Sophia Holmes and the Search for Horcruxes (Harry Potter Fanfic) *Completed*

Chapter Three

I look up from reading one of Hermione’s books when Harry begins to stir on the floor. Hermione is still asleep on the sofa, her arm dangling over the side and her fingers just inches from Ron's who lies beside her on the floor.

"Morning," I say quietly as he slips his glasses on. "You seemed to be having some kind of bad dream, I wasn't sure if you wanted to be woken."

"No it's fine," he says. "My mind is linked with Voldemort so sometimes I can see what he is doing."

"Voldemort being the guy we need to find," I confirm and Harry nods.

"Listen, I'm not going to get back to sleep now so I'm going to just take a look around."

"Want me to come with you?" I ask and he shrugs.

"You can if you want." I lower the book and put it on the table beside me before following Harry out the room. "Lumos," he says, wand outstretched and operating as a torch as we navigate the dark corridor. He takes us up the stairs and as we reach the landing of the second floor, he looks into one of the bedrooms.

The drawers have been turned out and the bedsheets stripped, as though someone had gone through someone elses things to see what they could take.

Harry walks on past, painting the wall with his wandlight. His light illuminates a strange picture which looks in all respects like a traditional portrait, except from the fact it's missing its subject.

"Pictures work differently in the wizarding world," Harry explains, answering my unasked question. "The people inside them can move to a different frame if there is an identical picture somewhere else, or they can move to the frames beside them." I nod, taking it all in.

"Does that mean if one was to paint a picture of someone who is dead that they could still communicate with that person?" I ask and he nods hesitantly.

"In a way - they wouldn't be exactly as you remember them but the essence of them would be there." He studies me for a moment. "You've lost someone recently as well, haven't you?"

"Both of my parents," I nod. "It's complicated. My mother faked her death when I was young and then came back a year ago. She was executed just a few months later." A lump forms in my throat. "Then a few months ago, my dad killed himself."

"I'm sorry," Harry says.

"You never knew your parents, did you?" I ask gently. It's clear he's lost his parents and judging by his expression it was a long time ago.

"No," Harry responds. "Voldemort killed them both when I was one. My mum used her last moments to cast a protection spell over me so when he tried to kill me as well, the spell rebounded." He lifts the front of his hair up and shows me a scar shaped like a lightning bolt. "I survived with no injuries other than this. It's how I can sometimes see what he's doing in my dreams. A part of him lives inside me."

"Like a horcrux?" I ask, but he shakes his head.

"No, he wasn't powerful enough to make a horcrux and the spell wasn't successful," he says and I nod. Seems strange though - they told me a horcrux was made by doing terrible things. Surely casting a killing curse is enough?

I don't press him and Harry stands for a moment more, studying the empty picture. A floorboard squeaks nearby and I wheel around, Harry turning at the same time, his wand out. There's nothing there but it's strange that it's the second time that's happened since we've been here. It isn't the sound of the house settling, someone - or something - is there.

Harry brushes it off and I follow him further down the corridor to its end and eyes the nameplate of the furthest door which reads 'SIRIUS'.

"He was my godfather," Harry says. "Closest thing I got to a father and one of Voldemort's followers - a woman called Bellatrix Lestrage - killed him two years ago. She was his cousin."