Author's Note: This concludes this short fic. There is additional world-building here, including references to "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" (which had a timeline almost coeval with "Ward") and some crossover AU information about just why the wizards and witches of Arkham have such a negative opinion of part-humans (and why "pureblood," in their American Wizarding English, means "a fully human wizard" without regard to wizard or muggle progenitors). There is also a reference to a (rather silly) movie, mainly because it's a guilty pleasure and I just couldn't resist doing it. And at last, if it wasn't clear, it will become clear just what I'm doing with regard to the tie-in with Potterverse "history."

III.

The next day that Willett was at Miskatonic, the university faculty were abuzz with news of a sort completely different from his research topic. In February, the Federal Aurors had gone into the degenerate port of Innsmouth and arrested a lot of suspicious individuals. The muggle population had been under the impression that their houses were burned and destroyed in a police raid, but in reality, the Aurors had cast non-destructive fire and then put a charm over the waterfront rows to make these buildings look burned. The real purpose was to have an unfettered investigation of the houses, and it would seem that the findings were now in.

Several members of the faculty had distant relations in Innsmouth, but they had disowned these family members for involvement in the town's sea-cult and cross-breeding with non-human beings. The respectable magical community of New England had long looked askance at the cultists, and the findings of the Aurors' investigation confirmed their worst suspicions.

Willett listened to the talk and poured himself a cup of coffee from the faculty lounge. Miskatonic University did not employ house-elves due to the fact that they were not native and that there was a general distrust of non-human sapient magical beings in America—a distrust that was quite warranted, Dr. Willett had to admit, given that the only such beings that Arkham-Salem authorities ever had to deal with were very malevolent and usually partially from the spirit planes. Elves on the whole had no ill-will for mankind, but in the British Isles they had a long history of sabotaging their masters if they didn't like them. Most of the New England families wealthy enough to have owned one didn't want the risk, especially with the long-running monster and evil spirit problem in the area, and it was unthinkable for the university.

"To think!" exclaimed Professor Upham, who taught advanced arcane mathematics. "Those half-bloods actually had formulae to call out to an Old One!"

That got Dr. Willett's attention. It also got the attention of several others in the lounge.

"Which Old One?" asked Professor Ellery, master of alchemy.

Upham spoke in a hushed tone. "Great Cthulhu," he said. He raised his voice to normal tones. "It is dangerous enough when true humans, of sound mind and strong magic, attempt it. For mixed-bloods, especially whose human ancestry is so inbred... their minds coarse and simple... their magic untrained except by their 'priests'... it was a bad situation, much worse than we knew."

Dr. Willett's mind was racing. He had been glad that the Innsmouth investigation had released its findings because he knew it would be the only topic of discussion among the faculty, and that meant that no one would be questioning him about why he seemed preoccupied. He had not expected the investigation to yield any clues about his case—but it seemed that it had.

It wouldn't have been Cthulhu, Willett thought, but there are other Old Ones who might have the powers that figured in the Ward-Curwen case. The Hutchinson and Orne characters did advise him not to call up "Those Outside" or "out of the Spheres beyond."

Armed with this suspicion, Dr. Willett made plans that afternoon to go to the Pawtuxet bungalow on Friday the sixth. He did not really want Mr. Ward along, since the man—though probably a carrier of magic, a "muggle-born squib"—was unable to be of any help if Willett ran into curses. In fact, Mr. Ward would probably be a liability in that crypt, and Willett thought, guiltily, that it would be professionally irresponsible for him to expose a vulnerable person of the very sort he had been studying for years. However, as a father, Mr. Ward had insisted on being present, and it was not for the doctor to gainsay him. He would try to discourage Mr. Ward from actually venturing into the crypt itself and rather hoped that the place would be repugnant enough in its own right that he didn't want to go inside.

On Thursday Willett slipped into the Miskatonic library and refreshed himself on the names and capabilities of the known Old Ones. It was very unpleasant reading, much more so than refreshing himself on the nature of Inferi or Horcruxes, but he realized that it needed to be done. This would answer so many questions about the case. It would explain why Charles had been so desperate for the doctor's assistance in his last letter—what he feared that "Allen" was going to try to do—and it would shed light on what had actually taken place in the resurrection.

When Dr. Willett and Mr. Ward at last headed out to the Pawtuxet house, the doctor had a decent idea of what kinds of spells and invocations that he was looking for—and more than ever, he wanted Mr. Ward kept out of it. He was privately pleased when the man was overcome by a foul stench that issued forth from a manhole in the cellar and declined to enter the vault. Willett didn't really want to go into that pit himself, but someone had to do it. Steeling himself, he descended.

Three days later...

Dr. Willett paced agitatedly around his study. A streak of white had appeared in his hair, and his heart palpitated every time that he failed to drink his Calming Potion. This case had aged him, and he was not young to begin with.

The face of Albus Dumbledore appeared in his fireplace. Without prelude, Willett began to speak anxiously.

"You need to come as soon as you can," he urged. "You and Horace. This case—I've found some things out—and none of it is good." He wiped the sweat off his brow.

"Can you speak of what you have found?" Dumbledore asked in gentle tones.

Willett sank down to the floor. "Some. Some, I don't entirely know, and I don't want to speculate. But... I've found the spell we discussed last time, for one."

Dumbledore paused at that. "Should I call for Horace?"

"It probably isn't necessary this time, but you can tell him whatever I tell you." Willett wiped his forehead again. "I think that the simulacrum of Curwen does contain the original soul—the one not in the Horcrux. The spell I found in that crypt invoked an Old One who could have held that soul fragment in its custody."

Dumbledore looked unsurprised. "I feared as much. I think that Horace and I will need to investigate this vault ourselves when we come."

Willett sighed. "You can try, but I doubt you'll find it now."

"Why not?"

Willett gazed weakly at the sparking face in his fire. "I can't explain it just yet," he managed to get out.

Dumbledore seemed to understand. Something shocking had undoubtedly happened, and the doctor needed more time to collect himself and recover his health and sanity.

Willett heaved a breath. "The fortunate thing, I suppose, is that I also found a spell that should put down that thing that is currently in the asylum, about to talk its way out of there. There were two spells—one to raise, one to lay. I'm going to go to the hospital and take care of it." He looked resigned, determined, and grave.

"I hesitate to ask this," Dumbledore said, "but—when you were in the crypt, did you find your young patient?"

Willett gazed back at the fire. For the first time, true sorrow filled his face. "No," he cracked. "But this afternoon—I found his body. Strangled, concussed, and stuffed behind the place where that damned portrait used to be, like a damned trophy."

Dumbledore said nothing.

"I have burned it," he said in choked tones. "I intend to bury the ashes in the graveyard and break the news to the parents as gently as I can. The mother has been out of the picture since last July, when I advised her to go on holiday in New Jersey. I'm going to urge the father to do the same very soon."

"I wish I could say this shocked me," Dumbledore said quietly.

"He paid the ultimate price for his unwillingness to go along with what Curwen wanted to do," Willett said resignedly. "And I'm not going to let his death be in vain. I'm going to the asylum as soon as I deem myself mentally ready."

April 10, 1928

Dr. Willett told Mr. Ward that he was taking a rest at his office. It was technically true, but what Ward did not know was that Willett was also conspiring with his British counterparts. Dumbledore and Slughorn had held a private conference after Dumbledore's brief Floo meeting the day before, and they had agreed that it was necessary to come to New England at last and catch up with Willett face to face.

Dumbledore could create international Portkeys without leave from his Ministry, and he did not hesitate in the least to do so, but Slughorn was hesitant to use an illegal Portkey. The Portkeys therefore had to be coordinated between the British Ministry of Magic and the American Department of Magic, which was actually headquartered in Washington rather than Arkham. Dumbledore was in thick with the British Ministry and quickly obtained official approval. Willett's DC connections were much more attenuated than his Arkham-Salem ones, but Benjamin F. Delapore, the Undersecretary of Magical Transportation, gave no trouble when informed that the Portkeys were needed for colleagues in research.

So it was that at the appointed time, Albus Dumbledore and Horace Slughorn swirled into Willett's office, each clutching a quaint artifact from their school. Willett sat in his chair, and two comfortable chairs had been set up for the guests.

"May I offer you a martini?" Willett asked, taking out bottles of gin and vermouth.

Horace Slughorn's eyes grew wide in shock. "I thought that in this country, spirits were—"

"Oh, they are," Willett said dismissively, "but wizards have never acknowledged that. A silly law, passed in a fit of misguided piety and concern for 'health,' that has caused more trouble than benefit. And really, the potions that we can make are often far more intoxicating." He mixed a drink for himself and stirred it.

"I believe I will have one, thank you," Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling with amusement. Willett promptly complied.

Slughorn appeared torn about flagrantly violating the law of the country he was visiting, but at the same time, Prohibition was a silly law, and he did want to try this American concoction, which he knew was associated with the high life...

"So will I, then, if you don't mind," he grunted.

The cocktails seemed to open everyone up. Willett looked much calmer to Dumbledore than he had appeared at that last Floo meeting. His face was set with a purposeful determination, and he began to narrate his experience in Curwen's crypt with intellectual detachment.

"The place was, as we suspected, a delving of the eighteenth century. There were quite a few rooms that clearly had not been used in modern times. However, we were correct that the modern-day experimentation had moved underground. I quickly found a modern room, and it seemed that this room was where all the books and notes I used to see in the Ward home were brought. It was in this room that I struck my first gold." Dr. Willett handed over a sheet of paper on which he had written down, from memory, the key pair of spells he had discovered. "This is the formula that my patient used to resurrect Curwen," he explained, pointing at the first.

The pair of British professors peered at it. Dumbledore's blue eyes grew wide and his face serious. Slughorn looked baffled. "What is 'Yog-Sothoth'?" he asked.

"It is the name given to a certain Old One—a powerful otherworld entity that controls the boundaries between worlds," Willett said. "In this case, the boundary between our world and the world of the dead."

Slughorn's face cleared. "Oh—like Death in the Tale of the Three Brothers, then!"

A shadow instantly passed over Dumbledore's face, but he said nothing. Willett smiled wryly. "Something like that, but not quite as benign. Or perhaps 'Death' in that tale was the Old One, in which case the trickery of his 'gifts' makes perfect sense, but in that case, I'm afraid to say that the third brother could never have met him as an equal. Anyway, to continue—after I found these spells, I realized that they were a matching pair. The first one is used to raise a body from the prepared powder—which you," he said with a nod to Slughorn, "confirmed is used in making Inferi from the remains of those long dead. I have reason to believe that this spell also reincarnates the departed soul in that body."

Dumbledore and Slughorn both started at this, but it was Dumbledore who spoke. "That can't be so," he objected in a voice that seemed extremely agitated, surprising Willett with his vehemence. "Perhaps in the case of one such as Curwen—one who had split his soul and thereby kept part of it on earth even if an 'Old One' took the rest—but in the ordinary case, it just can't, Dr. Willett."

"With all due respect, Professor, I don't agree—and I will explain, in a bit, why." He paused. "Throughout these initial searchings, I had been hearing a sound. It sounded like something alive was confined down there. I investigated further and, to my horror, discovered the source of these noises." He took a breath. "That accursed wizard had been raising up bodies from defective powders too, and when that is done, the Inferius that is created is missing parts. I think that he used these—creatures—in dark rituals, because there was a whole devil's chapel full of pits that contained these things, leaping and snarling about, even though they should not by rights have been alive, given how deformed and incomplete that they were."

Dumbledore was smiling knowingly. "My dear friend, all that this proves is that the defective Inferi were enchanted to do Curwen's bidding. It certainly does not indicate that any souls are yanked out of the world of the dead with that spell."

"My conclusion about the spell is not based on that," Willett snapped. He did not like being condescended to, especially since he had been in that crypt and Dumbledore had not. "I will tell you now, I was shocked when I saw one of these creatures, and I very nearly fell to a gruesome end into the pit that contained it. But I kept my head and scrambled out of the chamber containing these pits to continue my search. At last I came upon a room full of chemical and potion-making paraphernalia. I had seen a lot of it in the days when Charles conducted his work at home, but some of it was clearly antique. In this room was a copy of a certain dark potions book that I had investigated at the Miskatonic library, and a passage in the text that caught my attention had been underlined. It was, of course, the text we discussed at our last meeting."

"Borellus," Slughorn muttered. "Raising up Inferi from 'essential salts.'"

"Exactly. That very phrase had been recorded in the historical documents that Charles found, by a visitor to Curwen's house who accidentally caught sight of it... that was why it struck a chord with me in the library... but here it was again, direct evidence of what was going on rather than one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old hearsay. Also in that laboratory were stacks and stacks of coffins, sarcophagi, and urns of various ages. But in one antechamber, there was a set of shelves full of sealed jugs, each one labeled with a number." Here Dr. Willett paused and took a deep breath to gather his nerves. "Beyond that was another room. A pentagram was inscribed on the floor, and that accursed resurrection spell was written on one of the walls. There was a bowl of powder from one of the jugs set at one of the points on the pentagram. Gentlemen, I cannot describe to you the mental effect of this room... I have extracted my memory and placed it in a flask over there"—he pointed at the small Pensieve that was taken out of his closet—"so that you can confirm for yourself what happened. But I began muttering that spell under my breath, not even intending anything but to calm my mind with something rhythmical... and I give you my word as to what happened next. The powder rose up as smoke and something came into being behind the smoke as I uttered the spell."

The British professors were silent, transfixed by the account. Then Slughorn spoke.

"How did you keep your head?" he croaked.

"I fainted," Willett admitted. "And the next thing I knew, I was waking up in the house, aboveground, with Mr. Ward hovering nearby. Neither one of us could get into the crypt. The manhole that had led down to it now only covered hard-packed dirt." He turned to Dumbledore with an even look. "No empty, mindless Inferius could do that."

Dumbledore looked deeply troubled. Willett felt a certain savage pleasure in having wiped the smugness right off his face.

"The—person—also left this behind," he said, reaching into his notes and taking out a scrap of paper from the underground study. It was inscribed with early medieval lettering and written in a degraded form of Latin, but he was sure that both Dumbledore and Slughorn could read it. "Curwen must be killed," the key point of the note was translated.

Their mouths silently formed the syllables of the words written on that paper. Dumbledore withdrew his wand and cast a spell at the page. "Indeed this was written by—one from the distant past," he said in awe. "One from medieval England, in fact. I am astonished."

"I was astonished too. The spell can resurrect the dead! Curwen never needed a Horcrux in the first place, based on what this spell can do—unless, of course, the point of that painting were simply to influence Charles's mind and possess him, enabling him to perform extremely powerful dark magic that otherwise he likely would have been unable—or unwilling—to do." Willett paused. "And that's probably exactly what it was used for. That bastard."

"You are undoubtedly correct about the purpose of the painting. It is shocking to think of a Horcrux being used as a tool, especially a tool that its creator had to have known would be destroyed if his main soul were taken from the earth—but then, Curwen wouldn't have thought that. I am sure that when he invoked whatever it was he invoked at the last, he expected it to assist him rather than turn on him. Still, the Horcrux was absolutely meant to be a tool with the purpose that you describe. How far man can sink, how little he regards his soul, in the pursuit of power."

Slughorn was looking extremely upset and agitated. Dumbledore noticed. "Are you all right, Horace?" he asked.

Slughorn shrugged, trembling faintly. "This is vile, dark stuff," he muttered. "If you don't mind, Doctor, I think I could use another drink. I've drained mine and stupidly forgot to refill it before I did."

As Willett prepared another martini for Slughorn, Dumbledore took the opportunity to speak again. "The creation of a Horcrux as a weapon is a shocking thing... but I'm afraid, Doctor, that Curwen still did need a Horcrux for the, erm, usual reason as well. There is still no evidence that the spell you found can reincarnate the souls of the dead."

Willett looked up in protest from the drink he was mixing. "Are you implying that the person I raised must have also had one? I wouldn't dare suggest that. Whoever it is, it could have destroyed me at once, but it chose otherwise. I would not risk incurring its wrath, Dumbledore. But how about this evidence? Those jugs were numbered, but there was a master list of names corresponding to the numbers. Some, many, of the names I saw were of the great and good. That foul sorcerer was collecting the remains of the greatest minds of history in order to work out how to unleash the Others upon the earth."

"The person you inadvertently raised certainly was equipped with a mind. I agree that there would be no reason for the team of wizards to seek out specific people's remains if they were not interested in the minds and memories of those people. However, we do not know just what the, erm, modus operandi of this Old One—Yog-Sothoth—is. It is quite possible that this invocation infuses the artificial body with a semblance of life, and the memories of earthly life that the soul holds, but not the actual soul that incarnated it in life."

"What about the sealed crypt, then?" Willett said in harsh tones, passing Slughorn his drink. "That required magic."

"Again, we do not know just what the capabilities of this being truly are."

Willett gave Dumbledore a hard look. "Albus, is this subject personal to you in some way?"

Dumbledore looked surprised at being addressed by his given name. "There is an artifact that is said to have the ability to recall the souls of the dead at the will of the person wielding it," he admitted.

"The Resurrection Stone."

"Yes," Dumbledore confirmed. "But the legend indicates that the only souls that will be called are those that have a powerful connection of love to the summoner. I confess, the idea that any dark wizard—any wizard—could simply summon anyone from any point in history is quite troubling to me, and I would prefer not to believe it unless it is proven beyond all dispute. I admit this freely."

Willett's irritation with Dumbledore softened. His reasoning did make sense. The nature of the spell that they were talking about was disturbing if it did what Willett believed it did, and he could understand why Dumbledore would choose to believe an alternate explanation.

"Very well," he said. "Let us continue, then, since neither of us can prove our belief in this matter. At a minimum, though, the spell does infuse the Inferius with the mind and memories of the person, and if the person could perform magic in life, the Inferius has that ability too. Anyway, after Mr. Ward and I departed from that bungalow, we investigated that Latin note and determined what it said. I went to the asylum at once and confronted the patient with what I had found in the crypt."

Slughorn managed a nervous laugh at that. "How did he take it?"

"Like the defiant, arrogant son of a bitch that he is. He taunted me about the powder that had been laid out, asserting that if I had 'known the words to call it,' it would have destroyed me. What a shock he got." Willett smiled grimly. "I meant to perform Legilimency on him and determine what he had done with Charles, but that revelation caused him to pass out. I had to investigate that myself."

Slughorn and Dumbledore grew somber at this. "Albus told me about that," Slughorn said in a low tone. "How you found the body behind the paneling that used to have that portrait on it."

"Yes," Willett said. His eyes grew sad. "At least there is no doubt of his fate, terrible as it is. I intend to bury the ashes tomorrow."

"How are you going to tell the parents?"

"I think the father knows, deep in his mind, that his son was murdered and that I took care of the body, but he is not yet ready to acknowledge it. In time, he will do so... but the man has already had to accept so much that is a shock to him, and he needs time. Mrs. Ward is in New Jersey at my urging. I am going to advise her husband to join her as well and break it to her when he thinks she can handle it."

Slughorn looked alarmed. "New Jersey? Not, I hope, the Trinity Church area. There are rumors of a magical vault underground, accessible from the church, and a hoard kept there—"

"Yes, that's a Masonic legend," Willett said, "but no such vault has ever been uncovered. The thinking is that certain objects, keyed to open up the vault, are required to access it, but no one has found these objects."

"What sorts of objects—" Slughorn began to ask.

"Nobody knows, and there may be no basis in fact for any of it." That was not true—the American magical historians were convinced that the vault did exist, with Dr. Gates in Philly being particularly firm on the subject—but Dr. Willett did not want to say so. He was displeased that Slughorn even knew of it. But then, given the types of items alleged to be in the vault, and Slughorn's known love of valuable things, it was probably no wonder that he had heard of this legend. Still, it was an American matter. Part of the tale was that the hoard had been hidden during the Revolutionary War to remove it from the reach of British Loyalist wizards and force them to take out loans from the usurious goblins in London instead to finance the war. In the New World, wizards had not handed their bank over to the goblins; there weren't many goblins there, and the currency was backed by the full faith and credit of the Department of Magic. If the hoard came to light, there would probably be an international dispute about ownership rights. Dr. Willett had no inclination to discuss it further, and besides, they had another subject at hand.

"Let's stay on topic, Horace," Albus Dumbledore urged, his eyes glinting at Willett's face as if he understood a great deal more than he was letting on.

"Quite," the doctor said gruffly. "In any case, no, Mrs. Ward is nowhere around that site. She is resting in Atlantic City."

Slughorn nodded. "What are you going to do about Curwen, then? Do you need us to go with you to subdue him and—take care of him?" He shuddered. "How do you take care of something like that?" He gazed at the note written by the medieval wizard. "That says to dissolve the body in acid. I can think of several potions that would serve the purpose as well. Is that what we have to do?"

Willett shook his head. "I don't think so." He picked up the paper containing the resurrection rite. "Look at this again. It's a matched pair of spells, as I said before. The first one raises a body from the 'salts' that were created with the dark potions. The second spell puts it back down, I think—reduces it back to those salts. And it invokes the Old One Yog-Sothoth too, so whatever was animating the body—whether mind or soul—is also released whence it came. That's what I'm going to do. If my theory is correct, the simulacrum should disintegrate when I cast this spell."

Dumbledore gazed at the second spell. "I think you are right," he said. He gave Willett a long look. "The best of luck to you. In fact—Horace, do we have any Felix—"

Slughorn shook his head. "I'm afraid we don't, and it'll take too long to brew. I agree—this Curwen has to go, especially if he's about to talk his way out of the asylum." He shuddered.

"I know what I have to do," Willett said. "I appreciate the offer, but I consider myself capable of handling this."

Slughorn, meanwhile, was still shuddering. "I know we'll need to write this up, but after that's done, I hope I never hear the words 'Inferius' or 'Horcrux' again."

Three days later, on April 14, the following letter arrived in the Deputy Headmaster's office at Hogwarts:

"Esteemed colleagues and friends,

The matter is at an end. I have given Charles's ashes the most respectful disposal and interment I deemed possible, given the terrible circumstances. I have not alerted muggle authorities to the murder. In the first place, the boy was a wizard, if untaught by any save that accursed dark sorcerer. But more pertinently, the muggle authorities are convinced that the creature in the asylum is—was—Charles, and it is highly unlikely that they will be persuaded otherwise by any means short of completely exposing the wizarding world to them. I fear that this case will be used by some of my colleagues at the university as ammunition in a political dispute regarding what to do about inquisitive muggles and paranormally active squibs, but that is out of my hands. In Britain, I understand, there is no dispute about this—no organized faction that wishes to repeal the Statute of Secrecy. I have, I confess, been exasperated at times with the traditionalism of your country's magical community, but given how problematic the situation has become in the New England area, I wonder if there is not great wisdom in the British approach after all.

"But I digress. The case is finished. The simulacrum of Joseph Curwen is gone. The spell for 'laying down' worked perfectly, as I expected it to, reducing the body to the dust from which it was raised. It was promptly sucked up by a vacuum cleaner (a muggle electrical device that is used to clean) and will be deposited, along with the rest of the dust and dirt, in the earth. It cannot be gathered again. And with no Horcrux now, the soul is gone into Death, unable to possess anyone. I do not know who or what the entity was that I accidentally raised, but I think that it will be able to return whence it came when it has finished its work. (I understand that your Ministry has a portal to the other side of Death, if nothing else.)

"I have written a letter to Mr. Ward explaining that the matter is at an end. In my letter to him, I explained as subtly and kindly as I could what happened to his son, in the hope that he will accept it in his own time. I hope he will join his wife in New Jersey. As for myself, I have given notice to my university colleagues that I am going on sabbatical. I hesitate to propose this, for the subject matter is obviously highly dangerous, but I think the case needs to be written of in the journals—and I myself have a hankering for the famed British countryside. The fresh air and wholesome spaces might be just the environment in which we should write our report. I look for your thoughts on this matter.

"M. B. Willett"

Spring 1943

"In summary, between the dates of May 1926 and February 1928, a late-manifesting magical resident of Providence was engaged in a program of dark magic that resulted in the resurrection of the 17th-18th century dark wizard Joseph Curwen and the untimely death of the resident at the dark wizard's hands. Curwen had secured his deathlessness in the year 1765 by converting an otherwise Muggle painting of himself into a Horcrux. Curwen's necromantic arts and creation of a sort of conscious Inferi brought down the wrath of his town upon him in 1771. Upon his attempt to summon a dark entity of extreme power from the spirit plane in the ensuing fight, Curwen's corporeal portion of soul was apparently engulfed by the being. Little is known of such entities, but it would seem that the use of Horcruxes does not protect the corporeal soul from them any more than it protects from the far more common dementors.

"Between the years of 1919 and 1926, the late-manifesting resident, 'Mr. C. D. W.,' a direct descendant of Curwen, was drawn to study the life and work of his ancestor. C. D. W. uncovered the Horcrux painting, not knowing its sinister nature, and had it erected in his own home, where the soul fragment could gradually possess and dominate his mind. C. D. W. was influenced by the Horcrux into resurrecting Curwen. The seemingly lost fragment of soul was returned to the earth by the invocation of Yog-Sothoth, and it was housed in a body created from the ashes of Curwen's old body by a dark potion. The rite of invocation evidently caused the destruction of the Horcrux, an event that would not occur in the more historically typical scenario in which a dark wizard's primary soul fragment remains on earth after bodily death and is later rehoused by a dark ritual such as the Bone, Flesh, and Blood rite.

"The resurrected Curwen proceeded to terrorize Providence as he had done in the late eighteenth century, seeking out ancient remains and creating conscious, apparently intelligent Inferi of these corpses. The authors of this paper disagree on precisely what other kinds of magic may have been used in this dark activity. Lead author Willett believes that the dark wizard had access to a formula that allowed him to infuse these Inferi with the souls which formerly inhabited the living bodies, and that this was the same formula that C. D. W. used to retrieve Curwen's primary soul fragment from beyond the veil. Co-authors Dumbledore and Slughorn maintain that summoning departed souls is possible only when a portion of the soul is still grounded to the earthly plane, as was the case with Curwen, and that the Inferi were infused with some of the mind and personality that they possessed in life—akin to the creation of a standard magical portrait. That such a greater-than-usual degree of memory apparently existed in the Inferi is attributed by the co-authors to the invocation of Yog-Sothoth. It is perhaps fortunate that a definitive answer cannot be given, for Curwen was executed by lead author Willett on 13 April 1928 and the crypt in which he performed his researches is no longer magically accessible.

"This disturbing case highlights the gaps in current knowledge about the limits of such Dark Arts as the creation of Inferi and Horcruxes. Nonetheless, due to the extreme hazards imposed upon mind and body even of magically powerful trained investigators, the authors urge researchers interested in the subject to proceed with due caution."

Tom Riddle finished reading the scholarly article from the Miskatonic Journal of Studies in the Dark Arts and set it down inside a notebook. He could hardly contain his glee. This was it; this was the key. He just needed the details of how to do it.

The case, he thought, proved what he had come to believe about blood: Those with lesser degrees of magical heritage were unworthy of magic and could not be trusted with it. This C. D. W. was close enough to a squib that the tracking implements in Arkham had missed him at birth and not powerful enough to control his magic. The mudblood fool had got what he deserved, Tom decided. He regarded the deceased necromancer with contempt as well and opined that Curwen had also got what he deserved. –Not for moral culpability, of course, but for sheer stupidity in creating Inferi with intelligence and free will, and for invoking some eldritch being he could not control that seized his primary piece of soul and necessitated the destruction of his only Horcrux to bring him back. He would not be so stupid, oh no. He would bide his time after securing immortality, gradually increasing his own power and learning how to control the more common dark creatures such as dementors, before issuing a challenge to those Others. The crypt was not magically accessible, they claimed? Tom wanted to chuckle to himself. He would find it someday, get into it, and work out how Curwen had gone wrong. It was one more magical thing that he would find and take possession of when he was ready... though probably not for many years, since he had quite a list now.

The paper did not give explicit details about any of the dark magic it discussed—presumably, Tom supposed disdainfully, to prevent giving instructions to readers—but two of the authors were teaching at his school, and one of them trusted him implicitly. It would be a delicate thing, talking to Slughorn. The subject was probably distasteful to the man after his involvement in this research. Tom knew he could not reveal what he had been reading; this journal was officially not allowed inside Hogwarts and it was well that Caractacus Burke's procurement of it for him not be known. He also could not give away just how much that he already knew from reading this paper. But if old Sluggy could be manipulated into telling him just a little bit more—like whether a wizard could have only one Horcrux—or revealing just where in the library Tom might go to find the spell... well, that could be very useful indeed. There was to be a Slug Club meeting this very evening, Tom remembered. After a nice dinner, when the professor had plenty of wine in him, might be the ideal time...