The Chosen Two (Harry Potter X Reader) Years 1-7

Chapter 8

Harry's P.O.V.

Dumbledore's troubled face makes me think of (Y/n) and I rush over to where she is, When I get there she seems calm, a lot more calm than she was the last time I had seen her I run my hand along her check, hoping she opens her eyes so I can se those beautiful (e/c) eye's looking back at me, instead her face starts contorting again. I lean down and whisper to her, "Hey, your okay. I will never let anything ever hurt you again. I am here to protect you. I realize that you are more important to me than anything else in this world. Please come back to me. I love you and I always will. Always. I need you (Y/n), your my everything, my light, my world, my reason for fighting, please come back." I kiss her forehead and when I lean back out she is calm once again a small smile on her face.

I walk back over to where Dumbledore and I had stood before "Sir--" I start but am interrupted by Dumbledore holding up his withered hand, silencing me before he turns away.

I study him, waiting, the hush palpable. Dumbledore finally speaks but seems as though something haunts him "This is beyond anything I imagined. In my life I have seen things that are unimaginably horrific. I know now... you will see worse."

Dumbledore looks off, his eyes distant. I watch him intently, as do the headmasters in their frames above. Finally, tentatively, I speak. "Do you mean to say he succeeded, sir? In making a Horcrux?"

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

"Seven. He made seven -- the most powerfully magical number. But...what are they exactly?"

"They can be anything. The most commonplace of objects. A ring, for example. Or a book..." Dumbledore slides open a drawer, removes the ring and Tom Riddle's battered diary.

"Tom Riddle's diary--"

"It's a Horcrux, yes. Four years ago, when you saved Ginny Weasley's life in the Chamber of Secrets, when you brought me this-" he holds up the diary "I knew. This was a different kind of magic. Very dark. Very powerful. But until tonight, I had no idea just how powerful..."

"And the ring...?"

"Belonged to Voldemort's mother. It was difficult to find and..." raising his damaged hand "even more difficult to destroy."

"But if you could find them all. If you did destroy each Horcrux..."

"One destroys Voldemort."

I begin to reach out for the ring. "But how would you find them? They could be hidden anywhere, couldn't they..."

"True. But magic, especially Dark magic..."

Just then, as the tip of my fingers make contact with the ring, images flash by in dizzying succession: Voldemort's face, twisted in pain. A derelict house, deep in a haunted clearing. An ancient cup, gleaming a sit tumbles from an old woman's hand. A snake slithering through damp grass. Dumbledore slipping the ring onto his finger, recoiling as his skin decays...Dumbledore... leaves traces. My clenched hand spasms, releases. The ring skitters across Dumbledore's desk and I bring a hand to his chest, a look of bewilderment on my face. Dumbledore watches the ring spin down, then glances at me and slowly extends his own hand, lightly touching the center of my chest with the tips of ashen fingers, as if reading braille, as if he can somehow "see" into my heart. Trepidation -- and recognition-- flicker over his face. "It's where you've been going, isn't it, sir? When you leave the school."

My eyes drift once again to the postcard on the desk. Dumbledore withdraws his hand, nodding, still studying me oddly, his voice, when it comes, distant. "Yes. And I think... perhaps... I may have found another. But this time I cannot hope to destroy it alone."