Chapter One:

The Chalice of Ruine

Harry's Return...

"Hogwarts!" yelled a loud voice, belonging to a boy with a set of vividly green bespectacled eyes.

He felt his body revolve and squeezed his emerald eyes with a small gasp, inhaling a great deal of smelly soot from the Weasley fireplace. Harry vaguely recalled what Fred had told him about tucking in his elbows, regretting that he'd forgotten about it since he hardly ever listened to anyone besides that little voice in his head that kept telling him to set his bed on fire. Harry felt a small knock that caused him to yelp in agony. To his huge relief, the spinning eventually stopped and Harry Potter, The Chosen One burst through the fireplace of the Headmaster of Hogwarts' fireplace on his face, spluttering. Or the Headmistress', rather.

"Evening, Potter," spoke the sardonic voice of Minerva McGonagall from the Dumbledore's old desk. She hadn't even looked up from her large tottering files piled high on the desk. "Welcome back and do try not to get too much soot on the carpet".

Harry sheepishly stopped wiping his face on his robes and grinned.
"Sorry Professor," he said, secretly thankful that nothing had really changed since he had left.
Looking around him, Harry felt a small pang in the lower region of his stomach.
He was in Dumbledore's office, yet the was no tall, smiling, long crooked nosed figure wearing golden half moon glasses welcoming him back with an offer of Sherbet Lemons. Fawkes' perch was still there, but there was no phoenix in sight. Harry moved his eyes towards the portraits and stared at the painting of Sirius' great-great grandfather, Phineas Nigellus, Dippet, Dillys, Fortescue, then lastly, with another wobble in his belly, Harry stared at the portrait of Albus Dumbledore.

Dumbledore's portrait smiled kindly at Harry's gaping face and gave him a small wink. After glancing at McGonagall to make sure that she was still absorbed in sorting out the enormous pile of student files, Dumbledore leaned forward towards Harry.

"Nice to see you again, Harry," he said, eyes twinkling. "I trust that you have been keeping busy since you've left Hogwarts?" Harry nodded his throat suddenly dry.

"It's been really difficult without you being around to help me, professor," he mumbled. "But I have managed to find a few leads on Voldemort's Horcruxes," he added, almost defensively in case if the professor thought Harry had dropped out of school only to laze his days away in the garage like a smelly hooligan.

Dumbledore nodded, looking very proud

" Harry," he sighed sadly. "It's times like these that make me wish I could jump out of this portrait and give you a hug and offer you some sweets, but," he paused, heaving another tiny little sigh though his eyes remained twinkling. "Owing to some very particular circumstances, I find that I am unable to do so at the moment, aside from the fact that my physical affection may lead to funny questions."

Harry's throat seemed to constrict, he could never see Albus Dumbledore as truly gone; it just isn't possible.

"However," Dumbledore cleared his throat. "You may help yourself to some sweets that I've left in the cabinet above the Pensieve." Harry hesitated, glancing at McGonagall, wondering if she would tell him off for going through her things, even if they had once belonged to Dumbledore.
"Go on Harry," Dumbledore said encouragingly, titling his head towards the golden cabinet doors. Harry cast a quick glance at the surrounding grins on the Headmaster and Headmistresses' portraits and headed towards the said cabinet.

Harry fumbled with the magnificent golden cabinet's latch and opened the tiny doors. To his surprise, there were vast amounts of sweets that could make his piggy cousin Dudley happy for a year, and by a normal person's standards, for a lifetime. Mounds of Liquorice wands, chocolate frogs, Bertie Botts' every flavored beans, sugar quills, cockroach clusters, acid pops, Fizzing Whizbees, lemon drops, Honeydukes chocolate…Dumbledore practically had a secret sweet store in his office. As Harry, awkwardly took a handful of Sherbet lemons and a slightly moldy pumpkin pasty, he saw a magnificently embroidered but tiny violet and gold book, measuring to be about the size of his palm. Harry curiously took it.

Puzzled, he stared at Dumbledore's benign face.

"As a late birthday present, Harry," he said indulgently, his long beard quivering as he smiled. "It was a family heirloom, and I am most certain that it will serve you well in your quest to stop Lord Voldemort."

Assuming that Dumbledore meant destroying Voldemort, Harry grinned blankly and tucked the small book into a pocket in the insides of his robes.

"Sir," he began slowly, feeling the familiar prickles of discontent. "What if I were to fail?"
It isn't usual for him to admit failure, but Harry felt disappointed that he had not found any Horcruxes on his mission so far. Only leads and it could take a lifetime, even forever, until he found and destroyed the very last one.

Dumbledore's worried frown broke into a gentle smile. "Harry, it isn't possible to think that we can find all of Voldemort's soul in three months" he admonished "Things as important as this take time."

He nodded at Harry, who nodded in reply and moved towards the door. Only when he reached the door knob, Dumbledore spoke again

"Harry, a word of advice..."

Harry paused and looked back, curious.

"Never judge things by face value, these are the mistakes that could alter a being and the pennant which can set mankind apart".

Harry nodded again. Wondering what the heck Dumbledore was on, but gave a small wave to the professor's portrait nevertheless.

...

"Why Ronald, why?"

The very shrill screeches of Hermione Granger rang in the empty corridor of the seventh floor as she ran to keep up with her red-haired, gangly boyfriend.

Ron blanched as her bushy hair smacked him in the eye.

"I-I can't really say," he mumbled in response to her deafening yells. "It's truly not you Hermione, but it's just because I don't really see us together in the long run."

"Urgh, I hate it when you don't tell me things like that," Hermione snapped. "It's like you don't trust me enough to let me know why you've ditched me!"

Ron's face turned the same colour as his hair and mumbled something darkly.

Hermione face turned beet as she shrieked

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I REMIND YOU OF YOUR MOTHER?!"

Ron was about to reply but was saved by Harry who ambled happily over to them.

"I could hear you two from McGonagall's office!" he said cheerfully, slinging a brotherly arm over his ashen-faced mate. "So what's happened, this time?"

Ron started to reply quietly, but Hermione angrily interjected. "Well, it seems that Ron here thinks that I'm not good enough for him, so he decided to end our two month long relationship!"

Harry's green eyes widened as he gaped at his two best friends "Wh-what?"

"And he used the pathetic: it's not you, it's me line!" she yelled.

Harry's face worked hard to conceal laughter as he rounded on Ron

"Ron, mate," chided Harry. "That has got to be the worst lie you've ever said, and it tops that time when you told me that the pack of enchanted condoms I found in your trunk were Fred and Gorge's new Muggle Bubble-head charm." Ron turned beet red, while Hermione laughed heartily.

"Good Godric, that was one time!" he snapped, "How was I to know that they were going to leap on your head and try to suffocate you?"
Hermione couldn't answer from choking with laughter.
"It was a good thing that I'd managed to pull it off your head before you died," she managed to gasp, "who'd have thought that a packet of condoms could be more dangerous than Death Eaters?"

As they rounded off a corner, the Harry, Ron and Hermione gasped at the sight which awaited them.

"Well, well, well" drawled a man's very familiar, cold voice,

"I might have to take that back if I were you, Mudblood."

.