Memory Lane

Chapter 22

Purely to spite my father, I decide to help my girl with her Horcrux research. She's been wanting to work on it, anyway. I take us back to Moribund's Tomes, confident that Knockturn Alley will have what Granger needs - if it's to be found.

It's been several days since we've seen each other, and Granger turns in a slow circle as she looks around. "How did we -" she starts, then shakes her head, striding confidently towards the rear shelving. I know she's going to ask about that later, but for now I let her focus on what she chooses to.

"What are we looking for?" I ask, in an eerie echo of our earlier bookshop explorations. "How to destroy them?"

"Anything you can find, really," Granger replies. "I'm not particular."

Fair enough. Between the two of us, we do find two books that reference Horcruxes on initial review. Not much, but better than we'd have done at the Hogwarts library.

We commandeer a table and I let Granger work, marvelling at the speed of her mind and her easy scanning, reading, dismissing. Not a second goes to waste. I always used to watch her work, of course, but I feel I have a new appreciation for her now. No competition inherent in her performance, only awe.

"Is there anything new here?" I ask curiously. Seems like no, but I'd love some insight into her thought process. She moves too fast for assumptions.

Frustrated, she attacks her hair and knots it out of her face. "Nothing I can use. I don't know where the sword of Gryffindor is -"

Neither do I.

"- I don't have a basilisk fang on me, and Fiendfyre -"

Granger stops talking but her jaw stays open, her face blank. She blinks once. Twice.

I stare after her as she dives back into the racks of books, nearly knocking over her chair in her haste. "What about Fiendfyre?"

"We used it to -" she reappears from behind the shelf, openly staring at me. "Crabbe -"

I can see the pieces falling into place, even though I don't know what they all are. Her face says she's got it, though; got something.

"Crabbe set the Room of Requirement on fire," she whispers intensely. "He used Fiendfyre and couldn't control it."

Quite right, the bloody idiot had no clue what he was unleashing. We all almost burned to death, and Crabbe actually did. Go on, Granger.

"Harry had the diadem on his arm, and he dropped it into the Fiendfyre as we escaped. It destroyed it."

"The -" I stop, trying to keep up. "- the what?"

"The diadem. Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem. Voldemort turned it into a Horcrux."

Ah, yes. Like a dainty sort of crown, isn't it? I'm sure I've heard my mother discuss a diadem at some point. Women's jewellery. "Alright, so that's another one down. What's left?"

Granger is frozen, lost in her mind.

I rise and walk over to her. I don't know how much is coming back to her and I don't know what it'll do to her when it does. I run my hands up and down her arms, trying to impart a sense of reassurance. She's gnawing on her lower lip so badly I'm worried she's going to draw blood.

"The cup that we found..." she trails off, her eyes distant. She's mentioned this cup before, but she couldn't recall what they did with it.

"Where was it from?" I prompt, trying to be helpful.

"It belonged to Helga Hufflepuff," she says, the look in her eyes still far away. She's answering me, but she's seeing something else. "We stole it in the Gringotts break in. We - I - destroyed it with a basilisk fang, one left in the Chamber of Secrets, during that same battle at Hogwarts."