Amy Riddle - Volume 2: The Half Blood Prince (A Voldemort's Daughter Story)

Part 21

Chapter 21

Harry's POV

I felt the now all too familiar feeling of being yanked out of a Pensieve, and upon appearing once again in Dumbledore's office I looked up at him with confusion.

Typically Dumbledore answered my questions but this time he simply raised a withered hand. The silence was haunting as it dawned on us both how absolutely horrific this situation we were in actually was.

"This is beyond anything I imagined," Dumbledore murmured. "In my life I have seen things that are unimaginabely horrific. I know now... you will see worse."

I paused, watching Dumbledore as he stared off into the distance. A peculiar expression was on his face - it was distant, old. I always knew that Dumbledore was old... incredibley old. But for the first time in the six years that I had known him, he looked weak.

"Do you mean to say that he succeeded, sir? In making a horcrux?" I asked.

"Oh, he succeeded," Dumbledore answered. "And not just once. Think, Harry. He's just told us."

I paused for a moment. "Seven. He made seven... But what are they, exactly?"

"They can be anything. The most commonplace of objects. A ring, perhaps, or a book...."

Horcruxes. My conversation with Dumbledore went on. We discussed the Horcruxes, which ones we knew of, which ones we didn't yet. I felt butterflies in my stomach, as if the battle with Voldemort just became a whole new world of real. I knew he was back and I recently discovered that I myself would be the one to defeat him, but I never expected it to be this hard, this terrifying. To destroy pieces of his own soul. It seemed nearly impossible.

Dumbledore had asked me to go along with him to destroy the new one. I immediately had said yes. If I was going to have to destroy all of them, I might as well start now, right?

As I was leaving his office to prepare over the next few days, I stopped, and turned back to him. "Professor?" I asked.

"Yes, Harry?"

I shifted my feet uncomfortably, feeling a new type of butterflies in my stomach. The kind you felt when you know a deep, dark secret. "Do you think..." I hesitated, not sure how to approach this. It wasn't true, I know it wasn't, but all the same, every time I witnessed glimpses of Voldemort as a young man - kid or teenager - I couldn't help but think it.

"I dunno, it was just kind of funny to me," I continued. "I thought Voldemort kind of looked like Amy - Amelia Wolfe a bit. When I saw him as a student." I shrugged.

Dumbledore smiled.

"I mean, it's not like I think she's..." I trailed off. "It was just a little weird."

Dumbledore smiled a little wider. "Yes, isn't it? Life can be full of strange coincidences. Have a good night, Harry."

**********

Amy's POV

It felt like it had been the longest time since I had sat down with my father and talked to him. During the summer after he finally returned we did that a lot. He would teach me all sorts of things - spells and magic, how to Disapparate and how to use Legilimency. It was admittedly the best summer of my life.

Now, my father faced me. I faced him. I felt myself trembling because of the news he was about to give to me. We had never spoken about my mother before. I asked Lucius once when I was very little, but he told me that she was dead. I asked my father once when he returned, but like Lucius, he told me that she was dead. Neither of them elaborated, so I didn't ask again. Although the curiousity was always there.