Seven
Amira woke the next day with an absolutely pounding headache. She felt horrible. It was like she was sick. She didn't go on her run that morning, and it was all she could do to crawl out of bed and ready herself for breakfast. She was pale and her hands were shaking.
At breakfast she could barely eat. She hoped her unwellness would be missed, but it wasn't.
"You're still ill," Bellatrix said loudly. The Dark Lord looked up at her with narrowed eyes. Amira cursed herself for being so nosy the night before. There was no doubt in her mind that she was somehow magically hungover from looking too deeply and using her magic too much last night.
"It seems so," she croaked.
"Narcissa!" the Dark Lord snapped, "Take a look at her. She cannot be sick."
"Yes my lord," Narcissa nodded.
"You will return to your training tomorrow, so you better focus on getting well. I do not give rest days," The Dark Lord snapped. Amira nodded. Narcissa stood, and Amira nodded, swaying slightly. She followed Narcissa out of the room and back upstairs. She was breathing hard before she reached the top.
"Give me a moment please," she gasped at the top of the staircase. Narcissa put an arm around her waist and supported her. She led Amira to her wing on the second floor. She brought her into a small sitting room and helped her sit on the couch. Amira tried to be proper, but she needed to lean back against the soft seat.
"Let's see what's going on here," Narcissa said calmly and waved her wand. She raised her eyebrows. "My dear, you are severely magically exhausted."
Amira shrugged and placed a hand on her face, her headache was killing her.
"I have never seen someone so exhausted," she said, "What did you do?"
Amira shook her head, "I don't know. I was just practicing a lot."
It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the complete truth. She felt that it would be too dangerous to admit that she had been looking at the Dark Lord's soul. That was probably a death sentence.
Narcissa seemed to know she was keeping information to herself.
"Whatever it was, don't do it again," she warned. "Magical exhaustion can be and often is fatal."
She summoned some potions.
"This will replenish your magic, and this will give you energy," she said, "This is a headache cure."
Amira drank them all gratefully. She only felt marginally better.
"Sleep," Narcissa said, "And then take more when you wake."
Amira nodded and stood slowly.
"Don't do this again," Narcissa repeated, "You should be okay tomorrow, but you're still going to feel a strain. And these potions can be highly addictive so I should not like to give them to you again."
"I understand," Amira agreed. She didn't want to go looking again. Looking at the Dark Lord's soul, along with the rest of the Death Eaters had made her feel slimy and gross as well as physically awful. She had what she needed, and she wouldn't forget it.
She went back to her room and fell into the bed in her formal robes. Sleep claimed her quickly.
When she woke, she felt much better than she had before. She checked the time and saw it was already late in the afternoon. She took the potions that were set out for her and nibbled on the plate of small snacks that Narcissa must have sent out. Then, she refreshed her appearance and went down to the library. She could tell the Dark Lord was not even in the Manor, which made her feel better about looking for what she needed.
She went straight to the section on dark theoretical magic. She was looking for the word "soul". She didn't know if soul magic was a thing. The Dark Lord hadn't taught her about it, even though if it did exist, it would fall under the category of what he was teaching her.
She sat back after several hours, frustrated. There wasn't a single mention of soul magic. She pondered where she could find information on it, and then it dawned on her. The Dark Lord's study. That's where it would be, she was sure of it. Something was horribly wrong with the Dark Lord's soul. Something that he had probably done. And he wouldn't want anyone else to know how damaged it was, so he would hide all evidence. She gathered a parchment and quill to take with her.
Amira left the library cautiously. The Dark Lord was still gone. She went to his study. She pulled on her magic that was tired and it protested, but complied. She scanned the door for wards, and found some. Carefully, she disabled them and masked her signature so that the alarms wouldn't go in. Her heart beat furiously when she entered the quiet and empty room. She was terrified, but determined. She scanned the bookcase for protective measures.
There were some only on one book. She didn't even bother to look at the others. She had a gut feeling what she needed would be there. She was so grateful that she had been hiding some of her capabilities from the Dark Lord. He didn't know how strong her abilities were. She was able to disarm the book's defenses with ease. Or, it would have been easy, but her magic was exhausted so it pulled and took longer than it should have. A sense of urgency overcame her.
She flipped through the pages quickly and charmed her quill to copy the book. The seconds ticked by and Amira stood in fear that the Dark Lord was going to come back at any second. If he did, she would be dead.
Finally, the book was copied down, and she rolled up the scroll and tucked it in her robes. She shut the book and replaced it on the shelf. She carefully replicated the wards that had been there before, and made sure that they were weak enough that the Dark Lord would be able to break them, but strong enough that he would believe that he had placed them. Then, she hurried out of the room and replaced the wards on the door as well.
She bolted to her room as soon as she was up the stairs, and just as she entered her room, she felt the Dark Lord's magic reenter the house. She waited with bated breath to see if she would feel a rage sweep through the house that would alert her to being caught. There was no such thing, and she finally relaxed.
She was exhausted, but she was too curious not to read what she had found before she allowed herself to rest.
She locked her door and went to the sofa. She unrolled the scroll and skimmed it until she found the word soul, just like she knew she would.
She whispered to herself as she read, "Dark soul magic.... tabooed by society.... splitting of the soul for immortality.... killing of innocents.... horcruxes."
That was it. That was the answer. Nagini was a Horcrux. That's why the Dark Lord's soul was so small. She re-read the entire section three times over to make sure she didn't miss anything.
She sat back and took a deep breath. It explained so much. It fit the Dark Lord perfectly. It was also terrifying that the man was quite literally immortal now. That was how he had come back to power the first time. He had never actually died, and his horcruxes kept his soul anchored to this earth.
The only thing that didn't line up was that his soul pieces still seemed small for what the book described. The book described ripping the soul directly in half. The Dark Lord had a small fraction of a full soul. He'd ripped much more than half.
Dread shot through her.
More than half.
Much more.
How many horcruxes had he made? Could he even make more than one?
He had. That was certain. Amira flipped over the parchment and drew a circle, representing what the soul size of everyone else's was. Then she shaded in the small portion that she'd seen his to be. She made a tally, and doubled the area. She made another tally and doubled the area. She repeated it until she had filled the entire circle. She'd doubled the area seven times. He had made seven horcruxes.
She knew she was right because so often the Dark Lord would remind her of the importance of the number seven in magical theory. Once a lesson, he would say something along the lines of how powerful seven point stars were in rituals, or seven wizards would be in warding, or seven days could be in long casted spells. He was obsessed with the number seven.
Seven horcruxes.
That was seven objects or animals that needed to be destroyed before the Dark Lord could die.
Amira ran a hand through her hair. Did anyone even know about this? How could they? No one else could see souls the way she had discovered she could. How else would they know? She reasoned that there was a chance that people had theorized on how he had survived that night at the Potter's sixteen years ago. But still, there were a lot of other less obscure ways that he could have survived.
The Order of the Phoenix needed to know. Did Albus Dumbledore know? If anyone would, it would be him. Perhaps he was already taking steps. But that was only a chance. Amira didn't know how smart the old man was. He also was a light wizard, and she didn't know if he would be at all versed in the obscure dark magics that horcruxes would have been hidden amongst.
No, she couldn't rely on them to know.
Perhaps the Dark Lord had told someone in his youth. Perhaps there was a teacher or a peer who had seen him set out on this journey. There was no way that she was the only one who knew about this.
That brought her to her next question. Who was the Dark Lord? He hadn't just spawned from nowhere. His name was definitely not Voldemort. No one named their child that. Where was he from? He had gone to Hogwarts, he had much too deep of knowledge of it, and had too strong of an obsession with it to not have ever been a student. She needed to find out who he was, and try to find people who might have known him before he became the monster he was. Maybe then, she'd have clues to someone who would know about his horcruxes. She also needed to learn what they were.
They could be anything. Amira thought about what she would make a horcrux if she was the Dark Lord. Her first thought was to put her soul in a shell and throw it in the middle of the ocean. If he had done that, he would truly be immortal. Or perhaps a grain of sand in the Sahara desert.
She buried her face in her hands. The future looked even darker than it had that morning. Not only did she have to defeat the Dark Lord, but to be truly free of him and safe from his wrath, she would have to find six objects that held his soul and also kill Nagini.
Amira supposed she didn't have to do it. She could decide that it was too hard for one person, and hope someone would figure it out. She could focus on her own escape and then go into hiding. Even as she was thinking about it, she knew that she could never do it. She couldn't leave, knowing what she knew, without doing anything. And, her escape seemed just as impossible as killing the Dark Lord, so she might as well do the thing that might help more people.
She shook her head and stood up. She put away the scroll and added several more wards to her trunk. She thanked Merlin that she had natural Occlumency because she knew that if the Dark Lord found out about this, she was dead. That also meant she couldn't tell anyone here. She couldn't tell Draco. She was on her own with this.
She didn't have the energy to write to Draco that night. She simply fell into bed and passed out, overwhelmed and afraid by all that she had learned.
Draco looked down worriedly at his empty journal, as he so often did these days. It was mid November, and their correspondence had gone down to once or twice a week. Something was going on with Amira. And she wouldn't tell him. He was counting down the days until he'd be able to go home and talk to her. It was just less than a month.
Insecurity also climbed to the top of his mind. Maybe she didn't like him anymore. Maybe she didn't miss him.
Worse, maybe she was becoming a real Death Eater. He didn't think that she had that capabilities in her, but he didn't know how anyone would fare in a big house full of all of the worst Death Eaters without anyone else to talk to. Draco shuddered to think of what the fate of the world would be if Amira did truly turn dark. Or if the Dark Lord drove her insane. The light wouldn't stand a chance.
He decided to write a message to her.
I know you've probably gone to sleep. I had a decent day today. I've made progress on my task. I'm wondering if over break maybe I could discreetly consult you on how to go forward from there. I find myself wondering what you are up to and what they have you doing with your days. I hope whatever it is isn't horrible. Are you still eating lunches with my mother? I know she probably enjoys that a lot. She gets lonely I think. But I guess so do I. I miss talking to you. I need to go to bed now, but I'll read whatever you write back when I can. Goodnight
He felt uncomfortable with some of his admits of missing her, but he was trying to remind her of their bond this summer in case she was lonely or in case she needed to hear about something good.