October 1997 to January 1998, between 6th and 7th year
The original plan had been to go to Hogwarts and they had already begun the preparations – but then a better opportunity presented itself in the form of a pink toad.
Dolores Umbridge had been forced out of her position as Defence Professor at Hogwarts due to severe scarring inflicted upon her by a curse that had returned all the damage she had caused at the school. Harry had not bothered to keep up with the pink toad after she had left the school, but now she apparently had regained her high status within the Ministry as Head of the Muggle-born Registration Commission.
That wasn't the important part, though.
The newspaper article that announced some kind of legislation she was pushing through was accompanied by a photograph and in that photograph, the toad was wearing her pinkest robes and the usual black bow atop her head and – and this was the important part – around her neck a golden locket with an ornate 'S', inlaid with small emeralds.
"Funny," Harry said, "that necklace looks suspiciously like the Locket I saw in that house-elf's memory."
"You mean that's Salazar Slytherin's Locket?" Susan asked. "How would Umbridge even get her hands on that?"
"That's what we ought to find out, isn't it?" Harry said, delighted. "I wonder whether my soulmate knows she's wearing one of his Horcruxes in public."
"It could be a fake," Malfoy argued and Theodore agreed.
Harry inclined his head. "Can't hurt to take a look, though, can it? Does anyone know where she lives?"
The others shook their heads.
"No, but I know how we can find out," Malfoy said.
The next day, the papers reported how Dolores Umbridge had been mysteriously murdered.
Susan felt incredibly guilty, but the Slytherins unanimously told her that the Dark Lord would have killed her whether they had stolen the Locket or not, because she had, albeit unknowingly, worn one of his Horcruxes in public. Losing said Horcrux had only been the tip of the iceberg. Therefore, the Slytherins reasoned, it wasn't their fault that the Dark Lord had murdered the pink toad.
Four down, three to go – and Harry had an idea how to find the remaining soul shards.
Now that he held one that was still intact, now that he knew what it actually was, he could try using it to track the other fragments. They had once been part of one whole soul and all of Harry's research strongly suggested that what was once whole, would try to become whole again – even though the creation of a Horcrux crippled one's soul beyond repair, the fragments could still be put back together to recreate an almost complete soul, one that would never quite heal right. Or, at least that was Harry's theory.
It took him forever, but Harry knew it was possible. And, additionally, the whole process kept him entertained.
o
"Christmas will be upon us soon," Theodore murmured as he settled down next to Harry on the living room sofa.
Susan was busy helping her father cook (Harry had been too obsessed with perfecting his Horcrux-locating spell to cook over the last few days) and Malfoy was running an errand for Harry in Knockturn Alley (and also trying to catch a glimpse of his parents).
"Luna says she looks forward to seeing her father again," Harry replied without looking up from his notes.
Theodore gave him an odd look. "I thought owls couldn't reach us anymore."
"But they can still reach Mr and Mrs Bones," Harry pointed out, "and Luna somehow knows we vacated your safe house to come here, because this is Luna we are talking about."
"Of course, she does," Theodore said, sounding almost resigned.
Harry raised his arm, so Theodore could settle more comfortably against this side. "These numbers do not make any sense at all. It's as if the Horcrux is within a space that has no definition and therefore cannot be localised."
"One of the Dark Lord's protections?"
Harry shook his head. "No, this is something else – it is very old and complex magic. As old as …" he trailed off.
"The castle," Theodore finished for him.
"Seems like I was right – one of them is at Hogwarts."
"And the other two?"
"One of them is at Gringotts. The other one keeps changing locations every time I adjust the parameters of the spell. I couldn't tell at first, because the results the spell spit out were gibberish anyway and I had to find what made the spell malfunction and which runes interfered with each other and then re-calculate the formulas and everything. But I suppose it really is the snake – my soulmate keeps it at his side most of the time, after all, and some of the locations overlap with sightings of the Dark Lord or properties Malfoy tells me belong to his Death Eaters."
"So we have to break into Gringotts, find a way to sneak into Hogwarts, and then kill both Nagini and the Dark Lord."
"Easy," Harry said, grinning down at his friend.
Theodore sighed fondly, before leaning over and murmuring into Harry's ear, "You're brilliant, you know that?"
"Or so I've been told. And now," Harry said, stretching his arms. "I feel like using you as a pillow while you tell me about all the 'Dark Magic' you have taught yourself today."
"I would like it to be the other way around," Theodore said quietly.
"So I can card my fingers through your hair, trying to make you purr like a cat."
Harry had not thought it possible anymore, at this point, but Theodore actually blushed at his words – it was only visible in the tips of his ears growing read, but still.
"Mhn," was all Theodore managed to get out in response.
o
They went to Gringotts first – but only because they decided it would give them a better cover to go to Hogwarts as 'students breaking curfew' after the winter holidays – although Harry would just alter the memories of any unfortunate soul that stumbled across them, anyway.
Their team was made up of the three Slytherins. Harry would have preferred going alone, but he did not know Gringotts and how the older vaults were operated nearly as well as Theodore and Malfoy did. Susan was just glad she wouldn't have a Gringotts break-in weighing on her conscience and stayed behind without a fuss.
So Harry and Malfoy assumed their disguises as young woman going shopping, while Theodore disappeared underneath the Cloak of Invisibility. Inside the bank, Malfoy requested to open a vault and once a goblin had led them through the first door and into an empty corridor, Harry altered his memory and sent him to take a break before returning to the atrium. From there, things got a little bit complicated. They couldn't use the carts, because Harry had to translate the numbers from the locating spell into directions as they went – there were no maps of Gringotts' underground, after all, and he needed to see the paths, so he could modulate the calculations to fit their dimensions and interwoven magics. At the same time, Harry had to use his Gift to circumvent all the protective magics and wards and numerous alarms against thieves.
With Theodore's and Malfoy's wealth of knowledge about both the vaults down here and at least part of the protections, they managed.
As for moving around – well, since they couldn't use the carts, Harry tried out his theory about flying unaided, while Theodore and Malfoy shared the Firebolt he had fished out of his bottomless bag – the one Sirius had once given him as a Christmas present.
There was a dragon guarding their destination – a poor old thing that looked so sad Harry was glad Susan hadn't accompanied them. Harry had already dealt with a dragon in his fourth year, so he just willed it to sleep and stepped past the miserable creature.
"This is aunt Bella's vault," Malfoy breathed when Harry pointed out which one his calculations pointed towards.
"Then you know what will expect me behind the door?" Harry asked as he was tracing his hands over the complex magical locks, tackling one at a time and listening to the satisfying clicks and clangs.
"A lot of valuable items, all put under the Gemino and Flagrante Curses," Malfoy replied, watching Harry work with the same awe Theodore had long learned to hide behind his usual mask of indifference.
Harry gave the blonde a grateful nod and then stepped through the door, catching another alarm at the last moment and silencing it before it could go off.
The Horcrux was easy to locate, even with all the cursed and dark objects scattered across the vault – there, high on one of the shelves, sat Helga Hufflepuff's Cup.
Getting out was as easy as getting in had been – they just had to retrace their steps, Theodore and Malfoy taking the lead while Harry redid the enchantments he had undone on the way down. They merely had to wait for a while behind one of the doors leading to the atrium until a goblin came through that Harry could use his Gift on.
o
For Hogwarts, Susan insisted on tagging along and so all four of them donned their old school robes (or borrowed them, in Malfoy's case) and altered their facial features. Harry, of course, assumed his favourite disguise as a girl. The others merely made some slight modifications using Body Transfigurations. Then they held on to Harry, so he could apparate them into the Forbidden Forest, easily bypassing every Anti-Apparition spell that was either part of Hogwarts' usual wards or had been put up by the Death Eaters.
Harry chose the spot where he had once gathered ingredients for his Pensieve's potion, close to where the dragons for the First Task had been kept, and was surprised to find Luna waiting for them, petting a Thestral.
They had not told Luna that they would be coming, but she greeted them as if she had known all along – and she probably had, Harry thought, noting with some amusement that she called Malfoy a 'little daffodil'.
Luna confidently led them out of the forest and up to the castle, past all the guards and Death Eaters and prefects patrolling the corridors – until they found themselves inside an abandoned classroom. Malfoy had just opened his mouth to say something, when a ghost came floating through the wall.
The woman stopped short at the sight of them. "Little Luna," she said, surprised.
"Hello, Helena," Luna replied with a smile. "I have brought you guests."
"I can see that."
Luna turned around to look at Harry.
"Er – hello," he said. "My name is Harry Potter."
"Is that so?" the Grey Lady said, tilting her head to regard him curiously and Harry realised he was still wearing his disguise, but he decided changing back now wouldn't change anything. "And what do you want from me, Harry Potter?"
"We are looking for your mother's diadem," Harry said. "We suspect the Dark Lord turned it into a Horcrux."
The ghost recoiled at his words, an expression of horror and disgust sweeping across her face.
"I do not know where my mother's diadem is, now," she said, sounding strained.
"But you knew where it was, before."
"Yes. Because I was the one who stole it."
Harry blinked. "You stole the diadem?"
"I sought to make myself cleverer," the ghost whispered, closing her eyes. "I wanted to become more important than my mother. I ran away with it."
Harry listened patiently as Helena Ravenclaw told him how her mother had never admitted to her daughter's betrayal and then, when she had fallen ill, Rowena had sent a man to find her daughter – a man who would kill Helena after she refused him and then himself. A man who would later become known as the Bloody Baron, ghost of Slytherin House.
The Diadem, Helena had hidden inside a hollow tree in a forest in Albania. The story, she had told only once before – to a flattering student by the name of Tom Riddle.
"Thank you," Harry said sincerely when she was done. He turned to Luna. "I think he hid the Diadem inside Hogwarts. Can you help us find it?"
Luna smiled brightly. "Oh, no. But I know someone who can help you find it."
Once again, they followed Luna through the castle. Harry recognised the way to the dungeons, the corridor with paintings of various foods being familiar. He had been to the kitchens once before, after all.
"Hello," Luna greeted the two house-elves that were working there even at night.
"How may Krafty be helping the young masters?" one of the elves asked, bowing deeply before them.
Huh, Harry thought. He knew that particular elf.
Luna gave Krafty a gentle smile. "We only came to ask a question," she said and then gave Harry an encouraging look.
"Right," Harry said, thinking fast. "So – er – you wouldn't know a good hiding place for, say, a very valuable object inside this castle, would you?"
Krafty blinked her big eyes at him. "If the young master is wishing to hide something, he must be seeking out the Room of Hidden Things."
"Oh," Harry said. "And how would I find that room?"
"Why, master must ask the Come and Go Room to show it to him. Master must be going to the seventh floor and walk three times past the wall opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, repeating in his mind what master be seeking."
It almost sounded like the elf was reciting a message, but Harry was probably just imagining things.
"Thank you," he said sincerely, for the second time that night.
Krafty bowed again. "Will the young masters be requiring anything else from Krafty?"
"No, thank you," Susan said gently. "You may return to your duties."
Krafty bowed once more and then left them.
This time, it was Harry who led them through the castle. Luna left them at one point to return to her dormitories – though not before Harry could give her a big hug and express his gratitude for her help. Luna beamingly told him that she had merely followed the advice of the Augureys, but was very happy to have been of help.
Harry, Susan, Theodore and Malfoy followed Krafty's instructions and soon found themselves standing between aisles made of towers of objects piled high in a room the size of a cathedral. All four of them gaped at the thousands of objects students must have hidden inside the rooms ever since Hogwarts had been built. Then Harry shook himself and concentrated on sorting through the many, many traces of magic suffusing the air – of spells and magical instruments and cursed objects and whatever else had been hidden in that massive room. (Harry vowed to himself to return one day and explore this room thoroughly – both what was hidden inside and the room, itself.) It should not have been easy for Harry to locate the right magic, but he knew what his soulmate's Horcruxes felt like very well, by know, and so he only needed to focus on that and follow the trail.
Sitting on a pile of books between a cupboard with blisters all over it and the chipped bust of a warlock, was a tarnished diadem that reeked of his soulmate's malicious intentions.
Harry was tempted to go exploring – they had all the time in the world, after all – but Susan sternly told him that he could do that just as well after he had dealt with the Dark Lord and Malfoy reminded him that he would very much like to live his own life again as soon as possible, instead of straining the Bones' hospitality more than he already had.
So Harry, grumbling under his breath, followed his friends outside, looking at the Room of Hidden Things longingly one last time before Susan shut the door in his face. Then he paced in front of the wall three times, asking for a Fiendfyre-proof room and the Come and Go Room provided him with a spacious, windowless chamber with walls and floor and ceiling made of sleek, black marble. The Locket, the Cup, and the Diadem were all destroyed at the same time.
Theodore mourned the only known artifacts of three of the four Hogwarts founders and Harry only realised that – just like the Sword of Gryffindor – those artifacts could have actually held special magics when it was already too late. Bollocks.
(Susan and Malfoy shared a relieved look that Harry resolutely ignored.)
o
"All that is left are the snake and my soulmate, himself," Harry said after getting a good night's rest.
"And you will be fine on your own?" Susan asked for what must have been the tenth time already.
"It will be fine," Harry said dismissively. "I can't die."
"What do you mean 'you can't die'?!" Malfoy asked curiously.
Harry froze. "Well …"
Both Susan and Theodore turned to stare at him. "Harry."
"I'll tell you once I'm back, alright?"
"That better be a promise, you hear me?" Susan said, stabbing her finger in his direction. "Imagine how devastated I will be if you break that promise – imagine how devastated and heartbroken Theo will be."
Harry smiled at her sheepishly. "Alright, I promise, I promise!"
Malfoy huffed, but wisely refrained from making a comment.
"Well," Harry said, suddenly feeling awkward, "I'll be off, then."
Susan's expression softened. "Oh, Harry. Come here!" And she opened her arms and pulled him into a crushing hug. "Be safe, okay?"
Harry patted her back and patiently waited for her to let him go. Then, he turned to Theodore. Theodore just looked at him. (Out of the corner of his eyes, Harry could see Susan grabbing Malfoy's arm and dragging him back into the house to give them some privacy.)
"You will come back alive," Theodore said, his voice hoarse.
"Yes," Harry said, taking one step and then another and another, until he was right in front of Theodore. "I promise I will come back perfectly fine, not a single scratch anywhere."
Theodore gave him a half-hearted smile. "I will hold you to that."
"And I will tell you about the 'unable to die' thing," Harry continued. "And about what happened in old man Dumbledore's office. And – whatever else you want me to tell you about."
"Hearing you say that makes me worried."
Harry winced. "Sorry."
Theodore shook his head and, finally, reached up to drag Harry into a hug that wasn't as crushing as Susan's had been, but all the more meaningful in its tenderness. "I know you will be fine. I trust in you."
"Thank you," Harry said. "And you will take care of Susan for me. And Malfoy, I guess."
Theodore huffed, amused. "I have to, now that you finally granted him the privilege of using his actual name."
"Only took me more than six years."
"Come back," Theodore said, tightening his grip. "Please."
"I will," Harry said and then, "I love you."
AN
As always, Luna saves the day.