The pale morning light came through the Hogwarts Express’s glass windows in faint golden shafts, beams of fading hope in their all-too-serious situation. Three sober and quiet teenagers sat wordlessly, each too afraid of saying something wrong to speak. With good reason, comedy and playful banter had fled this usually pleasant trip back home. For Harry Potter, summer vacation was not a three-month period of freedom even in a "normal" year – instead, it was a dungeon, locking him away from his best friends Ron and Hermione and keeping him from playing Quidditch, the wizarding world’s favorite sport. Because Harry Potter was no ordinary teen – he was a wizard.
For that matter, he wasn’t even an ordinary wizard. Since the age of eleven, he had shipped himself off to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the best wizarding school in the world. With his parents dead, he tried his best to excel in school like a normal magical boy, but multiple encounters with his parents’ murderer and leader of evil wizards and witches – Lord Voldemort – made this difficult.
Just last year, he and headmaster Albus Dumbledore had discovered the secret to Voldemort’s seemingly unendable life – wicked creations known as Horcruxes. Only a few of the seven he had sealed his life in had been destroyed. Four more -- plus Voldemort himselft -- to go.
"Er, Harry?"
Harry’s emerald eyes flicked from its gaze at the cabin floor to Ron, who was meekly trying to ask a question. He heaved a sad sigh and sat up straighter. "What?"
"So," Ron seemed to be groping for words. "You do think it’s the right thing to do? Going back to Godric’s Hollow?"
"Of course," Harry said listlessly. By now, all of his passion had fled. "You know as well as I do that I want to see my parents."
"I know you do," Hermione said earnestly, edging her way into the conversation. "But they’re…erm, I don’t know a better way to say this…"
"Dead."
"Well," She seemed a bit deflated. "Yes. I’m not sure going to their grave will really fix anything, and you’ve got to get back to Hogwarts in September…"
Harry’s eyes grew as wide as saucer plates as Hermione smacked her face with her palm and Ron stepped on her foot in a very deliberate manner.
"I didn’t mean that!" She cried, trying in vain to take back her words.
"She really didn’t," Ron confirmed, firing Hermione with a penetrating glare.
"Hermione…" Harry raised an eyebrow, feeling his temper simmer underneath. "I thought we agreed on this. I’m not going back, even if Hogwarts does reopen. But," He scowled with all the anger he could muster. "If there is anything I should know, I would like to know it. NOW."
"Oh!" She bit her lip in agony, fighting between tipping Harry’s fiery mood over and suffering another smashed toe from Ron. "Not that it’s important, but…"
Harry tapped his foot impatiently.
"But we kind of know for a fact that Hogwarts is teaching this upcoming fall."
As she began, Ron hid his face in his hands, trying desperately to figure a way out of the situation. But he didn’t stop Hermione.
"So, after we heard this," she steamrollered on, gaining courage. "They passed out sign-up scrolls. You know, a lot of students probably wouldn’t be coming back –"
"Like me," Harry couldn’t resist adding.
Hermione trembled slightly. "S-so, we signed us up."
"Oh," Harry relaxed slightly. "You and Ron? That’s…that’s good. You’ll be safer there, I suppose." Whatever happened to "staying with Harry"? He wondered irritably.
"No…" Hermione started slowly. "All three of us."
She stared at Harry, Ron stared at both of them, and Harry stared at the floor again. There was a long, excruciating pause before he spoke. "So," he murmured quietly, dangerously. "We’re all going back to Hogwarts this autumn?"
"Yes," Hermione managed to squeak.
"I see," he continued in the same soft and frightening tone. He had resolved to keep his notorious and terrible mood-swings under control with his friends for a while, starting right after the fight heard ‘round the world in his fifth year.
He would have to break the resolution.
"WHY," he thundered, now standing up. "WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT?!"
"Please, Harry!" Hermione said quickly. "We’re sorry, but don’t do this again, please!"
"GOING BEHIND MY BACK…"
"Somebody might hear you!"
"…AND MAKING SURE I COULDN’T FIND THE HORCRUXES!"
"We know, and we’re sorry, but we had to –"
"VOLDEMORT IS GOING TO KILL US. IT DOESN’T MATTER ANYMORE IF WE’RE AT HOGWARTS! DUMBLEDORE ISN’T THERE!"
"That’s the reason we did it, though…"
"AND YOU DID THIS KNOWING THAT MCGONAGALL WOULD USE WHATEVER MAGIC SHE HAD TO KEEP ME FROM LEAVING ONCE WE WERE SIGNED UP?"
"Well, we couldn’t make you stay by ourselves."
"SO WHEN DID YOU PLAN TO TELL ME, EH? TRYING TO –"
"We know, Harry!" Though she wasn’t crying, Hermione’s nose was already pink and her lower lip was quivering as she spoke. The whites of her large brown eyes were reddening already. "We knew you’d be mad, but, oh, please, we did this for you!"
"So you’d be safe…" Ron spoke up, his voice cracking at the end of his sentence in fear of Harry’s response.
"…And because all of the other horcruxes left are at Hogwarts!" She gasped, trying to squeeze as many words in as possible before Harry would speak again.
Harry had opened his mouth to explode some more soon after he shut it, but he now quieted to think of what Hermione had just said. All the horcruxes left are at Hogwarts…could it be true? He riffled his mind for the list of horcruxes. Marvolo’s ring – already destroyed. Tom Riddle’s diary – destroyed again. Hufflepuff’s cup, Nagini the snake, and something from Rowena Ravenclaw or Godric Gryffindor, all of them still existing. There was also the horcrux that failed to be annihilated, Slytherin’s locket, which was supposed to have been destroyed by "R.A.B.". And then there was that mysterious seventh horcrux, the one that lived in Voldemort. All four of the remaining horcruxes at Hogwarts? It was certainly a tidy arrangement. "Are you sure about this?" He asked Hermione skeptically.
She nodded. "Definitely. You left before we did, but McGonagall told us a death-sworn secret."
"Dumbledore," Ron interjected. "He had no idea about them all being at Hogwarts."
"But McGonagall," Hermione shook her head. "She found this slip of old, old parchment, near the – the graveyard where you went after the final task in our fourth year."
Ron nodded fervently. "It was a message to his most trusted death eaters. We’re pretty sure it was supposed to be read if anything weird happened…"
"Just like when his curse on you backfired." Hermione finished smarmily. "But it was never read. It just sat there, under the tombstone, all those years."
"Well," Ron countered. "His henchmen are really –"
"Thick." Harry quipped.
"Yes," Hermione sighed. "But what we mean to say," she cast Ron a disproving look. "Is that it contained vital information. Basically, it told his thick death eaters to guard ‘four crucial items to his survival’. Obviously, the horcruxes, and he had hidden them here. So the horcruxes are…" she wrinkled her nose to try and remember. "Nagini – she was living here before we were born, the diary, before you killed it, Voldemort himself, something of Gryfindor’s or Ravenclaw’s, and…well, that's something that we don’t know."
"But now," Harry muttered irritably. "The snake’s probably moved. And we don’t know what the last two even are."
"Would you please quit the pessimism, Harry?" She said, exasperated. "We’re only trying to help. True, we may not know half of the horcruxes, but Nagini is definitely still living at Hogwarts…McGonagall found a shed snakeskin between the stone walls while scouring the castle for horcruxes."
"Did she find any?" Harry asked excitedly.
"No." Hermione said. "Still looking. But I doubt she’ll find any…" She looked at Harry pointedly. "Without your help."
He stared ahead, sifting the information over again and again in his mind. Maybe he was still mad at having this done without his consent, but it was the only way. And it was the right way. "All right," he said quietly. "I’ll help."
Squealing, Hermione bounded out of her seat to seize Harry in a great hug. "I knew you would!" she shrieked, grinning in excitement. "You can do it." She whispered in his ear, much more quietly than before. "I know you can."