White Heather for Protection

Rending the Soul

Hadrian nodded. "Yeah, makes sense. Riddle probably charmed Hepzibah Smith into revealing the location of the cup before killing her then framing her house elf."

Heather hummed thoughtfully. "What I'm wondering is why he would go to such lengths just to make a horcrux. He could have used anything to make one, why Hufflepuff's Cup?"

"Maybe he just liked the challenge," Hadrian said, shrugging. "The problem is, we don't know where he could have hidden it. Plus, there's still two more not accounted for."

Heather huffed in frustration. They'd hit a dead end in their search. They would have to bring it up at the next DA meeting so that the others could contribute some ideas. "Hey, Rian." Her brother looked at her questioningly. "I was thinking of sharing all this information with Severus to see if he has any insight to share. He's the one out of all of us that knows the most about Voldemort. Maybe he has some clues about the other two horcruxes."

Her brother frowned a little. "Well, you trust him, right?" She nodded. "Then I trust your judgement. You're right, he probably has lots of inside information on Voldemort that would help him find out about the horcruxes. Maybe he could even try to subtly ask around to find the location of the cup!"

Determination rose up in her. Right, just three more horcruxes and then they could finally defeat Voldemort. Too much was at stake for them to fail now.

~~~

Heather had gotten caught up in her grading and missed the start of dinner. As she walked briskly on her way to the Great Hall, she spied someone with a familiar head of copper hair ahead of her in the hallway.

"Hadrian!" Heather walked faster to catch up with her brother. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be heading for dinner?"

"Oh, hey." Hadrian lifted his hand in a half wave. "I was following Malfoy, but I lost him by the statue of the five-tailed crup." He frowned in annoyance. "Now I can't find him!"

Rolling her eyes, she reached up to ruffle his messy locks. "When I said to keep an eye on Malfoy, I didn't mean stalk him through the school."

"Hey, he was looking pretty shifty!" he said defensively.

She sighed. "Come on, let's just go eat."

"Fine," he huffed and reluctantly changed directions to head to the Great Hall.

Rolling her eyes at the dramatics, she asked, "So how are things? Anything interesting happen lately?"

Hadrian lit up in excitement. "We're starting duelling tournaments this week!" he said, referring to the DA lessons. "It'll be really helpful for them to get experience with facing different opponents and also keeping up their stamina."

"Great! I was thinking of starting my kids on learning to use the spell orbs. We've finally got working models of the basic offence and defence spells ready to go."

She, Fred and George had worked hard on those. They were sort of like instant spells contained in little balls. So far they had orbs for up to fourth year spells. They would be great for the younger students to have on hand in case they faced an opponent more skilled than them. The only drawback was that the orbs were tedious to make. She could probably make about four to five on a good day before getting too tired.

"That's brilliant!" Hadrian grinned widely, shaking his head in mixed disbelief and awe. "I can't believe you guys really managed it! I can't wait to see them in action! I can just picture it already, a first year throwing a Bombardaat a Deatheater. That would be hilarious to watch!"

Well, the best would be if it didn't come to that. Ideally, students wouldn't be involved in any battles at all. It wasn't a very realistic expectation, however. Voldemort would almost definitely try to invade Hogwarts at one point.