"Could you repeat that, my boy?" Slughorn asked, looking shocked.
"I asked if you'd like to see the chamber of secrets," Harry repeated. "My friends and I found it in our second year. It's honestly not all that much to look at, really, quite dark and dank, but I thought, being a Slytherin yourself, you might enjoy it."
"Ye...yes," Slughorn stuttered. "You're not pulling my leg, are you? I like you and think you have a real talent for potions, but I would be quite cross if this was a waste of my time."
"Not at all," Harry chuckled. "Whenever you're free, we can go have a look."
"I'm not doing anything pressing right now," Slughorn said.
"Then follow me," Harry smiled, turning around and leaving the man's office with him in tow.
The two of them made their way down to the second floor, getting a couple curious looks as they went, but nothing more than that. As Harry turned towards the entrance to the girl's room, though, Slughorn couldn't help but comment.
"You can't be serious," he said flatly.
"That's why Myrtle died here," Harry said. "Tom was able to call the basilisk right out of the chamber entrance."
"Basilisk?!" Slughorn hissed.
"Professor Dumbledore really didn't tell you anything about this, did he?" Harry asked.
"You probably know as well as I do how much Albus keeps things to himself," Slughorn grumbled. "So you do know who was behind this."
"Quite well," Harry scowled. He turned to the sink that hid the entrance and hissed, "Open."
"Parseltongue?" Slughorn asked in surprise, his eyes widening as the wall opened up to reveal a hidden entrance.
"A consequence of that Halloween night," Harry replied. He then hissed, "Stairs."
Sifting through Voldemort's memories had shown Harry that one didn't need to slide down a tunnel on their arse to get into the chamber, something that was actually rather obvious in hindsight. Of course, he and Ron had been more than a little freaked out that night, and it wasn't like it was the dumbest thing that he did that year.
"Thinking that Malfoy could have been the heir," he thought to himself, chuckling softly at the very idea.
"Something funny?" Slughorn asked.
"The first time we came down here, we didn't think to ask for stairs and had to slide down," Harry replied. "It wasn't terribly pleasant."
"Who all came with you?" Slughorn asked as he started walking down the steps, casting cleaning charms as he went. "Lumos."
"Thank you, Professor," Harry murmured. "It was Ron and I, plus Gilderoy Lockhart."
"I suppose that's what led to Gilderoy's permanent stay at Saint Mungo's," Slughorn mused. "He was such a charming lad as a boy, and even I never thought he'd go as far as he did. We kept in contact, of course."
"A member of the slug club?" Harry asked, not surprised in the slightest.
"Oh, yes," Slughorn replied. "Such a shame what became of him."
"Indeed," Harry drawled. "Word of warning, you're going to see the largest snake skins you've ever seen in your life when we get down there, if they haven't quite rotted yet, anyway. Rest assured, the basilisk is very dead."
"Did you three bring a rooster down with you?" Slughorn asked.
"No, that would have been immensely helpful," Harry chuckled. "Fawkes clawed up its eyes, and then I stabbed it through the roof of its mouth with the sword of Gryffindor."
"What?" Slughorn asked incredulously.
"I've got the scar to prove it where its fang pierced my shoulder," Harry said. "If not for Fawkes' tears, I would have died."
"Why did you come down here in the first place?" Slughorn asked. "I did hear that the chamber was opened again, but all that Albus said was that the matter was dealt with for good this time."
"It was a rescue mission," Harry replied. "Ah, here we are."
He rushed forward, and Slughorn moved quickly after him to keep up. Harry noted that the shed skins had, in fact, deteriorated and weren't nearly as imposing as they had been the first time. He barely paused for a moment at the caved-in section, knowing full well how to repair the structure and undo the damage that Ron's broken wand had caused. With that done, they continued on until they reached the entrance to the main chamber.
"Open," Harry hissed, and he smirked when he heard Slughorn gasp at what he saw as the door opened.
"H...how?" the man asked as he stumbled into the room and beheld the skeleton of the basilisk.
"It lived down here for nearly a thousand years," Harry replied. "It was Salazar Slytherin's, after all."
"This monster is what he unleashed upon the school," Slughorn whispered, shaking his head in disgust.
"Twice, actually," Harry commented.
"Hmm?" Slughorn asked. "Albus never did say how it was opened the second time. What happened?"
"Lucius Malfoy slipped a cursed diary that belonged to Tom into Ginny Weasley's book bag," Harry replied. "It possessed her and made her open the chamber again, just like he did all those years ago when he murdered Myrtle Warren."
"H...Harry…" Slughorn stammered, and Harry had to fight to keep the grin off of his face at how quickly the man paled.
"It almost seemed like it contained a memory of Tom," Harry continued, "or even a piece of him."
"Harry, this isn't…" Slughorn went to protest.
"He claimed that by consuming her soul, he could come back," Harry cut him off, "when we came down here. He had nearly finished doing just that by then, and it was only when I pulled the severed basilisk fang out of my shoulder and stabbed it through the diary that she was saved. Can you think of anything that might have been?"
"Albus put you up to this, didn't he?" Slughorn asked, scowling.
"He showed me the altered memory you gave him and asked me to convince you to hand over the real one," Harry admitted. "I was the one who connected it to the diary. What was that thing? Was it related to what you two discussed that day?"
"You really are like your mother, Harry," Slughorn sighed, conjuring a chair and sitting down, looking despondent.
"I figure you're ashamed, but you can't truly be blamed for not recognizing him for the monster that he already was back then." Harry said. "I met his teenage self the night I destroyed the diary, because he had grown powerful enough to project his image into the world. I know how charming he was."
"No, you don't," Slughorn laughed humorlessly. "You couldn't know from a single meeting. Tom Riddle was the most gifted student I ever taught, and I would have taken a liking to him for that alone, but there was so much more to him than the seemingly effortless way that he mastered magic. Being a muggleborn, as far as we knew to start with, in Slytherin wasn't easy, and yet within his first year, he had gathered friends, and it seemed obvious why. Of course, I later realized that there must have been considerable displays of power involved, but at the time, I figured it was because he just had this way of making everyone he spoke to feel like they were the most important person in the world. The ironic thing is that if he wasn't such a monster, he would truly rule this country by now, having won it over with that charm alone."
"And so you told him what he wanted to know," Harry prompted.
"I really did think that the discussion was purely academic, or maybe I just wanted to believe that," Slughorn muttered. "If that diary was what...we discussed that night, then he did something worse than I ever could have fathomed because its destruction was not enough to end him."
"I need the real memory, Professor." Harry said, "I need to know what that thing was and if there are any more out there that need to be destroyed."
He pulled an empty glass vial from his pocket, uncorked it, and held it out to the older man, who sighed and placed his wand on his temple. A moment later, a silvery mist was drawn from his head and transferred carefully into the vial.
"Try not to think less of me for what you see in here," Slughorn said before swallowing thickly.
"You're hardly the only one who he fooled back then," Harry said as he corked the vial. "Only Dumbledore saw him for what he was."
"I've often wondered if that was because of his experience fighting against Grindelwald," Slughorn mused, "if he saw the same darkness in Tom, even as a boy."
"It's possible," Harry said. "Thank you for this, Professor. This could very well end up being the thing that lets us end his reign of terror once and for all."
He was sure that that was true, for it would confirm to Dumbledore just how Voldemort managed to come back. He wanted to see it as well, for while he'd been initially sure that he had the complete version of the memory from Voldemort's perspective, the more he thought about it, the more he got this gnawing sense that he was missing something obvious.
"Do you want to look around more or come back another time?" Harry asked. "Because I would be willing to bring you back."
"That...might be for the best," Slughorn sighed, wincing as he stood up. "I'd like to return to my office now."
The two of them left the chamber in silence, one of them focused fully on his regrets and the other on that nagging feeling that he'd overlooked something.
"It is as I feared then," Dumbledore sighed.
"You suspected that he had made these...horcruxes?" Harry asked, sitting back down.
The memory Slughorn had given him had been complete; he was sure of that, and it wasn't any different than the copy he had in his head.
"Then why do I still feel like I've missed something?" he wondered to himself.
"I never believed that he fully died that night," Dumbledore said. "When he showed himself trying to steal the philosopher's stone, my suspicions were confirmed, and when you brought me this the next year, I began to theorize just how he had managed to survive."
He placed Tom's ruined diary on his desk, and Harry stared at it with some trepidation.
"Do you have leads on any of the others?" he asked. "Given that he's not dead, he clearly made more of them, perhaps even the six he envisioned."
"I know for a fact that he made more of them," Dumbledore replied, reaching into his desk and pulling out a ring that looked instantly familiar.
"That's what blackened his hand and…" Harry trailed off in his mind as he realized, to his horror, that the only man in the world Voldemort feared was dying. "I need to learn more from him. Perhaps there's a way to fix it. The fact that he didn't die almost immediately is incredible."
"Harry?" Dumbledore asked, furrowing his brow in confusion.
"Sorry, I just...it's confirmation that he made more than two of them," Harry lied, forcing himself to do his occlumency exercises to calm himself.
"So six it is," Dumbledore sighed. "I doubt even Tom would be foolish enough to try and cut his soul into thirteen pieces, and he would have picked a magically important number. To answer your earlier question, I do have some leads, but it will take me some time to look into them. We'll continue your lessons another night, but before you go, I just wanted to say how impressed I am that you took care of this so quickly. I honestly expected it to take much longer."
"Well, as Voldemort proved, it isn't that hard to manipulate Professor Slughorn," Harry said dryly, earning a disapproving glance from his headmaster.
"We all have our weaknesses, Harry," Dumbledore said. "Horace is far from unique in that regard."
"You're not wrong," Harry murmured. As he turned to leave, a thought occurred to him, and he asked, "What do you think would happen if Voldemort did make more than six of them?"
There was a possibility, after all, that he'd learn about their hunt for them before they finished, and if he did, he would almost certainly make more, whether he thought it was a good idea or not.
"Harry, carving away pieces of your very soul isn't just dark and evil; it's madness," Dumbledore replied. "Tom was already dangerous when I met him as a boy, but I honestly don't think that he would have become the monster he is today if he hadn't started making horcruxes. If he carved away enough of himself, who's to say how unstable his soul would become?"
"Enough for him to be unable to cling to a physical form?" Harry asked.
"Possibly, but you know as well as I do that Tom will not be felled by his own hand," Dumbledore replied. "That burden, I'm afraid, will fall on you."
"Then I'm going to need to be ready for him," Harry thought to himself darkly. "Good night, Professor."
"Farewell," Dumbledore said, smiling slightly.
Harry left his office and made his way down the spiral staircase, his mind racing with what he'd learned. Much of it he already knew, but that lingering sense that he had overlooked something remained with him.
"...who's to say how unstable his soul would become?" The memory of Dumbledore's words bounced around his head again and again, and as he reached the bottom step, he realized why and gasped, his hand flying to his scar.
"Our connection," he thought to himself as a feeling of dread overtook him.
Dumbledore had never adequately explained why he and Voldemort were connected the way that they were. Even the prophecy that bound them did not explain that, but Horcruxes did. Voldemort's obsession with immortality and his all-consuming fear of death had pushed him to lengths no one else had ever dared go to. What good was a single safeguard against death, when it could be found and destroyed, after all?
In seeking redundancy, he had done what no one else had ever dared, and so, naturally, he experienced consequences previously unknown as well. When he was killed by his own reflected spell all those years ago, his soul must have been unstable enough for a piece to drop off.
"And latch onto the nearest thing of any significance to him that it could," Harry thought to himself, feeling his heart race as he realized just how bad off he truly was.
It explained everything. The connection to Voldemort, the ability to actually access his memories, and even his ability to speak parseltongue, an inherited ability neither of his parents possessed, could all be explained by the terrible possibility that within his unhealing scar resided a piece of his mortal enemy's very soul.
"And either must die by the hand of the other," Harry thought to himself, "for neither can live while the other survives."
His initial interpretation of that particular passage of the prophecy had been that Voldemort wouldn't let him live until one of them died for good, but as he traced the familiar lightning bolt etched on his forehead, he realized that it might have a deeper meaning all together. He took a deep breath and let it go before taking another. Focusing on his breathing to steady himself, he forced all his thoughts and feelings into the inky void of nothing within his mind.
"There has to be a way around this," he thought to himself, "and I'm going to need to find it. Voldemort knows more about horcruxes than anyone, and thanks to his stupidity, I can learn all that he knows, both about my problem and, hopefully, Dumbledore's."
He wandered through the halls of Hogwarts in a daze as he grappled with all that he'd learned. He couldn't imagine how freaked out he would have been if he hadn't already learned so much from his foe before learning of the horcrux in his scar. He was still adamantly convinced that the connection between him and Voldemort would be the evil prick's undoing.
"No matter the cost," he thought to himself grimly.
"Ahh, ahh, ahh!" Hermione grunted as she rode him fiercely some weeks later.
"Hmm, morni...Mione!" Harry exclaimed as he woke up and realized that he was chained to the bed. "Chains aren't really my thing, luv...what the hell are you doing?"
Looking around, he realized that he wasn't in the bed he'd fallen asleep in with his lover, but on a stone floor surrounded by runic inscriptions. Only the fact that they weren't yet glowing kept him from reacting violently.
"Saving you!" Hermione cried, her hips a blur as she rode him hard and fast. The sound of her arse slapping against his hips echoed through the room from the sheer force of her bouncing. "Once you're bound to me, I'll be able to order you to eject the horcrux, once we're sure that you've managed to get every bit of information from Voldemort, of course."
"Hermione, I said I didn't want to go that route," Harry growled.
"It's been weeks, and we've found nothing else that even looked like it might work," Hermione argued. "He can't die without that thing going first, and I refuse to lose you. I can't...ahh!"
She grabbed her head and went still, looking pained.
"He said he doesn't want to!" Hermione exclaimed, digging her nails into her palms. "We can't enslave him against his will...ahh!"
"I won't lose the love of my life because of your weakness!" Hermione snarled, slapping herself in the face.
Harry, who had been about to free himself and try to restrain her, went still as a statue at her admission, which she didn't even seem to realize she'd given.
"I have another way," he said softly.
"What?" Hermione asked.
"I found another way," Harry repeated. "I just hadn't told you yet because I'm going to need your help for it, and you won't be able to help me reliably until I've corrected your ritual mistake."
"I...oh God!" Hermione exclaimed, climbing off of his cock and rushing away on unsteady legs.
Harry freed himself as he heard her burst into tears and ran to her, wrapping his arms around her from behind as she started wailing.
"I...nearly…" she cried.
"Shh," Harry soothed. "You didn't do it. That's what matters."
"I'm...really not well, Harry," Hermione whimpered, leaning her head back against his shoulder.
"I know," Harry said, caressing her cheek and kissing her forehead. "I know, but I've just about figured out a way to fix it. I just need you to hold it together a little while longer. Can you do that for me?"
"I'll try," Hermione replied, her voice barely a whisper. "I'm so sorry, Harry."
"I know," Harry said again, holding her tightly.
In truth, she was getting rapidly worse. Her mood swings had become more obvious and more frequent, to the point that people were beginning to express concern. She hadn't been told by a professor yet to go see Madam Pomfrey, but he knew it could happen and that he was running out of time. Sadly, rituals were complicated things at the best of times, and trying to determine how to reverse one gone wrong was beyond the capabilities of most wizards and witches. Fortunately, Harry wasn't most wizards anymore.
"There's just one more thing that I need to verify, and then I'll be confident enough to try and undo what you did," Harry said. "I'm going to need you to work with me on this."
"I wi...ahh…" Hermione trailed off, wincing and grabbing her head. "I am sorry, Harry. It's just that with you moving on the Horcruxes today, I was terrified that Voldemort might learn what you were doing and poke around enough to learn what caused your connection. If he found a way to take control of you…"
"He couldn't before, and I'm much stronger now," Harry insisted.
"He's never figured out what your scar is," Hermione argued. "He wouldn't have lobbed killing curses at you if he did. If he does learn that…"
"I'll be careful," Harry promised. "He doesn't know that Dumbledore destroyed the ring over the summer, so it wasn't just his lack of a body that kept him from knowing that I destroyed the diary. The ritual to create them severs the soul fragments completely. Their remaining connection to the central soul is minor."
"If you're sure," Hermione whispered, still sounding frightened.
"Oh, and Hermione," Harry said, "I love you too."
Hermione whipped around and looked at him in shock, her eyes growing wet again.
"Oh, Harry!" she cried, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him deeply.
Harry returned the kiss hungrily and picked her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist and moaned into his mouth as he walked her over to the bed she had the room recreate for them.
"No more rituals without my express permission and guidance, got it?" Harry asked as he set her down on the bed and gave her a stern look.
"I promise, Daddy," Hermione replied, and his cock throbbed at her words, though he was left confused.
"I didn't notice you switch," Harry murmured.
"I didn't," Hermione grinned, "but I know how hard it makes that big, thick cock of yours when my lesser half calls you that, so I figured I'd give it a shot."
That was another recent development that Harry found concerning. There was growing animosity between the two halves of Hermione, and today wasn't the first time that he'd seen her hit herself as whatever half was in charge expressed her displeasure with her other half. He had nearly stolen and sorted through all of Voldemort's knowledge, and he knew that he was missing just a couple more things about rituals. He hoped that he managed to grab what was left this morning, because he didn't know how much longer he was going to be able to manage Hermione without things spiraling out of control.
"I'm still really wet, Harry," Hermione purred. "Just fuck me."
Grabbing his cock, Harry lined himself up with her dripping slit and slid back inside her to the hilt. Hermione threw her head back and gasped, and he buried his face in the crook of her neck, kissing along the slender column and nipping at her pulse point. She cried out and ran her hands down his back, raking her nails gently along the skin.
"Harder!" she cried.
Grinning at her, he picked up his pace, pounding her into the bed and making her scream in pleasure. He watched her perky breasts roll across her chest with each hard thrust and, leaning his head in, captured one of her pebbled brown nipples with his lips.
"Fuck, that feels so good," Hermione moaned, wrapping her hands around his head and holding him to her chest.
He grabbed a pillow from the bed and, lifting her up a little, moved it under her lower back to change the angle he was thrusting into a little. The effect was immediate, with him brushing against her g-spot with every thrust and reaching deep towards a spot that never failed to delight her. Her eyes went wide at the sudden change, and she cried out in ecstasy.
"Fuck, right there!" Hermione screamed as her tight pussy started fluttering around his pistoning cock.
"Cum for me, Mione," he whispered in her ear. If she were her submissive self at the moment, he'd have added, 'cum for Daddy,' but instead, he kissed her pulse point and reached down to stroke her clit.
"HARRY!" she screamed at the top of her lungs as she came.
With a roar, he joined her, cumming hard, and the next moment, he found himself inside the mind of an angry, pained Voldemort. Feeling around through the familiar mass of brilliance and psychosis, it took him longer than it ever had before to find knowledge that he'd not already stolen from his enemy, and he smiled as he realized that there wasn't much left. He could only take Voldemort's knowledge when the dark lord was pained like this, and it rarely lasted long. Luckily for him, the process of putting him into states like this was quite pleasant.
"Oh, wow," Harry grunted as he rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling.
"Tell me about it," Hermione sighed, laughing into her pillow.
"No, not that, though, yeah; that was amazing," Harry chuckled. "I think I have it all."
"Really?" Hermione asked, rolling over to look at him.
"His most recent memories are probably still his alone, but there was barely anything left that I hadn't taken," Harry replied. "Just a few fragments that make some concepts less confusing."
"Did it help you with our...issue?" Hermione asked, her voice small.
"Yes, I think it did," Harry replied, pulling her in until her face was resting on his chest. He ran his fingers over her back as he continued, saying, "The ritual to fix all of this won't take long to set up. Once I get back from the cave, I'll take care of things here, and tonight, we'll be able to fix things."
"I don't deserve you," Hermione whispered, sounding far weaker than her dominant side usually did.
"Hey," Harry said, running the backs of his fingers along her cheek. "You made one little mistake that's worked out pretty well for us. Someday, long after I've undone the damage of the ritual and finished off Voldemort, this will all be a distant memory."
"I love you," Hermione whispered, kissing him.
"I love you too," Harry replied. "Now, we should shower and get going. I have a relatively long day ahead of me."
"I wish I could come with you," Hermione sighed.
"I'll be okay," Harry said, not wanting to say that she'd be a complete liability in her state.
Hermione focused on the room for a moment, and the bedroom turned into a shower that they made quick use of. Once they were done, she left, intending to get some work done in the library, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief.
"That was a close one," he muttered to himself, more bothered by her attempted enslavement than he let on.
Only his occlumency allowed him to keep his cool in the moment, knowing how close he'd come to ruin. Allowing her to be the one who set up the room that night was foolish, but he'd been tired and let his guard down, something he could ill-afford to do as her condition worsened.
"Man, I hope that the ritual works," he muttered to himself.
With her gone, Harry wasted no time in calling in the help he'd need for the day.
"Dobby," he called out.
"Harry Potter, sir," Dobby squeaked as he appeared.
"Hello," Harry smiled. "I need a favor from you."
"A favor from Dobby?" Dobby asked. "What do you need?"
"I need you to stay in this room and not leave it until I say so," Harry replied. "There's something that I need to take care of, and I need this room to remain exactly as it is for that. Can you do that for me?"
"Just stay in this room?" Dobby asked. "Dobby can do that."
"Excellent," Harry smiled. "Thank you."
Malfoy wouldn't be by today. He'd hit a snag in his ongoing efforts to repair the cabinet and would be spending much of his day in the library researching the issue. With him occupied and Hermione well aware of what he was doing, he was confident that there wouldn't be any issues here while he dealt with what he had planned. Without another word, he disillusioned himself and apparated away from Hogwarts and to Diagon Alley. While apparating in and out of Hogwarts was generally something that only the headmaster could do, it turned out that the room, existing in the odd space that it did, was outside the wards, something that he was very glad that Voldemort had yet to figure out.
"Where are you, little rat?" Harry thought to himself as he glided along past the many shops just opening for the day.
Voldemort had few uses for Pettigrew, as weak and cowardly as he was, and they all involved his animagus form. Nearly as useful as Rita's, Wormtail's rat form was small and completely inconspicuous. He might get the odd spell lobbed his way by someone who hated rats, but aside from that, he was ignored, and that made him an excellent spy. His master had sent him to the alley every morning for days with instructions to keep his beady little eyes on a few different shops.
A silent hominum revelio helped show where the little traitor was hiding, and, after looking around to see if anyone was looking, Harry silently stunned him and landed in the narrow alleyway where his prone form lay.
"A year ago, I would have killed to get my hands on you," Harry thought to himself as he held the unconscious rat in his hands. "Turning you in might very well have freed Sirius, provided I managed to work around Fudge. Unfortunately for you, I have no such use for you now."
Pocketing Pettigrew, Harry apparated away from the alley and into the middle of the Dorset coast. This lovely land had been the location of a trip taken by Wool's Orphanage back in the thirties. It was supposed to be a treat for the poor children in their care, and it would have likely been one for all of them had they not counted Tom Riddle among their number. Having learned how to fly from his old enemy, he soared through the air across the cliffside, still invisible, and turned to enter the cave where the lunatic had once tormented two of his fellow orphans.
He cut his hand to purchase entrance to the cave proper, sealing the wound the second he was done, and quickly found the boat. Tom had enchanted it to limit the amount of magical power that could be transported across the lake by it. He was exceedingly powerful, but Pettigrew was weak and in his rat form just then anyway. The two of them sailed across the still lake in silence, and Harry wasted no time at all after reaching the small island inside before setting the rat down on the ground.
"Wakey, wakey," he called out after forcing the man back into his human form.
"Wha...where...what?" Peter stammered groggily before screaming when he realized that he was alone with Harry.
"Harry?!" he yelped.
"Peter," Harry replied, holding the man's wand out before him.
"Ha...Harry I…whatever you're thinking, this…" the vile man stammered.
"Oh, do shut up," Harry drawled, snapping his wand and tossing the pieces into the boat.
Pettigrew squeaked and turned back into his rat form, scurrying as quickly as his little legs would take him towards the water.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Harry chuckled. "The lake's infested with inferi."
Peter went still and turned back into his human form, slowly turning around to look at him in terror.
"Wha...what have you done?" the man whimpered.
"Yes, I killed dozens of people, turned them into zombies, and filled a cursed lake with them; this was Voldemort's doing, you idiot!" Harry snapped.
"Harry, I know you have every reason to hate me, but James and Lily wouldn't...ahh!" Peter screamed as Harry hurled a stinging hex right square at his right thigh.
"Speak about them again, and I'll aim a tad to the left," Harry growled. "I'll level with you, Peter; with Sirius dead, there is no reason for me to keep you alive at all, and I would happily feed you to the inferi right here."
"Please!" Peter begged, falling to his knees. "Please don't kill me."
"If you want to live, you're going to have to drink this," Harry explained, pointing to the basin.
"It's not poisoned, is it?" Peter asked.
"It won't kill you, but you will wish that it would for a little while," Harry replied, making the short man's eyes widen with terror. "I need what's at the bottom of that basin, and the only way I can get it is if the potion inside is drunk. Drink it all, and I won't kill you."
"You...you promise?" Pettigrew asked, looking at the basin with fear in his eyes.
"I give you my word," Harry replied. Pointing his wand at the man, he growled, "Now drink."
Harry conjured a brass goblet and floated it over to Pettigrew, who took it with shaking hands. Lowering the goblet into the emerald-green potion, he scooped up it and, hesitating for a moment and looking over to Harry, who made the tip of his wand glow green, gulped and downed the contents. Barely had he finished swallowing the first goblet full of it when he cried out in pain and grabbed the basin.
"It hurts!" the traitor cried.
"It'll pass," Harry said coldly. "Now drink."
"No, I...ahh!" Peter screamed when Harry hit him in the kidneys with a stinging hex.
He scooped up more of the potion and drank it down, screaming in pain as he finished.
"The faster you finish it, the sooner it will be over," Harry hissed.
As he watched the traitor drink another goblet full of the potion, Harry realized that he had been changed by his exposure to Voldemort's mind. It was something that Hermione had feared, but he knew that he had no choice. If he wanted to save Hermione from her mistake and deal with Voldemort, he needed all that the dark wizard knew. If being a little more willing to bring pain to terrible people was the price he had to pay for that, he was willing to.
"I'm...I'm sorry, Sirius; I had no choice!" Peter cried, sinking to his knees. "He's just so much more powerful than me."
"You had a choice then," Harry growled, picking him up and forcing him back to the basin. "You don't now. Drink!"
Peter scooped more and more of the potion into his mouth, drinking messily as he tried to get it over with. Every drop that didn't go down his throat reappeared in the basin, as he had no option but to down it all. Harry watched with steely resolve, knowing that someone needed to drink the damn thing if he was going to get Slytherin's locket and that it wasn't going to be anyone he cared about.
"Water, water!" Pettigrew gasped as he finished the last scoop of the potion. "Please, I…"
Harry pushed him aside and reached for the locket, feeling a grim sort of satisfaction as he pulled it out. He'd destroyed Ravenclaw's diadem the second he learned that it was within his grasp, and with the diary and ring also destroyed, that just left Hufflepuff's goblet, Nagini, the one in his scar, and this to go. The others would be dealt with soon enough, but this one would…
"Ahh!" Pettigrew screamed as he was dragged into the water by the inferi.
"I did warn you about them," Harry muttered as he watched his parents' betrayer get dragged under the water.
Some of the inferi moved towards him, and Harry flew up to the roof of the cave. Peter was already dead by then, so he didn't have to worry about anything but the shambling horde of the dead. He touched the cave wall and expanded his senses through the cave, feeling for gaps in the stone below the water. He transfigured them sealed one by one until the cave was completely cut off from the outside world and then struck. Vanishing the water in the cave, he looked down at the dozens of moving corpses and sighed.
"So many so needlessly murdered," he thought to himself.
Without the water, most of the inferi fell to the bottom, unable to move, and those few who had climbed onto the island were easy enough to push off with a few weak banishing charms. Once they were gone, he landed back on the island.
"Pestis Incendium," he hissed, conjuring fiendsfyre.
The dark, enchanted flames billowed from his wand, taking the shape of a chimera, and raced down to the cave floor. The Inferi screamed, not in pain, as they could not feel, but because that was all they could do as they were consumed by the fire. Tom was a master of the dark fire curse, and so was he. Sweating from the heat and the exertion of casting such powerful magic, Harry swept the flames along until, at last, naught but ashes remained of the inferi.
"There," he panted, forcing the spell to end.
Fiendsfyre was a curse that fought the user the entire time it was active and would try to take form beyond its caster if it could. A strong will was needed to force it into submission, and Harry had never lacked willpower. Undoing his transfigurations on the cave, he watched water seep back in and took a moment to catch his breath.
"I should have thrown this into the fire," he muttered, rolling his eyes at the missed opportunity as he grabbed the locket. "I...wait...what the fuck?"
He knew well what a horcrux felt like by now, having examined his own rather extensively. He'd examined the diadem as well before he destroyed it. He was familiar enough to know that what he held in his hand was no horcrux.
"Regulus," Harry murmured, realizing that no one else could have possibly done this. As he opened the locket and read the note inside, he confirmed his initial suspicion and winced as he realized just where he was going to have to go next.
The boat had been destroyed by the fire, but with the inferi gone, there was nothing keeping him from traveling as he pleased, and he could fly, so, after disillusioning himself again, he left the cave with all haste, apparating the second his feet touched the ground on the cliffs above.
"As grim as ever," he murmured to himself as he landed outside #12 Grimmauld Place.
Unlocking the door, he let himself in, revealed himself, and called out, "Kreacher! Get out here!"
"What is dead master's godson wa…" Kreacher gasped as he laid eyes on the locket in his hand.
"Where's the real one, Kreacher?" Harry asked.
"Where did...how did…" Kreacher stammered.
"You know where," Harry replied. "Regulus replaced it with a fake, probably dying in the process. I need to destroy the real one if it hasn't been destroyed yet and…"
"You can destroy it?" Keacher asked breathlessly, tears forming in his eyes. "How?! Kreacher tried everything! Master Regulus ordered Kreacher, but..."
"Horcruxes aren't easily destroyed," Harry murmured, surprised by the show of emotion from the generally unpleasant creature, who looked to be nearly in tears. "It can be done, though. Bring me the locket, and I will take care of it."
"Please," Kreacher breathed, disappearing.
"Who in the...what are you doing here?" Walpurga hissed.
"I own the place," Harry replied, smirking at the way she scowled immediately.
"Here it is," Kreacher said, appearing with the real locket in hand.
"Set it down on the floor and step back," Harry ordered.
Once the elf did so, he carefully summoned the basilisk fang out of his mokeskin pouch and paused for a moment. It was Kreacher's lie that ultimately got Sirius killed the previous year, and he hated him for that, but as he realized that the elf had spent more than a decade with nothing but the dreadful portrait next to him and the horcrux for company, he found himself slightly sympathetic. A loyal house elf could be a powerful ally, as he knew well, and it seemed like Kreacher desperately wanted to fulfill Regulus' last command. Helping him do so could make him such an ally.
"The pointy end will destroy anything it touches, so don't stab yourself," he said, levitating the fang over to Kreacher.
"Thank you," Kreacher said solemnly before stabbing the locket.
It shrieked as the basilisk venom struck it, and black smoke billowed from the hole the fang punched in it until it went silent, completely destroyed.
"Thank you, master," Kreacher whispered, looking like a heavy weight had just been lifted from his shoulders.
"You're welcome," Harry replied, carefully putting the fang back in the pouch that he'd emptied of everything else the night before. Looking down at the locket, he said, "Three to go."
"...and I just, I don't know, find it stifling, you know?" Ginny complained as they sat together in the empty classroom the redhead had dragged her into.
"I guess that would be pretty annoying," Hermione agreed.
"I'm just starting to feel less like his girlfriend when we're together and more like his kid," Ginny groaned. "Half expect him to cut my bloody steak next."
Hermione snorted at that before asking, "Have you tried talking to him about it?"
When Ginny just looked at her incredulously, the brunette laughed lightly and said, "Right, silly question."
"I've mentioned it repeatedly, but I think someone just hammered it into his head that this is how you treat a girl when you're dating, and getting him to realize that it's not how I want to be treated has been like pulling bloody teeth," Ginny groaned.
"Are you starting to rethink the relationship?" Hermione asked.
"I don't know," Ginny sighed. "I do like Dean, overprotectiveness and insistence on helping me with bloody everything aside. He's funny, smart, and right fit. He is a really sweet guy too, but I just need to get through to him that I want to be treated like a girl, not a crystal statue."
"She'd be so much happier with Harry," Hermione thought to herself, recalling her boyfriend's crush on the redhead. "Maybe I should suggest it. Harry's man enough for both of us, and it would make them both so happ…"
"Ahh!" Hermione cried out, clutching her head.
"Hermione?!" Ginny exclaimed, rushing to her feet. "Are you okay?"
"No!" Hermione snarled. "He's mine!"
"What?" Ginny asked, confused and concerned.
"Ahh! You know he'd like that surprise," Hermione argued.
"Who are you talking to?" Ginny asked.
"Ahh! That wouldn't work out, and you know it!" Hermione snarled. "Fucking people pleaser!"
"Ahh!" Frigid bitch!" Hermione cried.
"Hermione, you need to go to the hospital wing!" Ginny exclaimed, and Hermione froze.
In her rage at herself, she had forgotten that she wasn't alone and stared at the worried redhead in horror.
"Harry's going to be furious," she thought to herself before running off.
"Hermione!" Ginny called out, but Hermione reached out behind herself with her wand to close and lock the door.
It would only buy her moments, but the Room of Requirement wasn't that far from her common room, and she didn't need much of a head start to escape her. As she tore off into the halls, she just hoped that Harry's mission had gone well, because he was going to be returning to a problem.