Lights Will Guide You Home (And I Promise I Will Burn For You)

Chapter 15

Ginny met Harry at the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy a few minutes later, and together, they entered the Room.

It was a simple room, with nothing but a sofa and a low table inside. Ginny removed a box from her pocket and set it down on the table before tapping it with her wand. It enlarged rapidly, and when it stopped, Harry opened it and took out the pensieve. Because of the delicate nature of magic required to create pensieves, they couldn't just be shrunken like most other objects. That was why people who planned on transporting the devices often invested in carrying cases like the one Harry had. It worked with the pensieve, and could be shrunken and enlarged without damaging the expensive piece of equipment inside.

Harry deposited Slughorn's memory, and with one last look at Ginny, the two teenagers dove headfirst into the swirl of silvery gray.

An image of the Potions Master's office greeted them, filled with a group of students. Harry looked around with interest, but immediately turned his attention to his girlfriend when she gasped loudly.

Ginny was staring at one student in particular, her face ghostly pale. Feeling his stomach drop down to his feet, he followed her gaze, and then growled in anger, recognizing the teenaged Voldemort. He looked much the same as he had several years earlier, when Harry had fought him in the Chamber of Secrets. He immediately took Ginny's hand in his, and she leaned into his side, trying to calm her trembling. It had been years, he couldn't affect her any more. Harry squeezed her hand reassuringly, telling her without words – even mental ones – that it was all right to be afraid.

They observed the gathering for a few minutes, watching what was clearly an older generation of the Slug Club. He recognized a few others, he thought. There were two men who shared the same troll-like statures of Crabbe and Goyle, and another who looked remarkably like Theo Nott. A boy in the corner bore a striking resemblance to a seventh year Hufflepuff he remembered from the DA as being incredibly accurate when it came to casting spells at moving targets.

They listened as Slughorn thanked Tom for the box of crystallized pineapple, and commented on how he would go far in the world. As they watched, the room emptied out, until it was just Slughorn and Riddle alone.

Harry grit his teeth as Riddle asked about horcruxes, and Slughorn gave him the answer, just like that. He was intrigued when Riddle mentioned the number seven.

The memory ended soon after that, and Harry and Ginny returned to the Room of Requirement.

They sat down on the sofa, and Harry let out a sigh. "Well, that told us a lot," he commented.

Ginny snorted and agreed. "We got more confirmation that he used horcruxes."

Harry nodded. "We already knew that, though, and something tells me that Riddle already knew what a horcrux was when he went to Slughorn. I think he was more interested in what would happen if he tried to make seven of them."

Ginny groaned. "So now we need to find seven of these things."

Harry shook his head. "Four," he corrected. "We already destroyed the diary, and we have the locket. And the seventh piece would be Voldemort himself. That leaves four pieces."

Ginny shook her head. "How do we even come up with ideas for what these things could be?"

Harry shrugged. "We should get the others here, to tell them." He pulled out the fake coin he and Hermione had made for the DA the year before, and concentrated, sending messages to his friends. He hoped it would work, since all the coins were really designed to do was send out a date and time. He thought it was theoretically possible to isolate the coins he wanted to be notified, but he had never tried it before.