Horcruxes
Sunday, November 3rd, 1996
Draco Malfoy woke up at the same time every day, no matter the season, no matter the day. Why would that change on this day, which, to him, was simply going to be like any other day?
The only sign that it might not be that way was the quiet meowing at his feet.
Weird. Altais rarely meowed, which, yes, sounds strange, but his cat had always been quite strange, so Draco didn’t think much of it, it being so early in the morning ,as he sat up and stretched his arms out above his head, crawling forwards across his four poster to where Altais always sat curled up each morning, rising with her owner.
However, this would prove to be quite the lively morning already, as when he caught sight of his Kneazle blinking back up at him, she appeared to be wide awake, and rightfully so, as seven tiny little furballs were currently pressed against her belly, climbing over each other to reach, each a brilliant white or orange, some a mix of both.
“Oh,” Draco exclaimed, blinking down at his cat and her new family. “Well I suppose congratulations are in order.”
He left them to it, understanding from his Care lessons mother’s could be quite protective of their newborn young, especially when nursing and got to waving his wand to scourgify the excess blood around them, before pushing back the curtains to his roommates, only to see their beds were empty.
Deciding the exact thing he needed this morning was a calm bath so he could process the fact that Altais had given birth in his sleep without him even knowing she was pregnant (though if he was honest he hadn’t been able to spend a lot of time with her lately, but this would explain the sudden weight gain) and mull over who the father might be (he had a sinking feeling in his gut about that ginger hair) Draco headed for the bathroom. However, when he opened the door it was to a rush of water pouring out and over his slippers, sogging them in seconds, and he could see, thankfully submerged in bubbles, this was the fault of Crabbe, passed out in the tub.
“Vincent!” He yelled, jolting the boy awake with a snort in seconds. “What in Merlin’s name are you doing?”
“Sorry,” the other boy groaned. “Greg’s making me get up early to go swimming in the lake. Some dare with Hestia, I think… He fancies her. Did you know that?” Vincent didn’t look at all happy with the fact that Gregory fancied Hestia Carrow, not that Draco cared, placing his hands on his hips and glaring at his longtime friend.
“Well if you’re just going swimming why do you need a bath? Out! I’m grieving! I lost to Potter yesterday and all I need is a nice warm bath…” Vincent mumbled something about being sore from the game too as Draco slammed the door shut to let him get dry and changed. Five minutes later, he burst back in and ran the water for the bath, only to sneer as a cold stream poured out, meaning he’d have to walk all the way down to the Prefect’s bath.
An hour later, he came out quite grumpy and smelling of an unpleasant amalgamation of soaps. The bath had certainly appeared much more appealing in Fourth Year when it wasn’t at his constant disposal, and he was sure his already unhappy mood didn’t make it any better, but regardless his hair felt pleasantly free and curly, his skin refreshed, so he departed for a late breakfast with as much of a saunter in his step as he could manage.
Unfortunately, he had to turn a corner to a passageway he’d forgotten to tell Filch to block off for its susceptibility to anti-pureblood graffiti, and so came face to face with a crowd of Third and Fourth Years gawking and giggling at red words magically shining off a stone wall, though they immediately froze from their giggling at the sight of him. The message still… sunk in, however, as Umbridge might say.
“‘Malfoy is a snobbish, racist, elitist brat.’” For the briefest of moments, Draco sucked in a sharp breath through his nose, but quickly corrected it by smirking and nodding stiffly. “Sums up my personality perfectly.” With that he turned sharply on his heel and started off down the hall, releasing a long breath of air when he was positive they were far away.
It wasn’t fair, at all, that he could spend every second of his life worrying over proving himself to be a good human being, and yet there was always someone - or, more accurately, a mob of someone’s - waiting around the corner to point out his parentage, past, or prejudice. Not that he had any prejudices left nowadays, or at least not as many…
Suffice to say, when Draco Malfoy entered the Great Hall for breakfast, he was in anything but a good mood, and would later quickly defend his actions if one said he was too rude to slam his head on the table in front of his three - grinning far too wide - Gryffindor friends, and yell in Hermione’s face, “It never occurred to you to get Crookshanks neutered? Really Granger?”
“Neutered?” She immediately exclaimed, looking very confused as her smile, along with her friends on either side of her, dropped. “Why - Why are you - He was so old when -”
“Well Altais wasn’t exactly a kitten either! And where was I going to get the money to get her neutered?” Taking a seat, Draco slammed his head against the table.
“Did… Did Crookshanks and Altais… have sex?”
“Yes!” Draco looked up at Ron’s words so that he could dramatically spread his hands out in his frustration, “Yes, and now my Kneazle has given birth to seven little baby’s I really can’t afford, and I didn’t get a warm bath but a dunk in ice water, and why do people keep insisting I’m such a horrible person after everything that I’ve done?” Slapping his forehead he leaned back and let out a long goran. “Suffice to say I’ve had the worst day.”
“Really?” The three, mischievous Gryffindors turned to each other and grinned in a way only they could, turning back around when they felt Draco’s confused eyes on them, so that Harry could lean forward and explain their devious plan. “Well… How would you like to make that day the best.”
“The luckiest,” added Ron.
“Where everything you do goes right.” finished Hermione.
Draco raised one eyebrow high. “Are we really using Felix Felicis this time? No placebo effects?”
Harry shook his head, reached in his pocket, and revealed his crystalline bottle of shimmering liquid luck. “No placebo.”
Draco grinned. “Let’s do this.”
-*-*-*-
10:24 a.m.
Harry looked up from his watch, and, raising one eyebrow up at Draco, seated patiently before the Gryffindors back in his dorm, lap full of kittens happily crawling over him, attempting to squint their eyes open, he asked, “Are you ready?”
Draco gave a stiff nod.
“Good because we only got six minutes; Slughorn likes to take time with meals, but he’ll be done by the time you get down there, you just have to time it right so you don’t look like you were -”
“Stalking him.” Draco tilted his head playfully. “Have some experience in that arena there, Potts?”
Harry blushed, thanking Merlin Ron covered the tense moment, as he said, “It’s a great feeling when you take it. Like you can’t do anything wrong…”
“What are you talking about?” Hermione's laughter beside him brought him out of a sort of revere. “You’ve never taken any!”
“Yeah, but I thought I had, didn’t I?” Said Ron, as if this really was the; “Same difference, really…”
Harry looked up from his watch, “It’s ten thirty.”
“Well,” Hermione nodded at the bottle in Draco’s hand, which he had retrieved from where it had been stowed away with the rest of his meager belongings in the bottom of his trunk. “Go on then. Remember, just take four hours worth…”
They wouldn’t need any more than that, planning on meeting back with Draco after lunch, and giving him plenty of time to get that memory from Slughorn, while hopefully getting to relish in a few hours of luck, for once.
Draco downed the carefully measured four hours worth of golden liquid, licking his lips as he eyed his friends, who were all staring at him with slight apprehension, all unsure of what the effects of Felix Felicis really were.
As for Draco, it took a second, but slowly, a building exhilarated feeling spread from his toes to the curls on his head; a sense of opportunity, where one couldn't go wrong at all. Suddenly, all once impossible endeavors such as getting Slughorn's memory, putting a label on his relationship with Harry, and beating Voldemort seemed easier than breathing.
“It feels…” he sucked in a deep breath, standing as he did so with a wide smile on his face. “Excellent.” With that he strode out of the room.
The Gryffindor’s glanced worriedly at each other, made sure the kittens were all cuddled up with Altais, and followed him.
“Where are you going?”
“Gryffindor Common Room,” he announced cheerily, swinging open the door out of his dorm and striding down the steps into the common room, where Slytherins lounged around here and there, a Hogsmeade-less Sunday, some waving weakly at him as he passed, waving cheerily. At his unusual peppiness they took a double take, and some out right snapped out of their seats when they spotted three very out-of-place Gryffindors stumbling after him.
“Draco, wait!” Harry called in vain after the blonde head. “You have to go find Slughorn, remember?”
The Quartet exited the Slytherin Common Room, but then were immediately headed for the Gryffindor one, apparently, Hermione gesturing to Slughorn departing from the Great Hall in vain and groaning as she was dragged along by her boyfriend, all following Draco who jogged up the steps with a small smile, humming ‘Weasley Is Our King’, which was once again stuck in the whole school’s heads after the match.
“Yes, yes, of course I will, but first I need Ginny!”
Again, all the trio of Gryffindors could do was look to each other in confusion, just to confirm they weren’t going crazy.
“Hello, Miss,” Draco greeted with a nod and slight bow when they came to the Fat Lady’s portrait, who crossed her arms and scowled down at the boy in green. Harry, however, pushed forwards and smiled as politely as he could, stating the password, “Abstinence.”
“Well, I’m trying,” the Fat Lady groaned as the four were let inside, Draco immediately striding across the carpet to where Ginny sat running a hand through her hair, scowling at her Arithmancy homework.
“Hello, Ginevra,” instantly her head shot up, and she looked ready to punch Draco, but probably held back only because it was Draco, and they had all come to an understanding that getting any of their names right was a hopeless endeavor. Still, threatening him wasn’t an un-advisable option.
“Say that again and you can say goodbye to that Captain’s badge because there will be no way you’ll be able to play once I’m through with you,” She cracked her knuckles, but froze and raised her eyebrows high when Draco merely tilted his head and smiled at her.
“Okay!” he proclaimed cheerily, and pointed a thumb over his shoulder, “Want to go down to the Hog’s Head with me?”
“What?” all four Gryffindors in the near vicinity exclaimed, before Hermione let out an exasperated, “Sh!” because some of the students around them had turned and were staring.
“I have to talk with Slughorn,” he leaned in, hand behind his mouth as if letting her in on a secret as he dropped his voice, “And I’m trying to get him to do something for me, if you know what I mean?” he leaned back, speaking normally, “I just thought that a fellow Slug Club member might help.” Ginny raised a skeptical eyebrow at the same time Harry and Hermione both turned and glared at him.
“But I’m not the only Slug Club member here…”
“No, but if you tag along you and I can get alcohol, and Hermione won’t rat me out.”
A wicked grin spread across the fifteen year old’s face as Hermione scoffed. “I’m in,” she proclaimed, and, beaming, Draco held out his hand and helped her stand like a gentleman, though didn’t protest when she threw him off and walked ahead. He however was stopped from walking forwards by a tug on his arm, and he turned around to find, unsurprisingly, three worried faces blinking back at him.
“Mate,” said Ron, “what’re you doing?”
“Going down to the Hog’s Head! Harry, can I borrow the Invisibility Cloak? We’ll need to get past Filch.” said Draco.
“Sure -”
“No!” Hermione rubbed at her temple with two fingers. “You can’t just go running off, we have a plan, can’t you stick to it?”
“Hermione,” he turned to her sincerely as Harry began to back off, jogging up the steps to his dorm. Lightly, he placed both hands on her arms. “I know you aren’t under Felix Felicis now, but I am, and I trust this voice in my head saying the Hog’s Head is a good idea, and bringing her along,” he pointed over at the patiently waiting redhead by the portrait hole, who smiled and waved back, “is the right thing to do. I know what I’m doing, or at least… Felix does.”
She didn’t look convinced in the least, but it was too late anyway, as Harry had returned with the cloak in his arms, thrusting it at his friend and trying to hide his own clear displeasement.
Draco looked around at the mutual upsetness, and sighed. “Look, I’ll be back right on time and I promise I’ll have that memory. You’ll just have to trust me,” he started to turn, paused, and turned back sharply, looking each friend in the eye, but lingering far too long on a pair of emerald eyes. “Do you trust me?”
He nodded along because, well, he loved him, didn’t he? Even though he didn’t have the words to say it just yet. How couldn’t he trust him?
Smiling, Draco turned and jogged off, walking alongside Ginny out of the portrait hole, and out of sight.
-*-*-*-
“So… have you been down to Hog’s Head since the first HOOD meeting?” Conversation was stilted on the walk to Hogsmeade, Ginny not recalling a time she had ever been alone with Draco at all, much less for this long, but she was able to come up with this as an intro into discussion by the time they’d reached the bridge to the little village, where they were completely exposed to be ratted out as two students far from school. Draco had reassured her he had a ‘good feeling’ they wouldn’t get caught, but, being so lucky already with Flich leaving the doors unlocked, she was rightfully worried their luck would run out soon, even as he consistently reassured her.
“Nope,” said Draco, stepping into the village and turning to walk backwards and speak to the youngest Weasley more directly. “How about you?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, you know, last year we liked to practice spells a lot there. The barman never seemed to mind.” She stopped, raising an eyebrow. “Do you think he and Slughorn are friends? Is that why we’re going there?”
Draco stopped. Truthfully, he hadn’t a clue what was drawing him towards the musty old bar, but Ginny’s guess was pretty good and, not wanting to admit exactly what influence he was under, he shrugged his shoulders and turned back around, mumbling, “Maybe…”
Her assumption proved to be, thankfully, absolutely correct. They reached the severed hog head sign and swung open the creaky old door and there was Slughorn, bent over and nursing a bottle of who knows what, talking in low tones with the bent over barman. Ginny nudged Draco in the side, clearly having not bought his act and knowing she had guessed he’d be here, but it was Draco, controlled solely by Felix Felicis at this point, who strode forward and gave his professor a dazzling grin.
“Hullo, Professor!” he greeted, nearly giving the old man a heart attack as he sprung in his stool and clutched his chest. The barman slowly straightened, frowning.
“Draco!” Slowly, Slughorn tried his best to steady his breathing. “Wha… What are you doing here? I wasn’t aware it was a Hogsmeade weekend…”
“It isn’t,” the barman practically snarled as Ginny took a seat beside Draco and nodded at him with a smile.
“No, but we thought we’d stop by to say ‘hi.’ Ginny had a feeling you’d be here.” Draco reached in his pocket and retrieved a sack of gold. The last of his spending money. “We’ll take two Firewhiskeys, please.”
While the barman disappeared behind the bar to retrieve their drinks, Slughorn spun his head around to frown at them both. “Now, what sort of Professor would I be if I let -”
“- Us tell you how we successfully coerced Harry into taking Draco to your Christmas Party, meaning he’s coming, finally?”
Draco made a mental note to find a way to repay this new but ever growing debt to Ginny Weasley when the Felix Felicis had worn off - and ask how she knew they were going together, too. Still, he could get one over her in the moment, quickly saying, “And Ginny’s coming with Luna!” before Slughorn could sigh and tell him his thanks for getting the Chosen One in his clutches.
The barman reappeared, holding out the drinks, and Draco took them happily, but paused as he looked closer, behind wiry gray hair and beard, past a pair of, not half-moon, but square spectacles, at the pair of blue eyes staring back at him. They were more faded, surely, but in their annoyance with his presence they possessed that exact same piercing stare. He recalled the funeral, when this old man and walked up to the grave and written, below or above everyone else’s messages -
“You’re Dumbledore’s brother, aren’t you?”
Ginny spit out her drink so it sprayed across the bar and Slughorn choked quite harshly on his own, while the barman did a double take, raising his eyebrows high, as clearly, he hadn’t been called that in years.
“You’re Aberforth Dumbledore,” Draco would be sensible enough to back off, but Felix Felicis, however, never knew when to stop.
Seemingly deciding on what would be the correct response to such an accusation, the barman landed on silence as he nodded at Slughorn’s empty glass. “That’ll be ten galleons total, Horace.”
Subtle, but he clearly wanted them gone after the accusation. Slughorn snapped alert and nodded, bending to pick up his cloak, but froze when Draco’s voice called out. “Wait… It’s the weekend! You aren’t on the job, Professor, you could take one more drink…” He tipped over his savings, gold galleons rolling out of the bag and right under Slughorn’s nose. “On me.”
Slughorn licked his lips, and looked into the eyes of his once prized student, but, as he had consistently for the past few weeks, he couldn’t hold for more than a couple seconds without seeing Lucius, so instead he jerked his head away quickly, spitting out, “Fine,” as he had been in the middle of a discussion with Aberforth, Draco’s clear underlying motivations be damned. “Only if you’d leave me and Mr. Dumbledore alone, for a moment.”
Ginny sucked in a quick gasp at the confirmation of the barman’s identity as he picked up Draco’s coin and bent below the bar for another mead for Slughorn, but was otherwise ignored as Draco stared Slughorn head on, and said, “No, we were actually looking to talk with Mr. Dumbledore ourselves.”
“We were -” Draco gave Ginny a sharp kick under the table and she went silent.
“What do you want?” Aberforth grumbled, emerging from behind the bar and handing off Slughorn’s mead without moving his gaze from frowning at Draco. “I know who you are. Saw you come in with your ‘Hogwarts Order of Defence’ folks. You were at the funeral too. You’re the Malfoy boy, aren’t you? Coming in here looking for old Horace… I’d bet my goats you’re following my brother’s orders.”
“I am.” Maybe it was Felix, maybe not, but Draco still felt a rush of pride when he raised his chin and said those words. The older men didn’t look pleased, however.
“He’s the boy I was trying to tell you about, Aberforth. And I bet Harry Potter’s onto it too,” Slughorn peered around Draco at Ginny’s redhead, jerking between people talking, wildly confused. “And I suppose Miss Weasley as well. Pity…”
“My brother always had a slew of followers ready to rise to his beck and call, even in death. See all those folks protesting Skeeter’s novel? People you’ve neve heard of, aren’t they? Mind you, the book’s rubbish, but the reactions are still absurd. So he sent you here, did he?” Aberforth barked a laugh, “Did he really think, in death, that I’d convince an innocent man to relive something he wants to forget, for what? The greater good?”
Involuntarily, Draco felt a shiver race down his spine at those two words, and memories of Grindelwald, and Hallows, and Horcruxes came rushing to his brain all at once as the weight of the wand in his pocket almost felt as heavy as the burn of his Mark. Still, with a rush of the same exhilarated feeling he’d gotten when he’d first drank the potion, he proclaimed, “He didn’t say a word. In fact, I bet he very much wouldn’t have liked to see you just as you wouldn’t have liked to see him, judging by what Skeeter wrote.” Aberforth huffed. “But I figured, being dead and all, a man can’t hold enmity for long. Even a man who punched their brother in the face at their sister’s funeral.”
Aberforth’s wiry eyebrows shot up high on his forehead. “She wrote that?”
Draco nodded as Ginny stifled her laughter beside him and Slughorn tried to hide his own smirk.
“Oh yeah…” said Draco, and slowly, the old man shook his head, running a hand over his head.
“Oh… remind me to kill that woman…”
“Well, I don’t think you’ll get the chance to if this war doesn’t end.” With just one sentence, the semi-blissful and mostly relieved atmosphere shattered as Slughorn and Aberforth both turned back to Draco with narrowed, piercing gazes.
“One memory,” Slughorn said, raising a finger and wagging it at his student as sweat built on his temple. “Won’t change the course of an entire war.”
“None of those foolish mind games my brother played can. Look where they got him.”
“Caught off his guard because he believed in people too much,” Draco nodded. “I know, I was there,” Ginny swallowed something like a gulp beside him while the other men froze. No one outside of the Harry Potter Rescue Mission Crew (they still couldn’t figure out an official name), the Order of the Phoenix, Fudge, Madam Rosmerta, and the Death Eaters knew; Fudge had made sure of that. “I was there at the Astronomy Tower. I saw him get hit, and I saw him fall. Regardless of how you feel about him, you can’t deny Albus Dumbledore was the only man Voldemort ever feared,”- a spike of pain in his forearm the Felicis numbed - “and now he’s dead. More so than ever are our odds not great. So yeah, maybe one memory is pointless, but it was Dumbledore’s dying request to me to watch every memory. He believed it would stop Voldemort, and I do too.”
No one said anything, the air thick with tense silence, so Draco continued, “Look, I don’t know what you two saw in the first war, but I’ve seen him up close enough these past two years, and I promise you, if you don’t give me - if you don’t give Harry that memory - he will win, and he will kill us. And do you know why?” Draco straightened, turning to face Slughorn fully, forcing him to hold his gaze, and he did, not shying away, for the first time in weeks. “Because Harry Potter is the Chosen One. Only he can stop Voldemort but to do that… he needs your memory, Professor. He needs you.”
Slughorn blinked owlishly at him for a moment, his eyes glistening with tears, and Draco didn’t dare look away to see how the others were taking his speech. In a shaky voice, almost like that of a frightened child, the old man squeaked, “If it were to help Harry, of course… but no purpose can be served…”
“Then that’s it, then. Voldemort’s won. You’d rather lay down and die then give me one memory -”
“A man is allowed to privacy -”
“- from Slytherin to Slytherin, Professor, this is not a time for self preservation.” Draco sucked in a deep breath; no going back now, and Felix Felicis was reassuring him heavily that this whole ordeal would turn out perfectly in the end. “In fact, it is a time for revenge.”
The Felix guided him to memory after memory of Potions classes from September and October.
“Harry, you must have your mother’s brains.” “Surely your skill comes from your mother, Harry.” “Why do I keep surprising myself with your skills, Harry? Afterall, your mother was even more excellent.”
“Don’t you want to get a chance to destroy the man who killed Lily Potter?”
“Evans,” Slughorn choked, tears running down his cheeks now. “That’s all she ever was to me, boy. Miss Evans.”
They fell silent. Rather some (Aberforth) liked it or not, all at the bar wanted Slughorn to do it, even, deep down, Slughorn himself.
“I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed of what I did back then - what I said… I think I may have done great damage that day… but you must understand… you haven’t a clue what he was like, even then…”
“I do.” At last, Felix gave him the answer to Ginny Weasley’s importance, as she piped up, and all eyes turned to her, swirling her firewhiskey solemnly, licking her lips. “Tom? I know how he was… It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Professor,” she looked up and met his gaze, holding it firmly. “He manipulated a lot of people. That’s why we have to make sure he can’t do it anymore,” as if in response, Draco’s Mark burned, but again Felix numbed it.
Very, very slowly, Slughorn slipped his hand in his pocket, revealing his wand, and then, a small bottle. “After all these years… I always carry it with me, just in case…” He shook his head as he stared at the crystalline bottle, as if surprised by his own actions, but then he straightened, resolutely raising his wand to his temple, then slowly drawing it away. A silvery stream of vapor followed, flowing from his temple, attached to his wand tip. All eyes followed the shimmering memory as Slughorn brought it down into the bottle then, corking it, held it out to Draco. His hands were shaking.
“Thank you, Professor.”
“Harry has her eyes…” He shook his head, removing a handkerchief once his fingertips left the glass and wiping at his tears. “You both are so very brave… Just don’t think too badly of me once you’ve seen it…”
He tipped back the last of his bottle of mead, stepped off his stool, and exited the silent bar with his head hung low.
Draco could feel Aberforth’s eyes boring into him, but, up in the clouds with ecstatic glee and Felix Felicis still pulsing through his veins, he hopped off his own stool and nodded to Ginny, striding out of the bar after Slughorn, the redhead downing the last dregs of her firewhiskey before following.
“Thank you, Ginny,” he said sincerely to her, even as she merely grunted and nodded, swaying on her feet, entirely unused to alcohol. She’d probably never admit it, but he was positive this was her first time having a firewhiskey. Smiling, he turned and headed for the castle, knowing she wouldn’t be far behind, if on swaying legs, and willing to hold up to his promise not to turn her in. She had helped to get him this memory, after all, and besides, he found this first time having one-on-one time with the Weaslette wasn’t all that bad.
-*-*-*-
Draco slammed open the door to the library, brushing right past Madam Pince’s protests, and running straight for the table the Quartet had been sitting at for days on end scouring over bits and pieces of information on Horcruxes. He slammed one hand down at the table, jerking a snoozing Ron awake and alerting Harry and Hermione, who were engrossed in books sitting before them.
“I got it!” He presented the glass of silvery vapor with a flourish, and in an instant Harry had shot out of his seat, grinning.
“You did?”
He nodded with a proud smirk, beaming as his friend came around the table to embrace him, whilst Ron and Hermione gaped in wonder.
“Wow… I suppose you didn’t need all that Felix Felicis…”
“It’ll still come in handy,” he shook the little bottle. “Come on, I have a feeling we should watch this as soon as possible.” He gestured a hand behind him and, after glancing back at his best friends who both nodded their permission for him to run, as if he was a child and they his parents, Harry followed Draco out the library, and the pair were off bounding up the steps to McGonagall’s Office.
“Harry,” Draco panted when they were nearly there, turning a sharp corner. “I’ve got a feeling something’s happening in the office, we should be careful -” But Harry wasn’t listening, bounding ahead with his head full of excitement; what did the memory really say? What were Horcruxes? What had Slughorn been so afraid of?
They came to a quick stop, as Draco at predicted, outside of the doors to the Headmistress’s office, as they heard voices, not quite unlike they had heard years prior, only this time it wasn’t Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy yelling at Dumbledore, but a group of people seemingly arguing with each other.
“- not safe. Precautions must be taken.” That was McGonagall’s voice, not altogether unexpected, as this was her office, but the voice that responded certainly was.
“He is a mass murderer and the most dangerous wizard in the world, second only to You-Know-Who. I can’t simply grant him a vacation, can I?” Although, with how often Cornelius Fudge’s presence had been inside this office, it wasn’t altogether unsurprising that he would be caught arguing now, even if it wasn’t with Dumbledore this time.
“You are, in fact, the only one who can grant him that.” Harry couldn’t suppress a sneer. He’d recognize Snape’s snide voice anywhere, especially in that tone.
“Severus, Minerva, please, my assistant has been kidnapped, and every day more and more colleagues of mine turn out to be traitors or spies. I simply do not have the resources or the public opinion to grant Gellert Grindelwald safety.”
“Public opinion? After all these years, is that seriously what matters to you?”
“That has always been what matters to me!” Harry and Draco both tensed at the sudden raised voice of their Minister, whom they had hardly ever heard yell. “What do you think the point of the Hogwarts Order of Defense was? You can’t fight a war, Minerva, without the people on your side. Especially not one so rooted in personal beliefs as this one is.”
“Are you suggesting that simply because you choose to protect a criminal, the public will choose Voldemort’s side? And don’t wince, that horrid jinx can’t reach us at the school.”
“Yes, that is precisely what I’m saying, because this criminal happens to share the same views as the monster we face today. What’s stopping the Wizarding World from believing that I’m on You-Know-Who’s side? It might surprise you, Minerva, but thousands of people are quite fond of me at the moment. If they suspect I’m pro-pureblood society, they might switch over too.”
A pause, where Harry and Draco didn’t so much as dare to breathe, then Snape’s drawling voice sliced through the tense atmosphere. “Your mangled logic never ceases to amuse me, Cornelius.”
“Severus is right. There is no sense in such a statement, but we all know the truth. You, once again, have made the decision to take the coward’s way out, while a man will surely get tortured and die as a result, leading to who knows how much destruction.”
The boys could easily say they were surprised to hear when Fudge responded, his voice was even and calm. “I wouldn’t hardly know what kind of destruction we’re headed towards, exactly, if you continue to refuse to tell me -”
Harry didn’t even have time to get out a single word to Draco before he, every muscle in his body guided purely by Felix Felicis, threw open the door to the office, head high, and declared, “I can.”
All at once, all three occupants’ heads, Professors McGonagall and Snape, and Minister Fudge, looking his thinnest, baldest, and greyest yet, turned to Draco and Harry stumbling after him with a wobbly smile. They’d later swear they even saw the snoozing portrait of Albus Dumbledore peek his eyes open for a fraction of a second.
“I can tell you,” Draco said, and instantly his Professors began to protest, stepping forward but Draco turned away from them and instead walked towards his Minister, taking in his exhausted appearance only briefly, then saying, “He wants a wand he thinks Grindelwald has. If he finds him, he’ll learn Grindelwald doesn’t have it, but Dumbledore did, only Dumbledore -”
“Gave his wand to you,” Fudge’s eyes widened like round saucer dishes in the realization. “So if he finds it, you’ll be…”
The room fell silent. No one wanted to finish the sentence just as much as they all knew exactly what the blank Fudge left at the end of it was. Really, it seemed there wasn’t a fate left for Draco that didn’t literally have a deadend, even as Felix assured him, soothingly, blanketing his Mark with warmth and confidence, that he’d be perfectly safe.
“I saw what he did to Gregorovitch…” Fudge shook his head, wetting his lips and nodding to the Professor’s resolutely. “I’ll do it. I’ll make sure Grindelwald is protected, public opinion be damned.”
Harry swore he heard a quiet woohoo from the portrait above him.
He tipped his bowler hat politely to the new Headmistress and Deputy Headmaster and turned on his heel, leaving with a proud stride he most certainly hadn’t had a couple years ago as Minister.
“Boys,” Draco and Harry both looked to McGonagall with sheepish grins, and Draco wordlessly lifted the bottle with Slughorn’s memory. Her eyebrows raised slightly when she saw it, and, after exchanging an imperceptible glance with Snape, the pair turned to look up at Dumbledore, whose eyes were now wide open, his mouth displaying a pleasant smile.
“Well done, Draco, well done.” He said, nodding his head, and the blonde beamed back at him as McGonagall gestured to Snape and the two Professors left, leaving the boys to step up slowly to the Pensieve, and pour in the memory.
“If only I had gotten a chance to see it…” Dumbledore shook his head, then settled in more comfortably in his seat to no doubt snooze again. Harry took Draco’s hand as he had done many times before, and together they dived forward into the memory.
“Sir, is it true that Professor Merrythought is retiring?”
They were back in Slughorn’s office many years prior, the group of boys surrounding Tom Riddle with a worshiping gaze, Slughorn himself leaned back in his armchair with his feet resting on a pouf, hand dunked in a box full of crystallized pineapple.
“Tom, Tom, if I knew I couldn’t tell you. I must say, I’d like to know where you get your information, boy, more knowledgeable than half the staff, you are.”
Once more, the other boys laughed and gazed up at Tom with admiration as he smiled serenely, giving away no thoughts inside his head. “What with your uncanny ability to know things you shouldn’t, and your careful flattery of the people who matter - thank you for the pineapple, by the way, you’re quite right, it is my favorite - I confidently expect you to rise to Minister of Magic within twenty years. Fifteen, if you keep sending me pineapple, I have excellent contacts at the Ministry.”
“I don’t know that politics would suit me, sir,” Tom said once the laughter that had risen once more around him stopped. “I don’t have the right kind of background, for one thing.”
As the boys around him smirked, Harry knew they had to know about his ancestry to Muggles, or at least it was a pretty popular rumor.
“Nonsense,” said Slughorn, waving a hand, “couldn’t be plainer you come from decent Wizarding stock, abilities like yours. No, you’ll go far, Tom, I’ve never been wrong about a student yet.”
Harry and Draco exchanged a worried look, already seeing what Slughorn was ashamed of, and yet they haven’t even reached the Horcruxes. The clock chimed eleven, Slughorn dismissed the students, yet Tom Riddle stayed behind just as he had before, shuffling from foot to foot.
Slughorn turned from putting his pineapple in a cupboard at the sound of his feet on the carpet, smiling pleasantly. “Look sharp, Tom, you don’t want to be caught out of bed out of hours, and you a prefect..”
“Sir, I wanted to ask you something.”
“Ask away, then, m’boy, ask away…”
“Sir, I wondered what you know about… about Horcruxes?”
There was no thick mist this time, giving them a full view of Slughorn’s purely unalarmed, more straight faced expression, a great contrast to the horror he’d have in his later years whenever such a word was brought up to him.
“Project for Defense Against the Dark Arts, is it?” Even then, it was perfectly clear Slughorn knew this was no project.
“Not exactly, sir,” said Riddle. “I came across the term while reading and I didn’t fully understand it.”
“No… well… you’d be hard pushed to find a book at Hogwarts that’ll give you details on Horcruxes, Tom, that’s very Dark stuff, very Dark indeed.” To his credit, it was clear Slughorn was trying to brush him off and did not want to be having this conversation.
“But you obviously know all about them, sir? I mean, a wizard like you - sorry, I mean, if you can’t tell me, obviously - I just knew if anyone could tell me, you could - so I just thought I’d…” There was no denying, as both boys scowled or sneered, Tom Riddle’s skill in manipulation. He was right years ago, in the Chamber of Secret, he could be very persuasive. Harry could even recognize the same tactics from when Draco had tried to butter Slughorn up for weeks himself.
“Well,” Slughorn had resorted to refusing to look Riddle in the eyes, instead fiddling with the ribbon on the top of his pineapple box. “well, it can’t hurt to give you an overview, of course. Just so that you understand the term. A Horcrux is the word used for an object in which a person has concealed part of their soul.”
“I don’t quite understand how that works, though, sir,” Riddle certainly held the appearance of a curious child, but his voice was clearly excited.
“Well, you split your soul, you see, and hide part of it in an object outside the body. Then, even if one’s body is attacked or destroyed, one cannot die, for part of the soul remains earthbound and undamaged. But of course, existence in such a form…” By Slughorn’s face Draco could imagine it wasn’t a pleasant existence, and Harry himself could hear Voldemort’s words from the graveyard of how he was ripped from his body, less than anything, even a soul, but somehow still alive.
“... few would want it, Tom, very few. Death would be preferable.”
“How do you split your soul?” Now Riddle made no effort to conceal the hungry excitement on his face, clearly having not absorbed Slughorn’s words on death being preferable one bit.
“Well,” Slughorn had now begun to shift from foot to foot uncomfortably, “you must understand that the soul is supposed to remain intact and whole. Splitting it is an act of violation, it is against nature.”
He couldn’t be making it plainer it was a terrible choice, and yet Riddle persisted, “But how do you do it?”
“By an act of evil - the supreme act of evil. By committing murder,” Slughorn gave a violent shudder at his own words. “Killing rips the soul apart. The wizard intent upon creating a Horcrux would use the damage to his advantage: He would encase the torn portion -”
“Encase? But how -?” Now a hideous smile was pointing up the corners of Riddle’s mouth, his fists clenching onto the side of the table beside him, shaking slightly.
“There is a spell, do not ask me, I don’t know!” Slughorn raised his hands, shaking his head, then gestured down himself with his next words, “Do I look as though I have tried it - do I look like a killer?”
“No, sir, of course not,” Riddle’s hands dropped from the table instantly, his composure back to that of a curious teen, leaving no room for suspicion to Slughorn. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to offend…”
“Not at all, not at all, not offended,” and Slughorn, unfortunately, couldn’t find anything in that to suspect, "It is natural to feel some curiosity about these things… Wizards of a certain caliber have always been drawn to that aspect of magic…”
“Yes, sir,” Riddle nodded curtly. “What I don’t understand, though - just out of curiosity - I mean, would one Horcrux be of much use? Can you only split your soul once? Wouldn’t it be better, make you stronger, to have your soul in more pieces, I mean, for instance,” he couldn’t suppress the smirk on his lips, or the nervous twitch that caused his fingers to begin to turn the ring on his finger. “isn’t seven the most powerfully magical number, wouldn’t seven -?”
“Merlin’s beard, Tom!” yelped Slughorn. “Seven! Isn’t it bad enough to think of killing one person? And in any case… bad enough to divide the soul… but to rip it into seven pieces…”
He met Riddle’s eyes for perhaps the first time in his entire life, seeing not a prized student but the monster this boy would grow up to be, as his eyes widened, and looking very regretful to have ever opened his mouth. A glimmer of the man Slughorn would be years later at the Hog’s Head in his eyes.
“Of course,” he attempted to smile at the boy with his usual jolly attitude. “this is all hypothetical, what we’re discussing, isn’t it? All academic…”
“Yes, sir, of course,” Riddle, however, smiled smoothly and easily. Slughorn swallowed hard.
“But all the same, Tom… keep it quiet, what I’ve told - that’s to say, what we’ve discussed. People wouldn’t like to think we’ve been chatting about Horcruxes. It’s a banned subject at Hogwarts, you know… Dumbledore’s particularly fierce about it…”
“I won’t say a word, sir,” he turned on his heel to walk away but, with just a step or two to the side, Harry and Draco could catch the look on his face; the exact same twisted joy he had had when first being told he was a wizard, which once again did not enhance his handsome features in the slightest, instead making him appear the most like the monster he’d grow up to be as ever.
Silently, Harry took Draco’s hand and, with a curt nod to each other, the two rose to the sky, emerging from the Pensieve and landing on McGonagall’s office floor. Glancing briefly up they saw, predictably, Dumbledore was still sleeping, so the two delved into discussion all on their own, though they did notice now that every portrait besides Dumbledore’s was alert and listening, Phineas Nigellus Black looking the most interested in a conversation he’d ever been, the others nearly falling out of their seats in leaning forward towards the teen boys.
“So… Horcruxes… are a path to immortality?” Harry asked and Draco, Felix rising in his chest, nodded quickly, saying “Yes” as it told him to.
“He was obsessed with being immortal, wasn’t he?” Draco added, slowly sitting in a chair in front of McGonagall’s desk, Harry taking the seat beside and turning it to face him. “Which would explain why -”
“He didn’t die when he attacked me!” Harry exclaimed, snapping his fingers. “His soul survived because it was hidden in another object.”
“Or objects,” Draco noted, “He said he wanted to make seven, didn’t he?”
“Maybe…” The boys delved into their own thoughts for a moment and, absentmindedly, Harry looked over and above McGonagall’s desk, eyes landing on the brilliant sword sitting above it. A sword Dumbledore wanted him to have, yet the Ministry had refused, even though it had come to him in his time of need against -
“Wait,” he straightened in his seat abruptly, a thought forming faster and faster as it developed into a massive theory. “Riddle, when he opened the Chamber years ago, said he ‘concealed a part of himself in the diary.’”
“What diary -”
“Just listen,” Harry stood, beginning to pace back and forth along the carpet. “Your dad gave a diary to Ginny to open the Chamber of Secrets in Second Year - Voldemort must’ve given him that diary, right? He said he’d concealed a part of his soul in it, too, and when I destroyed it, he died with it…”
“Are you saying,” Draco’s eyes had followed his every movement back and forth, and was now staring at him with wide eyes full of wonder. “That this diary was a Horcrux?” Harry beamed.
“Exactly.”
“So he did make one…”
“Definitely.”
“Which means he could have made more. Otherwise why give one to my dad? He had plenty of Death Eater’s in the first war -”
“- So he could have given plenty more to the others.” Harry finished, and the two grinned at each other briefly, proud of their own combined genius, even if Draco was being aided by Felix Felicis in his thought process.
“He said in the graveyard something about having ‘gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality.’” Harry added, pressing his hands together before his lips in thought. “He must’ve made more… he must’ve… But seven…” he shook his head, and a couple of the portraits now grumbled to each other with similar disappointment. “They could be anywhere in the world. How could we find them all? You want me to find them all, right?”
He looked at Dumbledore’s portrait, hopeful for anything, any hint at all, but the old man only kept on sleeping. Unfortunately the portraits didn’t have it in them clearly to berate him as they would to Phineas Nigellus Black.
“Well, there would probably be six, actually,” Draco pointed out, “Because the seventh would be his own, and then five because you killed the diary. Still, you’re right…” The Felix crept along his heart into his head, then wrapped around his tongue, speaking for him. “Maybe Dumbledore wanted us to watch all these memories,” he gestured to the table still laden with memories they hadn’t touched yet, “because they have the answers to whatever we’re looking for. You said one was in a diary? What other everyday objects do we know he might’ve found special?”
Harry whipped around and the boy’s eyes met as the same memory of a brilliant band of gold with a black stone set on Tom Riddle’s finger met their minds. “The ring,” they said in unison. Some of the portraits above nodded their approval to the theory.
The boys sat in silence then, for a minute, maybe two, but neither could come up with a single other item of interest, so instead, Felix switched Draco’s brain over to another bright idea.
“What about places? Even if we don’t know what we’re looking for, it would help to at least know where to look. He gave the diary to my dad because he was a trusted Death Eater, who was next in line…” A pause, because Harry wouldn’t have a clue what the answer to this question was, so simply waited for Draco’s thoughts to form and then he said, as if it was obvious the whole time, “Bellatrix Lestrange.”
Harry nodded stiffly. “Yeah, makes sense. She’s obsessed with him, isn’t she? Where would she keep a Horcrux though? She got put in Azkaban.”
“The vaults.” Draco responded immediately. “All pureblood vaults at Gringotts are heavily guarded - probably the most secure places in the world because -”
“No one’s ever broken into Gringotts -” Draco opened his mouth, no doubt about to point out the 1991 break-in, but Harry raised a finger. “- and been successful,” He shrugged his shoulders, smirking. “Well, there’s a first time for everything.”
“Yeah… In fact,” Draco leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling in thought. “That day in the summer before Second Year, when Lockhart had his book signing, and my dad fought Ron’s… We had to do some errands, but before we went to Knockturn Alley Dad took me to our vault at Gringotts. All he took out was a brown parcel, and he refused to tell me what it was, no matter how much I begged. It was kind of diary-shaped, now that I think about it.”
Again the boys beamed towards each other, impressed with their own genius.
“Okay, but these memories were supposed to help us get in his head right? Snoozefest up there must think there’s a Horcrux hidden in a place that’s special to him. He was hardly that trusting of a person to give them all to his Death Eater’s, right?”
“Right,” Draco nodded. “Bet one’s in the Gaunt or Riddle house. A family home. He was obsessed with his heritage wasn’t he? For good and bad reasons.”
“I think just bad,” Harry mumbled but couldn’t ignore the logic.
“What about the orphanage?”
“No… I don’t think so… He hated that place more than anything. Hogwarts, more likely. That’s what he considered to be his home,” said Harry, and Draco shuddered to think Voldemort could have any concept of what it felt like to have a home, but couldn’t ignore the memories of how good Riddle’s life while at Hogwarts had been for him. A place where he belonged and was worshiped even, as more special than any other.
The boys fell silent, long enough that McGonagall knocked on the door and stepped in, asking if they’d had lunch, and they stood and left, minds filled with everyday objects and places they’d glimpsed in the memories that could hold the Horcuxes, but their guesses all run out, the Felix fading with his passing second.
“For what it’s worth,” Draco said as they reached the Great Hall, breathing in the fresh air wafting in from outside, treasuring it in a way he never would have on any other normal day. “It felt good to be lucky.”
Harry smiled and wrapped an arm around his friend’s shoulder, and together they stepped into the Great Hall, prepared to delve into the topic of Horcruxes with their other two friends patiently waiting and waving with beaming grins.
“You know what?” said Draco as they sat down and Harry raised his watch, waiting patiently for the seconds to tick down to 2:30. “I think we should bring back Malfoy’s Hogwarts News.”
Harry met his eyes, raising his eyebrows in surprise, and Draco chuckled, waving a hand. “Yeah maybe you’re right…”
With that Felix Felicis released its hold on his brain and dissipated, but at least Draco still kept the memory of the joy that came with having a truly lucky day.