The Secrets of The Sighted (Golden Trio Era) {3}

Voldemort Immorality Measures

The three of them sat in silence, Mikayla and Harry were waiting for Dumbledore to speak first, and the old man seemed to be gathering his thoughts before he said anything. "I have been hoping for this piece of evidence for a very long time," Dumbledore claimed after a few minutes of tormenting silence, "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..." The hairs on the back of Mikayla's neck, stood up as she felt like she was being watch. And sure enough, every single one of the old Headmasters and headmistresses in the portraits around the walls were awake, watching them and listening in on their conversation.

A corpulent, red nosed wizard had actually gone as far to take out an ear trumpet. Mikayla sunk back into the chair, as if she was trying to hide from the curious eyes, who had yet seen her abilities in action. "Well, I am sure you both 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." Dumbledore voices and Mikayla fights a shiver, "you think he succeeded then, sir?" Harry questioned, surprised that Dumbledore made such a deduction from the information they learned, considering the conversation was mostly theory based.

"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?" Harry queried sounding quite panicked, "a bit... or more," Dumbledore responds darkly, "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 Horcrux. No book would have given him that information. As far as I know, as far, I am sure, as Voldemort knew that no wizard had ever done more than tear his soul in two." Dumbledore paused for a moment, marshaling his thought.

"Four years ago, I received what I considered certain proof that Voldemort had split his soul." Dumbledore informed them and once again Mikayla felt as though Dumbledore was just keeping information to stall the future. "Where? How?" Harry questioned Dumbledore sitting up more in his seat, "you handed it to me, Harry," Dumbledore claimed and all the puzzle pieces fell into place in Mikayla's mind, "I did? How?" Harry continued to ask, "the diary, Riddle's diary, the one he used to possess Ginny to reopen the Chamber of Secrets." Mikayla answered Harry before Dumbledore could, "right?" Mikayla looked at Dumbledore, who nodded his head in confirmation.

"I don't understand, sir," said Harry. "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. "Well, it worked as a Horcrux is supposed to work, in other words, the fragment of soul concealed inside it was kept safe and had undoubtedly played its part in preventing the death of its owner. 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." Dumbledore voiced his findings, "well, he didn't want his hard work to be wasted," Harry pointed out and Mikayla found herself nodding her head in agreement with Harry, "yeah, he wanted people to know he was Slytherin's heir, because he couldn't take credit at the time."

"Quite correct," Dumbledore nodded and for the first time in a while, Mikayla could see pride in his eyes towards her and Harry, has they were still following his rambling, "but don't you 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." Dumbledore was afraid, Mikayla could sense it in the way he held himself, Voldemort's recklessness scared him.

"That particular fragment of soul is no more, you saw to that, Harry. The careless way in which Voldemort regarded this Horcrux seemed most ominous to me. It suggested that he must have made, or had 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 you, Mikayla, 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 quote had been burned into Mikayla's head ever since the day Cedric died, she knew it would be important to remember.

"That was what you told me he said, and you Harry confirmed this. '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 don't 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 had undergone seemed to me to be only explainable if his soul was mutated beyond the realms of what we might call 'usual evil'." Dumbledore paused to let the two Gryffindors process all that he has said in the past few minutes.

"So he's made himself impossible to kill by murdering other people?" Harry asked for confirmation that he had grasped what Dumbledore was saying, "why couldn't he make a Sorcerer's Stone, or steal one, if he was so interested in immortality?" Harry asked as he could never even fathom the idea of splitting his soul. "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 the immortality." Dumbledore refreshed their memory of the details of the consumption of the Elixir of Life.

"So, Voldemort would be entirely dependant on the Elixir, and if it ran out, or was contaminated, or if the Stone was stolen, he would die, but Voldemort likes to operate alone." Mikayla verbalised, her own reason as to why Voldemort wouldn't want to use the Elixir of Life. "Yes, 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." Dumbledore paused to summon three bottles of pumpkin juice, he gave one to Harry and one to Mikayla and he quickly swallowed a few mouthfuls of his own.

"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, armed with this information, the crucial memory you have succeeded in procuring for us, Harry, 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?" Harry asked absolutely horror-struck, while several of the portraits on the walls made similar noises of shock mid outrage. "But they could be anywhere in the world, hidden, buried or invisible-" Harry started to ramble out of hysteria fear, and eventually Dumbledore interrupted him, "I am glad to see you appreciate the magnitude of the problem, Harry." Dumbledore declared calmly, his eyes glued to the exasperated look on Harry's face. "No, Harry, not seven Horcruxes, six."