They didn’t talk any more that night. After the loss of both Luna and Neville all at once, nobody felt much like saying anything, least of all Harry. So, after building up their small fire so it wouldn’t go out in the middle of the dark, cold night, they silently chose places spread around the fire and tried to fall asleep.
Harry curled up uncomfortably in his robes, thinking over the day’s events. It had all happened so fast... And now Snape was dead, as was Luna, and Neville had gone... Harry lay on his side, weeping silently for those he had lost. Ginny... Sirius... Dumbledore... Luna... My parents... Everyone I love, everyone I care for, is stolen from me. Hermione’s right, too, it’s all Voldemort’s fault, and unless I do something about it, more people will be taken from me... But how can I let them sacrifice so much just for me?
He remembered what Luna had said, at the end. “It’s so beautiful... They’re all there, Mum, even Ginny, everyone I knew... waiting for me... So beautiful...”
So will I be able to see them again, someday? I hope so... I couldn’t stand being isolated from them forever... I hope ”
Before the thought could be completed, sleep came for him, and his tired body surrendered willingly, reaching for the peace of dreams and unconsciousness to take him away from all the misery of the world.
Almost instantly, Harry was plunged into a vivid dream. It started innocently enough. He was standing in a large room that he didn’t recognize. Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, the Weasleys, Sirius, Dumbledore, and Lily and James Potter were a few feet away, talking and laughing around a long table covered with a delicious-looking feast. None of them seemed to notice Harry, however. He tried to walk over to them and join in, but every step he took seemed to take the others several yards away. “Wait!” he called, nearly running now...
There the dream took a bizarre turn. He was now walking in a huge field wreathed in mist, and the cheerful, celebrating crowd was nowhere to be found. No landmarks or people were in sight, but Harry had the uncomfortable, prickling feeling of being watched. Shivering with an unidentified fear, he turned and quickly started walking. He had no idea where he was, or where he was going; he only knew he had to get away from that feeling.
After a few more steps, a coffin suddenly appeared before him. Taking a few paces forward, he peered inside and saw that it was a filled coffin. Luna was inside.
Harry bent low over the open casket and looked at Luna’s face. Her mouth was turned down in a frown, and she looked quite unhappy. “I’m sorry, Luna,” Harry murmured. “I would have saved you if I could...”
All of a sudden Luna’s eyes flew open. “Harry gasped. “I’m still alive, you fool!” she snapped in a most un-Luna like way. “Are you blind or something? Do I look dead to you?” She looked up at him, and her angry face suddenly cleared. “What are you doing here, Harry?” she asked abruptly.
“I’m trying to ”” Harry’s words were cut off as Luna suddenly rose up in her coffin and grabbed him by the neck of his robes. He tried to scream as she dragged him with her into the casket, down, down, down into the blackness, until he felt quite sure he was dead. A hugely magnified version of Luna’s face appeared in the dark in front of him, asking over and over, “What are you doing here, Harry? What are you doing here, Harry?”
He heard Ron and Hermione’s voices calling out to him, from far away, but somehow he couldn’t see them. He turned back to Luna, and saw with a deep horror that her face had become the hideous, snakelike skull of Lord Voldemort, smiling down at him in the most ghastly way. Harry tried to run away, to escape, but now the darkness under his feet had transformed into the thick mud of a swamp that refused to let him move. Voldemort reached down with an arm that seemed to twist and writhe like a snake, and said, “I can touch him now!” He grabbed and pulled at Harry’s forehead, which promptly exploded in a burst of agony. Harry screamed...
Through watering eyes he saw Voldemort holding what looked like a reddish lightning bolt, just like his scar. As he watched, the scar turned into a large gold locket, which the Dark Lord pocketed with an evil grin. “Thank you so much for keeping this safe for me, Harry,” he said in his dangerous, sibilant voice.
Then there was a flash of green light, and Harry heard a cold, high laugh just as his forehead was ripped apart in another knife of blinding pain... He was screaming...
Harry wasn’t even aware when exactly he woke up, for he was still screaming, his scar on fire... He heard Ron and Hermione, sounding scared, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t answer... There was only pain, blinding pain twisting his body, like an electric shock coming from his scar; he couldn’t stop yelling, but above the screams Voldemort’s cold laughter still echoed in his head...
Finally, the pain subsided, and Harry opened his eyes, clutching at his forehead. Ron and Hermione were looking down at him worriedly, with Malfoy standing a little off to the side. “...Harry?” Hermione whispered uncertainly.
“Something’s happened,” Harry gasped as he sat up, still holding his throbbing scar. Hermione, Ron, and Malfoy involuntarily took a step back, but Harry didn’t care. “Something big has happened, big enough for him to forget Occlumency... He’s angry, really angry, and he ” I think he killed someone...” Harry didn’t know how he’d known that, but he had. Voldemort had just recklessly killed someone in his fury, and had temporarily forgotten about the link he and Harry shared. But only temporarily... Even as Harry spoke, the painful throbbing in his head eased to a dull ache, as if Voldemort had checked himself and quickly built back up his mind’s defenses. Within seconds, the pain was completely gone; the only traces it left was the sheen of sweat covering Harry’s body, and the vivid memory of the nightmare.
Harry wiped his forehead with his hand, then shakily stood and walked over to the fire, keeping his back to Ron, Hermione, and Malfoy. The dream had greatly unsettled him, and he wanted time to still his shuddering body and calm his wild eyes before facing them.
There was a brief silence behind him. Then Malfoy muttered, “I knew I shouldn’t have gone along with him, you’re all mental...”
“Oh, yes, Harry,” Hermione interrupted him, “you never told us what happened in Number Twelve, what with all the... well...”
“Didn’t tell us how you got hooked up with this git, either,” Ron snapped, glaring at Malfoy in obvious resentment at having been called mental.
Malfoy didn’t look too happy at having been called a git, either, but Harry didn’t give him a chance to argue. He was too happy to have something to take his mind off the dream. “Yeah, okay, come over here, and I’ll ” I’ll fill you in.”
They all gathered around the fire as Harry told Ron and Hermione his story. He told them everything, from his search of the house; to his discovery of Snape and Malfoy; to the revelation of Snape’s innocence; to Umbridge’s betrayal and Wormtail’s fulfilling of his debt; to his and Malfoy’s escape from the house.
When Harry got to the end of his story, there was silence for a moment. Then Hermione whispered, “Oh, poor Snape... We had no idea...”
“So he’s really dead, then?” Ron asked, astonished at what he obviously thought of as good news, no matter what Snape had done for the Potters. “There’s no spell, that could, you know... melt him or something?”
Harry glanced over at Malfoy, who shook his head slightly and mumbled, “No countercurse.” The seventeen-year-old’s mind was obviously elsewhere as he turned away from the three friends and stared back into the fire, retreating into his own thoughts.
Ron and Hermione were quiet as they digested Harry’s story. Finally, Harry broke the silence with a question that had been on his mind for some time now. “What happened to you four, once I went inside the house? Did the Death Eaters catch up with you right away, or ”?”
Hermione answered, “No. We did what you asked, at first, going around the block to try and see if anyone was there... When we met back up, in front of the house, they were all there, waiting for us. Neville told us he even caught sight of a pair of ” of red eyes... in a window. We were terrified...”
“So we ran,” Ron said, picking up on Hermione’s monologue. “We ran quite a bit, several streets down, I think, and ended up in that square.”
“They must have been waiting in the woods, because within seconds the werewolves and Inferi ringed the square,” Hermione said softly. “We were completely surrounded. They never even gave us a chance to recover... If you hadn’t come when you did, Harry, more of us would have died, so don’t you dare feel guilty about Luna.” Harry started; she knew him that well? “You did what you could.” Hermione took a deep, shivering breath. “We all miss her, Harry...”
Harry stuffed his hands in his pockets and stared down at the ground, so they couldn’t see his moist eyes. Instead of being empty, however, the pocket without his wand had something else inside it. He felt something hard, cold, and round. Oh, right, whatever it was that Snape shoved into my hand when I was climbing the ladder, Harry remembered suddenly. What could it be?...
He pulled out the large object, which seemed to be made of some sort of metal, and brought it closer to the firelight. His heart nearly stopped as he stared down at it, the most precious thing in the world at that moment, that had somehow ended up in his right pocket.
“Harry, are you okay?” Ron asked, pale eyebrows raised and pulled together in an anxious expression.
Harry wordlessly passed the object to Ron, who stared at it critically. Then, something inside his brain seemed to click, and he gaped down at his hand in astonishment. “Hermione ” come and have a look at what Harry had hidden in his pocket,” he gasped.
Wearing a puzzled expression on her face, Hermione drew closer to Ron and hung over his shoulder to get a closer look at whatever had the two boys dumbfounded. “Oh my,” she whispered, eyes wide. “Is that really...?”
Nestled comfortably in the palm of Ron’s hand was a large gold locket. The front was plainly decorated, but the center was embellished with the elaborate, writhing form of a snake, carefully etched in the shape of an “S.” The mark of Salazar Slytherin. It was heavy, solid gold... an exact replica of the locket Harry had described so many times.
“The Horcrux,” Hermione whispered in awe. “It’s the Horcrux, Harry.”
“Yeah, it is,” Harry said quietly.
Malfoy stood and came over to them, a glimmer of interest finally showing in his eyes. He leaned down over Ron and snatched the locket out of his limp hand. He then leaned against a nearby tree and surveyed the Horcrux with raised eyebrows. The other three watched him as he held it up to his ear, then shook it and futilely tried to break it open. Finally, the blond teenager sighed and held the locket out at arm’s length. “So this is a Horcrux. Doesn’t look like much to me.”
Harry snatched it back. “Yeah, well, believe me, it is. I can’t believe I’m actually holding it, after all we went through trying to find it... How ” and where ” did Snape get this?”
Malfoy shrugged. “He was poking around in that house long before you showed up. Explained about the Dark Lord’s Horcruxes and that he thought one might be hidden in there. The last place he looked was... um... some little cabinet or something, under the boiler... He never showed it to me, but that must have been where he found it.”
Harry mentally pumped his fist in triumph. I was right! I was right, Kreacher did take the locket to his hideout when Sirius tried to throw it away! Oh, thank you, Kreacher, thank you so much! In that instant, Harry felt a surge of gratitude for the venomous old house-elf, despite his betrayal of Sirius.
After several minutes the gold locket had been passed around again and was now lying in the center of their little group. They all stared down at it, as if willing it to open and release the shred of soul still locked inside it.
Ron finally broke the silence. “So... here we are again. I bet this one can’t be burnt or blasted apart.”
“No,” said Harry quietly.
Once again, silence reigned. Then, Ron picked the locket up and turned it over, scrutinizing it carefully. The others all shifted to watch him. After a few moments: “What’s this!” he exclaimed suddenly, pressing something on the side of the locket with his nail. There was an almost inaudible clicking sound. The next second, they all jumped back and Ron quickly dropped the Horcrux as a small gold panel on it moved aside with a whirring noise.
They stared down at it. “What did you do, Ron?” Harry whispered.
Ron looked frightened. “I ” I just found a button on the side...” he stammered. “I pushed it and ” I dunno, it just seemed to ” open up, or something...”
Malfoy bent down and picked up the locket, which wasn’t even scratched after its rough handling. He looked closely at it, then took on an expression of utmost disbelief. “Why, I do think you’ve actually done something clever for once, Weasley,” he declared, tossing the Horcrux across the circle to Harry. Ron seemed to be having trouble deciding whether to take Malfoy’s words as a compliment or an insult.
Harry caught the locket and inspected it carefully. He easily saw what Ron had done: the gold panel had shifted to reveal a tiny, oddly-shaped hole. It was a miniscule oval, with short, thin holes branching away from the main oval. Harry recognized it at once, although it looked distinctly unorthodox. It almost reminded him of something else, though he wasn’t sure what... “It’s a keyhole,” he murmured.
“A key?” Hermione said, looking a bit puzzled. “But... why would V-Voldemort put in a lock, even a keyhole, for one of his Horcruxes? Wouldn’t that just make it easier for someone else to open it?”
“Not if they don’t have the right key,” Malfoy put in. “This probably used to look like an ordinary lock. I expect the Dark Lord hid it behind the gold panel, then magically reconfigured it so that only something he owns would fit inside.”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione all stared at him in amazement. He shrugged self-consciously. “I used to know a wizard who liked to break into muggle houses. He said he loved messing with the locks to confuse the muggles. Apparently he got a real kick out of it when they couldn’t enter their own houses. I think he’s dead now,” he added off-handedly.
“Well,” Harry said, bouncing the Horcrux on his palm, “looks like we’ve hit another dead end. No wonder Regulus couldn’t destroy it before he died.”
There was silence. Then, deciding to humor the idea that they might be able to get ahold of the answer, Harry mused out loud, “What would Voldemort use for a key, anyway?”
“It has to be something that he has with him all the time,” Hermione said thoughtfully. “Otherwise, if he left it somewhere and somebody found it, they would be able to open the locket. And I doubt he’d be that careless.”
“Maybe it’s his snake!” Ron exclaimed, looking excited. The others turned to look at him doubtfully. “No, listen ” the snake can defend itself, and he could just use one of its fangs to open the ””
“And I suppose you’ve taken it into consideration that this lock has sections branching away from it?” Malfoy interrupted, with a mocking sneer on his face. “Last time I checked, fangs are smooth, Weasley. And how would the Dark Lord be able to use one of her fangs, anyway? I don’t think snakes have detachable parts.”
Ron visibly wilted at this put-down of what he had obviously considered a good idea. Hermione was still deep in thought. “Something he always has on him...” she mumbled to herself. A moment later, her head snapped up. “How about part of his wand?” she suggested.
“What?” Malfoy looked at her as though she were insane. “Don’t be stupid, Granger! Like I just told Weasley, the lock has holes branching away from it; a wand is smooth, in case you didn’t know. How a wand could fit in such an odd hole isn’t ””
Hermione’s face took on a very aloof expression, and she snapped, “I wasn’t asking for your opinion, Malfoy. Why don’t you let me explain my idea before jumping down my throat?”
Harry and Ron looked at each other, surprised. Malfoy looked positively stunned. It occurred to Harry that this was probably the first time that someone whom he considered of lower rank had talked back to him. “You ” now ” don’t ”” he sputtered, then fell silent and just sat glowering at Hermione with his arms crossed.
Hermione stared at him coldly, one eyebrow arched, as if daring him to continue. Finally, she said, “I don’t think that Voldemort ever planned to have to open the locket; after all, that would be the end of his plans for immortality, by sevens at any rate. So it doesn’t have to just be the tip of the wand, which anybody could get to. I’m no expert at wand-making, but I do know that there’s only one part of the wand that matters so much that it’s hidden out of sight ” and reach, for any who might want to steal it.”
Ron sighed in an exaggerated way. “Yeah, the core. We know that, Hermione. Ollivander always goes on and on about the cores: unicorn hair, dragon heartstring, phoenix feather, blah blah blah...”
“Yeah, the core...” Harry frowned. “He’s got a phoenix feather, just like I have. But how could that be of any use? Unless...” Understanding suddenly dawned on him, and he realized what it was that the shape of the lock reminded him of. A feather... Voldemort’s key is the feather inside his wand. But how am I supposed to get it? I have no chance of getting his wand...
While he was thinking about this new dilemma, Hermione filled in the others about the same thing he had just realized. “It is the feather, Ron... the phoenix tail feather he has for the core of his wand, that’s the key. It has to be! Just think about it ” Voldemort keeps his wand on him at all times, there’s no way anyone could steal it. And anyway, I’m sure wands have some sort of charm on them so that they can’t be broken apart in an unnatural way. No one would ever be able to get to the key if it was hidden in the center of his wand. A feather also would be able to fit perfectly in those irregular holes that branch away...”
“So, let me get this straight,” Malfoy interrupted, apparently recovered enough from Hermione’s blow to his dignity to manage a sneer. “The Dark Lord used a fluffy red feather as a key for a piece of his soul. That’s absolutely brilliant, Granger. I have no idea how you do it. I assume you’ve also taken into account the fact that nobody could ever get a feather stiff enough to push against the gears inside a lock?”
Hermione actually blushed at this. She bit her lip and looked away from Malfoy and the others.
Harry felt himself growing angry at Malfoy’s continued use of sarcasm. “Look, Malfoy,” he snapped in irritation, “if you never wanted to stick around with us anyway, why don’t you just leave us alone? We’ve got enough problems without you putting us down all the time. In case you haven’t noticed, we have things to do, and your comments aren’t helping anyone.”
Malfoy looked down at the ground and whispered, his voice small and unusually quiet, “...I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
That one sentence brought about such a deep silence that all they could hear was the crackling of their fire and the chirping of several crickets. Harry wasn’t sure anyone would be able to break the silence. So, after a few moments, he decided to do it for them. Looking around, he noticed an unimportant, yet somehow significant thing to tell them.
“The sun is rising.”
They all looked up at once, just in time to see a beautiful finger of pinkish-orange light stretch up over the tops of the trees that surrounded them. It illuminated the entire clearing, and seemed to stretch and grow until the sky was a brilliant tapestry of light and color. As the four teenagers stared up at it, a bit of tension seemed to leak out of their party. The magnificent sunrise, a sign of the new day, made it feel as if the events of the former day had never come about; they felt like nothing more than a bad dream.
But the absence of Luna and Neville was the one thing that could not be forgotten.
When the sky had finally returned to a pale blue streaked with color, Harry finally tore his eyes away and sighed. Ron, Hermione, and Malfoy, all looked at him. “So... what do we do, Harry?” Hermione asked quietly.
Harry thought through their options for a moment, then looked up at them decidedly. “Well, if we don’t know what to do about the Horcrux, we may as well find some member of the Order, to ask for help.” Another thought suddenly occurred to him. “We should warn them about the Fourth Curse, too. They have no idea about its existence.”
“But who can we find?” Ron put in. “I mean, it’s not like members of the Order are milling all over the place, especially after Dumbledore’s death. Where would we find someone? We don’t know where any of them are.”
Harry frowned. “No, we don’t...”
“Brilliant,” Malfoy muttered sourly. He looked like he was still sulking over Harry’s putting him in his place. “Just brilliant...”
Hermione made a small sound of disbelief, and when they all turned to stare at her, she rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes we do, Ronald,” she said condescendingly. “We know exactly where at least one is. Have you forgotten about Professor Lupin? And I’m quite sure that Tonks will have put herself somewhere close by. That’s two whose location we know about.”
There was a shocked silence. Then Ron mumbled, “You know, he’s not a ‘professor’ anymore, Hermione.”
She waved the comment aside with one hand. “Yes, well, it’s a sort of habit. I could never get used to saying his name without it.” She glanced at Harry with the most smug look on her face.
Harry stared into the dying embers of their fire. Of course! Lupin, how could I have been so thick? He’s stationed with the werewolves! And she’s right, Tonks is bound to have positioned herself as close to their hiding place as she could, to be with him... But then where are the werewolves?...
“Remus Lupin,” Malfoy said scornfully. But there was an odd expression on his face that Harry noticed, even through the scorn. “He’s hidden with the Dark Lord’s werewolves? What’s he doing, spying on them?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Harry answered. not really paying attention to Malfoy. He had a bigger problem to deal with than Malfoy’s skepticism. How on earth were they going to find the werewolves?
“Huh.” Malfoy made a somewhat impressed face. “Well, I can say one thing for your side ” you might be slow, but at least you’re brave.”
Ron scowled at him. “Unlike some people we know.”
Malfoy’s mouth dropped open, and he shot Ron a death-glare that Ron wisely decided to ignore.
Hermione looked at Malfoy thoughtfully. “There’s something I’m trying to understand about you, Malfoy,” she declared suddenly. “Why is it that you’re traveling with us, helping us kill werewolves and Inferi and whatnot, yet you refer to the Order as ‘your side’? What side, exactly, do you consider yourself on, Malfoy?”
Malfoy didn’t answer, and nobody else seemed to want to fill the silence. They sat, together yet at the same time completely alone, for a long time. Harry thought that they had been having these kinds of silences an awful lot recently.
Then, at last, Malfoy spoke. “I know none of you trust me, and I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t trust me if I were in your places. But ” if it means anything to you ” I know where the Dark Lord has been rallying his werewolves. And I can lead you to them.”
There was a shocked silence. Then Ron burst out, “Why didn’t you tell us this before? It would have saved us hours of speculation, and we’d have been well on our way by now ””
“Ron,” Harry interrupted quickly. He bit his lip in thought, then motioned toward Ron and Hermione. “You two, could you come over here for a minute?”
They gathered in a small huddle a few meters from the campfire and Malfoy. “What d’you think he’s up to?” Ron whispered, jerking his head in Malfoy’s direction. “Why didn’t he tell us about that a long time ago?”
“Remember what he said about us not trusting him, Ron?” Hermione whispered back. “I think it was the same way with him. He didn’t trust us at all, either. I mean, six years of fighting him won’t rub off easily.”
Harry nodded. His thoughts exactly.
“So, should we trust him?” he asked quietly.
They all poked their heads out of their little huddle and watched Malfoy. He was now listlessly making a little hut of sticks on the ground, the picture of boredom. The three friends quickly looked away again.
“I don’t see why we shouldn’t,” Hermione said. “Like he said himself, there’s no way he can go back to Voldemort. Even if he delivered us straight into his hands, that won’t stop Voldemort from killing him anyway. He has nothing to gain by going back.”
Harry noticed that every time Hermione said the Dark Lord’s name, Ron cringed noticeably. “Aren’t you ever going to get used to that?” he asked.
Ron started guiltily, then shrugged and made a ‘so what if I don’t?’ face. He abruptly changed the subject. “We’re following him, then?”
“May as well. We haven’t got any other way to find Lupin and Tonks.”
They wordlessly adjourned their little meeting and walked back over to Malfoy, who stopped his building project and looked up at them expectantly.
“Bring us to the werewolves, Malfoy,” Harry commanded. “None of us can do anything before finding them anyway, and we’ve decided to trust you. So please help us find them.”
“If you can,” Ron butted in rudely.
“After all, that’s the only way you’ll be able to hide out with the Order, isn’t it? Tonks and Lupin are the only contact any of us have with them.”
Harry and Ron turned to stare at Hermione in amazement, but she was looking straight at Malfoy. “That’s why you offered, isn’t it? You don’t want to be alone forever.”
Malfoy wouldn’t meet her eyes, and he shifted uncomfortably on the hard ground. “I don’t know what I want,” he murmured.
Harry remembered the strange, almost hopeful look that he’d seen on Malfoy’s face when he’d spoken about Lupin. So that’s it... He wants to take Dumbledore up on his last offer... To hide with the Order.
He abruptly made up his mind and walked forward, stopping almost right on top of their campfire. He kicked a small pile of dirt on top of it, snuffing out the flames. Malfoy scrambled to his feet and stared at Harry with wide eyes.
“Well, Malfoy,” Harry said briskly, rubbing his hands together, “if you’re sure...” He waved toward the surrounding trees. “After you.”
Harry Potter and the Seventh Soul by PadfootBaby
Chapter Notes: Sorry that updates have been so long. But here it is, at last... Chapter 21! Enjoy!!