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Chapter 40

Harry picked through his breakfast not really eating much. It was going to be their first apparition lesson that evening and when he looked at his food all he could think about was how sick he was going to feel later. It was stupid he knew. Anything he ate now would be well past his stomach before the instructor from the Ministry got here. Yet knowing that didn't help in the slightest. He still felt queasy and so was picking at his food.

Harry's attitude was far different from the rest of his classmates. It seemed every single sixth year apart from him was really excited. Even Ron who hardly ever cracked a smile anymore was grinning like a lunatic. Harry couldn't blame them. The ability to move around the country so easily gave you a tremendous sense of freedom and independence. That was the difference between them. Harry already had that because of his family's bloodline gift. That meant that Harry only had the down sides to look forward to.

Hermione tried to be sympathetic and encouraged him to eat but really, she couldn't hide that she was just as enthusiastic about learning how to apparate as everyone else. Harry couldn't hold it against her, he could Step, and Fleur could apparate leaving Hermione as the odd one out.

Harry was just wishing for a distraction when the owl mail came flooding in. Harry relieved one owl of Hermione's newspaper as she was in the middle of a conversation with one of her dorm mates and he gave the headlines a quick scan to see if anything particularly bad had happened. Luckily there wasn't any news of an attack that day.

Harry handed Hermione her paper for when she was ready and was surprised when a small tawny owl flew down and sat on his shoulder holding out its leg to him with a letter attached. As soon as Harry touched the twine that was holding the letter the knots that were holding it there magically untied themselves, leaving Harry with the letter and string in his hand as the little owl immediately jumped from Harry's shoulder and took off.

Harry checked the envelope and sure enough it was addressed to him so he opened the letter to give it a read.

Harry

I hope this letter finds you well. Sorry my wife and I didn't stick around to speak with you after your trial. Considering Dumbledore got rather spooked seeing us and tried to run off as soon as the trial was over we thought it was better for us to follow him.

But it is Important that I speak with you as soon as possible. I have no doubt at least one of your betrothed has told you that they revealed to me that part of your, for lack of a better word, quest is to destroy certain items that you are forbidden to talk about with people who aren't already in on the secret. I obviously can't say much in a letter, but it should be enough for me to say that I am well aware of the nature of the items you seek and I think it would be in your best interest to speak with me and my wife as soon as possible.

To that end would you please speak with your headmistress about the possibility of allowing either you and Miss Granger out of the school for a day or allowing myself, my wife and of course Miss Delacour a visitor pass into the school for a day

Best wishes

Nick

It took Harry a few seconds to realise that Nick was short for Nicholas. As in Nicholas Flamel. Hermione had told him that the alchemist had worked out that she and Fleur were refusing to mention horcruxes and that they had said that were likewise in the know. Harry wondered exactly what the Flamels had to tell him.

Hopefully it was something about a way to find the damn things. So far Harry had only ever found a soul fragment when it was possessing someone. That or hopefully they had an idea how to get the soul fragment out of his head.

Harry was so busy thinking about that he forgot to be nervous about the upcoming apparition lesson. As he was trying to work out exactly what the Flamels thought he should know he started to absently eat the breakfast he had in front of him.

-ϟϟϟ-

Harry's distraction didn't last the whole day, in fact it didn't even last until lunch. By the time he was sitting with everyone for lunch Harry had arranged to have the three visitors to the castle for a day, and now he was once more feeling queasy at the thought of food.

Hermione and their friends tried to get Harry to feel better but there was no hope for it, the anticipation of potentially multiple apparitions in one go was too much for Harry's appetite to stand a chance.

The time for the lesson arrived and Harry joined the group of sixth years and a handful of seventh years as they made their way to the great hall. Professor McGonagall was waiting in the hall for them with a very wispy looking man. Harry knew about splinching and wondered if this man, who was obviously their instructor, had lost tiny insignificant parts of himself thousands of times, leaving him looking like his arch nemesis was a stiff breeze. Or if the man had always been so, and that the lack of any form of bulk on the man meant that apparating for him was easier than others, leading him to become an expert on the process.

Professor McGonagall cut all the excited chatting with a call to them all to pay attention then explained. "This is Mr Twycross, he is an apparition instructor who works for the department of magical transportation in the Ministry. He will be the one to provide your education in this very dangerous form of magic. He may not be a Hogwarts professor but you will treat him like any other professor you learn from. Apparition is an incredibly dangerous thing when not done properly. There is a risk of serious injury and even death if you don't take this seriously. These lessons are a privilege, anyone caught messing around will be thrown out and will have to arrange their own lessons in the summer. Lessons that you will need to pay for from your own pockets."

"Now as many of you know it is normally impossible to apparate inside Hogwarts. The ward that prevents that has temporarily been lifted from the great hall. Do not attempt to apparate from here to anywhere else in or out of the school. The wards are still very much active and due to the reality outside this castle are set at their strongest. I do not want to need to write to any of your parents explaining why they no longer have a son or daughter so don't be stupid, and only attempt to apparate inside this hall." With that last warning the headmistress left, leaving them in the care of Mr Twycross.

Twycross immediately launched into his spiel about Destination, Deliberation, and Determination. It basically boiled down to: think about where you want to go and then will yourself there. Wrap yourself in your magic and off you crack. Harry was surprised how similar the majority of the process was to Stepping.

The biggest difference was how you added magic, Stepping was something innate that came from inside, he didn't need to push his will into his magic to Step and instead of wrapping magic around him he just let the magic already flowing through do the work.

Twycross conjured a stack of hoops and told everyone to collect two and to place them next to each other and to try and apparate from one to the other. Harry procrastinated for a few minutes watching everyone else. It was rather amusing to watch everyone spinning on the spot trying to disappear from one hoop and appear in another. A few spun so hard that they lost their footing, some pirouetted like dancers and Goyle actually left his hoop as he spun, physically jumping from one hoop to the other and actually thought he had been successful until he realised a couple of Hufflepuffs girls were laughing at him.

Harry eventually gave it a shot for himself and unfortunately he was way too good at some parts and because of how easy his Stepping was he completely underestimated other parts of the process. The result of that was that while Harry did the miraculous and managed to apparate on his first attempt he 'splinched' himself leaving behind both of his legs and one of his arms.

Harry went crashing to the floor of the second ring and all he could think about was the pain. He had no awareness of the fact that the two Parkinsons, Draco and Pansy, were laughing and mocking him. He also had no idea that Ron got into a shouting argument with the two of them. He did notice Hermione was at his side in what felt like a fraction of a second and had his one still attached hand in hers and she was telling him to hang on for a second.

Luckily for Harry, Twycross was well used to seeing his students splinch themselves and while Harry's accident was a spectacular one by comparison to most, it was still far from the worst he had ever seen. So purely on reflex the man apparated to Harry's side in seconds and less than thirty seconds after Harry had splinched himself he was whole again.

"Are you feeling okay Mr Potter?" Twycross asked.

"Um… yeah I think so." Harry answered, breathing heavy as the adrenalin started to crash out of his system.

"I'm surprised to see you in this lesson considering you seem to possess the Potter bloodline trait." Twycross said, offering both Harry and Hermione his hands to help them up from the floor.

That statement had Harry on edge. "What do you know of the Potter blood trait?"

Twycross smiled. "Mr Potter I am an expert in apparition. Apparition is a spell that was made to copy the power of the Potters. A lot of spells are like that. A bloodline trait proves something is possible for wizards magic to do and someone works out a spell to do something similar. Like apparition compared to your ability most of the spells never quite match up to the original but they are still some of the most important spells we have. So Mr Potter, considering what you can do, why are you wasting your time with this?"

Harry forced himself to take a calming breath before he answered. "As a Warlock I have the right to apply for a licence to create portkeys to my properties. You need to be able to apparate to do the portkey spell."

Twycross nodded. "Ah, I see. Well you are right that the focus required for apparition is the same needed for creating a portkey, that parts of the spell that are the same are the parts that are shared with your ability. So all you need is your apparition license, something you can easily get by using your ability during the test. So I don't see any point in you making yourself suffer through these lessons.

"Harry can Step for his apparition test?" Hermione asked, surprised.

"Well the test is basically can you disappear from one place, and reappear in the correct place without leaving any of yourself, your clothing or anything you are carrying behind. As there is no incantation or wand movements and for nearly every single wizard in the world there is only one spell that lets you do it, yep it's entirely possible for Mr Potter to Step as you called it for his apparition test."

Hermione looked like she was about to say something and with her respect for tests and exams Harry was sure it wouldn't be anything helpful so he quickly said. "Thank god. I really don't want to go through that again."

Mr Twycross smiled and Harry saw as Hermione realised she was about to advocate for Harry to go through an entirely unnecessary and painful experience. Harry loved his bushy haired cuddle monster and her very studious personality, but sometimes she spoke before thinking things through entirely.

Harry was excused from the rest of the lesson and that was it for Harry until August when he was seventeen and could take his apparition test.

-ϟϟϟ-

The weekend came and Harry and Hermione were waiting in the headmistress's office for Fleur and the Flamels to come through the floo. They didn't have to wait long as the fireplace flared with green flames only seconds after the clock in the headmistress's office read eleven o'clock.

Fleur came out of the fireplace first, casually managing it with more grace than Harry ever could. Their girlfriend immediately pulled Harry and Hermione into a three way hug kissing first Harry and then Hermione.

The three of them were so caught up in being together again that they missed the Flamels flooing in behind Fleur and were startled out of their embrace when Perenelle said something in French that sounded poetic but unfortunately Harry couldn't quite follow it as it was in metaphor and he was still working on mastering a basic French conversation. Though his impression was that it was something about young love.

There was a brief conversation with the headmistress where she made sure everyone was who they claimed to be and she reminded everyone that this was a school and they needed to act appropriately.

After that Harry and Hermione led the group to the room of requirement. Hermione chose the form of the room and it was their normal collection of comfortable chairs around a cozy fire that they regularly used with a dining table behind that in case they took so long they needed to stay for dinner.

They all settled in and talked about nothing for a while. Fleur called on Sassy and had her serve tea and the little elf brought one of the nice tea sets from Harry's house with a pot of steaming hot tea and everything anyone could want to go with their drink including a plate of fancy looking biscuits.

Once everyone had finished their first cup of tea the topic turned to the purpose of the meeting. "So Mr Potter, you are looking to destroy a number of horcruxes. Tell me everything you know and I will fill in any gaps in your knowledge." Nicolas said as he poured his second cup of tea adding enough sugar to it that his wife gave him a look.

"Well, let's see. A horcrux is a piece of someone's soul that is bound to something, usually an object though a person is possible, and as long as it exists a person's soul is kept from moving on and dying creating a form of immortality. The requirements to break your soul, prepare a container, and the ritual to transfer the shard of soul are all incredibly dark, one requiring amurder and the destruction of a soul.

Once created, an object turned into a horcrux is incredibly difficult to destroy, requiring complete magical destruction using something like basilisk venom or fiendfyre. Though if a shard is placed in a living being anything sufficient to kill the being will destroy the horcrux.

Once the container is destroyed the soul fragment is still bound to this existence but it will forcibly merge with the rest of the remaining soul." Harry finished.

"For someone who hasn't studied soul magic or who never intends to make a horcrux, that was pretty good. You had most of the details and nothing you said was overly wrong. One point I would say is if you destroy an anchor the shard won't merge with just any part of the soul, it will merge with whichever fragment requires the least energy to merge with. That is normally whichever is closest but if say the closest one is behind strong wards it may be easier to merge with the second nearest fragment." Nicolas explained.

Harry thought about how both the part that was inside the cup had tried to merge with the one in his scar and understood. "Do you know of a way to remove a soul shard from a person?" Harry asked cautiously. He really didn't want to reveal what was in his scar but at the same time he doubted he would ever get a better opportunity to actually find an answer.

The Flamels looked at Harry and both of their eyes flicked to his scar for a moment. The two of them had quickly put two and two together and come up with the correct answer. It was Perenelle who answered. "Possibly. But it's not some spell we can cast in a few seconds, a ritual we can perform in a day or even a potion that takes a year to brew. Tell me, what do you know about alchemy?"

Hermione answered. "Alchemy is the magical methodology to transmute on a permanent basis one substance into another. You can transfigure a lump of stone into a basket easily enough but eventually the magic holding it in its new form will fade and the basket will turn back into a rock. You can't permanently transfigure the rock into a new shape because it's fundamental essence of being a rock never changes. However with alchemy a skilled enough alchemist can alter the fundamental nature of the rock and make a real diamond."

Nicolas nodded. "That is indeed the practical side of alchemy and it is the core of the modern teaching of the subject. However a few hundred years ago when the discipline was relatively new there was a spiritual component to the art. The goal was purification. Gold was considered the most spiritually pure metal so we became obsessed with the idea that we could purify lead into gold, rocks into diamonds and by purification of the soul become immortal."

"Now immortality is impossible, the mundane people have already worked out what will happen to our sun in a few billion years. No life and none of our magic will survive that. So us, Voldemort and a handful of others that we know but won't name will all die eventually but we are as close to immortal as it is likely humans will ever become and remain human. And all of us have one thing in common, every method of achieving this feat has required soul magic. Some of those methods like horcruxes are brutal and disgusting."

He continued. "For example I'm sure you have realised, one way to free yourself from this problem would be to create your own horcrux, destroy your body and the horcrux with it, then use the same ritual Voldemort did to reconstruct yourself a new body."

"FUCK NO!" Harry shouted at the top of his voice. "I would never do that!"

"Why not?" Perenelle asked. "You could sacrifice death eaters' lives for the rituals and you could even piece your soul back together afterwards."

"Because it's absolutely disgusting to mutilate my soul like that. Also I won't murder anyone. I may kill when I need to defend myself or others but actively choosing to go looking for someone to kill is not a line I want to cross more than once."

"More than once?" Fleur asked, sounding confused.

Harry shrugged "Voldemort. If I ever get the opportunity I will kill him, no capture, no trial, and no second chances." Harry then turned back to the Flamels. "Besides everything else I took an unbreakable vow that I wouldn't ever create a horcrux so it's impossible." Harry said with a hint of smugness in his voice.

The Flamels smiled "Good answer. You didn't even hesitate. And your immediate reaction was because it is wrong not because of your vow. Do you know how rare that is?" Perenelle said. "That means that despite everything it is possible that you could purify the fragment of soul in your scar the same way we purified the remains of souls to create the philosopher's stones."

Nicolas tried to keep speaking but was cut off by the three angry teenagers demanding that he explain himself. Nicolas just smiled as though he had been expecting this reaction. Harry's voice broke through, overwhelming the rest. "You destroyed people's souls to make your stone‽ How could you‽"

Perenelle spoke up. "I swear we had no hand in the distraction of the souls. The souls were already destroyed, most of them before we were even born. What we collected and used was what was left of the souls."

"What was left of the souls?" Hermione asked.

Nicolas gave a weary smile. "Goats aren't the only creature that can develop a Bezoar. In fact most animals, mundane or magical, including humans can develop them through the specific magical properties of countering most poisons only come from the stomach of goats and Greek Chimeras. Though getting one from a Greek chimera would be a feat worthy of legend. So with what we have said do you think you can work out where we got the soul bezoars from?"

It was Hermione who put it together first. "Dementors. The core of a philosopher's stone is a bezoar taken from the stomach of a dementor."

"Exactly. We took the stones and we purified all the corruption from them. Over years we slowly transmuted the stones into what they are now. Now I wouldn't teach you the full process. That is a journey you must walk yourself if you want to see it through to the end. But you don't need to go anywhere near that far. You only need to shift the shard's nature just enough that it no longer acts as an anchor."

Harry however had noticed one detail. "You said years. Honestly, best guess how long would it take me to get to the point where this thing in my head won't count as one of his anchors?"

Nicolas let out a sigh. "That is the bad news. If you focused I think you could do it in five years."

Harry shook his head. "We don't have that kind of time. Leaving Voldemort active for that long would mean way too many people dying. Maybe if we can find a way to contain him long term it may be worth it but leaving him active for five years is out of the question."

They talked about it for a while and the Flamels agreed that leaving Voldemort free for so long was unacceptable. Despite what Voldemort preached he didn't value any life save his own and five years of him being active would destroy magical Britain. Still, it was a potential solution if Voldemort could be subdued for long enough like he was on that Halloween fifteen years ago.

That would be incredibly difficult as Voldemort seemed to have embraced life as a wraith for the moment where he could possess people at will.

"If we are going to hold him for a long time he will need to be in a body." Hermione pointed out. "In our first year Voldemort seemed to believe that your philosopher's Stone held the key to restoring his body. Is that actually possible?"

"Yes. You can make a potion using the elixir of life as a base that will restore your body." Perenelle said her tone suggesting she knew what Hermione was going to ask.

"Would you be willing to make a few for us? That way next time we encounter Voldemort we can try and put him in a body. If we are lucky we can stun him and potion him with something like the Draught of Living Death, keep him unconscious somewhere none of his followers can find him while Harry learns the required alchemy?"

After a lot of negotiations over the rest of the day where they talked about details the Flamels agreed. They would create three applications of the potion that would restore Voldemort to a body. It wasn't going to be quick, apparently the potion took months to brew. And it wasn't going to be easy for the trio either, there was a lot of preparation they were going to need to do. Yet by the end of the day Harry, Hermione, and Fleur felt like they had achieved something. They finally had the start of an actual plan.

A/N

I'm overworked and under-caffeinated I need reviwes to compensate.