July to October 1997, between 6th and 7th year
Many things changed following the fall of the Ministry of Magic and the death of Hogwarts' headmaster, Albus Dumbledore.
Harry took notice of none of them.
First, he had to reassure Susan that the Trace would not be a problem at all, because, for one, he had already gotten rid of that a long, long, long time ago – as soon as he had noticed the thing, in fact, before first-year had even properly started – and, for another, his Gift wasn't detectable by the Ministry anyway and he never made use of his stupid wand.
The recently reinstated Taboo on his soulmate's name would not pose a problem, either, because none of them ever used the man's name – it was either 'the Dark Lord' or 'Harry's soulmate' (although Harry was the only one who used that particular one) or 'You-Know-Who' and similar ridiculous monikers. 'Lord Voldemort' was a stupid self-made name, anyway. Harry thought the Taboo was both very clever but also quite absurd – his soulmate had chosen that name for himself, after all, yet he would not allow anyone to use it.
After their disappearance from Hogwarts, the four of them went to a safe house Theodore had prepared long before they had all met. (When he mentioned that, Susan gave Theodore an odd look that Harry couldn't interpret).
Luna returned home to her father soon after, assuring them they would be fine. Harry came with her to personally set up wards around their house, renew the binding magic he had once cast on Luna, and make sure she could maintain that magic by herself. Luna lightly made a comment about his magic going from 'that lovely shade of silver' to 'something beyond human comprehension' that Harry suspected meant she knew exactly what had happened to him in Dumbledore's office. (Harry hadn't even been aware that there were different shades of silver.) Luna would also return to Hogwarts for her sixth year, confident that nothing would happen to her. Somehow, Harry knew he could trust in her to handle whatever came her way.
Harry, himself, had no home to return to – not that it bothered him
Susan was waiting for her family to reply – after her aunt Amelia's murder, they had begun strengthening their wards and generally investing in updated security and she was sure they were perfectly safe, but did not know whether the protections would be strong enough to harbour Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived.
Theodore could not risk returning to Nott Manor, because his father was a loyal Death Eater and the Dark Lord had made it quite clear that he would no longer leave Harry be and tolerate his presence anywhere.
The Daily Prophet headline read "Wanted for questioning about the death of Albus Dumbledore" and stated that Harry Potter had been the last to interact with the late headmaster (which was untrue, as Madam Rosmerta had seen the old man in Hogsmeade after he had left Harry dead in his office) and had been alone with the man for quite some time in an office that had been left mostly destroyed and devoid of almost every valuable item that had been reported to have still been there before headmaster Dumbledore had invited Harry Potter inside. According to the portraits of previous headmasters, who had witnessed the scene, Dumbledore and Potter had fought until Potter had done something to the headmaster using 'unknown magic' and then Potter had remained inside the office for a long time before leaving.
The article completely left out that the old man had been the first to attack, that Harry had never actually retaliated other than freezing the headmaster in place that one time and that the old man had actually murdered Harry with what had unmistakably been the Killing Curse. (Which was, Harry thought, actually a good thing – otherwise, he would have had to explain himself to Theodore and Susan and Harry decidedly did not want to do that.)
So the Ministry was now looking for one Harry Potter, Undesirable No. 1.
"What happened to Dumbledore's office?" Susan asked, after dismissing most of what the article said as rubbish.
(Harry did not correct her that a lot of it was actually accurate.)
"Well …" he trailed off, looking to the side, before sheepishly holding his bottomless bag out to her.
"You didn't!" Susan said, slowly taking the bag out of his hand and peeking inside. "You really did."
Harry scratched the back of his head. "I couldn't help myself. After being invited in there so often and having to watch all those fascinating magical objects be dangled right in front of my eyes … I was planning to steal only a few at a time, but after what the old man did to me …"
Both Susan and Theodore looked at him sharply.
"After what?"
"Ah, it's nothing, it's nothing!"
"Harry!"
"So," Harry said, clapping his hands together and then taking back his bag. "I emptied out his office. I stunned the portraits before doing so, because I didn't want them to be witnesses. And boy did that barmy old headmaster have a lot! So many fascinating instruments and trinkets and a collection of memories from all sorts of people! Not to mention all the books that I suspect were originally part of the Restricted Section – although I looked through them already and find myself a bit disappointed. There's nothing in there that the Nott and the Black libraries didn't provide me with already – which reminds me."
Harry turned to Theodore, who was watching him with narrowed eyes – had been watching him like that from the moment he had slipped up about the old man doing something to him.
"I want to make a trip to Nott Manor to retrieve all of our books."
"You mean 'steal the whole library'," Theodore said dryly.
Harry grinned. "It will take some careful planning, but it shouldn't be too difficult. I know how to circumvent all the wards and alarms and we have the Cloak of Invisibility. Anyway, I also got this –" he pulled the Sorting Hat out of his bag.
"Harry!" Susan exclaimed.
"– and the Sword of Gryffindor, but that one disappeared." And he would really have liked to watch that, because the Sword's magic was truly fascinating. He might have also taken the Phoenix or done something with it, but it had flown away while Harry had been temporarily dead – er – out of commission.
Harry had to side-step a lot of questions about what exactly had transpired in the headmaster's office over the next few days, until Susan's parents finally replied. They had been very worried, very worried indeed, and also apparently put their house under the Fidelius Charm, so it should pose no problem at all for Harry and Theodore to come and stay with them.
("What about Pansy?" Theodore asked at one point.
"What about her?" Susan replied almost defensively, before sighing and adding, "We mutually broke up. We both knew it would be for the better, considering recent events.")
Agreeing to a meeting place and how to ensure either party would be who they claimed to be and not Death Eaters planning an ambush was somewhat tricky, but Harry was confident he could see through any kind of magic, no matter how clever, and if he and his friends arrived under the Cloak of Invisibility, they could safely ensure everything was in order.
On the day before their departure form the safe house, an owl arrived for Harry. (Harry frowned at it and then devised spells to make himself and his friends untraceable for owls.) It was from Sirius and both the handwriting and careless tone (and the fact no spells or curses had been attached) convinced Harry it had really been written by Sirius and not an imposter.
"What does it say?" Susan asked.
"He's alive," Harry said, grinning when his friend rolled her eyes in response. "He is looking for me. Apparently, he's working on his own, now – something about a member of the Order betraying them. Oh, and Grimmauld Place isn't safe anymore. Good to know."
"Will you do something about it?" Susan asked, ignoring Theodore's quiet snort.
"I already did," Harry said. "His letters won't reach me anymore."
"You know that is not what I meant, Harry."
Harry hummed, considering his options for a moment.
"Nah," he said eventually. "Sirius can take care of himself. He doesn't need me and I don't need him."
"But he will be worried about you," Susan said.
Harry shrugged. "That's his problem, not mine."
o
Harry had not expected to celebrate his birthday with his two best friends and one of said friend's parents, but there he was. It was kind of nice. It was also kind of overwhelming. And then it was over, thankfully, and he was officially of age.
Death Eater activity was particularly high on that day, though Harry only found out about that later, when he went out for some errands.
It had been a few years since he had last used his favourite disguise and it was not as easy to pass as a girl anymore as it had been at ages twelve and thirteen. Letting his curls loose and putting on a dress and some eye-colour-changing glasses didn't quite cut it, anymore. He had, in recent years, neglected his fringe and forgotten how much wrangling into place it needed to cover his famous scar. He was lucky that he was not very broad at the shoulders and with the right clothing, he could imitate a more feminine body shape. But he could not hide his facial features, nor his voice without using magic and even after that, Harry was still not quite satisfied.
In the end, Susan came up with a rather simple solution: applying make-up. (Though Harry could not do it, himself, no matter how hard he tried and both Susan and her mother had to help him out.) Some light, discreet make-up could do wonders, Harry discovered.
Coupled with a wand he purchased in a dingy second-hand shop down Knockturn Alley and a name borrowed from one of the genealogy books from the Nott library, he was unrecognizable as 'Harry Potter'. This disguise also used only the bare minimum of magics and was, therefore, almost impossible to see through by Death Eaters looking for people using Polyjuice Potion and Body Transfigurations.
Neither Susan nor Theodore joined Harry on his outings. Harry wouldn't have taken them with him, anyway – he could look after himself perfectly well, but protecting one or two others unnecessarily complicated things. His friends also did not have disguises as good as Harry's and were not interested in acquiring any.
Harry mostly went out to buy groceries in Mr and Mrs Bones' stead – simply, because his disguise was the best and after demonstrating his capability, they acknowledged that he was, indeed, the most gifted wizard among them. He also ran errands for himself and friends, to gain material for his research and projects.
The three of them – Harry, Theodore and Susan – had begun with researching Soul Magic and Horcruxes and Harry had continued the research even after they had determined that there wasn't much that they didn't already know. Susan had begun a project involving the combined application of Astronomy, Arithmancy and Study of Ancient Runes in Potion Brewing, and Theodore was studying various fields of the Dark Arts. (Which Harry still maintained was just magic and by no means dark, but if they wanted to put it into categories, sure.) (Soul magic, too, was only magic, in the end.)
Both Susan's and Theodore's personal projects required a lot of different ingredients and materials that Harry was happy to go out and purchase, even the less legal ones, because it gave him something to do
By the time October came around, he had recreated the Sorting Hat from scratch, then compared it to the original, (then sent the original back to Hogwarts to appease Susan's anger), taken apart the old man's Pensieve, created another Pensieve based on both his first creation and Dumbledore's, experimented with the souls of unsuspecting Death Eaters, (watched Theodore stab said Death Eaters), mastered Legilimency (by using it on Death Eaters), trained Susan in Occlumency and basic curses, created new versions of Occlumency, taken over all the cooking in the Bones household, invented self-maintaining house-cleaning spells, created a life-like cat golem out of animal bones and various fabrics and the pelt of a dead cat he had found at the side of a street, staged the death of one Draco Malfoy, and dabbled in Necromancy.
Staging the death of Draco Malfoy had not been planned at all, but come as a surprise one weekend towards the end of September, during which the boy should have been at Hogwarts but obviously hadn't been.
Harry had been shopping in Diagon Alley that day and followed the blonde boy out of curiosity. It had been obvious that the boy had been looking for someone and despite trying to hide it, Harry had been able to sense his desperation. After following him around for a while, Harry had lightly skimmed the boy'S mind and found his own face gazing back at him. So, by nudging the boy lightly with his Gift, Harry had brought him into a less populated area of the shopping district and approached him directly.
To his surprise, the blonde boy had immediately suspected his real identity, despite obviously being a girl.
"Potter?" the boy had asked and when Harry had not reacted outwardly, "Potter, please. I know it's you – I know your magic. I need your help. Please help me."
Harry had not known whether he could trust the blonde boy, so he had used Legilimency on him. (And then erased the memory of doing that from the boy's mind.) The blonde boy had seen for himself the horrors the Dark Lord's reign was bringing – both at home and at Hogwarts. He had been forced into a role he had not wanted, a position of power that required him to oversee the torture of misbehaving students within the school and the murder of 'blood traitors' when at home.
Malfoy's parents had been so proud of him, so proud of the honour their son had been given even though he had failed to carry out the Dark Lord's order to kill Albus Dumbledore in his sixth year. (Huh.) Yet all the boy had been able to think about had been the dread of watching the innocent Hippogriff he sentenced to death getting beheaded in his third year.
The boy had also not been sure that the girl had actually been Harry Potter, but more or less been grasping at straws.
After that, Harry had contacted Susan through his and Theodore's communication mirrors and then helped Malfoy stage his own death, so that his parents wouldn't get implicated in his disappearance. Malfoy was certain nothing would happen to his mother and father as long as the Dark Lord did not doubt their loyalty. He had been reluctant at first, because the news of his death would have brought great grief to his parents, but eventually agreed that it was the easiest way.
Unlike Theodore and Susan and to everyone's surprise, Malfoy proved to be willing to disguise himself as a girl by non-magical means. Harry was not as fond of Malfoy as the others, and therefore not exactly concerned about the boy's safety, so he took him along on his trips from then on. They got along surprisingly well. Harry didn't remember the blonde boy being this comfortable to be around, but, then again, a lot of things had changed since their last propoer interaction.
The latest of Harry's projects, the Necromancy, had been a disappointing experience, because only true Necromancers could create undead beings that were almost indistinguishable from the living and do so many more things like commanding the dead, creating ghosts, calling upon the souls of the dead even without the Resurrection Stone, gain power through death, perhaps even predict the future by calling upon the dead, and so much more.
But, despite being 'the Master of Death in every universe at some point or another', Harry was apparently not a true Necromancer. To be honest, Harry did not quite understand what a true Necromancer was and Death refused to tell him. Death did inform him, though, that becoming a Necromancer would defeat the purpose of his role as Master of Death, because Necromancers were Death's most faithful servants. So there was nothing Harry could do about that.
In short: Harry had run out of things to do.
Harry hadn't planned on ever confronting his soulmate, but it was clear the Dark Lord would not leave him be. Still, it took Susan to convince him to do something about it.
"You can treat it like one of your many projects," she told him. "I know you are starting to get bored – I can hear it in every sigh you heave. So why don't you work on a project to destroy You-Know-Who?"
Harry tilted his head. "Certainly sounds like something that might keep me occupied, but are you sure? Aren't you worried or anything?"
Susan sighed, glancing at Theodore, who was watching Harry with the same kind of tense anticipation as Malfoy was. "Of course, I'm worried," she said. "I don't want you putting yourself in danger. But I can also acknowledge that you are the most powerful wizard I have ever met and I am actually hopeful – no – I am convinced that you are able to defeat You– the Dark Lord. And someone has to do it, because that monster is terrorizing our country, our home, everything." She took a deep breath. "So I am asking you to take on this project to permanently rid the world of the Dark Lord whose name I am not allowed to speak out loud."
Harry allowed himself to smile. "Alright. This should be fun. First, we need to find all of his Horcruxes. If we go with the assumption that he wanted to split his soul into seven pieces and was not aware of the soul shard inside my curse scar until he had created the final Horcrux, if ever – then four remain."
Theodore nodded. "We took care of the Diary, the Ring, and you. Nagini is a likely possibility."
"I agree that the snake is most likely a Horcrux," Malfoy said, after receiving an explanation about Horcruxes, paling considerably, and taking a few moments to regain his composure.
"Based off of the memories old man Dumbledore showed me," Harry said, "Salazar Slytherin's Locket and Helga Hufflepuff's Cup are also Horcruxes. And I suspect Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem to be the last."
"But the Diadem has been lost centuries ago," Malfoy said.
"Gryffindor was known for leaving precisely two artifacts," Harry explained, "the Sorting Hat and the Sword of Gryffindor. I have already examined both of them, confirming their authenticity and that neither is a Horcrux."
"That's why you stole the Sorting Hat?" Susan exclaimed. "Why didn't you say so?"
Harry gave her a crooked smile. "Because that wasn't the reason, just something I made sure to check while I was at it. Anyway, my soulmate was, according to Dumbledore, obsessed with Hogwarts and its founders and also liked to collect treasures and trophies. I suspect one of his Horcruxes might actually be at Hogwarts – the castle is big enough and full of magical secrets that it is very possible I never noticed such a dark and sinister object being hidden somewhere within. Rowena Ravenclaw only left the Diadem – I already checked that thoroughly. As it happens, her daughter remains at Hogwarts as a ghost. Luna told me that the Grey Lady is actually Helena Ravenclaw."
"So we need to go to Hogwarts and find out whether Tom Riddle ever approached the Grey Lady," Theodore said calmly. "Meanwhile, Harry can search the castle for whatever Horcrux the Dark Lord may have hidden there."
Harry grinned at his friends (and Malfoy). "Seems like we have a plan and a place where to start."
AN
Look who's doing a Horcrux Hunt, after all.