The Girl Who Lived (Draco Malfoy x OC)

The Hunt

September 3rd 1997

No matter what spell they used, they could not destroy the locket.

For the next few days, Harper, Ron and Hermione took turns wearing it around their neck as they embarked on the next phase of their journey, searching for the other horcruxes. It wasn't a happy family vacation, they were moving from place to place in deserted corners of the land, procuring food irregularly and with difficulty to be met with constant dead ends. Tensions were high to say the least.

Harper groaned as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Hermione was already awake and cooking eggs on their makeshift campfire. She had a book on her lap as she overwatched the sizzling pan, brows furrowed in focus. She smiled appreciatively at her friend; Hermione took the mission best out of the three of them. While Harper constantly lost herself in self-deprecating and hopeless thoughts and Ron succumbed to his agitation that they were making no progress, Hermione was all heads down, searching endlessly for clues.

"Good morning," Harper greeted as she strode over, the scent of food elevating her mood.

They were eating minimally. With Death Eater's on constant watch for the three of them, food was hard to procure and with polyjuice ingredients low after the Ministry fiasco, they couldn't waste it on a trip to some grocer. Harper and Ron were able to borrow some eggs and harvest vegetables from a reclusive farm. To make them feel better about the theft they left a handful of galleons. It had lasted them a few days, even with the smallest of portions, but Hermione was cooking the last of it. Harper wasn't a stranger to malnutrition, the Dursley's saw to that everytime she returned there in the summer, but Ron and Hermione both lacked a lot of energy due to the lack of food.

"How did you sleep?" Hermione asked.

"Terribly," she was blunt, as they all were nowadays. "I'll just have one egg, you and Ron can have the rest."

Hermione's eyes widened, "Harper, don't be ridiculous. We will eat evenly."

"I can get by," she dismissed, sitting on the opposite side of the fire. "What are you reading?"

She sighed through her nose with a downward smile, closing the book and running a hand over the hardback cover. "This is the one that gives explicit instructions on how to make a horcrux. 'Secrets of the Darkest Art.'" She scrunched her nose. "It's a horrible book, really awful, full of evil magic."

"Great bedtime reading, I'm sure," she flatly joked, taking the book from Hermione's hand. It was swart black with heliotrope swirls in the corners. "Where did you get it?"

"Dumbledore had taken them off the shelves, but they weren't destroyed. I summoned them from his office," she said stiffly, obviously uncomfortable with the larceny. Harper's lip curled, it was always amusing how virtuous her dear friend was. "I wonder when Dumbledore removed it from the library. If he didn't do it until he was Headmaster, I bet You-Know-Who got all the instruction he needed from here. The more I've read about them, the less I can believe that he actually made six. It warns in this book how unstable you make the rest of your soul by ripping it, and that's just by making one!"

Harper recalled when Dumbledore said that Voldemort was beyond the usual evil. She suppressed a shudder at the thought. "Does it mention how to restore your soul?" She asked of curiosity, and for the hidden sake of their past D.A.D.A teacher.

"It does, but it would be excruciatingly painful."

"Go on," she said, running a finger over the bind.

"By remorse. You have to really feel what you have done. There's a footnote. Apparently the pain of it can destroy you."

She frowned and put the book down. "If only the book explained how to destroy horcruxes rather than make them."