Annabeth Chase and Things Are Getting Intense

Chapter Thirty

"Hepzibah Smith died two days after that little scene," Dumbledore said as he sat back down behind his desk. Annabeth and Harry took their seats, too. "Hokey the house elf was convicted by the Ministry of poisoning her mistress's evening cocoa by accident."

"No way!" Harry shouted

Annabeth crossed her arms and said, "how does a house elf accidentally poison someone?"

"I see we are of one mind," Dumbledore said. "Certainly, there are many similarities between this and the death of the RIddles. In both cases, somebody else took the blame, someone who had a clear memory of having caused the death—"

"Hokey confessed?"

"She remembered putting something in her mistress's evening tea that was not sugar, but a lethal and little known poison. It was concluded that she had not meant to do it, but being old and confused—"

"Her memory was modified," Annabeth said. "Just like Morfin's. House elves don't make mistakes like that. And no one leaves poison just sitting around next to sugar."

"Yes, that is my conclusion, too," Dumbledore said. "And, just as with Morfin, the ministry was predisposed to suspect Hokey because—"

"Because she was a house elf," Harry grumbled.

"Precisely," Dumbledore said. "She was old, she admitted to having tampered with the drink, and nobody at the Ministry bethered to inquire further. As in the case of Morfin, by the time I traced her and managed to extract this memory, her life was almost over—but her memory, of course, proves nothing except that Voldemort knew of the existence of the cup and the locket."

"And let me guess," Annabeth said. "They were both missing when her relatives went looking."

That was one more item to add to her mental list of Volemort's Horcruxes. The ring. The locket. The cup. That was three, but were there more? Three itself was a sacred number, so he could have stopped there, but Annabeth didn't think so. Voldemort was greedy. If he could have made more, he would have.

"Indeed. It took them a while to be sure of this, for Hepzibah had many hiding places, having always guarded her collection most jealously. But before they were sure beyond a doubt that both the cup and the locket were gone, the assistant that had worked at Borgin and Burke's, the young man who had visited Hepzibah so frequently and charmed her so well, had resigned his post and vanished. His superiors had no idea where he'd gone; they were surprised as anyone at his disappearance. And that was the last that was ever seen or heard from Tom Riddle for a very long time.

"Now," Dumbledore said, "if you don't mind, I want to pause once more to draw your attention to certain points of our story. Voldemort had committed another murder; whether it was his first since he killed the Riddles, I do not know, but I think it was. This time, as you will have seen, he killed not for revenge, but for gain. He wanted the two fabulous trophies that poor, besotted old woman showed him. Just as he had once robbed the other children at the orphanage, just as he had stolen his Uncle Morfin's ring, so he ran off now with Hepzibah's cup and locket."

"But..." Harry frowned. "It seems mad... risking everything, throwing away his job, just for those..."

"Mad to you, perhaps, but not to Voldemort," Dumbledore said. "I hope you will understand in due course just what those objects would mean to him, but it is not difficult to imagine he saw the locket, at least, as rightfully his."

"The locket, maybe," Harry said, "but why take the cup as well?"

"It's a historic object," Annabeth said to him. "From one of the four founders of this school. Considering how important Hogwarts was to him, and... a couple other reasons, probably, it makes sense."