In a small, unpopulated place somewhere north of London, there stood a dark, dense forest. The closest villages were many miles away, for it was said that the forest was haunted. Nearby towns buzzed with gossip and speculation about what lay among those mist-shrouded trees. Every once in a while, some lone traveler would come bursting into a tavern with wild tales about monsters and great hulking beasts the size of bears that had been seen on the fringe of the woods. Folks scoffed at such fish stories, viewing them merely as a source of great entertainment.
But then, every once in a while, there could be heard bone-chilling howls and ghostly moans coming out from the forest, and all doubt would immediately be a thing of the past. Some villagers who dared to go past the forest at such times came back confirming the traveler’s wild stories. There was something in the woods, something monstrous, something... inhuman.
They hadn’t been “haunted” for long, however. It was just a few years ago that the noises had started. But no one could explain why.
A series of hills overlooked the forest, but since these hills were so close to the trees, they were also considered haunted. So nobody ever went near them, either.
Nobody except the cloaked figure who crept to the top of the hill and peered around at the surrounding forest. After making absolutely certain that no one was there, the figure beckoned back to three more hooded people who crouched behind him.
“Come on, hurry up,” Draco Malfoy hissed as Harry, Ron, and Hermione stealthily descended the hill and crept after him. “The coast is clear, but we’ve got to get out of the open as quickly as possible. I don’t want us to run into a sentry...”
At this new, unpleasant piece of information, Harry looked around anxiously. The last thing he wanted was to get into a fight with another pack of werewolves. They had already lost Luna ” how many more would be sacrificed before the end finally came? Harry wished now more than ever that Ron and Hermione hadn’t insisted on coming along with him, as he walked after Malfoy into the lion’s den.
They reached a line of tall, scrawny-looking trees and, at Malfoy’s urging, slipped between them. They had finally arrived in the forest, and Harry privately thought it a very unpleasant sort of place. The grass and weeds that sprung up beneath their feet were a sickly shade of greenish-brown. None of the trees looked healthy, either. And to top it all off, there were no signs of animals anywhere, or any living things at all besides the four teenagers. There was no chirping of birds, or sounds of creatures scurrying through the grass, or even ” as Ron gratefully pointed out ” spiders.
“The place is dead,” Harry whispered, half-rising from his crouched position to have a look round.
“We’re dead if you don’t keep out of sight!” Malfoy whispered harshly, urgently. “We’re almost to their camp, and it wouldn’t do if we were caught now, when we’re so close!”
“You think I’d let myself get caught now?” Harry whispered back angrily. “If I wanted to get myself killed, I’ve had hundreds of chances before now to do it. I could have let them catch me years ago and been done with it. I’m not about to ruin everything Dumbledore and countless others have worked for now, you idiot!”
“Who, me?” Malfoy said incredulously, voice rising to match the heat in Harry’s voice. “I wasn’t the one who had to go back to rescue his stupid friends, when it would have been better to just leave them and finish this on your own! You call me idiot, but it’s you who fits that description, you’ve never known when to do what’s necessary ””
Harry’s pent-up anger and frustration flared. “Wha ””
“You’re both idiots!”
Harry and Malfoy turned to stare in surprise at Hermione, who glared fiercely at each of them, hands on her hips. “Neither of you will stop fighting, even when we’re in danger of being discovered at any moment,” Hermione snapped. “You tell us to be quiet, but it’s you two who are making the most noise! I know this is difficult, Harry, it’s difficult for all of us! But you two have to get past this and grow up, and soon, otherwise we will be caught and Voldemort will not be stopped! Do you want that to happen? Harry? Malfoy?”
Ron looked nervously from Hermione to Harry and Malfoy. He obviously didn’t want to get mixed up in the argument ” especially if Hermione’s temper was involved. “Um...”
She immediately rounded on him. “WHAT?”
He shrank back, eyes wide, and stammered, “Uh, well, aren’t we supposed to be looking for these werewolves? I mean, um, we’re not getting anywhere with you yelling at Harry and Malfoy either ””
Hermione seemed to shrink before their eyes. She raised her eyebrows as she closed her lids, assuming a lofty expression while she straightened her robes. “Right,” she said briskly. “Then let’s go!”
The three boys stared at her as she turned and walked away from them, raising her head high and not looking back to see if they were following. She quickly disappeared into the surrounding trees. All was quiet for a moment.
“She doesn’t even know where she’s going,” Malfoy muttered eventually. “She’ll be right back here in about five seconds, looking embarrassed ””
“Hermione? Embarrassed? No way,” Ron answered, half-grinning. “I reckon she’ll just ””
A gasp suddenly came from the bushes behind which Hermione had disappeared. She burst back into the little clearing they were gathered in. She looked distinctly frazzled, with her hair sticking up all over her head like a frightened cat, her eyes wide. “Oh my God, Harry, Ron, Malfoy, you had better come with me and see this, quick!” she said in a rush of words. “Oh my, I’ll bet you weren’t expecting this...” She turned and raced back through the bushes.
Harry, Malfoy, and Ron looked at each other for a moment, startled, then spun to chase after Hermione.
“Hermione ” ow! ” where are you going?” Harry whispered harshly, tearing his robes away from a cluster of spiky, dead branches. She could have picked a better way to get through these stupid things! he thought, growling as yet another bush grabbed at him. Beside him, Ron and Malfoy seemed to be having just as bad a time of it as he was.
Finally, though, they could see Hermione’s bushy thatch of hair up ahead. “Hermione!” Harry panted, tearing several twigs and leaves out of his tangled hair. “What are you ””
“Shhh!” she shushed them, suddenly quiet. She crouched down behind a line of crowded shrubs and motioned for them to join her. As they crept closer, she tilted her head in the direction of the shrubs and mouthed, “Look down there!”
Harry flattened his body against the sickly bushes and peered over, as did Ron and Malfoy. They were at the top of a sloping hill that led down to a large, tree-surrounded clearing. And there, encamped in the clearing, were...
“Oh, crap,” Ron whispered.
Werewolves. Hundreds of them. They were all gathering in this one spot. Several crouched around blazing fires that seemed in danger of making the entire forest go up in flames with every spark that flew. They were clustered together in groups of five, ten, twenty... There was no end to them. Werewolves sleeping, werewolves gnawing on what looked horribly like piles of flesh-covered bones, werewolves whispering together... And Harry could tell that they were all werewolves, even though they were in their human forms, because not one of them had the kind, human characteristics of Remus Lupin. They all had savage-looking faces, they wore barely any clothing, and they had obviously never learned any human manners.
Harry heard Malfoy swear softly beside him. He shifted a bit to look at the blond-haired teenager. “I had no idea... there were this many,” he whispered. “I had no idea... They talked about ‘rallying the werewolves’ all the time, but I didn’t have any idea that they really meant... There are hundreds of them,” he finished, horrified.
“Harry, look,” Ron suddenly whispered loudly, ashen-faced. He was pointing at something over Harry’s left shoulder, beyond their hiding place. “D’you think... You don’t suppose... that’s Fenrir Greyback?”
Harry abruptly twisted his head around to see. And there, walking around the clearing, looking over the other wolves, was ” “It is,” Harry said quietly. “It’s him.”
Fenrir Greyback. Harry would never forget his face in a million years. He could never forget the face of the werewolf who had taunted Albus Dumbledore up on the Astronomy Tower, who had savagely torn apart Bill Weasley’s face... who, it was rumored, had been commissioned by Voldemort himself to gather all the human-hating werewolves he could find.
Fenrir was strolling casually around the camp, speaking softly to his troops ” for that’s what they were, Harry realized with a growing dread. These werewolves were killers. They had all been shunned by “normal” humans, and they would all want revenge. “It’s so perfect,” Harry thought aloud. “He’s found the perfect creatures to terrorize the wizards. And they’re all gathered here, in this one place, ready to jump up whenever Voldemort gives the command...”
Malfoy cursed again. “Those idiots... What do they think they’ll gain by joining him? It’s not like they’ll actually get what the Dark Lord’s promised them; after they’ve done what he wants, he’ll just... dispose of them. Like he does with all his followers. Like Snape... He doesn’t care about any of them, he’s just doing ‘what’s necessary’ to get what he wants...”
“Yeah, well, I think you’re the first to realize that,” Harry murmured. Looking down on the camp, he added, “I feel kind of sorry for them, actually. They’re so desperate for revenge, to be equal with the wizards, that they’ll blindly follow anyone who promises them those things. No wonder Lupin’s been trying so hard to get them to go back ””
Lupin! Harry had almost forgotten about their real purpose for having found these minions of Voldemort. “We had better find him, and fast,” Harry whispered. He looked up at the sky. “I wonder if it’s a full moon tonight?”
“If it is, we have to get out of here as soon as possible,” Malfoy said. “The last thing we want is to be caught by a werewolf who’s temporarily taken leave of his brain.”
“Right,” Harry agreed.
They turned around and began to make their way back through the trees. They crawled in single file, with Draco in the front, then Hermione, Ron, and finally Harry. So Harry, being at the back, wasn’t expecting it when Ron suddenly stopped, and walked right into him.
“Ouch!” Harry gasped. “Ron, what’d you stop for? What’s going on?”
“I dunno,” Ron answered, “but Hermione stopped walking too, and she isn’t sure why either. I think Malfoy’s stopped up front. The bushes are too thick, I can’t even get round them to see what’s happened to Malfoy.”
“Great, and I can’t even shout at him so close to the werewolf camp, “ Harry muttered waspishly. After a moment’s indecision, he thought, Well, I may as well try and get around Ron and Hermione to Malfoy, long as he’s not walking...
He was just about to wedge himself between two prickly holly bushes when Ron said, “Hang on, Harry, Malfoy’s finally decided to spill it... Okay. Uh, Hermione says that Malfoy says that he stopped because he saw ” a cottage?” Ron half-turned and frowned puzzledly at the mossy ground. “Hmm,” he said. “That can’t be right. I must’ve heard wrong; there’s no way a cottage would be all the way out here...”
A cottage...? Ah! A cottage! Yes! Harry’s heart leapt for joy. Where Lupin is, there will Tonks be also! “Malfoy!” he called up front, abandoning all secrecy. “Malfoy, head ”” He abruptly pushed past Ron and Hermione with a few muttered “excuse me’s”, until he was right behind Malfoy, who was staring somewhere a little off to his right. “Malfoy,” Harry panted. Malfoy turned his head to show he was listening. “Head for that cottage.”
“What?” Malfoy started. “You want me ” aren’t we supposed to be avoiding people who might get nosy on us?”
“Yeah, but this is different,” Harry said hurriedly. “I’ll bet you a Knut to a Galleon that it’s Tonks in that cottage.”
“Who?”
“Tonks, Nymphadora Tonks!” a disgruntled-sounding Ron called. “You know, girlfriend to werewolves, weird pink hair, may be subject to change at any moment...”
“Ron!” Hermione scolded him. “Don’t be so mean!”
“She’s a member of the Order, in love with Lupin, and probably trying to stay as close by him as she can,” Harry said quickly. “She’ll be our best contact with Lupin; we could really use her help, too. So if she’s in there ””
“But what if she isn’t?” Malfoy asked, voicing the question that had been echoing in each of their heads. “What if it’s a couple of Death Eaters in there instead? Then we’ll all be dead; me for being a deserter, and you because... well... because you’re you.”
“Well, we have to try,” Harry said quietly.
They were all silent for a moment. The trees around them rustled in a light wind, making the only audible movement in the surrounding woods.
Finally, Malfoy took a deep breath. “Let’s get going, then.”
A minute later, the four struggled free of the prickly straightjacket of bushes. They all gasped as they came out into a small clearing, mercifully free of vegetation of any kind. “Thank God!” Ron gasped as he pulled several leaves out of his red hair. “I thought we’d never get out of there.”
“Yeah, we got out,” Malfoy said glumly, “but it looks like we’ve jumped out of the frying pan and right into the fire.” He pointed at the door of the little cottage, which had been built in the exact center of the clearing.
Standing in the doorway was a hooded figure brandishing a wand, which was pointed... directly at them.
Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Malfoy sat in four chairs inside the cottage, held hostage at wand-point while the hooded person interrogated them pitilessly.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded in a deep, angry voice.
“We were just passing through,” Harry answered nervously. “We ” er ” we’re looking for my ””
“Uncle,” Hermione put in helpfully. “We’re looking for his uncle, he lives somewhere around here, and, um, we got lost in the woods...”
The hooded stranger turned to look at Harry. “You. You’re Harry Potter, aren’t you? I can see your scar.” The wand rose to point at Harry’s forehead.
“Uh...” Harry glanced over to the others, mentally screaming, Guys, help me out, please! “I ””
“The Dark Lord is very displeased with you,” the figure added menacingly. “He’s been looking for you. Harry Potter.”
Harry’s heart plummeted into the pit of his stomach, and as he stared into the blackness of the person’s hood, his mental cries abruptly changed tact. Ron, Hermione, Malfoy, run! I don’t care what this guy does to me, just get away as fast as you can!
The person leaned closer to Harry. “In that case, I have just one thing to say to you.” The voice sounded slightly different now, familiar, almost...
Harry watched, petrified, as the figure reached up with one slender hand to pull back the hood... to reveal a familiar, grinning, heart-shaped face, surrounded by a shock of bristling pink hair.
“Wotcher, Harry!”
“Damn it, Tonks,” Harry gasped, pressing one hand to his chest in a futile attempt to return to his wildly pounding heart to normal. “What’d you have to do that for?”
“Sorry,” Nymphadora Tonks said, grinning. “Just wanted to have a bit of fun, that’s all. You haven’t any idea how dreadfully dull it is, sitting around in here day after day. Did I really scare you that bad?”
“Yeah, you could say that,” Ron muttered. His face was white as a sheet. Next to him, Hermione was making an exasperated face, and Malfoy was gaping at Tonks with his jaw halfway down to the floor.
“So.” Tonks’s face took on a serious expression as she took in their battered bodies and torn robes. Harry could just imagine how they must look. “What’s up?”
They had soon told Tonks everything. Harry explained almost everything, starting at the strange old woman at Godric’s Hollow, through Snape’s innocence, their Horcrux hunting, and Luna’s death, all the way up to Malfoy’s leading them to the werewolves. He kept Ginny’s death to himself; he didn’t feel he could take another blow-by-blow account of the Death Eaters’ attack on the Burrow. But as Harry spoke, he was struck by how much they had actually accomplished in that short time. Three of the six Horcruxes had been destroyed, and the fourth rested in the bottom of Harry’s robes pocket. He had lost two great friends, one loyal professor, and one terrible enemy. But there was still so much that they had to do...
When their tale was finished, Tonks sat back in her hard chair and silently stared at them. The cottage she had been hiding in was very small, and allowed just enough room for four chairs, a small table, and a cot-like bed in the corner. Even so, it was horribly cramped.
Tonks continued to stare at the four, only breaking her silence to say, “Well. You have been busy, haven’t you.”
It wasn’t a question. Harry felt unreasonably tense.
“So, why are you here, exactly?” Tonks asked slowly.
All four of them started. Of course! Harry quickly drew the half-opened Horcrux, Slytherin’s locket, out of his pocket and showed it to Tonks. “We, erm, needed a bit of help,” he said quietly. “Opening this. It’s another one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes, and it’s sort of hard... We figured that the key” ” he pointed out the small lock ” “might actually be the phoenix feather inside his wand, but we don’t have any idea how to get ahold of it. We thought Lupin might be able to help us...”
“Wow,” Tonks breathed, staring at the dangling locket in awe. “So that’s really... Wow.” She looked up at Harry and grinned. “Wicked. Can I have a look at it?”
Harry handed it over. Tonks was examining it when Malfoy leaned over to Harry and whispered, “So, what’s up with her hair?”
“She’s a Metamorphmagus,” he whispered back.
“A what?”
Tonks suddenly looked up, and Harry immediately knew that she had heard them. Malfoy glanced at her just in time to see her hair grow longer and become a shade of blond close to Malfoy’s own hair color. She winked at the dumbfounded teenager. “A Metamorphmagus,” she explained, grinning widely as she allowed her hair to return to its spiky pink style. “I can change anything about myself, any of my looks, whenever I want.”
“I see,” Malfoy said faintly.
Tonks grinned again, then went back to her studying of the locket.
They were all quiet again. And so, no one was expecting it when the door clicked open and someone entered the little house. Tonks raised her head, and the four seventeen-year-olds spun round in their chairs.
A familiar, lightly scarred, and tired-looking face with pale eyes stared down at them. “Oh,” said a very surprised Remus Lupin.
Ten minutes later, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Malfoy’s tale had once again been told, this time to the astonished Lupin. Tonks wordlessly passed the large gold locket to him when Harry explained what had happened to Snape. Hermione went over her theory that Voldemort’s phoenix feather opened the Horcrux, and Lupin stopped them there. He stared at the tiny keyhole in the side of the locket, inspecting it from all angles.
“Well,” he said at last, “that’s the only thing I can think of that would fit in there. Excellent detective work, Hermione. I always did say you were uncommonly bright...”
Hermione beamed, and Harry got an overwhelming feeling of déjá vu. “So, uh, how am I supposed to open it?” he asked quickly. “I haven’t got Voldemort’s wand, and there’s no way I could get it. Would any phoenix feather do?”
“Hmm,” Lupin pondered the idea. “Well. That is an idea, except every ” didn’t you ever pay attention in Care of Magical Creatures class?”
“Yeah, well, Hagrid never really thought to teach us about any creatures that had nothing dangerous about them,” Harry countered.
Ron sniggered.
Lupin continued as if he hadn’t heard. “You see, each phoenix has a different ” er ” pattern of feathers. Each has a completely unique sort of feather, so you wouldn’t be able to get another feather besides the one in You-Know-Who’s wand unless it came from the same phoenix...”
“How the bloody hell do you know about all that?” Ron demanded.
Lupin shrugged, then grinned. He tapped his forehead. “Guess it’s just one of the few things I learned at school and never completely forgot.”
Beside Harry, Hermione sat bolt upright, staring into space. Then she turned to Harry and snapped, “Harry, get out your wand.”
“What?”
“Just do it.” She frowned down her nose at him.
Mystified, Harry pulled his slightly battered wand out of his pocket and handed it to Hermione, who impatiently snatched it out of his hand. She then proffered it to Lupin, who took it, looking just as puzzled as Harry.
“Look,” Hermione ordered. “He’s got a phoenix feather in there, you know. From the same phoenix as Voldemort. Dumbledore’s phoenix, actually, Fawkes. Would that work?”
Harry’s jaw dropped. How did she do that? He suddenly felt very stupid”to think that Hermione had realized the truth about his own wand before he himself had! He had a feeling that she’d shot up in Lupin’s favor from “uncommonly bright” to the rank of “brilliant,” or perhaps even “genius.”
But Lupin didn’t praise her again. He just raised two surprised eyebrows and inspected the wand even more closely, muttering, “Hmm...Yes, that might work...” He looked at Harry seriously. “But, Harry, you must understand.” He lifted his free index finger and a strange, almost woeful expression momentarily flitted across his face. “If we were to try that, we would have to operate on your wand. Do you still want to take that chance, knowing that it might not even work?”
My wand... How would he even survive the next few weeks without his wand? But if he didn’t take it apart... the Horcrux could never be destroyed. And I can’t do that... I can’t let that happen.
“I have no choice,” Harry whispered.
There was silence as Lupin placed the wand on a small coffee table that stood between him and Tonks and Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Malfoy.
No one said a word. Harry got the uncomfortable, depressed feeling of being at a funeral, and Tonks began the eulogy of his wand by cracking a grin and saying, “Hey, Harry. You remember when Moody told you not to put your wand in your back pocket? ‘Better wizards than you have lost buttocks, you know,’ he said.” She involuntarily let out a little snort of laughter.
“Yeah...” In spite of himself, Harry grinned slightly. Trust Tonks to think about something like that at a time like this. “Yeah, I remember.”
Ron, who had seemed to be falling asleep in his chair, suddenly perked up and looked interestedly at Tonks. “When was that?”
“Oh, when we went to get Harry from his aunt and uncle’s, two years ago,” Tonks explained.
There was quiet again. Then Harry sighed, “Let’s just do it.” He felt filled with dread, unsure of what would happen once the wand was taken apart. About the breaking of the wand itself, he had mixed feelings. He had been through so much with the little wooden stick; now it pained him to part with it for good.
Lupin crouched down over the wand and paused thoughtfully. “I can’t think of quite the right spell to do this; magic could irreversibly damage the feather anyway. Should I do it manually...?”
The question was mainly directed at Tonks, who shrugged and then nodded. “I think that would be the best way to do it. But then, I’ve never dissected a wand before... Can I do it?” she added, grinning.
The corners of Lupin’s mouth quirked in a brief smile, but his face quickly went serious again. He nodded and stepped aside. Tonks then took his place and pulled a small knife out of her pocket; and, with five pairs of eyes on her, she methodically began to whittle away at the tip of the wand. Tiny black shavings were soon falling all over the tabletop.
As he watched, Harry felt as though a piece of himself were being blown to bits. The wand had been at his side for so long, it had become a natural extension of his arm. And now that extension was slowly being sawed off. He immediately felt stupid for feeling that way about it, and forced himself to watch, blank-faced, as yet more shavings fell from Tonks’s knife.
Harry suddenly felt a slight pressure on his shoulder, and he started. Just behind him, Hermione was looking at him with a soft expression in her eyes, touching his shoulder ” comforting him? ” as if she knew what he was thinking.
But how could she possibly understand? It was a completely irrational feeling; he didn’t know what could be the matter with him. But still...
First his right hand, now this? What more could he possibly lose?
Don’t even think that! he angrily told himself, glancing back at Ron and Hermione. There’s still far too much that you can lose... Don’t ever think that again! There’s always more...
Malfoy, who sat behind Ron, seemed to have been caught off-guard by something. The whole time they’d been inside the cottage, he had barely spoken at all, and just looked about himself with wide eyes while the others discussed Horcruxes. Now, though, he was staring fixedly at Tonks and Lupin.
Lupin was the first to feel uneasy about it, and after a few minutes of watching Tonks chip away at the wand, he beckoned Harry to the side. “Harry, can I talk to you for a second?” he murmured.
“Sure,” Harry said, surprised.
Lupin led him to a small corner opposite the room from the others and spoke in a low voice. “Harry, I’ve been wanting to ask you for a while now, but ” why did you bring him along with you? That boy Draco Malfoy? I know you’ve always hated him... And are you sure we can trust him? He won’t go telling all of this to You-Know-Who?”
Harry slowly nodded. “I’m sure. He can be trusted. I thought that too, Lupin, at least at first, but he’s been through a lot.”
He still looked slightly skeptical. “So you just felt sorry for him?”
“Yeah, I guess that was part of...” Harry bit his lip, then added quietly, “He’s changed, somehow. I can’t explain it exactly. Sometimes he’s still the same prat, Draco Malfoy, who’s been enemies with me for seven years. But then, once in a while... There is something different about him now.”
Lupin stared at him. “That’s another thing, Harry,” he said slowly. “There’s something different about you, too. I noticed it before. Something... Has something happened, Harry?”
Harry immediately knew what Lupin saw in his eyes, and he looked at the ground to fight back the beginnings of tears. “Um... Ginny. Before all this Horcrux stuff began. There was a fire... the Death Eaters... She... didn’t make it.” He couldn’t help it; his voice choked on the last sentence.
Lupin breathed in sharply. Harry knew he hadn’t been expecting that. “I ”” he began, then seemed to think better of it. He rested a hand on Harry’s shoulder and said quietly, “I’m sorry, Harry. I know how much she meant to you...”
“Yeah, well...” Harry shrugged, trying to seem indifferent, while the wounds in his heart began to bleed afresh.
But Lupin wasn’t fooled; and although he said nothing more about it, his sharp gray eyes saw everything. He cleared his throat after an awkward moment of quiet, and said, “You know, Harry... Everything you’ve done, everything you’re doing... It’s just... I’m sure your father would be proud. And Sirius, too. I know they’re both very proud of all you’ve been able to do.”
A lump grew in Harry’s throat. He suddenly couldn’t breathe. As he forced air through his lungs, he could tell that Lupin was having a hard time of this as well. “Thanks,” Harry whispered hoarsely. He could say nothing else, after that, and with Lupin still gripping his shoulder, white-knuckled, he walked back across the room to rejoin the others.
Ron and Hermione stared at the two of them as they came back to the group. Hermione bit her lip and nervously twisted a section of curly hair with two fingers as she watched Harry take his seat again. Ron frowned as he looked from Harry, to Lupin, who was pale as a ghost and had his jaw set in stone.
Malfoy, however, just stared unblinkingly at the still-working Tonks. Thus, he was the only one to see the exact moment when Tonks set down her knife and carefully prized a long, shining red feather out of the wand’s hollow core. “Got it!” she announced triumphantly, holding out the delicate object for everyone to see. Harry noticed a small trickle of blood coming out of her thumb and thought wryly, Same old clumsy Tonks...
Lupin released Harry’s shoulder, which was starting to hurt, and took the feather away from her. He examined it, holding it less than two inches from his face. Then, after a few minutes, he silently handed it ” and the locket, which had been resting on the coffee table ” to Harry. “You have to do it, Harry,” he said quietly.
The whole world seemed to stop for that single moment in time. No one spoke, no one moved, no one breathed, as Harry, hand shaking, inserted the delicate feather into the keyhole on the side of the locket.
The feather dug itself deeper into the lock, jerking itself out of Harry’s trembling fingers. As it did so, the individual barbs stiffened and fitted themselves into the exact pattern of the lock. And there it stopped, solid as a rock, and waited.
With all eyes on him, Harry turned the makeshift key...
Harry Potter and the Seventh Soul by PadfootBaby
Chapter Notes: Buckle up and hang on, guys, this is the longest chapter of the story! ;)