Harry Potter and the War of Souls

Chapter 25

A Key Discovery

Ron had gone to bed early the night before, and Harry realized as he lay in bed the next morning that over the last couple of weeks, Ron had spent increasing amounts of time in his bed. In fact, if he wasn't in class or at meals, he was rarely anywhere else.

"Ron? You awake?" he called in a harsh whisper. To make sure he was heard, he took a rolled up sock and threw it at where he guessed Ron's head was.

From Ron's bed, he heard a "mmmm?"

"Ron? Sit up, I want to talk to you."

There was a stirring beneath Ron's covers, then he said, "What time is it, Harry?"

"I dunno. Listen, what's wrong with you anymore?"

"Nothing. Lemme sleep."

Harry got out of his covers and walked over to Ron's bed where he threw back the blanket over Ron to wake him up and make him talk. It appeared Ron had gone back to sleep because he barely stirred, but Harry stepped back in horror. The pale lifelessness that had been climbing up his leg now covered half his back and chest. He was being taken over inch by inch. Ron was dying.

Harry replaced the covers, then dressed and ran downstairs where he waited anxiously until Hermione appeared a half hour later.

"Why didn't you tell me Ron was getting so bad?" he asked.

Hermione set her books down, then as she realized there were younger students watching, she shushed Harry and pushed him into a corner. "You're his best friend. Didn't you realize?"

"I knew he was hurt, yeah, but I thought Madame Pomfrey-"

"She can't find any Salamander Powder. Apparently, there's a shortage of it lately because people have been hoarding it to make their own healing potions."

"What are we going to do?"

Hermione bit her lip. "I don't know, Harry. I've been reading up on his injury, but this is the only known cure. And this won't even work if we wait too much longer. When it reaches his heart-"

"I'm not waiting." Harry left the portrait hole and marched up to the seventh floor where he found the blank wall and began marching back and forth in front of it. "I need Salamander Powder," he repeated in his mind. When his attempt failed, he walked back and forth again, this time saying his command out loud, but also to no avail.

"Begging Harry Potter's pardon, sir, but he cannot get it this way."

Harry turned and saw Dobby staring up at him, looking apologetic as if the room failing to open was Dobby's own fault.

"Why not?" Harry asked.

"There is none to be had at Hogwarts, sir. Madame Pomfrey has been here and failed here too, sir."

"Where can I get some then? Dobby, this is very important."

"Dobby does not know."

Harry leaned against the wall and banged his head in frustration. "You can always find things for me, Dobby. Why not this time?"

"Begging his pardon, but I always could get it from Professor Snape. His office is all destroyed now, though, and Dobby cannot use any of his supplies."

Harry crouched down. "Did Snape use to have Salamander Powder in there?"

"Maybe."

Harry set off at a near run down to the dungeons where he found Snape's office just as it had been when Harry was last in here with Ron. He began looking through the wreckage for anything marked as Salamander Powder, but there was nothing here.

"What's this?" Harry asked, pulling a jar off the floor. It was broken, but markings on it seemed to suggest this had, at least at one time, contained Salamander Powder. There were a few spoonfuls of gray powder in the bottom of the jar, but Harry had no way of knowing if this was the powder he wanted or just settled dust from the rest of the office destruction.

"Listen," Harry ordered. "I'm going upstairs to show this to Madam Pomfrey. You wait here and keep looking for anything more. If we're lucky, this is the right stuff and there will be enough of it."

One hour later, when Harry reentered Snape's dungeon, he threw the glass against the wall and heard its shatter echo in the room. "It is the right stuff," he said angrily. "But since it was opened it became contaminated and there wasn't enough of it anyway."

"Maybe there would have been if you'd been more careful in here," a voice behind him sneered.

Harry turned and saw Snape standing behind him. He'd been so upset when he walked in, he hadn't even noticed him. And although he knew he should probably at least apologize for the state of the office, he didn't care. He did what had to be done.

"What do you want?" Harry asked.

"Respect from you. But I know you too well to expect that, so I'll settle for an explanation on the status of the horcruxes."

Harry began to answer, then stopped. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you want to know?"

The skin on Snape's face tightened. "Are you back to distrusting me, then?"

"You just seemed so eager to know. And it seems like you're avoiding my question."

"I am not avoiding the question, Mr. Potter. I'm just tired of defending myself to you. I have given up everything, everything in my life to end the reign of the Dark Lord. I have sacrificed more than you, in your worst nightmares could envision doing. How dare you be so superior as to accuse me of being too eager to know when my nightmare might end?"

Harry paused as he felt blood rushing to his head. "Tell me this, then. Why did the death eaters steal the Gryffindor sword? What did they want it for?"

"I don't know."

"I thought you knew everything He was doing? Is the sword a horcrux? Is that why He wanted it?"

"I seriously doubt it. Don't you think Dumbledore would have considered that? Don't you think considering it sat in his office all these years that he would have tested it to be sure?"

"Then what is the last horcrux?" Harry heard himself nearly yelling. Snape had claimed to be so close with Voldemort. If he wasn't answering, he had to be holding back the information.

"I don't know what the last horcrux is. It's not a common topic of conversation."

"Is it Nagini? The Sorting Hat? Is it me?"

Harry paused, seeing the look of horror on Snape's face. He hadn't seen that expression from Snape since he spoke parseltongue during a duel in his second year.

"Am I a horcrux?" Harry repeated.

"The Dark Lord killed your parents, giving Him the tools He needed to create a horcrux in you," Snape said, almost to himself. "It would have been brilliant. He places a piece of His soul in you, knowing the only way to destroy it is with your death. But according to the prophecy, you alone are able to kill Him. And if you have died to destroy the horcrux, you can no longer kill Him. Either way He wins."

"And either way I lose." Harry slumped to the floor. "Then on that night he killed my parents, he never attempted a killing curse on me. He let me live as His perfect horcrux."

"I admit I had not considered it, but I cannot deny this possibility."

"It explains things," Harry said. "Dumbledore told me Voldemort put a piece of Himself in me. Why didn't he tell me it was a horcrux?"

"I'm sure he intended to, but he couldn't find the words."

Harry felt his jaw tighten. "There's only one way I can do this then. I have to take Him out with me. We'll die together."

Snape was silent. "Don't be rash. This is only a thought. We don't know for sure."

"Can we know for sure?"

"Any tests we have would be inconclusive. The spells we have will look for His soul within you. We already know this to be the case. The question is, do we detect His soul because you are a horcrux or simply because His failure to complete the killing curse that night left traces of His soul within yours? There's no precedent for understanding this. No writings. No tests to tell us for certain."

"So the only way to know if our theory is correct will be if we both actually die?" Harry felt a tense frustration rise inside him. "But if He comes back and I don't, then we were wrong and there will be no one left who can kill Him."

There was silence again in the office. Finally Harry said, "I don't know if I can kill Him, Snape. I don't know if I have that in me. But if I don't, He will have no problem killing me."

Snape nodded. "That was my choice too, you know. Last spring, I was under terms of a magical contract that would have resulted in my death unless I initiated the killing curse against Dumbledore. Kill or be killed. That was my choice then and is your choice now."

At the mention of Dumbledore's name, Harry felt his spine stiffen and he stood. "DON'T compare what you had to do with what I have to do. You willingly entered your contract, I was born into mine! And the person I have to kill is an evil monster. You killed one of the best wizards ever to have lived!"

Snape's lip curled. "You can not pretend to understand where I have been in my life, where I am now! You further our cause in your way and I shall do so in mine."

"Killing Albus Dumbledore furthered nobody's cause but Voldemort's! And Dumbledore may have been dying, he may have had this plan that you had to carry out, but don't think that makes everything okay! You will be remembered in history as nothing more than the coward who killed Dumbledore. That's your legacy!"

"And for the past sixteen years, your legacy has been a heroic one, even though all you did was lay helplessly in your crib and survive a killing curse. The true hero was your mother who put herself between you and certain death!" Snape's voice quivered slightly as he said, "If it hadn't been for you she'd still be alive. Lily would still be here."

Harry felt as if Snape had kicked the breath out of him. That was too low, and too close to his heart for him to make any response. Once again the idea of realizing Snape had loved his mother burned like acid in his throat. No wonder Snape had always hated him. Snape blamed Harry for Lily's death. Harry turned and began to stomp out of the room until he heard Snape's voice calling his name. "What?" Harry asked, swinging around.

Snape held out a small flask of something he had pulled from his cloak. "Salamander Powder. Dobby informed me you were in need of some."

Harry walked forward and snatched the flask, then left the office. He had nothing left to say to Snape.

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Since his captivity in the LeStrange dungeon and Ron's injuries, Harry's extra sessions with Bill had been rather infrequent. But the evening after his fight with Snape, Harry met Bill in the DADA classroom again.

"You okay?" Bill asked. "You seem upset tonight."

"I'm just tired," Harry answered, then added, "But I still want some practice time with you."

"What did you want to work on?"

"Nonverbal spells. They're faster and give me the element of surprise in a duel."

"Have you dueled using nonverbal spells before?"

Harry thought back to the previous spring when he and Snape had dueled. "I'm okay at it, except when the person I'm dueling can get into my mind. I can't block them out."

Bill furrowed his brows. "I heard Professor Snape trained you for a while in Occlumency."

"He tried, but I'm no good at it." Harry shrugged.

"Occlumency is a powerful skill. Nobody acquires it without a great deal of practice. I understand you have shown some ability to throw off the Imperius Curse. That's not much different than Occlumency, you know."

"I guess I never really thought about that before, but that's true."

Bill walked over to his desk and sat on the corner. "Unfortunately, I'm not a great Legilimens, so I'm not the best help there, but we can talk about some ideas to help you control your emotions. Keep control of your emotions and you can be an Occlumens. In the meantime, let's practice some nonverbal dueling." He stood again and pulled out his wand. "Shall we have a duel? No words."

One hour later, Harry walked from Bill's office, so exhausted he could have fallen asleep in the hallways, but so pleased with himself he wanted to get back and tell somebody what had happened. After a string of failures in which Bill had beaten him, Harry finally managed a nonverbal stinging hex on Bill. And they had arranged for more practices every night that week.

Unfortunately, there was nobody he felt like talking to in the common room when he arrived. Neville waved at him and called him over, but he pretended not to hear and after a quick wave back just walked directly up to his bed where he climbed under the covers and fell asleep.

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Harry, Ginny, and Hermione each took turns visiting Ron in the hospital wing. After she received the Salamander Powder from Harry, Madam Pomfrey had been able to make the remedy for the Inferi bite relatively quickly, but she warned it would be a painful recovery for Ron.

Harry noticed that Ron tried a great deal harder to hide his pain from him than he did with Hermione or Ginny. When Harry asked how he was feeling, he responded, "I've been better," but he heard Hermione and Ginny comparing notes on how many times he moaned during their visits with him.

Late one night, Harry stopped by the wing to see Ron. The curtain was drawn around his bed, and as he approached, he heard Hermione talking with him. Harry paused. He didn't intend to overhear anything, but when he heard her say, "the Mirror of Erised," he couldn't help it.

"You wanted to know what I saw, but I couldn't tell you before," Hermione said. Her voice was thick as if she'd been crying. "You were so hurt from the bite and we had no way of knowing if you'd live. To be honest, Ron, I've never known for sure if we were meant to be together. We're so different and I've never been able to sort out my feelings and know for sure. And Viktor really tried hard for a long time to persuade me to leave you and be with him, for a while I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing. But I looked in that mirror and I saw us, instantly. We were older and had a family. We were so happy together."

"The mirror doesn't tell the future, Hermione."

"No, but it reveals what we want the most, even when we aren't sure of it ourselves. That's what I want with you, Ron. What I want most in the world is you."

Harry quickly backed away and left the hospital wing. He felt like he had invaded something far too personal between them and knew from the heat on his cheeks that he was embarrassed. But he couldn't help from making a comparison between what Hermione had seen in the mirror and what he had seen. He briefly considered taking Ginny up there and asking her what she saw. But what if it wasn't him?

"Harry! You okay?"

Harry stopped. He'd been so involved in thinking about Ginny, he didn't see her walking straight toward him.

"Huh? Yeah, I'm fine."

"No, you're not. Wanna talk?"

"Could I ask you a question? A serious question?"

"Of course. What's up?"

"Ron's like a brother to me, y'know? I don't know what I'd do without him. But I was just thinking that Ron could have died. If he did, I wouldn't expect Hermione to forgive me, or your family. I'm not sure I'd even forgive myself. But could I have ever gotten it from you?"

Ginny's forehead wrinkled. "Why would I need to forgive you?" Before Harry answered, she continued. "You think because he followed you into that lake his death would have been your fault?"

"Sirius followed me to the Ministry and that was my fault. Voldemort wanted to kill me sixteen years ago but who died? My dad and mum! Yeah, Ron's death would have been my fault."

"Harry, stop it!" Harry looked directly at Ginny and saw a fire in her eyes. "Listen, I will forgive you for when you loved me but kept your distance, or for every time you said exactly the wrong thing at the wrong moment. But don't ask my forgiveness just because other people care about you and want to help you. Harry, there are people you love enough that you would die for them. Let us love you that much too."

A silence lingered between them for a moment. She was more right than he even dared admit to her. There were people he loved enough to die for. If he really was a horcrux, his death would matter. It would be for them. Harry brushed his bangs away from his eyes and mumbled, "You're right. I'm sorry."

Ginny smiled. "Okay, that is forgivable."

Harry forced a smile onto his face, then said, "Where were you going anyway?"

"To see Ron. Mum sent me an owl and told me I wasn't taking good enough care of him." Ginny wrinkled her nose. "She'd have me changing his diapers if she thought he needed it."

Harry laughed. "I don't think you ought to go in there right now. Hermione's there and trust me, she's taking plenty good care of him."

Ginny's eyes widened. "Oh. We could have some fun with that, couldn't we?"

Harry grabbed her arm and pulled her the other way. "Not this time. But he's fair game when he gets back to the common room, right?"

Ginny giggled. "I still have a few things left over from Fred and George. You want to see?"

They hurried back to the common room. Ginny asked Harry to wait downstairs while she went up to her dorms. She came back minutes later with a book in her hands.

"This is my diary," she said. "My real, non-possessed diary." She must have noticed a nervous look on Harry's face because she said, "You're not going to read it. This is just my hiding place."

She reached down into the spine of her diary and pulled out a small bag of pellets. "Drop a few of these in someone's drink, and the next person they kiss, it makes their lips stick together."

Harry smiled, but his focus was on Ginny's diary. "You always hide things in there?"

"Just the things I don't want my parents to find."

"Come with me." Harry ran up to his dorm with Ginny following behind. He got into his trunk beneath his bed and found his mother's diary. "The spine always felt funny to me when I was reading. I just thought it was because it was old." He pushed his finger into the spine of the book and grinned apprehensively as something began to come out from the other end.

"What is that?" Ginny asked, looking at the golden, oddly shaped object.

Harry picked it up and turned it over in his hands. "I think it's a key."