Hindsight

Blood Lines

Harry and Hermione returned from Grimmauld Place and went directly to the Room of Requirement. Harry asked the Room for an empty, open space, where the Horcrux could be disposed of safely, and it delivered. There was nothing in the room except for a stone situated right in the middle. The space was well-lit, and the walls were padded.

Hermione set the Locket down on the stone. Harry stared at the embossed snake and bade the Locket to open.

Nothing happened.

He tried again, but the Locket remained firmly shut.

'You're speaking English,' Hermione said after his third attempt.

Harry looked at her, confused. 'Am I really?'

Hermione nodded. 'You're just saying "open" over and over again. Oh!'

'What?'

'Your scar,' she gasped. 'The Horcrux got taken out. That might've…you might've lost your ability to speak Parseltongue! It must've been Riddle's soul that gave you that power!'

'Fuck,' Harry cursed under his breath. 'How're we going to open this locket?'

'We can try to fake it,' Hermione replied. 'Remember how…how Ron got into the Chamber of Secrets in the "old timeline"?'

'I don't know how Parseltongue sounds like, though,' Harry said, dejected. 'It just sounds like spoken English to me. How am I supposed to fake a language that I've never heard?'

'I'm here, am I not?'

'You can mimic Parseltongue?'

'I can try,' Hermione said tentatively. 'I heard you speak when we went to the Chamber. Uh…I think I remember enough of how it sounded to open this thing.'

She stepped up to the Locket and Harry handed her a basilisk fang. She closed her eyes and screwed her face up in concentration. A terrible hissing sound came from her mouth.

The Locket remained closed.

Hermione cursed under her breath. She tried again, intoning slightly differently and stressing a different part of the word that she was trying to say.

There was a click and the Locket snapped open. Harry had barely had time to celebrate when the evil form of Riddle rose out of its inside. He was not scared by it in the slightest. He had seen worse and Riddle did not frighten him. Not anymore.

Harry rushed forward, raised the fang over the open Locket, and slammed it down on one of the halves. He raised it again and brought it down on the other half. There was a wail of pain that seemed to issue from the Locket and from a distance at the same time, and the shadow of Riddle dissipated into thin air.

'It's gone?' Hermione asked gingerly.

Harry inspected the Locket. The metal was twisted and burnt and the glass inside was shattered. He turned around and nodded.

Without a second's hesitation, Hermione threw her arms around him and squeezed him tight.

'Another Horcrux gone!' she squealed excitedly.

'Another Horcrux gone,' Harry repeated. 'You were brilliant with the Parseltongue.'

Hermione beamed and slammed her lips onto his in celebration. They did not leave the Room of Requirement – in its various forms – for the rest of the evening.

Madam Bones replied to Harry and Hermione's letter the day before New Year's Eve. She arranged to meet them at the Three Broomsticks on Saturday, the seventh of January. The two spent New Year's Eve with Hermione's parents. They had taken the train into London to see the New Year's Eve Fireworks on Victoria Embankment. Harry and Hermione had shared a long New Year's kiss, promising that this new year would be better than the last. That, Harry had thought, it will be.