Harry ducked back behind the tree, and swallowing hard, closed his eyes for a moment. His pulse raced and the horrifying vision of Ginny standing within Voldemort’s grip overwhelmingly flooded his thoughts. Harry rested his head against the tree trunk, his breath heavy and uneven. He cast his eyes skyward and searched for what to do next. Patches of weak blue sky emerged to greet Harry from the parting cluster of clouds that had begun the day. He exhaled and felt the weight of the golden locket lying in the palm of his warm, moist hand. Harry unraveled his fingers and glanced down at it. The piece gleamed, casting a brilliant white reflection that playfully danced across his face. Thinking carefully, he closed his hand around the object again and stepped out from behind the tree.
“Good boy,” responded Voldemort, his icy, cold fingers clenched firmly around Ginny’s throat. “Now give me the locket.”
Harry glanced at the Dark Lord and then at Ginny. His sights drifted to Ron and Hermione, who stood together unarmed. Ron’s wobbly legs were now fully restored, as was Crabbe, who no longer giggled like a silly schoolgirl, but returned to his usual state of dimwittedness; the sound of Malfoy’s whining voice rang out from where he still hung in mid-air. They had been caught off guard in the heat of their battle by Ginny’s capture; Goyle, who quickly threatened bodily harm upon her if Ron did not follow suit, disarmed Hermione. Without hesitation, Ron threw away his wand. His worrisome gaze remained frozen now upon his sister and following his best friend’s eyes, Harry fixed his own upon Ginny again. Her body trembled beneath the Dark Lord’s touch. Harry peered at her and saw something in her eyes that he had never seen before: fear.
“Harry,” the Dark Lord spoke over Malfoy’s ongoing cries from above, “give me the locket.”
“First, let her go,” Harry insisted. He edged a bit closer and looked Voldemort sternly in the eye.
“Oh, Harry, do you really want to play this little game with me?” asked Voldemort with a hint of exasperated amusement in his voice.
Annoyed with Malfoy’s persistent theatrics, the Dark Lord flicked his wand sharply at Draco. He sent the boy hurtling to the ground. Landing on his head, Malfoy cautiously looked up and righted himself. He rose slowly to his feet.
“I said, let her go,” Harry demanded, the locket now dangling from his hand. He pointed the tip of his wand directly at it.
The serpentine face of Lord Voldemort stared at Harry from across the clearing, looking first into the young wizard’s eyes and than to the locket.
“Your actions, however nobly misguided they may be, would be far more compelling,” noted the Dark Lord, “if you actually had some power in this situation. But you do not. Lest you forget, I am the one in control here...” Voldemort sneered at Harry viciously, “and I never negotiate.”
Promptly, the Dark Lord aimed his wand at Ginny and struck her with the Cruciatus Curse. She let out the most bone-chilling, high-pitched scream that Harry had ever heard, and her body went rigid, shaking uncontrollably beneath the Dark Lord’s grasp. Her beautiful chocolate brown eyes, that Harry had so often lost himself in, rolled violently into the back of her head and tears of anguish slipped down her tormented face.
“Ginny!” Ron cried out with terror and lunged towards her.
Crabbe grabbed hold of him, brusquely yanked Ron backwards, and tightened his grip on Hermione. She cupped her hands over her mouth and watched the horror in front of her unfold.
Eyes wide with astonishment, Harry dropped his hands to his sides and staggered backwards. He thought he knew exactly what Ginny was going through: the head-splitting pain, the feel of a thousand narrow blades piercing every inch of her skin, the torrid sensation of her bones on fire. He knew them all and vividly called to mind the way the Dark Lord had inflicted the very same curse upon him the night they fought in the cemetery. Only this time, thought Harry, what was happening to Ginny was his own fault.
“No! Stop!” shouted Harry. Tears formed in his eyes and he ached with guilt. “The locket…it’s yours. Just stop!”
With pleasure in his hideous red eyes, the Dark Lord withdrew his wand. Ginny’s body went limp and her head, bobbing loosely about, fell carelessly backwards.
“Now...” Voldemort replied, expectation ringing quite clearly in his words, “the locket!”
Harry threw it at Voldemort. It landed firmly in the palm of the Dark Lord’s hand, and callously, he tossed Ginny aside like a rag doll. Catching her under the arms, Malfoy pulled the dead weight of Ginny's body upward and cradled her firmly around the waist; his own frightened expression now mirroring the uncertainty in his eyes.
Hermione placed a consoling hand upon Ron's shoulder. His breath flowed in labored squalls. Harry caught her eye. He stood alone across the clearing, his crest-fallen body quivering with turmoil. Frantically, he eyed Malfoy who was trying to prevent Ginny’s flaccid body from slipping through his arms. Struggling to keep her upright, Draco lost his grip and she fell to one knee. He quickly stooped over to catch her before the rest of her body slid out from under him and from afar, Harry mimicked Malfoy’s actions. He wanted nothing more than to go to her, to wrap his arms around her, tell her how sorry he was, and that everything was going to be all right. But he couldn’t and it was killing him.
Thoroughly enjoying Harry’s pain, the Dark Lord leered at him and redirected his sights to the locket lying in the palm of his hand. Voldemort’s triumph quickly turned to despair as he noticed, for the first time, that the piece looked absolutely nothing like the locket he remembered.
“You!” Voldemort hissed at Harry. He squeezed the object tightly in his skeletal fist.
“No, sorry,” Harry vehemently replied. He pried his eyes away from Ginny. “I can’t take credit for this one. You see, Dumbledore and I did find the cave and what we believed at the time to be the locket,” Harry added, motioning to the fake now in Voldemort’s hand. “Just like you though, we too were fooled. But by the time the truth was known, it was already too late…Dumbledore was dead.”
Harry paused for a moment in reverence to his fallen friend.
“And all that was left was a small bit of parchment that had fallen out of the locket,” he added. “A note addressed to you telling of how someone else had gotten to it first and destroyed it.”
“You’re lying!” accused the Dark Lord.
“Well, it’s easy enough to prove isn’t it?” Harry boldly replied and he glanced back towards Ginny, who slightly opened her eyes. “All you have to do is open up the locket and read it for yourself.”
Harry expected the Dark Lord to waste no time in doing just that, fully aware that once he did all hell was bound to break loose. But instead, Voldemort just stood there eyeing the locket in his hand.
“You do realize,” Voldemort spoke agitatedly. “That it doesn’t really matter, whether the contents of the real locket have been destroyed. By my count there is still one-seventh of my soul, aside from that which resides within me, out there…somewhere. You’ve only accounted for five of the Horcruxes thus far. What of the sixth?”
“Oh, that one was easy,” Harry boasted, for he had simply stumbled upon it in his quest to locate the Cup. “Upon realizing that you didn’t use Helga Hufflepuff’s precious heirloom as a Horcrux,” added Harry, “I successfully tracked it back to Caractacus Burke. When I got there I found Burke’s widow on her deathbed. She was quite willing to share the story of how another object had seemingly vanished the night the Cup had appeared: a fine filigree pendant that had belonged to none other than Rowena Ravenclaw.”
Harry could still recall how the widow had described the piece that adorned the founding witch’s cloak. Rumored to be something she had never been seen without, it bore the Ravenclaw colors of blue and gold with a most impressive ornamental depiction of an eagle; a description that Harry later found lacking when faced with the actual beauty of the piece. The pendant was delicate but much heavier than it appeared. An intricate design of ornate golden threads cradled the raised illustration of a bronze eagle landing majestically upon a field of sapphire. An inlay of pearl surrounded it and it pained Harry to know its fate.
“It was only a matter of time,” he noted, “before I found it and destroyed it.”
The Dark Lord regarded Harry with great intent and dropped his gaze to the locket in his hand. For a brief moment Harry thought he saw the edge of Voldemort’s lip arc, almost as if the young wizard had just said something slightly funny. But when he looked again, all Harry saw were the same pale thin lips he had always seen, perhaps though a bit more indicative of Voldemort’s true age. The Dark Lord reflected upon the locket, turning it over and over again in his hand.
“Well then,” Voldemort responded and he held it up where they could both see it. “I suppose the time has come Harry, to find out whether or not you’ve been telling the truth.”
With relative ease, the Dark Lord flicked open the locket and revealed the parchment from within. He edged the note out with his nimble fingers and allowed the golden piece to drop onto the ground as if it were the most worthless piece of rubbish he had ever seen. Holding the slip of parchment between his thumb and forefinger, Voldemort tilted his head slightly to one side and perused its message with less interest than Harry hoped.
“Tell me,” Voldemort spoke and he turned the parchment over so that the words now faced the young wizard. “In all your travels, did you ever find out who R.A.B. was?”
“It was Regulus,” Harry answered, reverting his attention back towards Ginny who slowly began to show signs of life again.
“Yes,” the Dark Lord confirmed with disgust. “Regulus Arcturus Black…Sirius’ foolish and much more naive younger brother. But it might interest you to know Harry, that it could have just as easily been my most loyal servant…Severus.”
Harry shot a bewildered expression back at Voldemort. He stared at the Dark Lord cautiously.
“That surprises you, doesn’t it?” Voldemort responded. He witnessed the baffled look upon Harry’s face. “And yet it really shouldn’t, considering the fact that Severus was the only one aside from myself…and apparently Dumbledore, even capable of accessing the locket. After all Harry, it was he who created the liquid in which it swam.”
Dumbfounded by what he heard, Harry hesitantly searched for truth in the Dark Lord’s cold and pitiless glowing eyes.
“Oh yes,” elaborated the Dark Lord and he took great pleasure in the boy’s reaction. “Severus was the one who created the liquid that Dumbledore drank that night in the cave…always quite handy with his potions, that Severus.”
Harry felt his insides scream. Not only had Snape inflicted the Killing Curse on Dumbledore, but he had effectively rendered him useless in his own defense with the liquid, a liquid that he, Harry, had made Dumbledore drink. Harry felt the guilt rear its ugly head. It quickly rose again to the surface.
“But he wasn’t your most loyal servant,” was all Harry could think to say. “Was he?”
“Apparently not!” answered the Dark Lord, and crushing the piece of parchment in his hand, released it to the ground below.
Abandoned, it fell at Voldemort’s feet. A late morning breeze carried off its crumpled remains and in its wake, Harry felt the warmth of the sun rest wearily upon his shoulders.
“But why?” Harry asked, almost mechanically. His mind reeled.
“Like me, Severus was quite good at holding a grudge,” answered the Dark Lord. “I daresay he never really got over his own feelings of betrayal.”
“But if he was that loyal,” Harry quickly pointed out, “what could you have possibly done to betray him?”
“Well, I would have thought, Harry,” replied Voldemort with an air of casual wonder, “that that would have been quite obvious to you by now…I killed your parents.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Harry replied and he faltered for a moment at the ease in which the Dark Lord admitted to murdering his parents. “Snape was the one who overheard the prophecy…he was the one who told you to go after my mum and dad,” rambled Harry. “Why would killing them matter to him?”
“Not them, Harry,” noted Voldemort. “Lily.”
Perplexed, Harry shook his head slightly at the Dark Lord. He tried in vain to make sense of what was being said.
“Severus was in love with her.”
Harry felt as though he had been kicked in the stomach. His breath left him. Snape? In love? The words tossed violently about in his brain. With my mother?
“Yes,” Voldemort answered the quizzical look of shock that dangled upon the young wizard’s face. “Severus was the one who told me about your parents and I went to Godric’s Hollow that night to kill you, Harry, and your father, if need be,” recalled the Dark Lord. “But I was not to touch Lily…at least that is what I allowed Severus to believe.”
Taking a moment, Voldemort allowed his words to sink in.
“But no one, least of all me, expected that your mother would sacrifice herself the way she did for you,” explained the Dark Lord. “Standing in front of you like that…” he paused for a moment, shaking his head, as if what Lily had done was so incomprehensible to him, even now.
“Killing her ” while unfortunate for Severus ” was quite necessary for me. Or at least I thought so at the time,” added Voldemort. “I believe it was at that point that Severus probably abandoned me, although I see now that he may have pretended otherwise.”
Here was the real reason, thought Harry, why Snape had always hated James so much: not because Harry’s father and his friends belittled and teased him ” although Harry was sure that this had only added fuel to the fire ” but because in the end, James got the girl. The only girl, Harry was willing to bet, that Snape had ever truly loved. It was no wonder why the sight of Harry infuriated Snape the way it did. Harry looked just like his father. He was a living, breathing, walking reminder of the one thing Snape would never have…Lily.
“And the initials, R.A.B.,” Harry quickly asked, sensing that the topic of Severus Snape was about to come to a close, “what did it stand for?”
“Ridiculously Average Boy,” answered Voldemort. “It was something your father and his friends used when referring to Severus,” he added. “He liked to use the initials…I think it was his way of mocking them really. I mean, after all, Severus was anything but average.”
That same sense of shame, which had washed over Harry that day in the dungeon when he had witnessed Snape’s worst memory in the Pensieve, once again licked at his insides.
“And now Harry," Voldemort redirected, "it is time to die.”
Savagely, the Dark Lord raised his wand. He pointed it directly at Ron, Hermione, and Ginny.
“Say goodbye…to your friends!”