Chapter Forty

Harry wasn't surprised in the slightest when Hermione and Daphne rushed over to them after the apparition test the next day. They had both passed with flying colours.

Most of those taking the test had managed to pass. Ron had failed after leaving his eyebrow behind and was sulking about it dreadfully.

Harry was happy for them but his mind seemed to be firmly fixed on the lesson that evening and once again Harry found himself wondering the halls alone.

Dumbledore was waiting for him, looking over what looked to be a very old book. He put it down when Harry entered and smiled at him.

"Ah, I am so glad you got my note." Dumbledore smiled, "I was informed by Professor Snape that you were out with Hagrid. Is everything all right?"

Harry looked at him confused, surely Dumbledore knew why they had been with Hagrid's, "Aragog, the giant spider that lived in the forest, died. We went to support Hagrid through the funeral."

Dumbledore nodded, "He'd had Aragog for many years, it only makes sense that he mourned such a loss. Was it a pleasant funeral?"

Harry shook his head and shrugged, his confusion only growing, "I… I guess. As nice as any funeral for a giant spider that tried to have us eaten at one point could be."

Dumbledore let out a small chuckle, "Hagrid did always have a certain fondness for the more dangerous creatures."

Harry wondered why on earth Dumbledore seemed to be dragging on the conversation, he couldn't really be so interested in Aragog's funeral.

"Now, today we will dive once more into Slughorn's memories." Dumbledore said abruptly, "As you know we have already seen the altered memory, now we will see the truth."

"Have you already seen the memory sir?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore looked at him and smiled, "Yes. I had a few spare minutes so I had a look over it. I wanted to make sure that it wasn't another altered copy."

Harry forced a smile, "That's… that's fair enough."

"So, shall we begin?" Dumbledore said, smiling back at him.

Dumbledore rose to his feet and poured the memory into the old stone pensive, gesturing for Harry to go first. He lowered his head into the milky surface and once again found himself standing in Slughorn's office.

Slughorn was still eating his crystallised pineapple and drinking his small glass of wine. He was also still surrounded by the half a dozen boys and of course, Tom Riddle.

Tom smiled at his Professor, "Sir, is it true that Professor Merrythought is retiring?"

"Tom, Tom, if I knew I couldn't tell you." Slughorn beamed, wagging his finger at Tom and giving him a sly wink, "I must say, I'd like to know where you get your information, boy, more knowledgeable than half the staff you are."

Tom smiled and gave Slughorn a cheeky grin, while the other boys cast him admiring looks.

"What with your uncanny ability to know things you shouldn't and your careful flattery of people who matter, thank you for the pineapple by the way, you're quite right, it is my favourite."

Several of the boys gave small laughs, the closest nudging Tom, admiration all but pouring out from him.

Slughorn helped himself to another bite of pineapple, "I confidently expect you to rise to Minister for Magic within twenty years! Fifteen if you keep sending me pineapple. I have excellent contacts at the Ministry."

The others laughed, Slughorn beamed as Tom gave him a polite smile. Harry noticed that for all he wasn't the eldest of the group, he was easily the leader; they all looked up to him.

Tom relaxed slightly in the chair, "I don't know that politics would suit me, sir. I don't have the right kind of background for one thing."

A couple of the boys around him smirked, sharing a private joke. Harry doubted they knew for sure Tom's background but they almost certainly suspected that his was only a half-blood, possibly guessing he was from an orphanage as well. Harry noted that even now Tom was still dressed in second hand robes.

"Nonsense." Slughorn said briskly, with a wave of his hand, "Couldn't be plainer you come from decent wizarding stock, abilities like yours. No, you'll go far, Tom. I've never been wrong about a student yet."

The small golden clock on Slughorn's desk chimed eleven.

"Good gracious, is it that time already? You'd better get going boys, or we'll all be in trouble. Lestrange, I want your essay by tomorrow or it's detention. Same goes for you Avery."

One by one the boys filed from the room, leaving Tom and Slughorn alone once again.

"Look sharp Tom, you don't want to be caught out of bed out of hours, and you a prefect." Slughorn said, placing his empty wine glass on his desk.

"Sir, I wanted to ask you something." Tom said carefully.

"Ask away, then, m'boy, ask away."

Tom smiled, "Sir, I wondered what you know about… about Horcruxes?"

Slughorn stared at him, his fingers playing on the stem of his wine glass.

"Project for Defence Against the Dark Arts, is it?" Slughorn asked.

Harry could tell, however, that Slughorn was in no doubt that this had nothing to do with Defence Against the Dark Arts, or any other lesson.

"Not exactly sir." Tom tried to explain, Harry thought it was smart of him not to have lied, "I came across the term while reading and I didn't fully understand it."

"No… well… you'd be hard pushed to find a book at Hogwarts that'll give you details on Horcruxes, Tom. That's very Dark stuff, very Dark indeed." Slughorn said, a hint of worry in his voice.

"But you obviously know all about them, sir? I mean, a wizard like you…" Tom looked down at his feet and shook his head for a moment, "Sorry, I mean, if you can't tell me, obviously… I just knew if anyone could tell me, you could… so I just thought I'd ask…"

It was perfectly done, the hesitancy, the casual way he was standing and sounding, the careful flattery, none of it was overdone or too much, nor was it not enough; it was perfect.

Harry had enough experience of trying to get information from people who didn't want to give it up to recognise that Tom was a master, very possibly working towards this point for weeks.

"Well…" Slughorn said, not looking at Tom but playing with the ribbon that sat on top of his box of crystallised pineapple, "Well, it can't hurt to give you an overview, of course. Just so that you understand the term. A Horcrux in the word used for an object in which a person has concealed part of their soul."

Tom nodded thoughtfully, "I don't quite understand how that works though, sir." his voice may have been carefully controlled but it was clear to Harry that Tom's excitement was growing.

"Well, you split your soul, you see, and hide part of it in an object outside the body. Then, even if one's body is attacked or destroyed, one cannot die, for part of the soul remains earthbound and undamaged. But, of course existence in such a form…"

Harry remembered what Voldemort had told him nearly two years ago, being ripped from his body. Less than even a spirit, less than the meanest ghost…

But he was alive.

"… few would want it, Tom very few… Death would be preferable." Slughorn warned him.

Tom wasn't really listening to the warning though, his hunger and greed were plain on his face now, he couldn't hide it any more.

"How do you split your soul?" Tom asked, barely keeping the demand from his voice.

"Well…" Slughorn said uncomfortably, "you must understand that the soul is supposed to remain intact and whole. Splitting it is an act of violation, it is against nature."

"But how do you do it?" Tom asked again, more forcefully.

Harry wondered why Slughorn was still talking. He was clearly scared of Tom at this point and was starting to suspect that Tom was using some sort of magic on him.

"By and act of evil… the supreme act of evil. By committing murder." Slughorn said, his hand trembling, "Killing rips the soul apart. The wizard intent upon creating a Horcrux would use the damage to his advantage. He would encase the torn portion…"

"Encase? But how?" Tom said, openly demanding now.

"There is a spell, do not ask me, I don't know!" Slughorn said, shaking his head, "Do I look as though I have tried it? Do I look like a killer?"

Tom's face turned back to obedient school boy, lowering his eyes and relaxing until there wasn't a trace of the power that had been there just a moment before, "No sir, of course not." Tom said quickly, "I'm sorry… I didn't mean to offend…"

Slughorn sniffed roughly, "Not at all, not at all offended. It's natural to feel some curiosity about these things… wizards of a certain calibre have always been drawn to that aspect of magic…"

"Yes sir." Tom said, with another gentle smile, "What I don't understand though, just out of curiosity, I mean would one Horcrux be much use? Can you only split your soul once? Wouldn't it be better, make you stronger, to have your soul in more pieces? I mean, for instance, isn't seven the most powerfully magical number? Wouldn't seven-"

"Merlin's beard Tom!" Slughorn yelled as though he had just been bitten, "Seven?! Isn't it bad enough to think of killing one person? And in any case… bad enough to divide the soul… but to rip it into seven pieces?"

Slughorn was looking at Tom as though he'd never really seen him before and was clearly deeply troubled by what he saw.

"Of course," Slughorn said, slowly, afraid of the answer, "this is all hypothetical, what we're discussing, isn't it? All academic…"

Tom smiled reassuringly, "Yes, sir, of course."

Slughorn nodded and straightened his cuffs, "But all the same, Tom… keep it quiet, what I've told… that's to say what we've discussed. People wouldn't like to think we've been chatting about Horcruxes. It's a banned subject at Hogwarts, you know. Dumbledore is particularly fierce about it…"

Tom nodded, "I won't say a word, sir."

Tom turned and left the room, leaving Slughorn almost frozen to his desk. Harry felt Dumbledore touch his arm, pulling him from the memory.

Harry settled himself back in his chair, noticing that all of the portraits around the room of the old headteachers had given up on pretending to be asleep and were looking at them eagerly.

Dumbledore ignored them, "Well Harry, I am sure you understood the significance of what we just heard. At the same age as you are now, give or take a few months, Tom Riddle was doing all he could to find out how to make himself immortal."

Harry nodded, "He succeeded, didn't he? The fact he came back means he managed to make a Horcrux and hide it somewhere."

Dumbledore nodded, "I doubt that it was just the one, either."

"What?" Harry asked, it wasn't a huge leap of logic but horrifying all the same.

"You heard Voldemort, what he particularly wanted from Horace was an opinion on what could, or rather might, happen to a wizard so determined to evade death that he would be prepared to murder many times, rip his soul repeatedly, so as to store it in many Horcruxes, all separately and carefully concealed." Dumbledore said levelly.

Harry rubbed his scar, "Had it ever been done before? Could he have found a book somewhere?"

Dumbledore shook his head, "No. As far as I know, and I'm sure as far as Voldemort knew, no wizard has ever done more than tear his soul in two. There couldn't be the information out there to put in a book."

Harry was silent, he wasn't sure what there was to say.

Dumbledore let him think for a moment, "Four years ago, I was shown what I considered to be certain proof that Voldemort had split his soul."

"Four?" Harry asked, looking up suddenly, "Voldemort only returned two years ago."

Dumbledore smiled, "The diary, Riddle's diary. Although I was not there to see the Riddle which emerged from the diary, what you, and your friend Miss Parkinson, described to me was a phenomenon I have never even heard of before. A simple memory thinking and acting for itself? No, I was sure then that what lay inside the diary was something far more sinister."

Harry's heart dropped, "But we destroyed the diary before Voldemort's return. That means that there must be more out there? Gods did he really make all seven?"

"Six." Dumbledore said with a smile, "Six Horcruxes, with the seventh part of his soul remaining in him and yes, I believe that he did. What intrigued me most was that the diary was used as a weapon, not just as safe keeping for a part of his soul."

"I… I think it just wanted to make itself alive again." Harry said with a frown, it was a long time ago now and he was a little fussy on the details.

"Perhaps. But some how I doubt strongly that Bellatrix Lestrange would have just given up that diary, it talked to you did it not?" Dumbledore asked.

Harry nodded, "Yeah… it wrote to me, told me about Hagrid getting expelled."

"Precisely, I believe it talked to Bellatrix as well." Dumbledore explained, "I believe that it told her to give over the diary. It wanted to be read, to open the Chamber of Secrets once again."

"And to kill." Harry sighed, "He knew he was Slytherin's heir. But sir, the Riddle that came out of the diary was still in his school uniform…"

Dumbledore nodded, "Yes, I feared that was the case. But from what you saw tonight, is it really that unbelievable that Voldemort set straight to work and managed to create the Horcrux in a year?"

"No… no I suppose not." Harry sighed, "And the fact he just… just threw it away, that is only more evidence that he had others, right?"

Dumbledore smiled and nodded again, "Very astute Harry. Add that to what we saw this evening and the fact the Voldemort was able to return to his body after the destruction of his diary, we can safely assume he made his six Horcruxes."

"Bellatrix knew…" Harry muttered, "She vanished, in third year remember? Started causing trouble, nearly drowned Pansy in the forest in quick sand and tricked me into leaving the castle late one night… she'd given Ginny the book and then found out what happened and went looking for him. She'd put the pieces together."

Dumbledore paused, placing his fingers together, "It seems likely, yes. Bellatrix was always one of the most trusted of the Death Eaters after all."

Harry stood up and paced backwards and forwards across the room, trying to lay everything straight in his head, "So Tom has a crappy childhood, in his mind, loses Maggie and feels a huge, teenage drama filled existential crisis coming on, decides he wants to make himself immortal… and he does that by killing a huge bunch of other people… which is really difficult and no one has ever done… why not just make himself a Philosopher's Stone? He was certainly brilliant enough. Or he could just steal Flamel's? Again, we know he was brilliant enough."

Dumbledore paused for a moment, "Yes… however, while the Elixir of Life does indeed extend life, in a much purer form than Voldemort managed, it must be drunk regularly for all eternity if the drinker is to maintain his immortality. Voldemort likes to be independent, he wouldn't like to be reliant on the Stone. What if it was lost or stolen? What if his Elixir was contaminated or simply ran out? It would have been intolerable for him."

"He did try and steal it though, at the end of my first year." Harry pointed out.

"Only to get himself another human body, after which his Horcruxes would be more than enough to support him once more." Dumbledore explained, "And his horrific part-life would have been long behind him."

"This is impossible." Harry said, throwing his hands up in disrepair, "I have to kill someone who is immortal!" it was the same thing that had been going round his friends' minds since Slughorn gave him a brief overview of what a Horcrux was.

"Well, first you must destroy the Horcruxes." Dumbledore explained, "Once they are all gone Voldemort will be nothing but mortal once again."

"But we don't know where they are?" Harry pointed out, "They could be buried or lost in the middle of the desert in a tiger cave or anywhere!"

"We have already destroyed two, these two have also given us huge levels of insight into the sort of thing he might have turned into his precious Horcruxes." Dumbledore told him.

"Two?" Harry asked, confused.

"Yes." Dumbledore smiled, "You destroyed one, in the form of the diary. And I destroyed the other." he reached forwards, placing Marvolo's ring onto the desk before them.