discerning my own long search for the stone…"
"Or it's a trap and it wants you to go after it," Harry figured.
"Be that as it may, the intelligence we could gain by being able to question those that have passed on, should the legends be correct…"
Vance had finally figured out what was going on and said, "The legends also say that anyone that talks to the dead pretty quickly decides to join them."
"For an old man, where is the harm?" Dumbledore argued. "I believe I could resist the urge to cross over until the end of my natural span, but I have many questions before I go."
So persuasive was he that everyone finally shrugged and tacitly agreed that the risk might be worth it. If they were all thinking of their own dead loved ones that they might like to talk to, they didn't bring it up. Remus finally said, "Let's just make sure it's not cursed beyond the basic risk from the tales before anyone tries to use it."
The long argument had at least given everyone time to recover a fair amount of magical stamina, and their entrance into the house wound up being spectacular but somewhat anticlimactic: while they couldn't burn it down, it turned out they could blow it apart. It was much harder to protect a rotted old shack from concussive force than to quench fire, and a few well-placed incantations of, "Confringo!" threw the walls away from them and down the hill.
With the violent removal of the house's roof and four walls, several remaining curses did try to trigger, but Dumbledore and Remus were quick with the counter-curses as black smoke and angry red sparks attempted to shoot out toward them from devices hidden in the trash. Further charms of motion flung piece after piece safely away to where the walls had been thrown, Harry keenly looking for anything that was shaped like a ring as he finally got to contribute.
Within minutes, there was nothing left but rotted floorboards over a shallow foundation. "I didn't see a ring," the Boy-Who-Lived explained to them.
"Could this have been a decoy?" Shacklebolt wondered, gazing around to see if there was anywhere else that the horcrux could be hidden. "If he just buried it under a random pile of deadly mushrooms somewhere here…"
"I think Tom would consider these items too important to languish in a hidden hole, or to rely upon obscurity entirely to hide them…" the headmaster mused, eventually realizing, "…but burying his treasure in a place of power might serve as an extra layer of protection."
"Has anyone else read The Tell-Tale Heart?" Remus joked, realizing that the warped floorboards were probably easy enough to hide something under.
The party still somewhat reticent to actually stand on the shaky flooring, it was nonetheless but another few moments for charms to rip it free and send the last boards to join the rest of the house down the hillside. With no more cover, there were revealed a fair number of rotting items that had been stashed under the floor over the decades of its habitation, but only one golden box, etched with runes to conceal its contents from charms.
"Gaudy, even when trying to hide something," Vance sniffed, beginning another barrage of detection spells to determine if the small jewelry box was safe to touch. "Should be okay to grab, but with the runes on the outside, there's no way to tell what's inside."
Trusting in the protection of his own lycanthropic curse to make him a little better off than the others if something dangerous had been missed, Remus gingerly stepped into the shallow foundation and walked to where the box had been concealed in the middle of the shack's main room before they'd violently disassembled the structure. Harry had a keen eye on the combat log, but their overwhelming disassembly seemed to have cleared any remaining hazards, and the werewolf stepped back out a few moments later, setting the box on the ground and stepping back.
"It doesn't even look locked," Harry observed, his game inspection of the box even thwarted by the concealment and telling him nothing more than that it was a golden box with runes on it. "I'll flip it over and everyone else cover me?" he suggested, realizing that he wouldn't be a value add against an obscure curse but would be the best at dodging if something happened.
Dumbledore nodded grudgingly after a moment, the rest of the party spreading out into a half circle to cast at anything that emerged. Harry gave them a countdown with his off-hand, then reached down with it to flip the box open.
Nothing exploded.
Instead, within was a golden ring that, to Harry's eyes, looked like it was made by someone that didn't know much about jewelsmithing or so far in the past that no one had the tools for precise work at that size. The gold clasped a black stone so large that it would make the ring seem oversized for anyone smaller than Hagrid.
And as soon as it became visible, his combat log started listing out its workings.
Gaunt's Ring uses Suggestion on Harry Potter: Failure (Mental Fortress)
Gaunt's Ring uses Suggestion on Albus Dumbledore: Success
Gaunt's Ring uses Suggestion on Emmeline Vance: Success
Gaunt's Ring uses Suggestion on Kingsley Shacklebolt: Success
Gaunt's Ring uses Suggestion on Remus Lupin: Success
Gaunt's Ring prepares Curse
Harry heard the echo of how hard it was going after Dumbledore, the fake voice of Ariana insisting to him, "Albus. Put on the ring! Save me!" He wasn't sure what it was telling the others. With four party members about to dive forward to try to grab the ring as it bathed the clearing in its dark mind control, it took all of Harry's copious agility and finesse to snatch the basilisk fang from his inventory and plunge it into the poorly-worked gold of the ring before anyone could try to wrestle the box away from him.
As soon as the fang made contact, a fountain of smoky, black ichor shot free, dislodging the stone almost as if it was thrilled to get away from the shard of Voldemort's soul that was erupting. Harry managed to point the box away from everyone else, well aware of how gross their destruction could be, and fling it away. The dark slime sprayed violently over the ruins of the shack as it sailed back into the foundation where it had long dwelt.
Coming to their senses just before colliding with one another, the rest of the party stepped back. "Quick thinking, Harry," Dumbledore nodded, embarrassed at being just as easily persuaded as the others.
"There was something else in there," Remus nodded, sniffing. "Some curse. Smell reminds me of some old Egyptian spells I researched during my defense mastery."
"So that's it?" Shacklebolt asked, good humor returning the fastest at another narrow avoidance of catastrophe. "Still time to have a spot of tea before my afternoon shift!"
Somehow, the reminder that it was still broad daylight made the sun feel brighter, or perhaps the death of the horcrux had removed some subtle additional pall from the tree cover. The black stone on the ground did the opposite of glitter, however. The play of sunlight around it merely revealing how matte its surface was. Before Dumbledore could reach down, Harry, already kneeling on the hilltop, picked up the stone with the hand not wielding a basilisk fang. He almost felt like it had started to roll toward his hand before he even grasped it.
RESURRECTION STONE
Turn this stone thrice to summon the
departed. Be wary. All will join them
soon enough. Set Bonus: 3/3
Thoughts of talking to his parents dancing through his head, but heeding the worries of the others and the stories about the Deathly Hallows that Hermione had found, it was only his maxed-out Willpower that gave Harry the strength to place the stone into the old man's outstretched hand, wavering with trepidation. "Be careful, sir," he managed to get out.
"I shall, Harry. And, I think, you may find that this is now yours. Thank you for the brief loan."
THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (MAIN QUEST)
What does it mean to be mortal?
O Collect Voldemort's Horcruxes (5/6)
* Destroy the Journal
* Destroy the Diadem
* Destroy the Cup
* Destroy the Locket
* Destroy the Ring
O Destroy the Snake
O Fulfill the Prophecy
* (Optional) Collect the Deathly Hallows (3/3)
DUNGEON QUEST COMPLETE
1300 XP Earned
Quest Reward: Resurrection Stone
1961 Combat XP Earned
Basic Dodging XP Earned
Basic Creature Harvesting XP Earned
Basic Persuasion XP Earned
NEWT Charms XP Earned
NEWT Combat Magic XP Earned
NEWT Creature Handling XP Earned
NEWT Enchanting XP Earned
NEWT Spellcrafting XP Earned
Level Up!