I don't own anything in the Potterverse.
I would like Andrea to Mod this please.
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The next day was spent blissfully wandering the grounds and playing wizard chess in the common room. Hermione had been released earlier that morning, and Neville arrived by mid-afternoon. Harry was in high spirits after his mental encounter with Voldemort. It was the first time in a while that he felt truly relaxed, and his companions noticed the change. Finally, that evening, he decided it was time to share why he was in such a good mood.
“YOU WHAT?” Hermione bellowed, drawing several disgruntled looks from the surrounding Gryffindor fifth and seventh years, as they studied late into the evening for their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s”either because they were behind or because they had left their work until the last minute of the weekend.
“I tapped into Voldemort’s mind and was able to affect him,” Harry declared with a slight grin.
“How did you affect him Harry?” Ron asked, looking a bit paler than usual.
“Well, I, erm,” Harry stammered, trying to decide on the best way of putting it. “I poured a really good, happy thought into him and it hurt him”the way he used to hurt me when he was attacking my mind.” Harry watched the reactions of his friends: Ron looked excited although pale, Ginny looked absolutely gleeful and Hermione looked torn.
“Harry,” Hermione began, “do you realize how dangerous that was? He could have taken control of you or hurt you.”
“I know that, Hermione, but we needed to see if I could do anything to him”you know, to hurt him, and this just seemed like the perfect time to do it. He seemed really emotional, so I thought it would work to my advantage, which it did. He didn’t know I was there until I told Malfoy to stop.”
“Why did you do that?” Ron exclaimed. “You could’ve let Malfoy finish off his dad, and that’d be one less Death Eater to deal with.”
Harry sat thinking for a moment. “I don’t really know,” he said finally. “I suppose, I didn’t want to see Malfoy become a killer if he didn’t have to. Professor Dumbledore said that killing is really hard for someone who has never done it before. That’s why Malfoy wouldn’t have killed him on the Astronomy Tower that night. I guess I sort of felt sorry for him.”
They all sat in silence for several minutes, thinking on what Harry had just said. Finally, it was Ginny who picked up the conversation again. “So, what did you think about?” she purred, tugging on his arm. She wore an impish grin as she looked at Harry.
Harry blushed slightly, wondering how much to reveal about his ability to see her dreams. “Well, I’m not sure I should tell you.”
Ron immediately perked up. “What were you thinking, Harry?”
“Well, it was more like what Ginny was…dreaming last night,” Harry declared, turning bright red. He watched as Ginny, thought back to the dream she had had the previous evening. Almost immediately she blushed a wonderful shade of crimson.
“What?” Ron yelped, “What were you dreaming about, Ginny?”
Hermione turned Ron’s face to hers. “It’s nothing, Ron. If it is the one that Ginny told me about, then it’s no big deal.” Ginny nodded to Hermione, who in turn lifted her left hand, showing off her engagement ring.
Ron looked confused for a second, but finally realized that Ginny had been dreaming of her and Harry getting married.
“What’s the difference? It’s only a dream, anyway,” Ginny declared. Harry thought that while her tone was confident, she looked a little sick.
The group grew silent again as each went back to their studies. Harry closed his mind and reached out for Ginny. He could feel the nervous tension in her mind”concern that she would scare him off and make him think she expected wedding bells or a ring like Hermione. He smiled and thought, I liked what I saw.
Ginny jerked her head up and stared at Harry. She smiled and then kissed him fiercely, drawing a warning look from Ron.
When the kiss concluded, and Harry had recovered, he slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out the small vial he had taken from the Shrieking Shack the previous evening. “Hermione, what do you make of this?”
He passed the vial to Hermione, and she quickly looked deep in thought. After several minutes, she passed it back to Harry. “I don’t know. It looks like it may be memories, but I can’t be sure. Where did you get it?”
“Last night, in the Shrieking Shack.”
Hermione’s face clouded over, and Harry could tell she was having more difficulty with what had happened than she let on.
“I think Snape left it when he and Malfoy escaped,” Harry continued.
“Why would he do something like that?” Ginny inquired.
“I don’t really know; in fact, nothing he did last night makes any sense. He knew about the trap door to the Shack”he used it in my third year. Why not cover it?” Harry commented.
Ron, his arm moving instinctively around Hermione in silent comfort, snarled, “Well, he is just a stupid git after all.”
Harry looked displeased. “He’s certainly a git, but he isn’t stupid. He wouldn’t have made this kind of mistake unless there was a reason behind it. If those are memories, maybe he’s trying to get a message to me somehow.”
“Or this could be some elaborate trap!” Hermione declared, more forcefully than she needed to. “Harry, you can’t look at those memories alone, all right!?”
Ginny turned to Hermione, who had unshed tears in her eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Hermione angrily swiped at her eyes. “Nothing’s wrong, I’m just tired. Harry, promise you won’t look at those alone.” The fierceness of her look told Harry it was better to agree at this point.
“Okay, Hermione, I won’t.”
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The following couple of days went smoothly and happily for Harry. His studies were going well, he had a little spare time to spend with Ginny, and even his training sessions were getting better. Ron had finally thrown off the Imperius Curse, although it did take him almost an hour of fighting it.
He was also quite enjoying the most recent story from the Hogwarts rumour mill. Neville had become the talk of the school, yet again. The details of Hermione’s abduction were not revealed, but that didn’t stop the rumours from flying fast and furious. Enough information had leaked out so a rather interesting tale had developed. By the time Neville was out of the Hospital Wing, it had been declared that he had single-handedly saved Hermione and Viktor Krum from a werewolf attack in the Forbidden Forest.
The school seemed shocked that Ron didn’t act adversely, affected by the fact that his fiancée had been in the forest with her former boyfriend, and since the story provided a reasonable cover for the actual events, Harry and his friends decided to ignore it. This proved more difficult for Neville than the others, but he was willing to put up with it if it helped Harry.
By Wednesday, Harry believed that he might be in his great mood forever and wondered if this was what life was like for normal people, not living out a prophetic destiny. That morning, however, his world came crashing back to reality.
“Have you seen the Prophet?” Hermione asked, looking pale.
Harry had just sat down for breakfast, so he hadn’t seen the morning paper yet. Hermione handed it to him, her hands shaking. As Harry read, he felt his appetite disappear, and then his bright mood collapsed in the details of the war.
Voldemort had responded. The night before, there had been no less than fifteen attacks throughout England and Scotland. London had been attacked by a giant, although the Muggle press called it a tornado. In Edinburgh, three Wizarding families had been murdered in their sleep. Glasgow reported multiple Dementor attacks. The total death toll reached nearly two hundred.
Harry was terror-struck as image after image of the Dark Mark was seen in the paper. His heart raced until he finally slammed the paper down. He looked up in time to see Neville walk in with Parvati, the boy looking haggard and upset, while Parvati looked sad and a little put out.
“Have you guys seen Luna?” Neville asked in a quite voice.
They all turned and noticed that she was not sitting at her usual spot at the Ravenclaw table. Ginny looked back at Neville. “What happened?”
Neville looked almost stricken. “Last night a group of Death Eaters killed her dad.” This was answered by shocked gasps from both Ginny and Hermione, while Ron turned red with anger and Harry’s shoulders slumped. “Professor Sprout and Professor Flitwick were talking about it in the greenhouses this morning, and I heard them. Flitwick had to tell Luna, since he’s the head of Ravenclaw.” Neville looked on the verge of breaking down at this point and Parvati placed a comforting hand on his arm. She then guided him back out of the Great Hall.
Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione, virtually sleepwalked through the day. Their thoughts refused to focus on their classes; instead, they were thinking about Luna, and how they could help her. They didn’t see her the entire day, and when they went to check with Headmistress McGonagall about it, she simply said that Luna was being taken care of, and it was left at that.
That evening after training, which went terribly, Harry was extremely restless. Finally, after several failed attempts to focus on his studies, he got up and left the common room. By unspoken agreement, the others let him go, knowing that he needed some time alone to think.
Harry walked the castle, blaming himself for the events that had transpired. He thought about the death toll and believed it to be his fault. See what your arrogance has wrought, POTTER! rang in his ears, although the voice sounded remarkably like Snape’s.
Frustrated, he opened his eyes and shoved his hands into his pockets. I need to do something! he shouted at himself. His fingers brushed the glass vial in his pocket and a thought occurred to him. I still need to look at this memory; maybe then I’ll at least have some answers. Still angry and frustrated, he trudged back towards Gryffindor Tower.
Twenty minutes later, he and the others stood in the Room of Requirement, Dumbledore’s Pensieve sitting on a table in front of them. As if alive, the silver liquid was wafting gently in the bowl, as the boys began to lean over the table. They planned on entering the memory while Ginny and Hermione stood watch. If it was a trap, the girls could go for help.
“You sure you want to do this?” Ron asked, his nervousness evident.
“We need to. We need to know for sure what side Snape’s on,” Harry responded as he withdrew his wand. He tapped on the surface of the liquid and watched as the image of Snape standing in a shabby room came into focus.
Ron and Harry both leaned over the Pensieve, their faces almost touching the silvery surface, until the feeling of falling headfirst into the stone basin was evident.
Seconds later, Harry and Ron found themselves standing in a small sitting room, which had the feeling of a dank, dingy cell. From floor to ceiling were shelves bulging with brown and black leather volumes. The only bits of furniture were a tattered and worn sofa, an old armchair that didn’t look nearly as comfortable as the ones from the common room, and a spindly table with a candle upon it casting a dim light.
Standing behind the sofa was the menacing figure of Severus Snape, sneering in their general direction. Harry saw that Ron had drawn his wand and pointed it directly at the former Potions master. “It’s just a memory, remember?”
Ron slowly lowered his wand, and blushed slightly for his overreaction. Harry didn’t blame him, as he too had felt the urge to curse the man standing in front of him. Anger and resentment began to boil over in Harry’s mind and he wondered if this was such a good idea after all.
For a long minute, Snape merely stood there, a grim, angry expression on his face, his eyes nearly covered by his greasy black hair. Then finally, the silence was broken. “Well, Potter, I am assuming that you received my gift and are now very interested in finding out what this is a memory of.”
Revulsion began to rise in Harry as he stared at the man now speaking in front of him. He took a step to the side, to avoid having to look directly into the Snape’s snarling face.
Snape continued, “No doubt, you are trying to figure out just what is happening, but, I’m quite sure, having no success. Sorry, Potter, but celebrity only goes SO far.”
Harry’s rage grew to an almost incontrollable level. He glanced at Ron, and noticed him getting redder at the insults as well. Opening his mouth to respond, Harry was cut off as Snape resumed his discourse.
“There is no point to attempting a witty response since I can’t hear you anyway. Now is not the time for you to speak, but to listen. Something I hope for all our sakes you do better than you did in class.
“I have arranged this little meeting to provide you with some information that you may find useful. Believe me when I say that this is not out of some great loyalty to you or the band of fools in the Order, but out of respect for Dumbledore. He is the only one who ever really trusted me.”
“And you killed him for it,” murmured Ron, under his breath.
“Just in case you doubt my credibility, let me simply tell you that it was I who reset the Portkey when you were abducted from the Ministry. It was originally set to send you to a much more secure location”one in which Nagini was not located. I set it to have you arrive in the back garden, where Nagini was having a nap, allowing you to kill her and thus destroy a Horcrux. It was I who then slowed the progress of the other Death Eaters, and you may tell Weasley that he owes his life to me. If I had not stumbled into Nott when he fired his Bludgeoning Charm, then Mr. Weasley’s skull would have been broken, instead of his leg.
“I’m aware of the location of one of the Horcruxes. I know that Dumbledore had you searching for them, although I can’t imagine why he would trust you for such an important task. The Hufflepuff Horcrux”the golden goblet of Helga Hufflepuff”is in a house currently owned by Earl Vanderschamp. He lives in London with his wife. When you go, enter the first room on your right. There is a false wall there…”
Over the next ten minutes, Snape described the exact layout of the location for the Hufflepuff Horcrux. He even mentioned a counter-curse for the flaming sphere that surrounded the cup itself. Harry’s frustration grew more and more as he realized that the information was useless to him.
Finally, Snape concluded, “You can use this information or not; it makes very little difference to me. Just remember my help if you and the Order do manage to confront the Dark Lord.”
Snape turned as if he were leaving, then looked back. “I’m sure you are wondering about the Astronomy Tower. Rest assured that it was part of a plan that Dumbledore himself devised. That is all YOU have the right to know.”
Abruptly, the image and surroundings faded and Harry and Ron felt themselves land, once again, in the Room of Requirement. Hermione and Ginny were standing nervously in front of them.
Anger was evident on Harry’s face as he related the story and all they had seen. Ginny and Hermione both seemed deep in thought as he concluded.
After a couple of minutes of silence, Hermione finally spoke, “So the description of the Vanderschamp’s house was accurate?” Harry nodded. “Then it seems that Snape really is on our side.”
Ginny agreed and added, “And that Voldemort doesn’t know how far along we are. At least Snape doesn’t know that we are further along in our search, otherwise he wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of getting this to us, right?”
“I suppose so, but it doesn’t really help much. It just means that I don’t get to fire curses at him the next time I see him,” Harry replied, looking at the ceiling. “I’m still not really convinced.”
Ron was quiet, and Harry was sure he was thinking about the implications of owing his life to Snape. Slowly, the group made their way back to the Gryffindor common room, not feeling any better about the situation, even with the information they had gained.
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A/N: Welcome back to the story for all of us that have enjoyed the release of DH. I hope that this story will continue to be a fun alternate ending to Harry’s story for you all. Thanks again go out to my prebetas cableguysmom and Kerrbear and to my betas Ginny Guerra and JenC, with out whom none of this story would be possible.
Up next, we find another Horcrux, but it isn’t what you think.