The Hogwarts Descendant

Chapter 75

{A/N: okay so I know I said I wouldn't update while I was in NYC but I had some down time so here you go. View discretion is advised ;) }

The rest of the Slytherins made it back a few hours later, robes singed and skin slightly blistered, but all in one piece with no major injuries. Dahlia immediately explained what had happened in the graveyard, making her case for why she'd cast the Fiendfyre in the first place.

"There were two horcruxes in the staff?" Everyone was astounded, shocked at their accidental discovery. No one quite knew how to react.

"That's why I had to set the Fiendfyre. Godric's horcrux said that he wouldn't fight me, but the Dark Lord's would and for me to destroy the entire coffin." Dahlia flickered to Theo apologetically. "I didn't know how else to get him out of you."

"Please don't ever say that like that again," Theo groaned, rubbing his temples. "He possessed me? Godric fucking Gryffindor possessed me?"

"Yes," Dahlia winced, "I feel like I should apologize for that."

"That's... kind of fucking cool," Theo's puzzled expression fell away in a look of wonder. "How many people can say they've been Godric Gryffindor?"

"You weren't actually Godric Gryffindor, you fucking moron!" Daphne clubbed him in the back of the head with the loaf of bread she was about to make sandwich's with. "A horcrux possessed you - that isn't fucking cool. That's terrifying!"

Theo looked guilty, rubbing the back of his head as he turned to Daphne. "Daph - I don't even remember it happening. I don't even know what he did -"

"That's why it's fucking scary!" Daphne growled, "If Dahlia hadn't been there and talked him down - If she hadn't set the Fiendfyre - who knows what you would have done under his control."

"Daph, it's not that bad -"

"She has a point, Theo," Dahlia interjected quietly. "The diary that possessed Ginny Weasley during your second year was a horcrux. It's what made her open the chamber of secrets."

Everyone's heads jerked to her, eyes wide with horror. "The Weasley girl opened it because of a horcrux?"

"Only a parseltongue could open the chamber of secrets. The piece of soul in the diary possessed Ginny, enabling her to speak parseltongue. The Dark Lord's soul used her to open the chamber and command the basilisk." Dahlia felt almost dirty telling this story; it wasn't hers to tell - it was Ginny's, and Harry's. But the slytherins needed to understand the danger these objects imposed.

Theo suddenly looked more queasy, his wonderment crumbling away. "So... it could have made me do anything?"

"Anything," Dahlia looked him dead in the eye. "It could make you kill yourself, it could have made you kill me. It could have made you take the staff and disappear somewhere we could never find you."

"Bloody hell," Theo suddenly looked more offended, more violated than anything. "Thank fucking Merlin it was Godric's horcrux."

"Agreed," Dahlia sighed, huffing at the bizarreness of it all. "It's gone - let's just focus on that."

"It could have... and I don't remember anything," Theo was still stuck, horrified by what had happened now. His eyes widened, gaze piercing Dahlia's. "Why did it take me and not you?"

"I don't know, but be glad he did," Dahlia said grimly, "I'm fairly certain he only spoke to me because I might have convinced him of our familial ties."

Silence fell over the table, the gravity of the situation they had unknowingly been in weighing on them. Dahlia watched the solemn faces around, taking in each serious face before a surprising snort escaped her mouth.