Chapter 31: Discovering Darkness

The flue in the Headmaster's office erupted in green fire and Horace Slughorn watched as Ablus Dumbldore , Harry Potter, and Ron Weasley all came through.

Upon seeing the Headmaster, Horace Slughorn immediately began speaking with loud indignation, "Now, I must say, Albus, your treatment of me, leaving me here for ninety minutes without any way for me to leave—"

"My apologies, Horace," Dumbledore interrupted, his tone placating, "I do apologize for leaving you here without any means of egress for so long, but there were a great many people who were suffering from the effects of the dementors—"

"Not to mention, you know, Voldemort showing up," Ron added.

Dumbledore gave a nod, acknowledging Ron's helpful interjection as Slughorn's pique instantly deflated and was replaced by shocked fear, the very name going a long way towards cowing the older man.

"As well as a lengthy bureaucratic process the Ministry insisted upon before I could return here to complete our discussion," Dumbledore continued. "This was the safest place I could think of to secure you temporarily during the crisis, your wellbeing my foremost thought at the time."

Harry held back a grin, realizing that while Dumbledore was of course being careful with Slughorn's safety, by sequestering him at Hogwarts in his office in this way, the Headmaster had ensured the somewhat portly wizard would not have simply slipped away back into hiding. Although Albus Dumbledore was always genuinely sincere in his benevolent intentions, there was very little accident involved in the many "happy accidents" that conspired to have things go the man's favor. Dumbledore was not just cunning, he was brilliantly quick at decided a course of action which would lead to things playing out his way—which Harry knew from experience was right far more than it was wrong.

"I trust you were not entirely too uncomfortable?" Dumbledore asked.

Harry noted Dumbledore's gaze focused on one of the spindley legged tables upon which sat trays with an assortment of chocolates and candies as well as a bottle of fine Bansherry. From the half empty state of the bottle and the many empty spaces on the trays, it was obvious that Slughorn had accepted the hospitality he had apparently been offered. This made it even more difficult for the former Hogwarts teacher to complain of being put upon.

"Well, yes, I do thank you for the sweets and the sherry," Horace began, halfway through considering further complaint realizing the futility of it and changing tack. "But is it true? The message from the patronus? Did the dementors of Azkaban rebel against the Ministry and allow prisoners escape?" Then his voice became a hushed whisper, "And was He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named really there? He's really back?"

"Oh yes," Dumbledore replied, a hint of ruefulness in his voice. "The dementors have fled Azkaban and many Death Eaters and other dark wizards have escaped. And yes, Tom was there along with several of his followers." Dumbledore's grave tone shifted to a more hopeful tenor as he placed his hand on Harry's shoulder. "Fortunately, no lives were lost among the guards as Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley managed to fight off the dementors—indeed they had all fled from Harry by the time I arrived—and Harry managed to prevent Tom from doing any damage, keeping everyone alive until Fawkes delivered me there."

Slughorn's head swiveled from the Headmaster to Harry. "Merlin's Beard! Did you really face You-Know-Who? And lived?"

"Harry, if you don't mind," Dumbledore said, revealing an ornate stone basin sitting in a corner. It was clear from Slughorn's recognition and apparent trepidation that he knew what the object was, but Harry and Ron were baffled. "This is a pensieve. It will allow us to view your memories without needing to go into your mind."

"Brilliant!" Harry said, as he tapped his wand to his head and pulled out his memory of the battle at Azkaban. His training as an obliviator had made him quite adept and manipulating memories. "Now what?"

Dumbledore took the memory from the tip of Harry's wand and put it into the waters of held within the stone basin. "Horace? Would you care to join us? I must say I am quite curious to know how things transpired before my arrival."

Dumbledore and Slughorn entered Harry's memory where they met Harry and Ron to guide them through what happened and give them the context. The images swept around them in a fog of hidden details, but the main events played out rather cinematically, with Dumbledore praising both of the Hogwarts students for their brave actions before his arrival—going so far as to award them House points once they had come out of the pensieve.

Horace Slughorn was truly awestruck. "You did it. You destroyed the dementors! I hadn't really believed that bit before, now, I thought you were most likely banishing them in some new fashion, but you did it! …. And you really fought…him."

Harry nodded his head. "Well, this makes," he started counting on his fingers, "five times and I'm still in one piece."

Ron added, "But this was only the third time Voldemort survived a run-in with Harry."

"Don't say that name!" Slughorn protested fearfully.

"It's just a name," Harry retorted, but without any heat. "Not saying it only adds to people's fear. That's part of Voldemort's power, that name. Did you know it's just an anagram?" He then lit up his wand and wrote the phrase 'I Am Lord Voldemort' and had it rearrange into 'Tom Marvolo Riddle' in the same fashion that he had been shown in his second year. "You know his memory wrote showed me this down in the Chamber of Secrets when it tried to kill Ron's sister so it could come to life. It's just a teenage boy's made up name."

A truly horrified look came over Horace Slughorn's visage during the revelation of what had happened in the Chamber, disproportionate to the actual telling.

Dumbledore saw the look. "I can see that you understand the import of this, Horace. Harry here, has not yet heard of what we must speak of right now, but this is entwined with his fate. You know that a simple memory could not have re-opened the Chamber of Secrets, controlled a basilisk, or possessed a young witch. That is not what a mere memory could possibly do."

"If it wasn't a memory," Harry said with a frown, "then what was it?" He looked at Dumbledore and Slughorn in turn.

Instead of answering Harry himself, Dumbledore focused on Slughorn, who looked positively mortified at where this discussion had gone. "Harry has to know this, Horace. It is his fate to face Tom. Ever since he was born."

Harry knew this was a total fabrication, but here, it was being used to try to achieve something. The question was, would Horace Slughorn believe it?

"And I can tell you," Ron interjected, "That prophecy about Harry and Voldemort? It's not done. Only a few people know the whole thing, but the prophecy is still playing out today."

At this Slughorn turned his wide-eyed expression to Ron Weasley. "What—what does the prophecy say?"

Ron scrunched up his face a bit, trying to remember the whole thing. "Well, it says that the one with the power to beat 'the dark lord', that's their words, would be born at the end of the seventh month, which was Harry's birthday, and that Voldemort would mark him as an equal, that neither can live while the other survives—I admit I don't really get that part—and that Harry will have a power that Voldemort won't know."

"A very good summary," Dumbledore praised. "And from my sources, it is clear that Voldemort was only told the first half of this prophecy. Which gives us an advantage: Voldemort is not aware of important unknown power mentioned by the prophecy. But if Harry is unaware of Tom's secret, then Harry will be going into this critical conflict not knowing something about Tom Riddle that could cost him his life."

"What secret?" Harry asked, earnestly, wanting either Dumbledore or Slughorn to answer him at this point.

It was Horace Slughorn who provided the answer—at least the name of the answer.

"Horcux" Slughorn said, his face white from revulsion from the subject and self-recrimination for his part in what had later transpired.

"What's a horcrux?" Ron asked, innocently.

"A horcrux," Dumbledore answered, sparing the former Hogwarts professor the need to explain the macabre details, "is most probably the darkest and most vile magic wizards have ever devised. A wizard tears a part of his soul and places it in an object—which becomes the horcrux. Not only does this horrible act forever damage the soul, it requires murder with that specific intent in mind."

"Why would anyone do that?" Harry asked, aghast. That was even worse the killing curse.

"Immortality," Dumbledore replied. "In return for the destruction of their humanity, the wizard becomes effectively unkillable. Even if their physical form is completely destroyed, unless the horcrux binding their soul to this world is also destroyed, they never fully die and so can return to life in various ways."

"Bloody hell! But that kind of life," Ron said with a shake of his head, "it would be less than a whole life. It would be like…like drinking the blood of a unicorn."

Dumbledore nodded, pleased with Harry's and Ron's immediate rejection of the very notion of splitting their soul. "And that is why this subject is forbidden by wizardkind. We seek to erase all mentions, not just of the process to achieve it, but even the very name of this magic. But unfortunately, Tom Riddle discovered it while he was still in Hogwarts and performed his first murder and horcrux ritual there."

"The diary!" Harry exclaimed.

"Yes, Harry, but unfortunately, that is not all. And which is why it is vital that Horace, here, help us. I believe there is information he is hiding, even from the best of my attempts to take it from his mind through legilimency."

And there it was. Dumbledore had laid out all the cards on the table. There were laws against the intentional use of legilimency upon a wizard without authorization from the Wizengamot, and Dumbledore had just openly admitted to breaking those laws. No more pretense. He was counting on Harry's and Ron's influence to convince his old colleague to willingly implicate himself in covering up a terrible deed, one he had denied to Dumbledore for many years.

And the Headmaster was not disappointed.

"Please," Horace said, not looking at Dumbledore, but at the son of Lily Evans, "do not think too badly of me once you have seen this. It is…my most shameful secret." He put his wand tip to his head and pulled out a thin strand of gooey memory from his mind—the one he had buried under a false memory and many layers of obfuscation.

Before Harry entered the memory, he gave Horace Slughorn a comforting pat on the shoulder. "What Tom Riddle did was evil. But that's what he did, not you. You're only responsible for keeping this secret for. That part is on you, but by telling us now, you're helping us fight him. So, don't be too hard on yourself."

As Horace Slughorn watched on while Harry Potter perused the former Potions teacher's darkest secret, a tear tracked down his cheek. "You have more than your mother's eyes, my boy, you have her forgiving heart as well." And for the first time in a long time, Slughorn felt relief from a guilt he had hidden all too well.

Weasley Seer

"Seven!?" Hermione exclaimed. "He split his soul seven times? What. An. Idiot."

The young witch with lush brown hair which had been spelled to be quite tame and never "bushy" any more, sat at a table of several familiar faces. Remus Lupin sat next to Sirius Black to her left, while Ron Weasley was to her immediate right followed by Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore himself. She would have found being the only person at the table who wasn't a current or former Hogwarts staff member or an auror (in Sirius's case) rather intimidating if two of those staff members weren't her own age and quite often idiots.

Well, Harry had gotten better, at least.

This "Inner Circle of the Order of the Phoenix" was basically everyone who Harry Potter trusted with his life and admired. And they were all brilliant in their own ways, even Ron. But despite how brilliant everyone was, Hermione found herself feeling comfortable, like she was among equals.

Not that she thought that she was equal to Harry Potter or Albus Dumbledore! They weren't really peers in that way, but as far as being free to speak her mind and voice her opinions—she felt no apprehension at all. Which was a good thing for everyone involved.

"Unfortunately, a Horcux, like a portkey, could be any object at all. Even a living being," Remus said with a frown. "Riddle could have used anything to create his horcruxes and unless we came directly into contact with one, it would be difficult to tell apart from any other dark object."

"Then let's just destroy every dark object we find," Sirius replied, pounding his fist into his palm. "It's past time the Ministry started cracking down on dark artifacts."

Remus shook his head. "It would take decades to go through every last curse or dark item, and even we had that amount of time, Voldemort would immediately take measures to secure any horcrux that could possibly be caught up in such a Ministry sweep. Without some clue as to the identity of the objects he used, we can't even begin our search, and other than that diary, we have nothing to go on."

"That," Dumbledore interjected, "is not entirely true. There are number of clues to the likely nature of the horcruxes Tom Riddle selected, and a few promising leads. Indeed, we have even identified at least one other horcrux already." Dumbledore glanced over towards Harry.

Everyone swiveled to look at him.

"The snake," Harry replied. "From the Hall of Prophecies." Usually, Harry would not dare reveal any information gained through the use of a time turner—the punishments being far too severe to risk—but among this circle of friends all proficient in occlumency and under a socius secretum charm, he had no such reservations. "When it attempted to swallow the prophecy, it was hit with curses that would have destroyed almost anything and killed nearly anyone. But the damage that was done to it healed instantly. And, when I was in the snakes mind, even feeling that I, myself as the snake, I could tell that it was linked to Voldemort, like it was a part of him."

In addition to discussing the nature of horcruxes, the group had also discussed ways to destroy them. Only by using damage that is impossible to repair and being destroyed beyond any possible restoration could a horcrux be destroyed. This information made Harry's analysis, while not completely certain, very highly likely.

Of the methods discussed to destroy the vile objects, only basilisk venom and fiendfyre were confirmed as methods certain to destroy a horcrux. There was a brief suggestion of going down into the Chamber of Secrets to retrieve the basilisk fangs from the slain creature, but before that was discussed too far, Dumbledore pulled out a hat. The Sorting Hat. Then he had Harry withdraw the Sword of Gryffindor and explained that the weapon would have the same properties as basilisk venom and could readily be used once any horcrux was discovered.

Problem solved.

"Well, that is two of seven," Ron said, "that's something at least."

"Great. Now we just need to fortuitously locate a chart entitled 'Tom Riddle's Map of Secret Hidden Horcruxes' and we'll be set," Sirius grumbled.

At which point lights went off in Hermione's mind and she had the sudden urge to raise her hand for a teacher to call upon her. She resisted that urge, but did not suppress her idea.

"Why don't we make our own map?" she suggested. "After all, you two were partly responsible for creating the Marauder's map, weren't you Padfoot and Moony?"

The aforementioned Padfoot and Moony looked at each other. Guilty as charged.

"Well, that's not a bad idea, except the charm to create the map only worked with people. It was a variation on the hominem revelio charm, as I suspect you have already guessed," Remus explained.

At this Dumbledore took interest. "May I see this map, if you have it in your possession?"

Harry dutifully handed it over, explaining the required passwords to make the map display its and to deactivate it. The Headmaster chuckled at the jocular nature of the item, but was quite impressed by the spellwork that had gone into it.

Hermione waved away Moony's concern. "I've recently been doing a bit of side research on thaumaturgical entanglement, and I'm sure that we can adjust the spells for the map to work on sympathetic properties rather than identitarian ones."

"Then we'd only need one horcrux to be able to find the rest!" Harry exclaimed, receiving a nod from Hermione acknowledging that he had followed her idea.

"I must say, Hermione," Remus Lupin said with genuine admiration, "when I said you were the brightest witch of your age, I was not exaggerating. I think even Lily would have had a difficult time keeping up with you."

But Sirius shook his head. "I'm afraid it won't work. The Marauders Map only functions because we knew the area were mapping to begin with. The base enchantment works off the detailed map of the school, it doesn't magically map that part out. And, unfortunately, we have no idea where in the world to look. The horcruxes might all be at Hogwarts, but they could also be in London, or India, or down at the bottom of the bloody ocean. "

"Then why don't we make a Marauder's Atlas instead," Ron argued.

"We'd have to make a magical map of the entire world!" Sirius retorted. "Do you know how long that would take?"

"But we wouldn't need to make it too detailed," Ron replied, "just all the continents at first and a map of England since that's the most likely place he would have put them. When we know the general whereabouts of a horcux, then we can make a map of just that area, and then make a map of an even smaller area until we the area is small enough for us to search."

Sirius grinned. "That's genius!" he exclaimed, happy to have had his objections overcome.

Harry's grin matched his godfather's, "Now if we can just get our hands on that snake…"

"Actually," Dumbledore interrupted, "that will not be necessary. When Voldemort was making his horcruxes, he left one piece of his soul in a place which we know exactly where it is."

Everyone looked at Dumbledore expectantly, but Dumbledore simply kept his gaze fixed on Harry. It took a few seconds of disquieted puzzlement for Harry to figure it out.

"Oh," Harry said, brushing his bangs away to better expose his scar. "That."

Everyone all smiled at once.

"As I was saying about Tom Riddle. What. An. Idiot."