Umbridge announced a new Educational Decree two days after Hermione Obliviated her, prohibiting student involvement in any clubs not authorised by the Hogwarts High Inquisitor. Around the same time, the Inquisitorial Squad were more active than ever. Harry was under constant supervision, and—less often, but still regularly—Cedric, Stebbins, Fred, George, Ron, and Hermione herself were under watch too. Umbridge had set the Inquisitorial Squad on them deliberately and specifically, but she'd not given any reasons for having done so, according to Cedric, who'd heard it from Cho, Higgs, and Pucey.
Hermione felt like she held her breath for several long, tense days after that, waiting for Umbridge's next move… but nothing else happened.
When they reached the end of October and Umbridge had still not attempted to expel or interrogate anyone else, Hermione started to finally, properly accept that her memory charm must not only have worked, but was holding. The new Educational Decree had to be nothing more than an uncanny coincidence, and the Inquisitorial Squad's interest in them had probably been inevitable due to their closeness to Harry, and—in Cedric and the twins' cases—because they were older, students with a good deal of influence over the student body.
Still, it wasn't an excuse to get complacent; in addition to having them tailed—which Hermione was finding invasive, oppressive, and, frankly, annoying—Umbridge was also still ordering random curfew checks most evenings.
They managed to get all of Eihwaz together for the first time since Hermione's interrogation on the first of November. By that point, most of them had already been told what had happened by Hermione or one of the others, or had been told by someone else who had been told, but Cedric and Harry had both thought it was important to explain the modifications they'd made to the contract.
For a moment, after Hermione finished explaining them, there was complete silence. Then:
"I think that all seems very sensible," Susan Bones said, nodding. Hermione let out a breath of relief.
"Agreed," Pucey said, and brought his hands together. "So, what are we covering tonight, Potter?"
"The main thing was the contract, honestly," Harry said bemusedly. "But if everyone's keen to do something more before we head back, then I s'pose we can…?" That was met with a resounding affirmation from the group and Hermione felt something warm blossom in her chest. "How does duelling sound? You can put a bit of what we've been doing into proper practice… In pairs, though—that'll force you to think about more than one opponent, and think about protecting more than just yourself."
Harry and Cedric started to split everyone off into groups and Hermione headed over to Ron, who was sitting at the bottom of the Room's stairs.
"That went well," he said. Then his mouth twitched up. "Don't you think?"
"Really well," Hermione said, even as she made a face at him and reached up to scratch her nose; Harry'd cast the Imperius curse on her and on Cedric using the same instructions as Sirius had used on Ron and she thought he was enjoying peppering her with as many questions as she—unknowingly—must have when it had been him. "I thought they'd be more wary, or upset—I'm glad they're not, but it's still a lot of trust they're putting in us."
"Yeah," Ron said. He nodded in Harry's direction. "Are you joining in?"
Hermione narrowed her eyes and scratched again. Ron grinned.
"No," she said. "I was going to offer to watch the Map, actually." Ron raised his eyebrows but did not ask any questions, which Hermione appreciated, both because it spared her nose, and because it saved her from having to answer; she'd feel a bit silly telling him that it was because she wanted to prove—to everyone in Eihwaz and to herself—that she deserved their trust and that she was doing as much as she could to keep them safe.
"Sure," Ron said after a moment, and his tone was a little too knowing. Rather than physically shuffle over to make space for her, the bottom step extended. Hermione rolled her eyes and settled down beside him.
"You don't want to join in?" she asked. "You can, if I'm watching—"
"Two sets of eyes are better," he said, and it was true, but Ron didn't quite meet her eyes, making her think there might be something more to it. He gave an awkward sort of shrug. "I feel it too," he said. "The responsibility."
She knew what he wasn't saying, or, she thought she did. She'd expected, of all of them, that it would be Harry who most blamed himself for what had happened to her—not because he was in any way responsible, but just because it would be a very Harry thing to do—but it hadn't been. Hermione, privately, thought it was because he'd been too busy; like the rest of them, Harry had an O.W.L. workload and was preparing to take his Defence O.W.L.s in just a few more weeks,. But, he was under closer watch by the Inquisitorial Squad, and he'd had quite a bit to do to help Runcorn through the full moon a few days before, given he'd had to do so with without tipping off Umbridge, the Inquisitorial Squad, or any of the regular teachers. No, where Hermione was concerned, he'd been supportive, and furious with Umbridge, but thankfully, not guilty. Ron, on the other hand…
"What happened with Umbridge wasn't anyone's fault, Ron," Hermione said, and not for the first time. She pursed her lips. "Except maybe Umbridge's."
"Don't tell me I can't feel guilty about it when you still obviously are," Ron said. "You think you could have done something better—so do I." He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. "As in, I could have done better, not that you could have—you were brilliant, like always."
Hermione's face felt a little warm.
She looked out at the little clusters of duellists and the bright, colourful streaks of spells for a moment. Fred and George seemed to be losing rather spectacularly to Angelina and Alicia, though Hermione wondered if that was deliberate, to give Angelina the chance to unwind. She'd been on a very short fuse since the most recent Educational Decree. 'Clubs' included the Gryffindor Quidditch team, meaning that their trainings were prohibited until Umbridge gave her authorisation, and, if she didn't provide it before next weekend, the team would also have to forfeit their match against Slytherin.
"Here," Ron said, and offered her half of the Map. Hermione smoothed it out over her lap, eyes flicking over all the little sets of footsteps and their names. She found Umbridge easily, not in her office, but in the staff room, with Filch and Mrs Norris. Hermione found it telling that, though it wasn't yet late, none of the other teachers were in there with them.
"Do you want Umbridge or Malfoy?" she asked.
"No," Ron said fervently. "Hogwarts'd be so much nicer without them." Hermione felt her mouth curl up. Ron looked rather pleased with himself. "Slytherin common room's over here, though—" He tapped a bit of parchment by his knee. "—so I guess I'll take Malfoy." Ron shot her a sideways look, mouth twitching. "You've got Umbridge?"
Hermione turned to look at him, eyes narrowed, and rubbed her nose.
"Ah, Harry," Dumbledore said, gesturing for him to come inside. Fawkes let out a warble. "Thank you for coming." He waved his good hand at the chair in front of his desk. "Please, sit."
"Is everything all right?" Harry asked, glancing at his withered hand.
"As well as it can be," Dumbledore said. "I imagine you've heard as much speculation about my hand as I myself have these past few weeks—" Harry nodded; he'd heard theories that blamed Voldemort and the Death Eaters, theories that said it had been an assassination attempt by the Ministry, and even one theory that Fawkes was to blame. "—but thankfully, no one has guessed the true cause."
"And the curse hasn't spread?" Harry asked. "The runes are still holding?"
"They are," Dumbledore said. "The curse remains trapped." He glanced down at his hand and sighed. "My condition is not without its inconveniences, but they are a small price to pay in the scheme of things."
"You mean using magic?" Harry asked. Then, very hesitantly, he said, "Sir, I've been thinking… if the curse really is trapped in your arm… couldn't you just… remove it?" His fingers curled over the stump of his wrist.
"I'm afraid it is not so simple."
"Why not?" Harry asked, curiously. Dumbledore, thankfully, looked amused by the question—or rather, by Harry's curiosity.
"There are different types of curses in the same way that there are different types of charms. Vitalitas vorax is a toll curse—one that demands a price, but resolves once that price is paid. We have delayed payment, so to speak—" The fingers of his good hand brushed his shoulder, where, hidden beneath his robes, were the runes Harry had used. "—and if we can find a way to unravel the curse, that will negate the need for payment altogether, but trying to avoid payment… picture, if you will, a bottle. The liquid inside it is the curse, the bottle itself is my arm, and the cork is the block you put in place—"
"Yeah," Harry said slowly, "so if we could remove the whole bottle and just… put it somewhere else, cork and all…"
"Unfortunately, in our bottle analogy, removing the arm is not the same as removing the bottle and its contents. It is the equivalent of removing the bottle itself—that is to say, the glass."
"Oh," Harry said, grimacing.
"Indeed," Dumbledore said. "So, now that we've addressed that macabre tangent…" Dumbledore's beard twitched and then he shifted in his chair and drew the Gaunt ring from his pocket. "What I actually asked you here for—or one of the things—was this." He set it on the desk between them. "What would you like to do with it?"
"Well, it needs to be destroyed, doesn't it?" Harry asked.
"That is what I am leaning toward, yes," Dumbledore said, "though part of me still rebels against the notion. In the first instance, we risk destroying the power of the Resurrection Stone."
"Does it work now?" Harry asked.
"I have not tested it," Dumbledore said, "and will not until or unless it is destroyed. I have no wish to see anyone it recalls twisted by the horcrux." Harry nodded; the locket had been bad enough. "We also, by destroying it, lose any chance of studying it. If we could find an alternative way to remove the soul piece within it, we may be able to do the same with you. I have made assumptions in the past about what you might think, and about what is in your best interest—this time, I am asking and I will do whatever I can within my considerable—but recently diminished—power to support your decision. If you need time to think—"
"I don't," Harry said. "The ring should be destroyed."
"You're sure?" Dumbledore asked.
"Yeah," Harry said. "It's dangerous, even without the curse. We can't risk losing it, not after everything we've done to get it, and we can't risk it wreaking havoc here at the school." Dumbledore stood and went to retrieve Gryffindor's sword. "You want to do it right now?"
"Unless there's a good reason not to," Dumbledore said, raising his eyebrows. Harry shook his head and got to his feet. "Would you like the honours, or shall I?"
"You should," Harry said. Dumbledore had been the one to find it—well, Dumbledore had joined Padfoot and Dora when they found it—and Dumbledore had been the one it hurt. More than that, though, Dumbledore had a history with the Hallows. It felt like there'd be a rightness to it, if he was the one to destroy the ring.
"Yes," Dumbledore said, softly. He ran his blackened fingers down the flat of the sword's blade, but his eyes never left the ring.
Harry went to stand by Fawkes and though he didn't draw it, he curled his fingers around the grip of his wand.
Dumbledore did not look like he was struggling or in pain, and Fawkes did not seem worried, nor could Harry himself see, feel, or smell anything that was cause for concern.
Dumbledore's scent was complicated, though, and he was still for a long time.
At last, he drew in a deep breath and his scent hardened with resolve. With speed and fluidity that surprised Harry, Dumbledore changed his grip on the sword, then brought it down on the black stone of the ring.
There was a cracking sound, deeper and louder than Harry thought it strictly should have been, and then there was a blast of icy wind—carrying the echo of a shrill, cold scream—that ruffled the parchment on Dumbledore's desk and Harry's hair and robes, and Dumbledore's beard. One of the silver instruments began to whir and chime and Fawkes clicked his beak in a disgruntled sort of way.
Neither Harry nor Dumbledore moved for a few moments; Harry couldn't speak for Dumbledore, but he was waiting, wanting to be sure. Compared to the diary and the locket, this had been almost too easy—curse aside.
Harry braced himself, then thought Ostendere me omnia and Finite in quick succession; Voldemort's magic was gone from the ring. Harry released his wand, blinking streaks of magic from his vision.
Dumbledore set the sword down on the desk and stared at the ring a little longer. Then he reached for his chair and lowered himself into it.
Harry returned to his own chair, watching as Dumbledore plucked the ring from the desk. He made a quiet sound of satisfaction and offered it to Harry. A small, jagged crack ran through the face of the stone.
"Did he feel it?" Dumbledore asked.
"I don't think so," Harry said, reaching up to touch his scar. He'd not felt anything from Voldemort since school started in September, but whether that was due to conscious effort on Voldemort's part, or simply because he was focused elsewhere, Harry didn't know. Still, Harry'd known when Voldemort learned about the destruction of the prophecy orb, and Harry thought Voldemort would be even more furious about the destruction of a horcrux. He was fairly sure he'd know if Voldemort knew.
"Excellent. The question now," Dumbledore mused, "is whether any other horcruxes remain. Beyond the one we already know about, of course." He smiled sadly at Harry. "I think we can assume, given the Gaunt shack's proximity to the Riddle house, that Lord Voldemort—or Peter Pettigrew, or Barty Crouch Jnr on his behalf—had confirmed the ring was intact at some point between his return to Britain and his resurrection."
"And because of that, he was willing to kill me in June," Harry said. Dumbledore inclined his head.
"But is that because he was willing to rely on a single horcrux, or is it because he believes—or knows—there are still others?" He stroked his beard and gave a gentle shake of his head. "I'm not aware of any method or magic that could let us know for certain. Horace Slughorn may have some ideas—he was a teacher here at Hogwarts when Tom Riddle was a student, and I know he's familiar with horcruxes. It is not impossible they discussed them…" He frowned.
"If it's stuff from when Voldemort was at school, Ginny might have some ideas, too," Harry said.
"Indeed," Dumbledore mused. "At the very least, we may be able to garner some insight into what he intended, though, whether that is what has happened is another matter entirely. I fear Tom's had very little go exactly to plan since the early eighties." His eyes twinkled as he looked at Harry, who grinned. "All we do know is that when you defeated him, his soul was unstable enough to create the horcrux that resides within you."
Harry frowned.
"How do you make horcruxes, sir?" he asked, and Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "I know deliberate murder splits the soul, and it has to be without remorse." He still remembered Padfoot reading to him and Moony from Secrets of the Darkest Art all those years ago. Since then, Harry had done a lot of reading about how to destroy horcruxes, but he knew very little about creating them. "But… there'd be a spell, right? Or, maybe not, since I doubt he cast anything on me—"
"There is a spell—a sequence of spells, in fact," Dumbledore said, somewhat cautiously, "that enable a person to remove a soul piece from their own body and place them into an external vessel. In your case, I believe the instability of Voldemort's soul and his defeat was enough to force the soul piece out, and that it was able to establish in you because of your proximity, and the fact that you were a living vessel—and a vulnerable one at that, given your age." He frowned. "Why do you ask about horcrux creation, Harry?"
"Because if it does need a spell, then we could find out," Harry said, though wasn't sure how he felt about it.
"Ah," Dumbledore said softly. "You're thinking of Priori Incantatem."
"Yeah," Harry said. He cleared his throat. "It'd work, right? In theory, anyway."
"It would," Dumbledore agreed. "The difficulty—as you have clearly realised—comes in practice; firstly, there must be an opportunity to trigger the reverse spell-effect. Secondly, it would be no simple thing to maintain the connection with Lord Voldemort's wand for long enough to get the necessary information; he has had his wand since he was eleven years old, so it will have a long history. Still, it is a good thought, and not one we should discount, necessarily."
They were both silent for a few moments. Harry was trying to keep his mind off the Reverse Spell effect now, trying not to see the golden threads of magic, trying not to see the graveyard. Dumbledore smelled thoughtful, though if he reached any new conclusions, he did not share them with Harry.
"You said there were other things you wanted to talk to me about," Harry said eventually. "Other than the ring?"
"Yes," Dumbledore said, seeming to return to himself. "One other thing, tonight, and it is less a matter of talking to you about something, and more a matter of teaching you, since, unless I am mistaken, it is not yet something you've learned."
"Something to do with Voldemort?"
"No," Dumbledore said. "Nothing so unoriginal as that." His eyes twinkled and Harry snorted his amusement. "It is a spell I think you ought to learn, one of my own creation… and one I'm sure you're familiar with."
Sirius was not expecting breakfast on the morning of his thirty-sixth birthday to be interrupted by an enormous, silvery stag. It burst into being between the stairs and the table, startling everyone at breakfast, but Mad-Eye most of all; his stunner whizzed harmlessly through it, and the stag gave him a vaguely curious sort of look, then turned back to Sirius, who lowered the paper to stare back at it.
"Happy birthday, Padfoot," it said, rather playfully, and trotted forward to nudge Sirius' shoulder.
"Constant vigilance, Mad-Eye?" Dora asked, hair bright with amusement. He grumbled something into his eggs while Fleur tinkled a laugh. Sebastian, the Auror trainee Dora shared with Kingsley, watched her with glazed over eyes.
"Ree!" Stella shrieked from Marlene's lap, clearly recognising Harry's voice. She reached for the stag, but the moment her little fingers touched it, it dissolved into silvery mist.
"Did you teach him that?" Sirius asked, looking at Remus.
"No," Remus said, eyes on the place where the stag had disappeared.
Sirius drew his own wand, then thought better of it, and withdrew the message parchment they'd been using instead, plucking up the same quill he'd been doing the morning's crossword with:
Thanks, kiddo, he wrote.
It worked, then? came Harry's prompt reply.
Nice and clear, Sirius wrote. He was stuck using his left hand for the time being, and while his writing had become more legible over the past week, he still wasn't particularly quick, and so tried to keep his own replies as brief as possible. Both patronus and voice. Who taught you?
Dumbledore, Harry wrote. Sirius turned to Remus.
"Dumbledore," he said.
When he looked back down at the parchment, Harry'd written, How's your arm?
He'd been asking daily—sometimes multiple times a day—but Sirius didn't mind; between the Skele-Gro, a regime of truly awful-tasting potions from Snape, and a list of mobility and strength building exercises from Madam Pomfrey, Sirius was actually getting better.
Still looks awful, Sirius wrote, which was true; his forearm was still a mess of blackened holes and rather painful—and he couldn't quite pick anything up yet, or hold a wand or a quill. He'd been able to limp around on it well enough during the full moon, though, and, as of a few days ago, he'd been able to make a loose fist. Madam Pomfrey and Leatherby—one of the Healers who serviced the Auror Department—both seemed sure that his strength and dexterity would return with time. But function's improving. Might even be able to shake your hand when I see you next week…