"This is perfect," Neville muttered to himself as Sirius led him along an empty wooden clearing.
The pair of them were somewhere outside of the London area and were traversing to a place where the natural anti-Apparition wards of the tower didn't affect them. Sirius seemed content with the locale and checked around a couple of times to make sure that there were no suspicious characters milling about.
"Alright, this should be a good spot. I assume I can Apparate there?" Sirius asked.
"Actually," Neville said, "I'm not entirely sure what charms or wards have been put around Hogsmeade. It's a safer bet if we Apparate somewhere outside of it and try to walk there. We should be able to do that since I've been in there already."
"Let's get to it then," Sirius clapped his hands together.
Neville stopped and stared at Sirius purposefully. Sirius stared back at him with raised eyebrows and immediately read Neville's intentions.
"You don't want to go back," Sirius stated matter-of-factly.
"Now that you mention it, not particularly. Not with Harry breathing down my neck the whole time."
"Harry can be a bit forceful sometimes," Sirius agreed, "But we have to go back, Neville. Did you not listen to what Voldemort did?"
"Yes," Neville said impatiently as he recalled the story Sirius had told him, "The evil git isn't going to get me anytime soon."
"We still should go back," Sirius pressed, "As much as I enjoy traversing around the countryside searching for you, I've fulfilled my part in finding you and now I have to fulfill the second part and keep you safe and as wily and full of guile as I am, I can't keep you safe out here forever by myself."
"I don't think I've ever heard a more back-handed self-glorification."
"I try my best."
Sirius chuckled to himself, "Let's go, Neville. Stop tarrying around."
"Not yet," Neville sighed.
"Okay," Sirius threw his hands in the air, "I'll bite. Why do you not want to go back besides having to face Harry?"
Neville thought of Hermione but declined to mention that little incident, "There's something we need to do first."
This statement caught Sirius's attention, "Oh?"
Neville peeled off his jacket and then proceeded to remove his shirt.
Sirius looked amusedly at him and commented, "Despite the stories and the whip and the leather pants, I can assure you Neville that I don't swing that way."
Sirius couldn't see it, but Neville rolled his eyes as he took off his shirt. Sirius took a deep breath as he saw what Neville was trying to show him. In the middle of his chest, hanging off a silver chain was a familiar looking silver locket with an 'S' embedded in the middle. But it wasn't the locket that caused Sirius to take a lung full of air, it was the patches of skin around it.
The veins and capillaries inside Neville's body were more prominent around the locket as if they were purposely surrounding it. There was an outline of almost burnt looking skin around the locket and it was painfully obvious that the locket was causing all of this exterior and interior damage. Sirius forced his eyes to drag upwards and meet Neville's forlorn expression.
"Neville…what is that?" Sirius asked.
"It's a Horcrux. I want you to destroy it."
--------------------------------------
"We have to find him," Hermione paced.
"That much is obvious," Draco muttered.
Hermione glared murderously at him but turned to Harry again, "Is there anything you can do? You said that you did something about Neville."
Harry shifted uncomfortably but said, "I had Sirius try to find him."
"Sirius?" Ron asked incredulously, "What's he even doing?"
"Wouldn't you like to know…" Draco muttered again.
Harry sent him a look that immediately silenced him despite Ron's curiosity. He instead reverted the topic back to the more important matter at hand, "Sirius is more than capable of finding Neville."
"By himself? One person searching all of England for another person that's trying to avoid everyone possible. How could you possibly think that's a reasonable idea?" Hermione was on edge.
Harry gulped but tightened his jaw, "I couldn't divert anymore resources to someone that doesn't want to be found."
Hermione growled in frustration and spun about on the spot, staring out the window as if she could locate Neville by just staring out at the landscape. At that moment, everyone who was a part of the Minister's army jumped. They simultaneously checked their wands and listened to a message that was apparently relayed to all of them.
"What is it?" Ron asked as he looked at all of them.
"All units are put out on alert," Nott muttered.
"And we have to go back to Hogsmeade," Harry sighed, "Moody needs to see us."
They Apparated back to Hogsmeade and were greeted by a flurry of activity. People were running about with various orders and it seemed as if Voldemort's message had been ill-received amongst the community. It took them a while to navigate the busy crowd until they found Moody growling orders at some poor bloke.
"Potter," Moody said harshly, "You have a new assignment."
Moody didn't even bother bringing out any sort of official paperwork. He simply gave the order, "Number one priority: Find Longbottom."
"All units have been put out on alert but I can't pull everyone from patrol. MacMillian's unit will replace you in London but your unit's sole and only assignment is to find Neville and make sure he's not in trouble."
"Yes, sir," Harry murmured.
"I'm already fielding calls from our Muggle counter-parts and they're giving plenty of thought to considering Voldemort's request," Moody gravely informed them.
"They can't be serious?" Hermione was shocked at the very thought of that sort of negligence.
"They're very serious, missy," Moody fixed both of his eyes at her, "A bunch of Muggles who are dealing with magic for the first time just saw the most evil wizard in the world effectively behead one of their soldiers while stopping his bullets without so much as moving. Their official policy is 'not to deal with terrorists' but they haven't met anyone like Voldemort."
"But they can't possibly believe Voldemort will allow them peace! They've seen him. Even if they don't have a full grasp of magic, they have to know that he's not going to stop!" Hermione reasoned.
"Trust me - they have that area covered as well. There's two camps going around with the Muggles. Some of 'em just want to give Longbottom up to Voldemort and see how it runs while the other…" Moody sighed, looking aged for the first time in a long time, "They want to use a bit more practical force."
"Practical force?" Ron looked confused, "What could Muggles possibly do?"
"Don't underestimate them Weasley," Moody growled, "They're capable of horrific things."
"They're not going to nuke it, are they?!" Hermione connected the dots with a shock of realization.
"No - not yet anyways."
"Excuse me," Michael Corner butted in, "For those of us who don't know what - um - nuke is?"
"It's a bomb," Dean explained, "Just a huge bomb that's capable of leveling an entire city and rendering it inhabitable for decades."
"They're not going to resort to that," Moody tried to explain, "But that doesn't mean they don't got other things in their arsenal that they're going to try."
"It's not going to work," Harry frowned, "If the tower was truly created by the Founders like Dumbledore said, then it has to have some sort of magical defenses."
"Fact of the matter is that no one knows what exactly the tower can or can't do. It's been a myth up until now," Moody admitted, "That doesn't mean the Muggles aren't going to try so let's try to sort it out and find Longbottom first. Then, we can deal with what the Muggles are going to try."
Moody turned both his eyes to Harry, "Find him."
-------------------------------------------------
"Excuse me if I find this a bit hard to grasp, but you want me to destroy a piece of Voldemort's soul that somehow manages to stop his invasions into your mind?" Sirius repeated.
"In a nutshell."
"You lead a complicated life, Mr. Longbottom," Sirius let out a low whistle, "Tell me again why you can't destroy it."
"I just…can't," Neville lamely shrugged his shoulders, "I've tried to but it has this…hold over me."
"I see," Sirius nodded.
They were sitting in a clearing in the middle of the woods, facing each other. Upon Sirius's request, Neville had sheepishly put his shirt back on, embarrassed by the sudden display. Sirius was joking about the locket but internally, he was weighing the options at the sudden realization that he could somehow help this boy more than he knew. If he could destroy a piece of Voldemort's soul and help Neville…
"So what do I have to do?" Sirius asked.
"You'll do it then?" Neville's eyes were hopeful.
"If you say you can't, I'm not going to say no to sticking it to Voldemort."
Neville's shoulders sagged with relief as he realized that Sirius seemingly accepted Neville's hesitance at destroying the Horcrux without too much thought. Though he didn't quite know what was going on in the former Marauder's mind, Neville was grateful that Sirius seemed to accept the challenge.
"While we're on the subject…" Neville reached into his duffel bag and pulled out the diadem.
Sirius looked at it carefully and logically deduced, "That's also a Horcrux, I presume?"
"Right in one."
Neville laid the diadem in front of his crossed legs, examining it with a careful eye. It looked like such an innocent, innocuous object. Neville couldn't quite believe that it was supposed to be Ravenclaw's diadem as well. The dull silver didn't catch the light quite right, giving it a very antiquated image that certainly detracted from its supposed royalty.
"You have any more you want to pull out of your bag of tricks?" Sirius joked.
"Nope. This is it."
"These are all the Horcruxes?"
"No," Neville explained, "These are two of the three remaining. We've destroyed - well - a bunch of different people have destroyed the other the other three Horcruxes."
"I thought you said there were seven of them?"
"There was supposed to be seven of them. There's only six."
"So three of them are destroyed…there are two of them here…which leaves…"
"One."
Neville held up one finger to further signify how close they were to consolidating Voldemort's souls.
"Do you know what it is?" Sirius asked.
"We're almost certain it's his snake, Nagini."
"That would certainly make sense," Sirius murmured, entranced by the diadem.
"Which means the faster we get rid of these," Neville motioned to the two Horcruxes in his possession, "The faster I can kill Voldemort."
"Indeed."
There was a pause as Neville granted Sirius an ample amount of time to process the sudden avalanche of information. Sirius kept contemplatively staring at the diadem, his eyes sometimes straying to the locket. After a while, Sirius nodded his head as if he were affirming something to himself.
"Alright, let's get this show on the road," Sirius continued to joke.
"Glad you can be so chipper about it."
There was a sardonic tone to Neville's voice, but the slight grin on his face revealed his true emotions as he was relieved that someone else would take the mantle of destroying the Horcruxes. Besides the locket, which he didn't know was a Horcrux at the time, Neville hadn't actually destroyed a Horcrux. It seemed as if his destiny lay elsewhere. Neville reached into his duffel bag and pulled out a basilisk fang carefully wrapped in a leather cloth.
"This is what you're going to use to destroy it."
Sirius took a look at the fang and suddenly realized what it was. A genuine, youthful smile broke through his constant barrier of emotions.
"Wicked."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harry was kneeling down, examining three dead bodies. He was in some sort of grocery shop on the outskirts of Surrey. Intelligence informed his unit of unusually high Death Eater activity in the area and Harry had a hunch, a sort of attachment to this area that he couldn't quite decipher. It felt as if he had been here before…
"Harry!" Hermione yelled, snapping him out of his stupor.
Harry's head snapped up, worried for a moment. His worries were assuaged as soon as he saw that Hermione was simply being impatient.
"Well?" she said with her hands on her hips.
Harry pursed his lips, trying to keep the biting tone out of his voice, "Killed by a Muggle weapon. A shotgun from the size of the holes in their chests."
"Post-mortem?" Padma asked, frowning as she looked at the dried blood.
"No, I don't think so. Usually the AK leaves a trace burn from where it strikes the victim. Unless the Muggle purposely placed a shotgun shell where they were struck by an AK, they were definitely killed by said Muggle," Malfoy cleverly deduced.
"Death Eaters?"
"Who else would it be?" Malfoy muttered as he turned over their wrists to inspect the tattoo.
"Three Death Eaters are disarmed and killed by a Muggle. What part of this story doesn't fit?" Seamus asked to himself.
"None of it," Harry sighed, "Which is why we're going to keep looking around."
"Peruvian powder," Malfoy muttered again as he picked up a few specks of dust between his fingers, "Not standard DE material."
"Neville had some Peruvian Instant Darkness with him," Ron remembered, snapping his fingers.
"It's a start," Harry grunted as he pushed off his knees and stood up, dusting his pants off in the process.
"Here's the plan -"
But Harry was interrupted by a loud rustle in the distance. There was a slow rumble as if a car was struggling to make its way across the road, followed by a loud boom - the sound of the exhaust kicking back. Harry made a few hand motions and the unit immediately made themselves scarce from sight.
They were hiding in the shadows of various nooks and corners, the only visible signs of them being the aftermath of their footprints steeped in dust and rubble. Only a trained eye would be able to see signs of a group of people recently in the area. Fortunately for Harry's unit, Vernon and Wayne Dursley were not that observant.
The pair walked inside the store, arms in hand, slowly canvassing the area for any signs of human life. Once they were satisfied, by their standards, they slung their guns and immediately started to pack a set of shopping carts with enough perishable food to feed a small army of penguins. Harry watched them closely, assessing their risk factor. They seemed harmless at first glance. Of course, Muggles would need to carry firearms with them to protect themselves from not only the unknown wizards, but the general anarchy running amok the countryside.
Harry gathered that the fat man was the de facto leader. He bossed the other around and Harry had a sense that there was a certain kinship about them. Though they certainly didn't resemble each other in terms of size, Harry could see the similarities in the arch of their eyebrows and the shape of their cheekbones. He communicated silently with Malfoy, indicating a precautionary and safe takedown. He would need to talk to them.
On Harry's mark, Malfoy stunned the fat man while Harry took down the spare.
Rushing quickly to them, Harry bounded them both and found a stowaway room in the back of the store, away from potentially prying eyes. He placed the set of them in there before awakening them, making sure to obscure himself by placing a bright light in front of their eyes. They blinked against the sudden change of light, their irises unable to cope with the quick transfer of light. It was strangely reminiscent of another time when Harry had to interrogate Neville.
Clearing his throat, Harry spoke clearly, assuming that they certainly wouldn't recognize his voice, "Who are you?"
Once the pair realized their predicament, a sense of panic began to take them over. Their arms fidgeted, testing the formidable bonds. They wiggled in their chairs, trying to see if they could somehow loosen the cords wrapped around their midsection. Harry had seen the escape tango before and knew that it was the first stage in scaring the information out of them. Hopefully, he would just need to resort to a little Legilimency in order to obtain the information he needed since they were incapable of Occlumency.
"Now listen here!" the fat man with the mustache said first.
Harry immediately shot a Silencio at him, effectively melding his lips together, not allowing him to talk.
"No, you listen," Harry hissed, "This is going to go one way and one way only. I ask. You answer."
The fat man eventually nodded his head, sweat pouring from his hair and trickling down his face. The other man looked meekly at him, visibly shaking from fear.
"Again. Who are you?" Harry repeated, lifting the Silencing charm off the Muggle.
After a moment, the fat man spit out, "Vernon Dursley."
The meeker man replied, "Wayne Dursley."
"Vernon. Wayne," Harry nodded to them even though they couldn't see the movement behind the bright, obscuring light, "Now what are two upstanding gentlemen such as yourselves doing out here?"
Vernon looked at Wayne hesitantly, unsure as of how he should answer. He reluctantly replied, "We're getting food."
"For?"
"Ourselves," Wayne answered quickly. Harry sensed that the man wasn't telling the truth.
"That's a lot of food between two people…" Harry left the implication hanging in the air.
Their visible and nonverbal responses were too easy to read. Vernon shifted even more, sensing that their interrogator knew exactly what he was talking about. Wayne bit his lip, his eyes darting around frantically as the implication continued to waft dangerously in the air.
"I think it's safe to assume that the food is for more than two people," Harry continued his line of thinking.
"It's not. I just eat a lot," Vernon huffed.
"While I certainly do believe that, I think the more logical assumption is that you two are gathering food for your families…" Harry trailed off again, leaving a sense of danger and suspense between them.
"Listen, we're not hurting nobody -"
"Shut up, Wayne!" Vernon snapped, knowing where his brother was heading.
"Don't tell me to shut up, Vernon!" Wayne yelled back. He shifted his eyes to where he thought their interrogator was standing, "We're not trying to hurt anybody, just - please - let us go…"
"Perhaps."
Harry had to stay cruel. He had to continue to let them think they were in some sort of imminent danger. As underhanded and immoral as it was, a threat to their family was the quickest way to make them fold if they were indeed family men. Harry didn't feel good resorting to this sort of tactic. It was precisely the reason only Malfoy was allowed in the interrogation room.
Harry reverted back to the topic at hand, "Assuming that you both were collecting food and driving the automobile, it's safe to say that your families live somewhere close. Perhaps in Runnymeade?"
No response.
"Waverly?"
Still no response as Harry continued to list the surrounding boroughs.
"Elmbridge?"
"Guildford?"
"Spelthorne?"
"Little Whinging?"
There it is. The sudden twitch of the eye. The nervous bite of the lip. The little movements condemned the two men as they revealed their family's location.
"So Little Whinging…"
"No!" Vernon yelled.
"Too late for that," Harry made a scuffle on the floor as if he were leaving the room.
"NO!" Wayne bellowed, "What do you want to know?! Please, just tell us!"
This time, Vernon didn't stop his brother as Harry broke them down easily. He hoped that he wouldn't have to sort to Legilimency and it seemed as if he wouldn't need to. He was never great at the offensive mind intrusion spell.
"Did you shoot the three men inside this store?"
"Yes," Vernon said through gritted teeth.
"Did you know they were wizards?"
"Yes."
"Why did you kill them?"
"Because they would have found us out."
"And that's how you deal with all wizards?"
"Most of 'em," Vernon answered, a sense of haughtiness and arrogance in his voice.
"Were there any more wizards?"
At this request, both Wayne and Vernon were visibly alarmed. Knowing that their captor could easily find their families, they had no other choice but to answer.
"There were two. Well - used to be two. Now there's only one."
"Only one?"
"We didn't kill the other one if that's what you mean," Wayne suddenly interjected, "He was one of the good ones."
Harry was definitely interested in this nugget of information.
"Go on," Harry intoned softly, encouraging them with softer tones.
"His name was Neville, don't remember catching his surname. We picked him up somewhere around 'pool - I can't exactly remember," Wayne rambled, "We didn't even know he was a wizard at first! Honest! He said he was just trying to find some friends. But - but -"
"The other bastards attacked us," Vernon spit, "Followed us after the Neville boy couldn't finish the job with these three inside here. Took 'em out, but I kept one of them alive."
"You kept one of the Death Eaters alive?"
"If that's what you want to call them - yeah - I kept one alive."
"And Neville? What happened to him?"
Vernon shifted uncomfortably, noticing the excited tone of voice whenever the interrogator mentioned Neville, "We kicked him out. Told him he just brought trouble with him."
"Brilliant," Malfoy muttered.
"Do you have any idea where he was headed? Any indication?" Harry pressed.
"I recall him saying something about London…"
"London? Bloody, fucking London," Malfoy angrily muttered under his breath.
"Not good," Harry quietly said to himself. If Moody's information was correct, the Muggles were going to bomb London in an attempt to obliterate the tower. Any civilian casualties were simply going to be considered…collateral damage.
"How long ago was this?"
"Only three, four days ago."
"Can't have gone far," Malfoy estimated, "He'd still be in the London area if that's where the prick was really going."
"We'll go after him soon enough. But first…"
Harry snapped off the light and cast a Lumos on his wand. The wand was the only light source in the room but it was clear enough for the two Muggles to see Harry's face.
"I'm going to need to see the Death Eater you captured."
-------------------------------
"So you just stab it with the Basilisk fang?" Sirius asked again.
"That's how I did it with the diary…when I was twelve," Neville added as an afterthought.
"Seems…kind of simple?"
"I don't make up the rules of the Horcrux. For all we know, some barmy lady with too much time on her hands and a rabid imagination made all of it up."
"Doubt it."
"You never know," Neville shrugged.
"So which one first?"
Neville hesitated, but he knew which one he wanted to get rid of first. It had to be the locket. Summoning an inner power he didn't know he had, Neville yanked the chain off his neck and threw it on the ground in front of Sirius.
"The locket."
Neville was breathing hard, the unusual coldness already seeping through his body. Perhaps if Sirius destroyed the locket, the feeling would go away. Perhaps if Sirius destroyed it, this gnawing, needy feeling would dissipate. But Neville doubted it.
"Let's get to it then," Sirius stepped forward, the fang in hand as he set to destroy a piece of Voldemort's soul. As if it sensed its imminent destruction, the locket suddenly activated and opened, much to Sirius and Neville's surprise.
A wispy smoke started to pour of it and swirl into the air, weaving into human shapes and bodies. It didn't take long for Sirius to see what it was going to resemble. The two columns of smoke turned into Lily and James Potter.
"How could you?" said the ghostly image of Lily.
"M - m - m - me?" Sirius stuttered.
"You left us, Padfoot. You left us when we needed you most," James begged him.
"I didn't leave you! You left me - left me to rot in Azkaban!"
"No! You did that to yourself, Sirius!" Lily roared back, her hair swirling and her eyes manic, "We should have been able to trust you from the beginning. YOU should have been our Secret Keeper!"
"It was a good idea to make Peter, they couldn't have known…" Sirius trailed off, suddenly lost even though Neville was calling for him to destroy it.
"But it wasn't a good idea!" James bellowed, "And now we're dead. Abandoned and dead because of you!"
"I didn't abandon you!"
"You didn't?! Where were you when we needed you at Hogwarts? Where were you when the Dark Lord approached us and made me beg for mercy!" Lily continued to scream at him, her eyes not her trademark shade of green but instead a violent red.
"I would have been there…I could have been there…I should have been there."
"Yes you should have," James condemned him harshly, "We apologized. We were wrong and yet you continued to shun me. Continued to leave me out."
"Prongs…" Sirius begged, on his knees and reaching out to the two ghostly figures.
"Don't you dare call me that," James hissed.
"Please…" Sirius was groveling, reaching out to them, "Come back…I swear I won't give up on you."
Neville was also entranced by the ghostly figures of the supposedly dead James and Lily Potter. But he wasn't as attached to the situation as Sirius was and could see that the poltergeists were emanating from the locket. He yelled as loud as he could over the tirade that continued to pour from the malevolent forces.
"Sirius! They're not real!"
But Sirius was still caught in a web of depression and self-loathing, induced and created by the evil ghosts.
"Sirius! THEY'RE DEAD!" Neville screamed desperately.
Something seemed to snap in Sirius. It was like the last piece of a giant jigsaw puzzle snapped into place inside his mind. He resolutely stood up and glared at the two ghosts.
"I did abandon you. I did leave you by the wayside."
The two ghosts seemed to be caught off-guard…if that was even possible.
"But that doesn't mean I still can't do something to help you both," Sirius was still talking to them as if they truly existed, "It doesn't mean I have to stand by helpless now."
With a loud roar, Sirius lifted the fang in the air and located the locket still lying on the ground. With an almighty heave and leap, Sirius plunged the fang into the locket and watched as the two evil spirits screamed as they crumpled and finally disappeared into thin air.
Sirius was breathing hard, tears streaming down his face. Fortunately for him, his raggedy hair shielded his face and he was unable to wipe the guilty droplets away before Neville could see how much that clearly effected him. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and swept the hair out of his eyes to meet Neville's astonished pupils.
"One down."
----------------------------------
Harry's unit followed the Dursleys back to Number Four Privet Drive. Harry was slightly amused to find Vernon looking at him as if he had seen a ghost. Vernon didn't comment at the matter, but Harry could see Vernon looking at him out of the corner of his eye every now and then.
"What is it?" Harry asked as they approached the house.
"What'd you say your name was again?" Vernon asked slowly.
"I didn't say, but my name's Harry Potter."
Vernon choked on air and Wayne had to pound him on the back in order to help out his brother.
"Everything alright?" Hermione asked, always genuinely concerned.
"Potter, you say?"
"That's right."
"I see," Vernon's lips were pursed as he trudged the final steps up to his house.
Hermione looked at Harry questioningly but Harry could only shrug back a response, not knowing how this man could possibly know who he was.
As soon as Vernon opened the door, they could hear a whiny, shrill pitched voice shriek, "Vernon! Thank goodness you're back! You took longer than usual and…"
Vernon's wife, Harry assumed, trailed off and paled as she realized they had extra visitors. She paled even more as she looked into Harry's green eyes. She then promptly fainted. Vernon barely had time to catch her as he looked fearfully into Harry's eyes.
"Knew you were handsome, but I didn't know you had that effect on ladies, Harry," Seamus commented as he amusedly looked on.
"Is she alright?" Hermione asked, rushing to them.
Vernon visibly pulled them back as if he were shielding his wife from the witch. Hermione visibly only bit her lip, just a small sign of annoyance from the man's prejudice.
"She just had a fright is all," Vernon explained in a rush.
"From what?" Malfoy drawled.
Vernon's eyes flittered to Harry and Harry now had to ask, "Me?"
Vernon looked at Harry for a moment with fear in his eyes. Nevertheless, he asked, "Are you related to James Potter?"
Harry's face hardened at the mere name of his father. How did this Muggle know who James Potter was? He could he possibly know? The anger started to swirl within him and it was only Hermione's petite hand slipping into his that calmed him.
"He was my father."
Vernon gulped and looked down at his wife, "This is my wife, Petunia. She is Lily's sister."
"Was."
"Excuse me?"
"She was Lily's sister. Lily's dead," Harry answered in a dead voice.
"Dead," Vernon mouthed soundlessly, worriedly looking at his wife.
Harry knew that his mother always had a sister. But in the events following her death, he forgot all about her. His mother almost never mentioned his sister, only once saying that they had a serious falling out once Lily married James. In the blizzard of events following the rise of the Dark Tower, the thought of Lily's sister never even registered on Harry's subconscious levels. Yet here he was…inside her house.
Petunia came to, her eyes blinking as she looked up at her husband's mustached and concerned face, "Vernon? I must have been dreaming. For a second I thought I saw…"
Petunia stopped as she realized that Harry was still in front of her, examining her with an inscrutable look on his face.
"You look just like him…"
"So I've been told," Harry said, his voice robotic and unemotional.
"Except for your eyes," Harry said it unison with Lily, having heard the phrase multiple times before.
"I suppose you're her sister," Harry confirmed.
"I am. But - but what are you doing here?"
"We're here for something else."
"But Lily! How is she?!" Petunia asked, a rare moment of genuine sympathy leaking into her voice.
Harry looked at his mother's sister sadly, a shadow passing over his face as he realized how pitiful their relationship must have been, "She died."
"Died?" Petunia gasped, clearly not expecting that answer.
"Months ago."
"Months?" Petunia continued to parrot, annoying Harry even further.
"Yes - months ago - and if you would have bothered to talk to your sister, you might have known a couple weeks after the fact," Harry spit at her, storming out of the room.
The remaining group was left in shock, Petunia still in Vernon's arms, Hermione standing helplessly in the foyer, and the rest of Harry's unit crowded around the door.
"Quite a show," Malfoy smirked.
Hermione shot him an annoyed look and ran off to find Harry. She saw him disappear down the cellar, a furious look on his face.
"Harry!" Hermione called out.
"Sister didn't even fucking know," Harry muttered as he stormed down the steps.
"Come on, Harry," Hermione tugged on his arm but he continued to walk down the steps and Hermione had no choice but to follow.
She was going to continue consoling him but stopped as she found two teenagers and a smaller child staring at them in fear. Wayne was already down in the basement, presumably hugging his wife. Hermione took in the surroundings and found that despite Vernon's outward appearance, he seemed to be prepared for the vast wasteland of post-Tower England. Food stocked the shelves and there was a helpful amount of ammunition and guns stocked in the corner.
"Where is he?" Harry harshly asked.
Wayne pointed to another door in back of the room, barely visible in the meek light.
Harry stomped towards the door just as the rest of Harry's unit and the remaining Dursleys trudged down the steps. Yanking open the door, Harry looked inside and found a badly bruised man tied spread eagle against the far wall. His head hung down and there splatters of dried blood pooled on the floor. Vernon Dursley apparently didn't treat his prisoners well. Scars and cuts lined his naked torso, the tortures visible even in the poorly lit room. Harry clenched his jaw as he heard Hermione gasp behind him. He turned around and placed a hand on her shoulder to push her out of the room.
"You shouldn't be hear for this," Harry told her.
"For what? Harry! He's already beaten enough as it is!" Hermione exclaimed, gesturing wildly to the prisoner.
"We need to know. We need to know why Voldemort would want Neville alive and so soon."
"To kill him obviously!"
"There's more!" Harry insisted, "Why else would he involve Muggles?"
"Because he's a homicidal maniac on a power trip. He thinks he can just break the rules that keep the magical and Muggle world apart! Who knows what he's thinking! You can't decipher and accurately predict the thoughts of a psychopath."
"Regardless," Harry said coolly, his persona starting to take hold of him, "The prisoner needs to be interrogated."
"And that's all, right…"
Harry didn't answer and signaled for Malfoy to come over.
"Harry…" Hermione said slowly as she realized Harry didn't answer her.
"Harry…" she said again as Malfoy walked into the room.
"I'm sorry, Hermione," Harry slammed the door shut in her face and slid a locking charm in place.
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Hermione fidgeted with the hem of her jacket as she took another glance at the door, wishing it would open and Harry would step out so she could knock some sense into the stubborn boy. The rest of the unit milled about, examining the packed basement and occasionally trying to engage the Muggles into some semblance of conversation. The teenagers were at first warned not to talk to them by their parents, but when it became evident that they were not there to hurt them, they opened to Harry's unit - especially Seamus and Dean.
But Hermione was in no mood for socializing or making the Muggles feel better. She needed to make sure that Harry wouldn't go through with the rumors she had heard. She needed to make sure that Harry (or Malfoy) didn't kill the Death Eater.
Approximately fifteen minutes later, the locking charm flicked open and Harry stepped out with Malfoy in tow. Hermione sprung to her feet, hell bent on giving Harry a talking to. As soon as he spotted her, however, he cut her off by saying, "We got what we needed."
"Good," Hermione hastily answered, "And now we're letting him go, right?"
Malfoy snorted, "Let him go, my arse…"
"Shut it, Malfoy. I don't care if you think you're the Phantom of the Opera with that mask, I'm still not scared of you."
"Phantom of the who?" Malfoy confusedly asked.
"Never mind you!" Hermione snapped, "Harry, we can't leave him here. It's inhumane. You see how they're treating him."
Hermione only had to lean a bit to inspect the torrid condition of the room that the Death Eater was imprisoned it. It was barely larger than five meters by five, only containing enough room to stand and not enough to even place a mattress in. From the snippets she could pick up in conversations, the Dursleys, at least Vernon and Petunia, only fed him sparingly and simply kept him there for…sport.
"They torture him regularly, Harry! Just for their own fun! Vernon may seem like he cares about his family," Hermione shot a look of disgust at the fat man, "But he's as contemptuous as they come when it involves wizards and that's saying something when it comes from me."
"Hermione, we can't let him go," Harry rolled his eyes, "He's a Death Eater. He's just as soon to come back and kill us."
"Harry…" Hermione patiently continued, "We're better than that. We're not them! This isn't a drastic measure. We Obliviate him and let him walk. No harm, no foul."
"Obliviation doesn't always hold up," Harry warned.
"It's better than leaving him here as the Dursley's play toy," Hermione hissed back at him.
Harry's eyes were dark as he mulled over the consideration. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry could see Malfoy, his mask on, staring at him with a blank look on his face. He knew that Malfoy would judge him on his current decision, but he also knew that despite his…tactics, even this sort of torture sickened him.
He looked up at saw Petunia's eyes, staring at him curiously. How could this woman possibly be related to his mother? How could such a contemptuous, vile woman be related to his lovable mother? Was there something about his mother he didn't know about? Was there a dark side to her too?
Impossible.
"You Obliviate him. You've always been better at it than I have. Do it quick, we need to find Neville before it's too late," Harry said, his implied answer obvious.
"Thank you," Hermione exhaled.
"Don't thank me," Harry said, his eyes still coolly resting on Petunia Dursley.
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"I don't suppose the diadem will be any easier?" Sirius asked as he looked at said object.
"None of them really have," Neville shrugged, "Do you want me to do it?"
"No," Sirius noticed Neville's hesitancy, "You don't have to."
"I mean - I think I could do this one," Neville reasoned, "It didn't effect me like the locket did…"
"You already have to do enough, boy," Sirius clapped him on the back, "Let me take care of this one."
Neville nodded, a part of him hating himself for letting others take care of this Horcrux problem, but a larger part of him relieved that he wouldn't be forced to go through the process all over again.
"Think it's still got enough juice for one more go?" Sirius lightly joked as he held the Basilisk fang in the air.
"Should be. I have an extra."
"Prepared, are you? Impressive."
"I have my moments."
Sirius chuckled to himself but became serious as he looked at the diadem. It was such an innocent object. What could this piece of Voldemort's soul possibly contain?
"Here goes nothing," Sirius muttered.
Sirius raised the fang in the air and brought it in a downwards slashing motion, striking the diadem right at the crown. This time there were no evil ghosts or embodiments of Voldemort's spirit. But a different problem arose. A seriously more troublesome problem.
Sirius disappeared as soon as he struck the diadem.
"Sirius?" Neville concernedly called out.
Neville jumped to where the diadem previously lay but found that it was also gone. He swept his arms over the dead leaves, desperately looking for any sign of the diadem. He tossed them about, frantically and furiously searching for any sign of the diadem or Sirius. Panic set into him as he realized that neither the diadem nor Sirius was anywhere to be found.
Looking up at the gray and morbid skies, Neville whispered to himself, "What have I done?"
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Sirius felt the familiar tug at his navel and even through the tumble in the air, he immediately registered that the diadem definitely wasn't a piece of Voldemort's soul. He fell on a hard, marble floor, the distinct cool feeling alerting him that he was not outside anymore. Groaning, Sirius picked himself up off the floor and looked up to find the last thing he expected.
Lord Voldemort stood over him, his wand idly in his hand as he inspected Sirius with a curious look on his face.
"Black? It seems as if you've intercepted something that wasn't supposed to be yours."
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