Who'll Fill a Coward's Grave? ↣ Harmione

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter 15 - Branded a Coward

While progress was incredibly slow, Albus really couldn't fault Minerva's imposed search and detection technique. The methodical wizard that was Severus Snape had understandably backed her choice of procedure, thus leaving them with about half the massive room still unexplored.

Following Minerva's meticulous procedure meant they would test each item first. Then, depending on whether it had some value - and of course was free from curses - the item could be placed either in the 'keep' or 'sell' piles. Any worthless item that passed their scans was banished. Albus was going to pass some of the items for sale onto Mundungus. A little gold, with the promise of more coming his way, should see Hogwarts get a good price for any items Dung handled. Albus had just vanished another empty sherry bottle when a shout went up from Minerva. Both he and Severus quickly made their way to where the Deputy Headmistress had been searching.

"I'm not sure if it's the bust or the tiara, but one of them is giving off the darkest magic I've ever encountered. My scans are off the scale, which is why I'm having trouble pinning down which item it actually is."

A gobsmacked Albus couldn't believe what he was actually seeing. "My guess would be the diadem, Minerva. I would also hazard a guess that this is the lost diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw. Tom certainly doesn't do things by half. This complicates matters..."

Both Minerva and Severus wanted an explanation of Albus' last remark.

"This is a priceless emblem of a Hogwarts' founder, an irreplaceable magical artefact. We can't treat it like a worthless piece of junk, to be dealt with and then banished."

This did not sit well with his two companions. Minerva was first to make her feelings on the matter known. "Where you see a priceless artefact, I see something that has been tainted by Tom Riddle. Until that taint has been destroyed, Voldemort cannot be killed. I haven't spent the last few weeks working all hours in here for you to take this away and study it. We don't leave this room until this thing is dealt with."

While not vocally backing Minerva, Severus removing a tiny vial containing basilisk venom clearly stated his unwavering support for her point of view.

Faced with both his colleagues adopting a 'destroy now' stance, Albus was backed into a corner. He'd managed to convince them not to speak of this horcrux search within the Order, so as not to get anyone's hopes up. Now they had actually found one, all bets were off. If this horcrux wasn't destroyed tonight it would simply be a matter of whether Minerva or Severus got to the Order first. Then his goose would be well and truly cooked. Any ideas Albus had about ingratiating himself with Potter and Black would die the second both heard the news, and Albus would be lucky if he wasn't expelled from an organisation he was supposedly leading.

Looking at the problem from that point of view, Albus didn't really have much of an option. While the item was certainly a treasure, it wasn't worth the ignominy of being kicked out of the Order of the Phoenix - and also losing any chance of being able to influence future events.

It wasn't as if Albus had a plan he could quote to cover his actions. In all his years of research on this subject, there had never even been a sniff of a method for removing a horcrux and leaving the container undamaged. With his suspicions regarding Harry's scar, Albus had really looked for that information too.

With a sigh of resignation, he used his wand to levitate the diadem to a part of the massive chamber they had already cleared. All three of them then took turns casting their detection charms on the object, there was no room for doubts here. All their results came back positive, the diadem was a horcrux.

Severus very carefully poured the contents of the vial over the centre stone of the diadem, then hastily stepped well back. Within seconds, they could all see the spider's web of cracks beginning to appear on the stone. With a rather loud bang the stone shattered and the horcrux was released.