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Chapter 35: When the Sea Is High

Narcissa was discharged from L'Institut Parisien de Guérison early in the morning. Although the aches of last night's chaos no longer plagued her, each step she took was weak and wobbly. Never in her life had all her muscles felt so much like lead.

The city looked as weary as she felt. The morning sky was grey with smoke. Clouds of it were in the streets as well, wafting up from blackened stone and trickling between cracks in ruined masonry. Hardly a soul stood in her line of sight. Those nearby windows that had not been shattered were almost all shuttered or else boarded up. Had it not been for sirens blaring in the distance, all would have been quiet.

Those shrill sirens were a snare she could not avoid. Every wail drew her back to that past night's carnage; to the sight of sorcerers succumbing under the assault of muggle weaponry, to red-cloaked bodies lying in the gutters, to white-masked madmen going down in droves. Most of all her thoughts strayed back toward two men locked in a fight so fierce that not even the earth around them had been fit to bear its brunt.

Her blood ought to have run cold at the memory of Riddle unleashing such magics with the ease most witches and wizards felt while cleaning up their kitchen.

Instead there was a fierce heat beneath her skin, boiling whenever she called to mind the man behind that emerald mask.

Soon, she soothed herself. There will be answers soon.

The restaurant she entered was unscarred. A soft bell announced her coming when she stepped inside. Dark, wood walls and the dim flickering of scented candles leant the place a tasteful ambiance. Narcissa might have called it comfortable had there been the gentle drone of conversation or the routine clinking of utensils.

There was a stiff silence instead, interrupted only by the muffled sound of footsteps drawing close across the rich, red carpet. "A table, Mademoiselle?" the blonde-haired hostess asked.

"Non," Narcissa told her. "I have a reservation here. It should be under the name Dorea Black."

The hostess curtsied gracefully despite her long, blue dress and high, black heels. "Right this way, Mademoiselle." Along the well-kept walkway between tables she was led, down a panelled hallway off the main room and through a light blue door. "Is this the guest you told us of, Madame Black?"

Great-aunt Dorea looked up from a close inspection of her wine glass. "Oui, ma chère. You can leave us."

A line of candelabras crafted in the shape of summer flowers along the table's centre separated Narcissa from her great-aunt once she was seated. "You lied to me."

Dorea drew out a dramatic sigh. "Always so serious."

Narcissa's anger flared. "You told me that you knew nothing! You told me there were no records of a man named Malcolm Renn!"

"Which were both true — there were no records of a man named Malcolm Renn and I had no way of knowing who he was."

"But you had suspicions."

"Narcissa, you have known me all your life. When do I not have suspicions about almost everything?"

"Don't try changing the subject." The words were like round boulders rolling down a steep hillside; even if she had wanted to restrain them, there would have been no hope. "You said you would tell me if you unearthed anything."

"Unearthed being the operative word. There was no documentation to be found that connected Malcolm Renn and the man who duelled Tom Riddle last night."

Narcissa leant forward in her chair. "So they are the same, they—"

"Oh, please." Patience was fading from her great-aunt's demeanour. "You would not have demanded that I meet you here had you not been sure already."

Narcissa was unmoved. "If you want to worm through technicalities, you can tolerate my thoroughness."

Dorea pursed her lips. "So be it. I had never heard of a man named Malcolm Renn and there was nothing to find about any such person — trust me, I did look. I looked very hard, actually. All the while I could not quite get a niggling suspicion from my mind. You see, there was a boy who seemingly appeared from nowhere last summer, then went on to outscore everyone at Hogwarts. Reports say this boy hollowed out a portion of Mount Othrys when he appeared, and that he handled a squadron of aurors in a few seconds before venators arrived."

"Back up," Narcissa said. "Did you say he hollowed a portion of Mount Othrys? While being Hogwarts age? What spell did they say he used?"

"Fiendfyre." Dorea paused, foreshadowing the significance of her next words. "Emerald-coloured Fiendfyre." She waited for that to sink in before pressing on. "Imagine my surprise when this young man and my own son go from schoolyard rivals to close friends soon after the attack on our manor."

"So you connected the two of them."

"It wasn't quite that simple," Dorea admitted. "There was a while when I thought my mind might just be filling in holes for the sake of solving unanswered mysteries. Ironic, really, seeing as I'm no closer to those answers after speaking with him than I was months ago. I'm sure you know how well that sits with me, though the fact the empire is just as baffled does ease the sting a bit."

"None of that explains how you connected this boy and Malcolm Renn." Narcissa would not allow herself to become distracted; that was an old trick she had often fallen for during her younger years.

Dorea sipped wine while dismissively waving her free hand. "There isn't much to tell. I heard James's stories about the boy and found myself more than a smidgen curious. So I reached out to this wonderboy and offered him a large sum of gold if he would help ensure the solstice went off without a hitch."

Narcissa's eye twitched. "Then he failed." So had her great-aunt if she had meant to slip that past her.

"My husband failed himself by being foolish," Dorea countered. "Both he and James would be dead had Renn not driven off the man behind that silver mask."

"Quite the story, though you'll forgive me if I don't believe the part about paying him a heap of gold," Narcissa said. "Between the two of us, I have a feeling Renn was quite eager for the opportunity."

Dorea merely hummed. "That is the strangest thing, isn't it? It just makes me wonder all the more what his true past looked like. Certainly there's some history between him and Riddle — Charlus can distinctly remember feeling that boy's anger, he said the stones around them smoked and burned with it."

Narcissa opened her mouth, then slowly closed it before crossing her arms. That diversion had almost succeeded. "So you've known since before the solstice."

Anger washed back over her. "You could have owled me. The least you should have done was uphold—"

"Uphold my end of the promise and risk exposing the surest weapon I had against Tom Riddle, all to fulfil your little crush on the boy?"

Those words struck Narcissa still as stone. Except her eyes, which radiated cold rage. "I do not crush on simpleminded men whose names I don't even know."

"Yet here we are." Dorea held up a hand to forestall any interruptions. "Come now, Narcissa. Would you really be so upset that I withheld this from you if you felt nothing for him?"

"It has nothing to do with him! There is enthralling work he planned on commissioning and there are answers that I want."

"Which, in turn, means it is all about him." There was a playful smile on her great-aunt's lips. "Dear, I've known you all your life. Nothing grabs your attention quite like unanswered questions, and we all gravitate towards things that interest us. It's only natural."

"I am not crushing on Malcolm Renn." Narcissa would rather slap the wretched man than kiss him.

"Whatever you say, my dear."

She would not give her aunt the satisfaction of a rise. She was Narcissa Black, daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. She did not concede so easily. "So Renn is a Hogwarts student?" It was a tough truth to swallow.

"Malcolm Renn claims to be a seventeen-year-old boy named Harry Kalloway," Dorea answered without really answering. "There's no telling who he really is."

Kalloway… it was a name she had never heard before. A second false face. Or the first, as she supposed that Malcolm Renn had been the second. "I understand where the assumption that Harry Kalloway was Malcolm Renn came from. The part I'm not quite grasping is what made you so certain. You're not one to work off of assumptions."

"I'm not one to sit idly while my family is massacred," Dorea retorted. "You can choose to believe it or not, but I was gambling on my intuition until he arrived at our arranged meeting and confirmed my theory."

"And you don't know why he is so dead set against Riddle and his ilk?" Dorea merely shook her head. "Is there anything you know that might be of interest? Certainly you owe me that much." There had to be some piece of information she could extrapolate.

Her great-aunt's smile was like a Cheshire cat's. "Come, Narcissa. What I owe you is of no consequence — you know I can't betray my ally's confidence."

Harry stared out the wide window connecting marble floor to marble ceiling. The sunrise was the colour of bad blood. Beads of light leaked through the smoke and stained the sky a sullen red. Among those ashen clouds glowed scraps of gold. Underneath it all was ruin; streets whose stones had been scorched black as slate, entire blocks made inaccessible by piles of debris, small fires flickering amid the rubble all these hours later,

And for what? Had the carnage been the aftermath of a final fight like he had vowed it would be, the damage would have been a fair price for peace.

Peace that he had thrown away for the sake of Narcissa Black…

"It is not your scar that makes you special, nor even the prophecy linking you and Voldemort." Dumbledore's words, hollower than they had ever sounded to him. "It is the love you feel for those you cherish and your drive to do what is right instead of what is easy for the sake of them and all they mean to you."

"I suspect Dumbledore has told you all about how love is your great power," Voldemort had once jeered, "and yet Dumbledore is dead. That is the fate of all who rest their faith in love — it is another tool for predators to use against their prey."

Both of them had been right in their own ways. Love had driven him to grow stronger than he had ever dreamt of. It was what dragged him out of bed when the coming day was chief among his list of dreads, it was what gave him strength to continue on when others would be broken, it was what lit his way through the darkest hours — the love for those who he had lost and for those he hoped to never lose.

And yet it could be turned against him. Voldemort had understood that; hanging Ron's corpse from an apple tree and nailing his head against the Burrow's front door, holding Hermione hostage so he could break her more thoroughly than Harry could repair — Voldemort had always known which strings to pull.

And so did Tom Riddle.

When they had both been flagging so badly that each exchange was like the roll of dice, Riddle had known how to sway the odds.

That was a weakness. There was no other word for it; had Harry mastered his protective instincts during that duel, there would be no need for further fighting.

But that part of him had always been beyond control, and so there would be bloodshed to come because there had to be…

"Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives."

Except he did not love Narcissa. Riddle's ploy should never have succeeded. Why had he not let her die for the sake of countless others? It would hardly have been the most callous act he had committed.

The suite's lone door swung inward. "I must apologize for the delay." The end of Grindelwald's gold cape trailed just above the carpet. Against the dim lighting and his own black satin, the Emperor's pale skin and platinum hair stood out like marble plinths above a granite floor. "There has been much for me to do."

Harry sank to his knees and bowed his head. "I understand, Your Radiance." One of the Knights of Avalon — a title held by those few skilled men and women whose sole duty was to defend the Emperors themselves — had treated Harry to a brief crash course in official etiquette and addresses.

"Rise, and be seated." Grindelwald stalked across the room and slid into one of the two high-backed chairs with a manner more akin to apex predators than noble rulers. Furthering that aura was the fact that no guards came in behind him. The door closed, leaving them entirely alone. "I have been eager to meet you for some time now."

"I'm honoured, Your Radiance," Harry replied as he seated himself across from the High Emperor.

Grindelwald's otherwise disarming smile did not quite reach his eyes. Harry could not help but think that was a deliberate decision rather than a subconscious failing. "You have proven quite the… enigma," the Emperor began.

"You're not the first person who's said something like that to me." Harry did his best to keep the guarded quality of each word to himself.

Grindelwald did not smile the way some others had when that quip was made. "I confess to being unsurprised."

"I don't imagine much surprises you these days." If the Emperor wanted to talk around important points and try to outwait him in the hopes that he would open up, two could play that game.

"That was true not long ago. Times change like the wind, and sometimes not even I can guess their course." Grindelwald had a way of subtly scrutinising in a manner that was more unnerving than the most shameless stare. "One such as yourself has certain advantages in this. Those who stand amidst the plains of change often feel some whisper of where events might blow."

Harry was unsure how to reply. "I don't know that I have answers to anything Your Radiance hasn't already puzzled out."

Grindelwald leant back in his chair. "Let us dispense of this proprietary polish. While it makes your manners gleam, it occludes more important things — things I am unaware of but that you certainly do know. Things like that which possessed you to occupy the streets of Paris during last night's events."

Harry's instincts screamed how unwise it would be to lie. "I know who hid behind that silver mask," he said. "I've been trying to get rid of him for months."

"Get rid of him." Grindelwald let those words linger. "Such an ugly way of making unclear implications. I would have you speak plainly. Dispense not only of false modesty, but of the fear I will treat bluntness as a form of disrespect."

"I want to expose him." The clockwork cadence with which Harry made that proclamation pleased him. "I know of evils he's committed, I just don't have proof. Not yet."

"Many witnesses of last night's melee are convinced that you fought to kill." It was more a question than a rebuke, though neither fit quite right.

"I didn't have a choice," Harry responded.

"Men always have choices," Grindelwald riposted. "Albus would tell you those choices are what makes a man."

"My choices were to let him burn the city, or to fight him. Once that fight started, my choices were to try and kill him, or be killed myself and leave others vulnerable."

"Peace," said Grindelwald. "I do not dispute your choice, nor the rightness of it. I merely wonder how you came to make it, hiding underneath a mask not unlike the man you duelled."

"I was infiltrating his ranks." Harry had hoped not to touch on the tactics he'd been using. Doing so left him treading deep water. "I've been working at it for months. Last night was supposed to be the end."

"You sought to unmask him." It was not a question. "Curious." Grindelwald peered out the window, where the sun had risen higher and was starting to force more orange light through the grey curtain hanging over the city. "Who do you think hides behind that silver mask, and how is it you came to suspect them? What makes you so insistent that they must be brought to justice?"

Harry set his jaw. Deep water is right. There was no shore in sight; all he could do was continue swimming. "I know that the man behind that silver mask is Tom Riddle."

If he had expected surprise or any such reaction, he was disappointed. "Tom Riddle?" Grindelwald had not turned away from his inspection of their high-rise view.

"I know it's Riddle." Somehow Harry felt compelled to make his case before it could be challenged. "All of it is Riddle. The attack on Paris, the schematics that were leaked, the grooming of his students — all of it."

"I see now why you have been seeking proof." Grindelwald peeled his eyes away from the window and placed their full attention onto Harry. "Few would dare to suggest Tom Riddle had a hand in such atrocities. Saying so is not a thing that wise men do."

"And yet I cannot help but feel as though we ought to seriously consider the possibility that these accusations might be true."

Harry's heart had been floundering amid dark currents and had almost dipped beneath their waters. Now it sprouted wings and spread them wide so it could soar. For in the doorway stood a tall man whose silver beard streamed down the front of his deep, blue cloak like sea foam rippling across the ocean's surface.

It was Dumbledore, though Dumbledore as Harry had seldom seen him. Gone was the kind old man with his twinkling eyes and wise words. In his place stood the High Emperor, the Ravager of Russia, the man who had conquered an entire world.

"Hello, Albus," Grindelwald said. "I was unaware you would be joining us."

"Grim news travels fast, and so I am here." Dumbledore looked past his old friend and across the table. "Good morning, Harry. I understand that you had quite the night."

Dumbledore had a way of speaking truth so strongly that it manifested; at those words, the weight of mountains wound its way back into Harry's muscles. Although his bones had been repaired and his pains dispelled, the fatigue remained. "You could say that, s-Your Radiance."

Rather than comment on the near-slip, Dumbledore produced a third armchair with a careless wand wave. "You have my condolences for that, and for the fact two old men must now press you for the tale of how you found yourself once more at the crossroads of twilight."

Every inch of him was burning. The wretch's trick of turning air to fire was the closest Tom had ever come to death. The experience had filled him with an icy desperation cold enough to stave off any ache or pain.

Safely out of danger as he now was, that adrenaline had dried up. Each second was a stark reminder how close everything had been to crumbling. It felt as if that first flaming sword that had cut him was repeatedly descending, burying its hot blade into his hip, his arm, his ribs, his shoulder. His shoulder most of all. The skin had crusted over and felt as stiff as hardwood. Doubtlessly the muscles had suffered in their own right, but they would recover. Thank the gods the flames that had licked up his side had only been mundane.

First and foremost, he thanked the gods he was alive — the gods and his own prodigious skill. That last would have been enough if not for the traitor's unexpected turn. Had Tom been prepared for his treachery, Kalloway would have been stamped out like an ant hill.

Tom bared his teeth and grimaced. That was what should have happened. The signs had been there — Kalloway casting that silver shield in the Entrance Hall, the reports of emerald Fiendfyre over the summer…

The brat had been right about one thing — Tom would never have believed someone so young could possibly pose so great a threat.

A threat that would only grow more dangerous the longer it persisted.

"No more indulgences," he said aloud. "Their risks are too high now." It was a shame; the slow unfurling of his schemes had been an artist's work, and there was no art in hastily arranging things as to best snuff out the traitor's life.

"This has gone beyond artistic pleasure." Tom struggled with his left sleeve. The shortest path forward was the one which saw Kalloway turned into a lifeless corpse and Charlus Potter's ring in Tom's own hand before the summer's end. Both could be accomplished if he set aside his pride and resorted to unpleasant pragmatism.

Amid an expanse of blistered skin, the black skull burned into his flesh was unmarked by the night's events.

Tom pressed his right forefinger into that mark and watched it turn the colour of fresh blood.

There are silences, and there are silences. The first results from any simple lack of sound, where the second stems from grander sources. While one means only that no noise exists, the second often heralds profound changes in a person, a people, or the world around them.

The large suite was smothered in that second sort of silence the moment Harry concluded his long tale. Rarely had he felt the urge to fight or flee so strongly as he did then, waiting for the Emperors to pass judgement. Abridged as his recounting was, it had still included a carefully curated version of the raid against the muggle weapons compound, as well as his late-night lessons with Marcel Zabini. The most egregious of his actions — levelling the military compound, breaching the British Ministry of Magic, sending young Darren Mulciber to his demise — were left out, though he wondered whether their omission would mean anything. There was plenty he had said that could be used to hang him.

Grindelwald moved for the first time in what felt like several minutes, subtle as it was. "Zabini is not among the apprehended."

Harry frowned for a long moment, not having expected that, of all things, to be the Emperor's first words. "I know," he said once his mind recovered from the whiplash. "Riddle escaped with a small group of followers. Zabini was one of them."

Grindelwald's face was what unnerved him most. There was hardly ever any sign of what thoughts lay beneath that calm exterior, and those scraps that seemingly slipped through felt falsified in a way Harry could not put his finger on. "There are things you are not telling us," the black-clad Emperor accused at last.

"I find myself believing him in spite of that suspicion." Dumbledore's words were spoken softly, barely louder than a murmur.

Grindelwald's lips pressed into a firm line. "Belief is not enough, Albus."

"Can you deny that Harry's story fills in gaps more thoroughly than should be possible?" Dumbledore responded. "It explains why the Potters became prime targets, identifies the source of a leak our most exhaustive efforts could not trace, and answers where the riots sprang out of."

Harry made a split-second decision. "I have a copy of the schematics." That detail had been left out of his initial story. "I planned on submitting my copy to the empire, but Riddle leaked them before I had a chance to."

Grindelwald tilted his head leftward. "Where is your copy located?"

"In the highlands," Harry answered as nonchalantly as he could.

"At Hogwarts?" Grindelwald pressed him.

"No," Harry replied. "Somewhere that I've warded."

"What I would like to know," said Dumbledore, "is what became of the trinkets that were 'allegedly' stolen on the night of Yule."

Harry paused to pour over possible responses. He had been careful in describing what had happened the night he stole the artifacts. Spending seven years cooped up with aurors taught one how to play legal word games when they were required. A great deal could be implied without need for explicit details. "They're allegedly buried in a ten-foot pool of mercury off in some cavern layered in lead. At least if my intel is sound." For a fleeting second, he swore that Grindelwald's lips twitched in a way that could not possibly be artificial.

Dumbledore wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand before replying. "How dastardly."

"So where does that leave us?" Harry inquired. "Riddle would kill me in my sleep if I went back to Hogwarts. With respect to your radiant majesties, I'm not chancing that, whether you believe me or not."

"You leave us in a difficult position, I'm afraid." Dumbledore tilted his head back and sighed. "No matter how wary of Tom's nature I have been or how many years I have spent ill at ease around him, no man should be judged until their guilt is proven."

"Least of all a man of such repute as Riddle," Grindelwald tacked on.

"Would the schematics not prove it?" Desperation drummed in Harry's chest. "I could fetch them. All I'd need is a few minutes and a couple portkeys."

"A copy of the schematics would prove only that the alleged thief acquired them, not that he was directed by Tom Riddle." Grindelwald's words bore down on the hope Harry was holding so tightly onto and sought to snuff it out.

A dark cloud settled over his heart, which raced with anxious vigour. "There is one way to prove it beyond any doubt." Four blue eyes burrowed into him. Harry rifled through his mind for any other option, but found none. They had to believe him and he could see only one way of making sure they did. "There's been a chamber hidden under Hogwarts for almost a thousand years. Its entrance is in the second-floor girl's bathroom — the one that's been out of order."

Dumbledore had adopted a seamless mask as implacable as Grindelwald's. "May I presume that what you're referring to is the same place many have called the Chamber of Secrets?"

Harry bowed his head over the table. "Yes, Your Radiance."

"And you are aware that headmasters and headmistresses have spent centuries searching for that fabled place?" Dumbledore might have been an ancient statue for how still he sat.

"Riddle found it," Harry insisted, "and I know how to get in once past his wards."

"Wards?" Grindelwald asked sharply, throwing a knife-edged glance at Dumbledore.

"I am aware of these wards Harry speaks of," Dumbledore assured his fellow Emperor. "Once the structural instability that had long since plagued that bathroom led to tragedy, Tom asked if he might install a ward scheme with the intention of avoiding any future accidents."

Harry straightened in his chair. "Your Radiance… have you examined Riddle's wards? They're not just protective. They would be lethal if attacked strongly enough."

"Lethal?" The blue of Dumbledore's deep eyes darkened. "That is not the impression I was under."

A thrill leapt up from Harry's chest and he opened his mouth. Then reality bowled into him and he scowled at the table. "Damnit. It would never work."

"I beg your pardon?" asked Dumbledore.

"I thought for a second it was going to be simple — that we could just have the wards inspected and prove what I've been saying." How Harry wished it could be so easy, that he could avoid the only other method he had been able to come up with. "It took me a second to realize how stupidly shortsighted that idea was. Riddle would never let anyone qualified within three corridors of that bathroom. If someone was sent to inspect the wards, he'd just place them under the Imperius Curse and tell them what to say."

Grindelwald fingered his cape's clasp. "You continue with these allegations, yet offer us no proof."

"There is a simple way." Dumbledore was stroking his long beard while wearing an expression that was best described as grim. "If we requested Tom lower the wards so the plausibility of repairs could be explored, he would be cornered. His only options would be to provide us access, or to damn himself via refusing."

"Riddle might actually accept those terms," Harry mused aloud, "but only because no one else would ever find it."

Grindelwald thrust out his chin. "No sorcerers have ever matched our prowess." Arrogant defiance poured out of the Emperor, daring Harry to object. "You would do well to remember that."

Harry bowed his head over the table once again. "It's not a question of prowess, Your Radiant Majesty. It's just that there's only one way of opening the chamber."

Grindelwald's bearing became even more austere. "And that is?"

Harry met the Emperor's cold eyes. "Parseltongue."

Grindelwald's pretension folded back into his impassive mask. "Enough of this. What is it, Mister Kalloway, that you believe Tom Riddle has gone through so much effort to protect? What proof do you believe lies hidden in this Chamber of Secrets? The truth, now. All of it."

Old words welled up inside his skull, words he had not dwelt on for a long time.

"The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution."

That caution was what had him pausing now. Once uttered, there was no taking this next accusation back. Not only might knowing enough to speak it damn him in its own right, there was no way for him to be completely certain it was true.

Except it was the only possibility that made any sense, and it was the only way the Emperors would take Riddle as seriously as was required. For that reason alone he had no choice other than to press ahead.

"Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives."

"There's an artifact inside that chamber," Harry confessed. "It could be a locket or a ring. I don't know which it is, but either way it was once Slytherin's." That got the Emperors' attention; as much was clear in the way both men straightened out their postures. Harry steeled his nerves and set his jaw. "More importantly than that, they're horcruxes. Both of them."

That same silence felt not long ago spread to fill the suite, except that it was more this time. Not satisfied with simply stripping away all sound, it drained warmth out of the room as well. The air had grown inert in its oppressive wake, or so it felt. It was as if a bomb had just gone off in the centre of a battlefield and left three great armies standing stunned around the smoking crater it had caused.

When Grindelwald broke that suffocating silence at long last, it was with open malice. "How did you learn of such magic?"

Dumbledore came to Harry's rescue, though he did not sound himself. "There is time for that another day."

Grindelwald's balled fist thudded onto the tabletop. "There is time for this now!" The Emperor's eyes were as cold as heartless murder. "Do you not see what this means, Albus? All the work that we have done, all the precautions we have taken — all of it will be for nothing if magic such as this is spreading."

"It is not spreading, Gellert." Unyielding as stone, that declaration. "If it were, we would have heard. However it is Harry came to know, I do not think we must fear. Tom is an entirely different matter. If what Harry says is true and he succeeds…" It was like two opposing generals stared each other down across that blistered battlefield. "As I say, there will be time enough to assuage your other fears on a different day."

Grindelwald rolled his shoulders with the deadly promise of a stalking panther. "Soon."

"Soon," Dumbledore agreed before turning back to Harry. "You are sure of this, are certain beyond any shadow of a doubt that Tom has created horcruxes?"

"Deathly sure." The truth was that he had to be certain — there was no turning back now, and second guesses got men killed.

Dumbledore rose from his armchair and started pacing back and forth across the suite. "We must investigate at once, must converge on Hogwarts so that—"

"No!"

Harry locked eyes with Grindelwald, surprised they had shouted simultaneously.

Grindelwald pressed on first. "Think, Albus. If Riddle really is housing that abomination in this hidden chamber, do you think he will allow us near it?"

Something stirred, almost as if the air around Dumbledore was shimmering. With it came a crackling intensity, creeping its way up Harry's spine with the tingling of an electric current's aftershocks. "If Tom has done this, the choice is no longer in his hands." Never had he heard his mentor cut so sharply using words.

Harry shook off his awe. "That won't work. There's a monster in that chamber."

"There is nothing Tom can house that need concern us." So striking, the way Dumbledore could speak so confidently and yet without a trace of boasting.

Harry hardened his heart, knowing his next move was underhanded. "If you try brute force, students will die. Lots of them."

The way Dumbledore froze sent sharp guilt knifing straight through Harry's gut. There was something else as well, heavier and far more painful.

Loathing — not for Dumbledore or Riddle, nor even Voldemort.

It was loathing for Harry himself.

"I suspect Dumbledore has told you all about how love is your great power, and yet Dumbledore is dead. That is the fate of all who rest their faith in love — it is another tool for predators to use against their prey."

"Riddle knows you, Radiance." Just as Harry knew which buttons to press, so too did Riddle. "The second he gets wind of what's going on, he'll unleash the monster. He'll hold the whole school hostage if he has to, and trust me — there would be a massacre by the time you killed the monster."

Dumbledore grimaced. "So we enter quietly."

"It won't work," Harry argued. "The only quiet way in is with Parseltongue."

Grindelwald seized his co-ruler's sleeve as Dumbledore paced near his chair. "Then we have reached an impasse," the former said.

"No we haven't." Harry could feel his Elder Wand rattle in its holster. "I can get in."

Dumbledore actually blinked at him. "You mean to say that you're a parselmouth?"

"No." That was one secret he would not hand out today.

"Give a man the truth and you might win yourself an ally," Moody had once said. "Give a man too much truth and he might think there's nothing left for you to offer."

"I think I know another way," Harry continued, certain that an imperial assault would never work. Riddle would detect the Emperors' august presence and unleash hell in order to discourage them. "I just need time." Enough time to come up with this other way he claimed to know. "It has to be done alone." Because alone he might slip through the cracks, and alone he would not be looked at as so great a threat.

Dumbledore had turned his back upon the room and was staring out the window. His shoulders were tight knots of tension. "You said that you must not return to Hogwarts."

"Not yet," Harry amended. "Once I've worked things out, I will."

"What of the other?" Grindelwald spoke up. "You said one of the two abominations would be in this chamber."

"The other is somewhere on his property in Little Hangleton." If not the cave, or the Gaunt Shack, or the Room of Requirement, or Gringotts, or even Albania — for Harry had checked there as well — then it had to be hidden on the gross excess of land Riddle had purchased. "I tried going after it, but I was ambushed."

Grindelwald nodded to himself. "The true purpose of the alleged assault against his manor?"

"Yes," was all Harry said.

"And what if you do unearth the horcrux?" Grindelwald asked after a moment's pause. "You must know Riddle will relocate the second."

Harry shook his head. "Riddle's too arrogant."

"I believe Harry is correct," Dumbledore said before Grindelwald could shoot the notion down. "Tom will strengthen the defences around his second horcrux if it exists, but I do not think he will relocate it. That would be a concession in his mind, and he does not concede."

"It's more than that," Harry added. "Riddle won't second-guess himself. It goes against everything he stands for. He'll believe the place he's picked is best and chalk the first up to bad luck or carelessness. The only difference will be that he'll guard the second more closely than he did the first, or strengthen the protections like Your Radiance has said."

A beat of silence rippled through the suite while both Harry and Dumbledore waited to see if Grindelwald would raise further objections. "The waves of unrest rise," he said at last. "Rivers of blood spread like starving fires." Those cold blue eyes moved from Dumbledore to Harry. "When the sea is high and the wind is dashing waves about, sometimes it is best to let them break against the cliffs." Turning his stare back on Dumbledore, Grindelwald inclined his head. "I am prepared to let the boy proceed. We have other problems that require our attention."

The tension had started to ebb from Harry when he realized Grindelwald was not finished.

"Be wary in your role of prosecutor, Mister Kalloway. Tom Riddle is a dangerous man, and the headsman's axe knows not where to fall."

Harry felt his eyes go hard as ingots. "That's all right, Your Radiance. I know where to swing it."

Dumbledore levelled him a look that could have cut through stone. "You have one month. I understand the danger Tom poses to the students, and for this reason I am willing to let you try your way. But I will know whether that horcrux exists by the school year's end, and Tom will be removed if I find evidence." Dumbledore held his gaze captive. "Do you understand?"

Harry bowed his head, half out of formality and half to hide the surge of panic roiling inside him. A month? He had to find a quiet way past those wards in a month while being unable to access the castle? "Yes, Your Radiance."

"You wanted to see me, Headmaster?" Lily Evans asked from the threshold of Tom's office.

A smile spread across his lips. Dolohov had been prompt in bringing her. "I rarely lack that urge these days." Privately he wondered what the Potter child saw in her. She was pretty in a girlish sort of way, though too small and delicate for Tom's tastes. The faintest praise had her blushing as brightly as her hair, and the softest breeze looked fit to blow her over. No, Tom liked his dolls made sturdy.

Fortunately, that was not to be her purpose.

"Sit down, Miss Evans. There is much we must discuss."

"It is pleasant, when the sea is high and the winds are dashing the waves about, to watch from the shores the struggles of another."

— Titus Livius

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