Voldemort held his hands aloft smiling proudly, gesturing towards the rather odd display in the centre of the room.
For the third time that morning, Lucius found himself utterly lost for words.
“Err… well, my Lord… ah, obviously you’ve put a great amount of effort into… err…”
“Well? Spit it out!” Voldemort’s face fell slightly. “Do you not think they’re amazing?”
“Why, yes - of course,”
“Do they not astound you?”
“Err, well… ah…”
“Yes?” the Dark Lord questioned impatiently.
“They’re… chocolate horses, my lord.”
Lucius stood in the spacious living room of the Riddle House in Little Hangleton, which had, for the time being, been renamed as Lord Voldemort’s Top Secret Anti-Potter Extra Cool Scheming Lair. He stared rather bewildered at four large chocolate horses, each one more magnificent that the next, and melting slightly onto the carpet.
“Chocolate horses?” breathed Voldemort dangerously.
“Is that not what they’re supposed to look like?”
“These aren’t horses, you fool! They’re Horcruxes!”
“Ah,” nodded Lucius slowly. “Quite similar.”
“Of course I did have two more, but Dumbledore got to one of them first, as did Rab.”
“Rab, my lord?”
“You remember Lucius, R.A.B.”
“Oh yes, wasn’t that -”
“Silence! You’re interrupting my story.”
“Forgive my impertinence, my Lord.”
“These four remaining Horcruxes cleverly conceal my most prized, my most adored, and my most dangerous of all objects and possessions,” Voldemort continued grandly. “With these carefully locked inside the chocolate horse Horcruxes, I can never die.”
Lucius oohed and aahed appropriately.
“The last piece of this intricate puzzle is of course inside my very person. You, Lucius, actually helped me to keep it in my system last summer.”
“I… I did, my lord?”
Voldemort turned incredulously towards his lowly servant.
“Well, duh! Have you actually not figured out what I’m talking about yet?”
Lucius sat upon the carpet, which was now oozing with chocolate, and realization dawned across his face with horror.
“That’s right!” laughed Voldemort as he turned to survey the spectacle in the centre of the room. “Marshmallows.”
“Oh, no,” moaned Lucius.
“Oh, yes,” Voldemort clapped gleefully. “Potter’s greatest weakness, and my greatest strength lie inside these Horcruxes, protected by a thick layer of milk chocolate power. This is the greatest confectionary stunt the wizarding world will ever have seen! No other wizard in history has ever made so many Horcruxes.”
“But, my lord,” asked Lucius carefully, “Do you not remember what happened last time… with the marshmallows, and -”
“Oh, I remember,” snarled the Dark Lord as he turned angrily towards Malfoy. “I had Potter and his co-stars in this very room, until Rowling showed up. Well, she doesn’t know about my Horcruxes! I’ll definitely get him this time Lucius. Then nothing can stand between me and my starring role in the seventh book.”
Voldemort turned happily to survey his monstrous creations. While doing so, he frowned unexpectedly, and began to examine the Horcruxes more closely.
“Is everything okay, my lord?” Malfoy asked tentatively.
“We’ll have to put them in a fridge, Lucius,” he stated at last. “They’re ruining the carpet.”
Harry stared weakly at Arthur Weasley, as Remus stood up slowly and began circling the kitchen table, with the air of a person doing some very quick thinking.
“Seven? He’s got seven?”
Arthur put down his battered brief-case, and resigned himself to the task of shedding some light upon this seemingly random and bizarre chain of events. Molly bustled around the kitchen, hurriedly preparing dinner for the Order members who were yet to arrive.
“Not exactly,” continued Mr. Weasley. “This new information has reached us quite late into our investigation. It appears that there were seven originally, but two have been destroyed. There are four remaining intact, one which is actually inside You-Know-Who himself.”
Remus stopped circling the table abruptly, causing Molly to crash into him.
“Voldemort has a horse… inside him?”
“I know,” Arthur answered wearily, “it doesn’t make much sense to us either. We’re still working on it.”
“You’ll never get it right,” breathed a snide voice from the corner of the room.
Harry, Arthur, Remus and Molly all turned suddenly to stare at the far-side of the kitchen, searching for the owner of the voice.
“Who’s there?” demanded Remus.
The voice swore loudly. “I forgot you can still hear me under this thing.”
“Reveal yourself!” cried Mr. Weasley, drawing his wand like a sword.
At that moment however, Tonks burst through the kitchen door, falling over an invisible form from which the mysterious voice had ensued. A silvery, fluid-like material rippled gently onto the ground, and there, in the midst of the kitchen, stood none other than Severus Snape.
“Hey! You’re evil!” shouted Harry, pointing an accusing finger at his old teacher. “You are soooo evil.”
Snape stood up, holding Harry’s invisibility cloak at his side.
“And that’s mine!” yelled Harry, grabbing his cloak.
“Well you do leave it lying around everywhere, it’s a wonder you still have it after six books -”
“What do you want, Severus?” asked Remus quietly. He had also drawn his wand.
“I am here to help.”
“But your evil! Evil!” Harry shouted repeatedly.
“Harry, enough!”
“However,” Severus continued, “I also have valuable information at my disposal.”
Remus pointed his wand at Snape.
“You killed Dumbledore.”
“Oh, there’s a perfectly logical explanation for that,” stated Snape smoothly.
“Which is?”
Well, it all began when -”
At that moment however, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Mad-Eye Moody also burst through the door, and drowned out the rest of Snape’s explanation with loud cries of ‘Death-Eater!’ and began to run wildly around the kitchen, trying to pull Harry in opposite directions.
“STOP!” roared Molly Weasley.
The assortment of characters to be found in the kitchen quickly ceased what they were doing.
“Now, if one more person causes me to spill this tomato soup, there’ll be no dinner for anyone! The rest of the Order are arriving soon, so I want no more wands drawn in this kitchen.” She set her pot down upon the table, and stared at the other members of the kitchen in exasperation. “There is only one question here “ Severus, are you evil or not?”
Everyone turned to look at Snape.
“That really can’t be answered now,” he stated ambiguously. “The point is; I have something you want. And let’s face it;” he added suddenly, “You can’t do this without me. It wouldn’t be half as funny.”
“He’s got a point,” said Remus wearily.
Snape sat at the kitchen table, reached for a cup and smoothly poured himself some tea.
“What you don’t understand,” he continued, “is that you’re not dealing with horses. You’re dealing with Horcruxes.”
“What’s the difference?” asked Harry.
“Well, Horcruxes sound like horses, and they look like horses, but that’s really where the association ends. They’re objects used to hide something of great power, usually inextricably linked to the wizard’s survival, and can only be created by an act of great evil.”
Excerpts of book six flashed across Harry’s mind as he finally saw where they were going with all this.
“Seven is the most powerful magical number… but two were destroyed…”
“What Harry?” asked Remus.
“He’s right,” said Harry slowly. “There’s four left, something of Ravenclaws or Gryffindor, though Gryffindor's sword is still in school, Hufflepuff’s cup, Nagini… and the ring and the diary are gone, the locket's missing… and that leaves Voldemort.”
Harry blinked slowly, and then returned to his former stupidity that is inherent to his parodic charm.
“So why are they horses?”
“Horcruxes,” Snape explained slowly. “In the shape of horses. Inside each one you’ll find one of the objects you’ve just listed, inside which is contained the key to both Potter and the Dark Lord’s survival and downfall.”
“Wait “ you mean -”
“Marshmallows.”
“Really?” inquired Remus. “Don’t you think that’s going a little too far with the marshmallow thing?
The present group all faced Remus incredulously.
“You can never go too far with the marshmallow thing,” stated Harry seriously.
“So now all that’s left is to figure out a way to stop this,” Tonks added brightly.
The group sat together in a deafening silence.