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Deanna nudged Harry. "Come on, I think Pops is back."
"Really?" Harry said in surprise. "How did you know?"
"Just a feeling." Deanna shrugged, tugging on his hand and leading him through the shortcuts and to Dumbledore's office. "Maybe, Felix has been affecting me too." Harry just chuckled and followed her to the gargoyle.
"You've been sneaking out a lot lately, Miss." The gargoyle said before moving aside for them.
"Sorry, dear Sir." Deanna smiled apologetically. "Come on, Harry." They went up the staircase and Deanna knocked.
"Enter." Dumbledore's exhausted voice rang out.
Deanna pushed the door open with a look of worry. "Pops, are you all right?"
"Good gracious, Deanna, Harry," said Dumbledore in surprise. "To what do I owe this very late pleasure?" He turned to Deanna with a raised eyebrow. "And why are you out of bed?"
"That's not the problem." Deanna too raised an eyebrow inquisitively. "Are you all right?"
"Yes, dear." Dumbledore sighed in exasperation. "And why are you out of bed?"
"Oh right." Deanna pulled out the bottle from her pocket and showed it to Dumbledore. "Harry and I got it. The memory from Professor Slughorn."
Dumbledore looked stunned for a moment before his face broke into a wide smile. "Deanna, Harry, this is spectacular news! Very well done indeed! I knew you could do it!"
Dumbledore took the bottle from Deanna with his uninjured hand and moved to the cabinet where he kept the Pensieve. "And now," said Dumbledore, placing the stone basin upon his desk and emptying the contents of the bottle into it. "Now, at last, we shall see. Love, Harry, quickly..."
Deanna bowed down and felt herself flying up, she fell through the darkness and arrived at Slughorn's office where there were six boys sitting around the old professor.
Tom Riddle suddenly asked, "Sir, is it true that Professor Merrythought is retiring?"
"Tom, Tom, if I knew I couldn't tell you," said Slughorn, wagging his finger at Tom with a wink. "I must say, I'd like to know where you get your information, boy, more knowledgeable than half the staff, you are."
Just as she did before, Deanna rolled her eyes at the boys who laughed and cast admiring looks at the smiling Riddle.
"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 —"
Several of the boys tittered again, and this time it did not come as a haze like the previous memory.
"— 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."
Tom Riddle merely smiled as the others laughed again. Deanna looked around at them, recognizing them as his "friends" or as they became, the first Death Eaters. There was Lestrange, Malfoy and some others who had bullied her and her friends before. She glared at each of their faces, smacking herself mentally for ever thinking Tom was different from them.
"I don't know that politics would suit me, sir," Tom said when the laughter had died away. "I don't have the right kind of background, for one thing." The others had smirked, probably knowing Tom's background.
"Nonsense," said Slughorn briskly, "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."
The small golden clock standing upon Slughorn's desk chimed eleven o'clock behind him and he looked around. "Good gracious, is it that time already? You'd better get going, boys, or we'll all be in trouble. Lestrange, I want your essay by tomorrow or it's detention. Same goes for you, Avery."
One by one, the boys left, and Slughorn carried his glass to his table. When he heard a movement behind him, he was surprised to see Tom still standing there. "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?"
Slughorn stared at him for a moment, the wariness in his eyes evident. "Project for Defense Against the Dark Arts, is it?" Of course, Deanna could tell that he knew it wasn't.
"Not exactly, sir," said Tom. "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," said Slughorn.
"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 ask —"
Deanna couldn't help but scoff at that. Tom Riddle had a way with words. With how he spoke and chose his words, he could make you tell him even your deepest secrets. She knew he had been waiting for this for a long time.
"Well," said Slughorn, not looking at Tom, "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," said Tom with a controlled tone but hidden excitement.
"Well, you split your soul, you see," said Slughorn, "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... few would want it, Tom, very few. Death would be preferable."
Tom's expression had now changed. He could not hide his greediness and excitement. "How do you split your soul?"
"Well," said Slughorn 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."
"But how do you do it?"
"By an act of evil — the supreme act of evil. By committing murder. 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 — ?"
"There is a spell, do not ask me, I don't know!" said Slughorn, shaking his head. "Do I look as though I have tried it — do I look like a killer?"
"No, sir, of course not," said Tom quickly. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean to offend..."
"Not at all, not at all, not offended," said Slughorn gruffly. "It's natural to feel some curiosity about these things... Wizards of a certain caliber have always been drawn to that aspect of magic..."
"Yes, sir," said Tom. "What I don't understand, though — just out of curiosity — I mean, would one Horcrux be 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, 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..."
Slughorn was looking at Tom as if he had finally seen Tom's true colors. Deanna saw regret and fear in her old Professor's eyes. "Of course," he muttered, "this is all hypothetical, what we're discussing, isn't it? All academic..."
"Yes, sir, of course," said Tom quickly.
"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," said Tom, and he left with a wild smile on his face. Not the smile he had whenever he looked at Deanna, but a smile that made people know how cruel he was.
"Thank you, Deanna, Harry," said Dumbledore quietly. "Let us go..."
They landed back in Dumbledore's office, the three of them sitting down and waiting for Dumbledore to speak.
"I have been hoping for this piece of evidence for a very long time," said Dumbledore at last. "It confirms the theory on which I have been working, it tells me that I am right, and also how very far there is still to go..."
Deanna looked around, seeing the portraits were all awake and listening in on their conversation.
"Well," said Dumbledore, "I am sure you understood the significance of what we just heard. At the same age as you are now, give or take a few months, Tom Riddle was doing all he could to find out how to make himself immortal."
"You think he succeeded then, sir?" asked Harry. "He made a Horcrux? And that's why he didn't die when he attacked me? He had a Horcrux hidden somewhere? A bit of his soul was safe?"
"A bit... or more," said Dumbledore. "You heard Voldemort: What he particularly wanted from Horace was an opinion on what would happen to the wizard who created more than one Horcrux, what would happen to the wizard so determined to evade death that he would be prepared to murder many times, rip his soul repeatedly, so as to store it in many, separately concealed Horcruxes. No book would have given him that information. As far as I know — as far, I am sure, as Voldemort knew — no wizard had ever done more than tear his soul in two."
Dumbledore paused for a moment and then said, "Four years ago, I received what I considered certain proof that Voldemort had split his soul."
"What was it?" asked Deanna.
"You handed it to me, Harry," said Dumbledore. "The diary, Riddle's diary, the one giving instructions on how to reopen the Chamber of Secrets."
"I don't understand, sir," said Harry, and neither did Deanna.
"Well, although I did not see the Riddle who came out of the diary, what you described to me was a phenomenon I had never witnessed. A mere memory starting to act and think for itself? A mere memory, sapping the life out of the girl into whose hands it had fallen? No, something much more sinister had lived inside that book... a fragment of soul, I was almost sure of it. The diary had been a Horcrux. But this raised as many questions as it answered. What intrigued and alarmed me most was that that diary had been intended as a weapon as much as a safeguard."
"I still don't understand," said Harry. But Deanna's eyes widened, and her father nodded for her to speak.
"I think a Horcrux keeps a part of your soul..." Deanna started slowly. "And the Horcrux keeps it safe and prevents you from dying."
"Well done, love." Dumbledore smiled slightly. "But there could be no doubt that Riddle really wanted that diary read, wanted the piece of his soul to inhabit or possess somebody else, so that Slytherin's monster would be unleashed again."
"He wanted people to know." Deanna said quietly. "Because he accused Ruby at the time, he wanted people to know now he was Slytherin's heir. He worked hard for it then."
"Quite correct," said Dumbledore, nodding. "But don't you two see that if he intended the diary to be passed to, or planted on, some future Hogwarts student, he was being remarkably blasé about that precious fragment of his soul concealed within it. The point of a Horcrux is, as Professor Slughorn explained, to keep part of the self hidden and safe, not to fling it into somebody else's path and run the risk that they might destroy it — as indeed happened: That particular fragment of soul is no more; you saw to that.
"The careless way in which Voldemort regarded this Horcrux seemed most ominous to me. It suggested that he must have made — or been planning to make — more Horcruxes, so that the loss of his first would not be so detrimental. I did not wish to believe it, but nothing else seemed to make sense.
"Then Harry, you told me, two years later, that on the night that Voldemort returned to his body, he made a most illuminating and alarming statement to his Death Eaters. 'I, who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality.' That was what you told me he said. 'Further than anybody,' And I thought I knew what that meant, though the Death Eaters did not. He was referring to his Horcruxes, Horcruxes in the plural, which I do not believe any other wizard has ever had. Yet it fitted: Lord Voldemort has seemed to grow less human with the passing years, and the transformation he has undergone seemed to me to be only explicable if his soul was mutilated beyond the realms of what we might call 'usual evil'..."
"So he's made himself impossible to kill by murdering other people?" said Harry. "Why couldn't he make a Sorcerer's Stone, or steal one, if he was so interested in immortality?"
"Well, we know that he tried to do just that, five years ago," said Dumbledore. "But there are several reasons why, I think, a Sorcerer's Stone would appeal less than Horcruxes to Lord Voldemort.
"While the Elixir of Life does indeed extend life, it must be drunk regularly, for all eternity, if the drinker is to maintain their immortality. Therefore, Voldemort would be entirely dependent on the Elixir, and if it ran out, or was contaminated, or if the Stone was stolen, he would die just like any other man. Voldemort likes to operate alone, remember. I believe that he would have found the thought of being dependent, even on the Elixir, intolerable. Of course he was prepared to drink it if it would take him out of the horrible part-life to which he was condemned after attacking you, but only to regain a body. Thereafter, I am convinced, he intended to continue to rely on his Horcruxes: He would need nothing more, if only he could regain a human form. He was already immortal, you see... or as close to immortal as any man can be.
"But now, you two, armed with this information, the crucial memory you have succeeded in procuring for us, we are closer to the secret of finishing Lord Voldemort than anyone has ever been before. You heard him: 'Wouldn't it be better, make you stronger, to have your soul in more pieces... isn't seven the most powerfully magical number...' Isn't seven the most powerfully magical number. Yes, I think the idea of a seven-part soul would greatly appeal to Lord Voldemort."
"He made seven Horcruxes?" said Harry, horror-struck, while several of the portraits on the walls made similar noises of shock and outrage. Deanna frowned though she kept her silence. Indeed, preposterous. "But they could be anywhere in the world — hidden — buried or invisible —"
"I am glad to see you appreciate the magnitude of the problem," said Dumbledore calmly "But firstly, no, Harry, not seven Horcruxes: six. The seventh part of his soul, however maimed, resides inside his regenerated body. That was the part of him that lived a spectral existence for so many years during his exile; without that, he has no self at all. That seventh piece of soul will be the last that anybody wishing to kill Voldemort must attack — the piece that lives in his body."
"But the six Horcruxes, then," said Harry, a little desperately, "how are we supposed to find them?"
"Five. You've already destroyed one, Harry." Deanna said, referring to the diary.
"And I have destroyed another."
"You have?" said Harry eagerly. Deanna sat up straight, her curiosity now piquing.
"Yes indeed," said Dumbledore, and he raised his blackened, burned-looking hand. Deanna's eyes widened. He was finally telling them about it. The ring and his hand, the reason Deanna could not stop worrying about her father.
"The ring. Marvolo's ring. And a terrible curse there was upon it too. Had it not been — forgive me the lack of seemly modesty — for my own prodigious skill, and for Professor Snape's timely action when I returned to Hogwarts, desperately injured, I might not have lived to tell the tale. However, a withered hand does not seem an unreasonable exchange for a seventh of Voldemort's soul. The ring is no longer a Horcrux."
"But how did you find it, Pops?"
"Well, as you now know, for many years I have made it my business to discover as much as I can about Voldemort's past life. I have traveled widely, visiting those places he once knew. I stumbled across the ring hidden in the ruin of the Gaunts' house. It seems that once Voldemort had succeeded in sealing a piece of his soul inside it, he did not want to wear it anymore. He hid it, protected by many powerful enchantments, in the shack where his ancestors had once lived, Morfin having been carted off to Azkaban, of course, never guessing that I might one day take the trouble to visit the ruin, or that I might be keeping an eye open for traces of magical concealment.
"However, we should not congratulate ourselves too heartily. Harry, you destroyed the diary and I the ring, but if we are right in our theory of a seven-part soul, four Horcruxes remain."
"And they could be anything?" said Harry. "They could be old tin cans or, I dunno, empty potion bottles..."
"You are thinking of Portkeys, Harry, which must be ordinary objects, easy to overlook. But would Lord Voldemort use tin cans or old potion bottles to guard his own precious soul? You are forgetting what I have showed you. Lord Voldemort liked to collect trophies, and he preferred objects with a powerful magical history. His pride, his belief in his own superiority, his determination to carve for himself a startling place in magical history; these things suggest to me that Voldemort would have chosen his Horcruxes with some care, favoring objects worthy of the honor."
"The diary wasn't that special."
"No, it was special to him. He always brought it with him. It was proof he was the Heir of Slytherin..." Deanna's eyes widened in realization, looking at her father. "Slytherin's locket, and Hufflepuff's cup."
"Yes, love." Dumbledore smiled at her. "I believe that Lord Voldemort would prefer objects that, in themselves, have a certain grandeur. I would be prepared to bet — perhaps not my other hand — but a couple of fingers, that they became Horcruxes three and four. The remaining two, assuming again that he created a total of six, are more of a problem, but I will hazard a guess that, having secured objects from Hufflepuff and Slytherin, he set out to track down objects owned by Gryffindor or Ravenclaw.
"Four objects from the four founders would, I am sure, have exerted a powerful pull over Voldemort's imagination. I cannot answer for whether he ever managed to find anything of Ravenclaw's. I am confident, however, that the only known relic of Gryffindor remains safe." Dumbledore pointed to the sword of Gryffindor inside a glass case.
"Do you think that's why he really wanted to come back to Hogwarts, sir?" said Harry. "To try and find something from one of the other founders?"
"My thoughts precisely," said Dumbledore. "But unfortunately, that does not advance us much further, for he was turned away, or so I believe, without the chance to search the school. I am forced to conclude that he never fulfilled his ambition of collecting four founders' objects. He definitely had two — he may have found three — that is the best we can do for now."
"Even if he got something of Ravenclaw's or of Gryffindor's, that leaves a sixth Horcrux," said Harry, counting on his fingers. "Unless he got both?"
"I don't think so," said Dumbledore. "I think I know what the sixth Horcrux is. I wonder what you will say when I confess that I have been curious for a while about the behavior of the snake, Nagini?"
"Animals can be used as Horcruxes?" asked Deanna, startled.
"Well, it is inadvisable to do so," said Dumbledore, "because to confide a part of your soul to something that can think and move for itself is obviously a very risky business. However, if my calculations are correct, Voldemort was still at least one Horcrux short of his goal of six when he entered your parents' house, Harry, with the intention of killing you.
"He seems to have reserved the process of making Horcruxes for particularly significant deaths. You would certainly have been that. He believed that in killing you, he was destroying the danger the prophecy had outlined. He believed he was making himself invincible. I am sure that he was intending to make his final Horcrux with your death.
"As we know, he failed. After an interval of some years, however, he used Nagini to kill an old Muggle man, and it might then have occurred to him to turn her into his last Horcrux. She underlines the Slytherin connection, which enhances Lord Voldemort's mystique; I think he is perhaps as fond of her as he can be of anything; he certainly likes to keep her close, and he seems to have an unusual amount of control over her, even for a Parselmouth."
"So," said Harry, "the diary's gone, the ring's gone. The cup, the locket, and the snake are still intact, and you think there might be a Horcrux that was once Ravenclaw's or Gryffindor's?"
"An admirably succinct and accurate summary, yes," said Dumbledore, bowing his head.
"Is that where you have been going, Pops? You've been looking for them."
"Correct, little phoenix," said Dumbledore. "I have been looking for a very long time. I think... perhaps... I may be close to finding another one. There are hopeful signs."
"And if you do," said Harry quickly, "can Deanna and I come with you and help get rid of it?" Deanna looked at Dumbledore expectantly, wanting to help him.
Dumbledore looked at the two students very intently for a moment before saying, "Yes, I think so."
"We can?" said Harry, thoroughly taken aback.
"Really?" Deanna grinned, giving Harry's hand a squeeze in her excitement.
"Oh yes," said Dumbledore, smiling slightly. "I think you have earned that right. Once again, I must ask too much of you."
Deanna and Harry smiled at each other, happy that Dumbledore had trusted them. She raised an eyebrow at the portraits who were shaking their heads, making them still immediately.
"Does Voldemort know when a Horcrux is destroyed, sir? Can he feel it?" Harry asked.
"A very interesting question, Harry. I believe not. I believe that Voldemort is now so immersed in evil, and these crucial parts of himself have been detached for so long, he does not feel as we do. Perhaps, at the point of death, he might be aware of his loss... but he was not aware, for instance, that the diary had been destroyed until he forced the truth out of Lucius Malfoy. When Voldemort discovered that the diary had been mutilated and robbed of all its powers, I am told that his anger was terrible to behold."
"But I thought he meant Lucius Malfoy to smuggle it into Hogwarts, sir?"
"Yes, he did, years ago, when he was sure he would be able to create more Horcruxes, but still Lucius was supposed to wait for Voldemort's say-so, and he never received it, for Voldemort vanished shortly after giving him the diary.
"No doubt he thought that Lucius would not dare do anything with the Horcrux other than guard it carefully, but he was counting too much upon Lucius's fear of a master who had been gone for years and whom Lucius believed dead. Of course, Lucius did not know what the diary really was. I understand that Voldemort had told him the diary would cause the Chamber of Secrets to reopen because it was cleverly enchanted.
"Had Lucius known he held a portion of his master's soul in his hands, he would undoubtedly have treated it with more reverence — but instead he went ahead and carried out the old plan for his own ends: By planting the diary upon Arthur Weasley's daughter, he hoped to discredit Arthur and get rid of a highly incriminating magical object in one stroke. Ah, poor Lucius... what with Voldemort's fury about the fact that he threw away the Horcrux for his own gain, and the fiasco at the Ministry last year, I would not be surprised if he is not secretly glad to be safe in Azkaban at the moment."
"If all the Horcruxes are destroyed, will Voldemort finally be killed?" Deanna asked.
"Yes, I think so," said Dumbledore. "Without his Horcruxes, Voldemort will be a mortal man with a maimed and diminished soul. Never forget, though, that while his soul may be damaged beyond repair, his brain and his magical powers remain intact. It will take uncommon skill and power to kill a wizard like Voldemort even without his Horcruxes."
"But I haven't got uncommon skill and power," said Harry, before he could stop himself.
"Yes, you have," said Dumbledore firmly. "You have a power that Voldemort has never had. You can —"
"I know!" said Harry impatiently. "I can love!"
"Oh, Harry." Deanna smiled and patted him on the back, exchanging glances with her father knowingly. "You don't understand how important and remarkable that is."
"So, when the prophecy says that I'll have 'power the Dark Lord knows not,' it just means — love?" asked Harry, feeling a little let down.
As Dumbledore explained everything to Harry agitatedly, Deanna had closed her eyes, suddenly feeling exhausted. Deanna felt her surroundings change and she immediately stood up with her eyes widening. Instead of the same manor she had always seen Voldemort in, she was now in darkness, eye to eye with a younger Voldemort, the handsome Tom Riddle she had loved.
"It's been a long time." Tom smiled charmingly at her, but this time, Deanna's heart didn't skip a beat as it did in the past.
"What are you doing here?" Deanna asked him confusedly, now feeling unfamiliar as she stood in front of him. "Why did this happen again?"
"You were out of reach." Tom Riddle shrugged, taking steps towards Deanna who instinctively stepped back. "It's our anniversary, you see..."
Deanna let out a scoff at that. "Why are you celebrating our anniversary when we aren't together anymore?"
"Can't I?"
"Just stop, will you?" Deanna sighed deeply. "Like I told you before, Tom. I'm seeing an end to this war. I don't know what I should do yet, but I'll make sure we'll win. I'll make you apologize to each and every person you've made suffer."
Tom's eyes flashed red. "You will never win against me."
"Oh, I'll win." Deanna's blue eyes met his red ones. "I'll win and make sure the greater good prevails."
Tom's smile faltered slightly at that, and he reached out for her once more. "Deanna –" But as he reached out, Deanna felt herself being pulled back and she opened her eyes, seeing that Harry and Dumbledore had now calmed down and none of them had noticed that something had happened to her.
"But how about Deanna? She had a prophecy with Voldemort too, right?" Harry had suddenly remembered, making the two Dumbledores look at each other. Dumbledore nodded, giving Deanna the go signal to tell Harry.
"The prophecy said I have some choices to make." Deanna explained to Harry. "And that will dictate the outcome of this war."
Harry felt sorry now for blowing up on them when there was a larger weight on Deanna's shoulders. "I... I'm sorry."
"Don't be, Harry." Deanna stared at Dumbledore, willing him to read her mind. Dumbledore nodded subtly and did just that, his eyes widening slightly at what he had just seen.
"I think it's time to turn in, Harry. It's quite late." Dumbledore stood up and clapped his hands. "Good night."
"Night, Harry." Deanna smiled at him.
"Good night, Dee, Professor."
As soon as Harry had left the room, Deanna turned to Dumbledore and hugged him tight. "Hey, Pops."
"Yes, love?"
"We can win this, right?" Deanna mumbled to him, tears escaping her eyes. She did not know why, but suddenly mentioning the prophecy and seeing Voldemort had made her think of what she needed to do. It just made the harsh reality slap her in the face. Soon, they would have to find all of the Horcruxes and Voldemort would have to die. "We'll be together until the end?"
"Of course, little phoenix." Dumbledore wiped away his own tears hastily, feeling sorry for his daughter. Sorry for the fate she would have to suffer and his own fate that awaited him. "We will win this, and we'll be together until the end. I love you, Deanna."
"I love you too, Pops." Father and daughter sought comfort in each other's embrace. No matter how strong they appeared to others, even the strongest people needed to break down from time to time. And when the next day came, they would be able to put smiles on their faces and face the world again. But for now, all they needed was each other.
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