Demigoddess in a Wizarding World: Half-Blood

12

Harry had returned very early the next morning, verging on 3 A.M. He had walked into the common room to see Ron snuggling up to Hermione, both asleep, and Perci lying facedown on the red carpet, drool seeping out of her mouth, also asleep. Harry raised an eyebrow at the two huddled together on the sofa. After returning to the castle, he went straight to Dumbledore's office, clutching the memory in his hand. He shook Perci, Hermione, and Ron awake, the latter two looking startled and stared at each other, both turning a bright pink.

"So," Ron began coughing and scooting away from Hermione ever so slightly, "how'd it go?" Harry gave Ron a slight smirk, vowing to revisit the cuddling later, but cleared his throat to begin.

Harry quickly explained the funeral for Aragog at Hagrid's, the three, well two, of them drinking and having a merry time and then Harry finally convincing Slughorn to give him the memory, ignoring Perci's comment about wanting to see Hagrid drunk. "I went back up to Dumbledore's office. He put it in the Pensieve and we watched it and..."

"What was it?" Perci pressed. Harry looked at the three of them, gripping his hands tight. "Out with it, Harry."

"It was Tom Riddle," he supplied. His eyebrows knit together. "He asked Slughorn about something called a...horcrux...it's some kind of dark magic, an object that has a part of someone's soul in it, so as long as there's a part of your soul somewhere, you can never really die even if your body was destroyed," he explained. Hermione racked her mind and was flabbergasted she had never heard of horcruxes before. She began muttering about needing to check out the library again, as if she was going to visit an old friend.

"So, Voldemort's soul is..." Ron trailed off, "but how is that possible?" he asked.

Harry closed his eyes and tried to recall what memory-Slughorn had told the future dark wizard. "All he said was, a person splits their soul and hides part of it in the object. That object is then a horcrux. The part of the soul that's hidden keeps living."

Perci frowned, growing increasingly anxious about where this was heading. "What d'you mean split the soul? How do you split a soul?"

Harry looked her in the eyes unblinkingly. "By killing someone, it rips the soul apart. Tom asked how many times it was possible to split a soul, asking if 7 times was efficient," he grimaced at the scarlet scarlet beneath them.

Ron choked, turning red. "He killed 7 people?"

Perci rolled her eyes. "He killed a lot of people, Ronald. But yes, it seems even as a teenager, Voldemort was a sociopath and killed 7 people." Ron ignored her sarcasm, still shocked that someone his age could kill so many people.

"What else did he say, Harry?" Hermione interjected, shooting Perci an 'enough' look causing the older girl to pout.

"He thinks we've already got two of the horcruxes. Tom Riddle's diary from the Chamber of Secrets, I destroyed that one with the basilisk tooth. The other one, he thinks it's the ring he wears, Voldemort's mother's ring." Perci remembered Dumbledore's grey, decaying fingers from the night the three of them visited Slughorn in the muggle's house. It looked as if the ring was slowly sucking the life out of Dumbledore. "He also said he thinks he knows where another one is...that's where he's been going when he leaves the castle." he glanced around at his friends, "and he needs me to help him destroy it."

"Once we destroy all of these horcruxes..." Perci began.

Harry nodded as Hermione finished her thought, "We destroy Voldemort."

They all took the information in, looking around the room and waiting for someone to break the silence. Perci wasn't happy with the situation. Once again Harry would have to risk his life, she was tired of him being in constant danger. If she could, she would take Harry's place in a second, but Harry was the Chosen One. No one could take his place; Perci understood entirely, her mind flashing back to her fifteen year old self going up against a raging arse of a Titan.