White Heather for Protection

Rending the Soul

Heather looked steadily at Hadrian. "You ready?"

"Yeah, sure. Go ahead." Hadrian met her eyes head on.

Nodding, she cast the spell. "Legilimens."

Hadrian already had the memories at the forefront of his mind, making it easier for her. She watched carefully as they played out, taking care to look for any items with some sort of significance. The Gaunt Ring was one, of course, but Dumbledore had dealt with it already.

She tried to stay objective, but it was difficult when she saw how Merope Gaunt was being abused in the household. Marvolo and Morfin Gaunt were horrid people.

She caught notice of the necklace Merope wore, wondering if that was a possible horcrux as well. When the witch held it out to be inspected by the shopkeeper, Heather gasped in shock. She recognised that necklace! It was the same cursed locket that she'd found in Grimmauld Place more than a year ago! The one Dumbledore had helped to destroy!

Heather mentally shook her head and put those thoughts away. She'd go through the memories and then think about the locket. The next memory was about Riddle applying for the position of the DADA Professor and being rejected. Nothing really stood out to her for that. Then came his meeting with Hepzibah Smith. The woman was a collector of old artefacts, but one object she mentioned in particular was Hufflepuff's Cup.

Once she was done, she carefully withdrew from Hadrian's mind.

"So, learn anything new?" he asked.

Her thoughts were whirling around the new information she had gotten. "Yeah," she said distractedly, "You know the locket Merope pawned off?"

"Slytherin's Locket?"

She nodded. No wonder the necklace had seemed familiar to her at the time. She must have seen it before in a history book. "I've seen it before. In Grimmauld Place. It felt really, really Dark and I wasn't able to remove the curse on it. Sirius and I asked for Bill and Remus' help for it, but they said it wasn't a curse. When we asked Dumbledore, he said that we couldn't remove the spell on it and that our only option was to destroy it. If I remember correctly, his exact words were, 'such a spell cannot be rid of unless the vessel is destroyed'." Come to think of it, Dumbledore had said something similar about the Gaunt Ring.

"You mean to say," Hadrian began, eyes blown wide, "the locket was a horcrux?"

"I'm quite certain it was. It was destroyed by Dumbledore though." She cast her memory back, thinking about the incident. "At the time, he said he only knew two ways of destroying it. Fiendfyre and basilisk venom."

It looked like a Lumos had gone off in Rian's head. "That'show I got rid of Riddle's diary! The venom in the basilisk fang!"

Heather groaned, slapping her forehead. "I don't know whether to thank or damn that blasted Potter luck! Seriously, if you'd used anything else other than that basilisk fang, Merlin knows where you'd be now!"

Rian laughed sheepishly. "Let's focus on the bright side. So the locket's been destroyed. That's three horcruxes down!"

"And three more to go," she pointed out dryly.

"But we know how to destroy them! We each have our own basilisk fang we can use!" he retorted cheerfully, indicating the necklaces they both wore.

Reluctantly infected by her brother's optimism, she smiled. "And I have a few more stored away for the others."

"Yeah, you see, Heather? Voldemort's days are numbered!"

Chuckling at his enthusiasm, she said, "Alright, alright! So let's get back on track. The Gaunt Ring, Slytherin's Locket and Riddle's diary have been dealt with. From the memories Dumbledore showed you, I think another possible horcrux could be Hufflepuff's Cup."