The Most Beautiful Witch Chapter 34 (Patreon)

AN: As always, this is a commissioned work for an anonymous user.

All characters are over the age of eighteen (18)

PAGE BREAK

Grimmauld Place proved to be quite the peaceful home once everyone had settled into it. Harry, Daphne, and Astoria each had their own bedrooms on one floor of the house, though Harry rarely ever slept in his own bed. He switched between Astoria and Daphne’s, enjoying the comforts that they each brought, and only relaxed in his own room when he needed a moment’s peace.

Sirius had reclaimed his old bedroom while Anastasia and Cyrus had taken over the master bedroom. An old friend, Buckbeak, who Sirius had been watching over ever since his escape from Flitwick’s office at Hogwarts, resided in Sirius’ brother’s room next to his.

Kreacher, while at first had been quite persnickety, had quickly grown to accept everyone except for Sirius. Evidently, their past enmities made it too difficult for either of them to mend the bridge separating them, regardless of how much Harry and the others tried.

Once they’d accepted the fact that such fences could never be mended, things truly calmed down within Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

While it would be all too easy to forget the war outside of these walls, Harry couldn’t help but worry as to what was happening. The Fidelius Charm prevented any owls from reaching them, but Dumbledore had been clever enough to establish a redirect point. Any owls seeking to deliver letters to them would be sent off to a distant point somewhere upon the British Isles, and they would then be checked over by someone that Dumbledore trusted before being sent to Grimmauld Place.

For all of his faults, Harry truly didn’t believe that Dumbledore would ever tamper with their mail. And the spells he used to ensure that there was no tampering helped to diminish the niggling feeling in the back of his mind.

And it was on the morning exactly one week after the destruction of Voldemort’s second horcrux that a copy of the Daily Prophet arrived that shook everyone to their core.

“How in the bloody hell has that happened?” Sirius exclaimed loudly over breakfast.

“I don’t know,” Cyrus admitted. “I knew that he was close to Fudge, but this seems implausible. There’s no way that Fudge or the Wizengamot approved this.”

“I doubt that they’re caring about rules, regulations, or even customs at this point,” Anastasia commented bitterly as she snatched the paper from Sirius’ hands.

As she held it up to the light, Harry bit back a sigh upon witnessing Lucius Malfoy being crowned as the newest Minister for Magic.

It shouldn’t have been possible. The man had only been a professor at Hogwarts a few weeks ago, and yet all of his governmental connections had established something unbelievable.

“This is ridiculous,” Daphne exclaimed. “How can the Wizengamot let this happen? They always elect one of the Minister’s undersecretaries to be the interim Minister before an election takes place!”

“It may be that the Wizengamot is no longer operating as it should,” Anastasia said. “We all know that Lucius is a powerful man. He’s had years to establish himself within the government thanks to Fudge constantly listening to his advice. His friends in the Wizengamot probably helped this come to fruition. The fact that few on the so-called light side of the Wizengamot have commented on the matter is worrying.”

“And they’ve damned Britain for it,” Astoria spat.

Harry reclined in his seat, undisturbed by the news. It was yet another piece of bad information that he couldn’t let sway him and his beliefs. Whatever happened, he needed to be resolute and unshakable.

“This doesn’t change anything,” he announced loudly, breaking up whatever conversations were still taking place. Everyone’s heads swivelled towards him. “We’ve known for months now that the Ministry has been corrupt at the highest levels. Fudge stepping down and letting Lucius take his place is just another way that the Death Eaters are going to try to come after us. But we need to remember that Lucius is just a pawn in this game. Voldemort is the real target. We need to deal with him and his horcruxes before we can begin to try to deal with the Ministry.”

“Agreed,” Anastasia said readily. “We need to investigate what the Dark… Voldemort would’ve turned into horcruxes. We know of the locket and the diary. Given that, we can assume that the rest of his objects have to tie into his personal history and that of the Slytherin legacy.”

“Where should we start?” Astoria asked eagerly.

“There’s the Riddle House,” Daphne pointed out. “I know that Dumbledore wants us to wait for him. He said that he’d be back in a couple week’s time, but we can’t wait that long. With Lucius in charge, I guarantee that he’ll bypass the Wizengamot again and put out warrants for our arrests before the day is done.”

“No, we can’t wait,” Harry agreed. “We’ve finally found Voldemort’s vulnerability, and every chance we have of chipping away at his armour is worth taking. Even if we don’t find a horcrux, we might find a clue to somewhere else he might’ve hidden his immortality.”

“I’m ready,” Astoria said, standing up from the dining table.

“Easy now,” Daphne chastened her. “Finish your breakfast first. We still need to talk this—”

“Don’t act like I’m a child that needs to be consoled,” Astoria bit back sharply. “I know what this involves. We both trained with Harry, remember? I’m ready for anything. And talking is just going to waste more time. We can go to the Riddle House and start investigating today.”

“I don’t want any of us running into something that we’re not prepared for,” Daphne retorted. “I’m glad that you’re confident, but what happens if something goes wrong? Something that we aren’t prepared for? Are we all just going to act individually like a cluster of chickens with no sense of unity or are we going to work together and enact a backup plan that’ll help make sure that we all get out of there alive?”

“Spare me your sarcasm,” Astoria snapped. “We’re not first years. We all know what’s at stake here and how to escape from whatever situation comes our way. Plans are all well and good, but they never last after first contact. Just as Harry showed when the Slytherins came back from their holiday break.”

“I agree with Daphne,” Harry said, breaking the tension between the two sisters but building up a new tension between him and Astoria. She looked hurt at his words. “Voldemort wouldn’t leave his horcruxes lying around without protections, so we need to think about our own protections first.”

“Emergency portkeys would be a fine place to start,” Anastasia suggested. “I doubt any of us know how to make any, but there are quite a few that our family has stored in our vault.”

“Actually,” Sirius spoke up with a grin. “I know how to make them.”

“Of course you do,” Daphne snorted. “It’s only mildly illegal to create portkeys outside of the Ministry’s purview.”

“Don’t blame me; James put an anti-apparation ward on his house back when he and Lily went into hiding just in case. I really didn’t want to have to apparate into Godric’s Hollow and then walk over there, especially if I was coming back from a night out, so I figured that this was the best way to deal with the problem,” Sirius replied.

“Can you make us some to bring us back here?” Harry asked him.

“Of course,” Sirius replied. “But I don’t know any of the charms to set them up to activate in the case of an emergency.”

Harry looked at Anastasia and Cyrus for support, but both of them shook their heads. “That’ll be fine enough, I suppose. We’ll just have to be mindful of activating them if we get into any trouble. Next, I think it would be good if I tried to map out what I remember from the graveyard.”

A thick sheet of parchment was conjured, and once Kreacher brought him a quill and some ink, Harry began sketching out everything that he remembered about the place. But as he worked, he could see Astoria slowly pulling away from him. Her mind seemed to be someplace else, and just as Harry finished his sketch, she excused herself to the bathroom.

When several minutes had passed without Astoria’s return, Harry excused himself as well.

As he expected, the door to the bathroom was wide open as he passed by it. Instead, he climbed up to their bedrooms, where he found Astoria sulking on her bed.

Harry stopped in the doorway. “Is everything alright?”

“No. Every second that we waste is another second that Voldemort steals from us,” Astoria exclaimed as she stood up. Harry stepped into the room with her and closed the door behind himself. “Not only is he the shadow lurking in the darkness, his minions now control the Ministry of Magic. And the worst part is that we aren’t hearing anything about the people rising up to fight him! How long will it be before he takes over everything? Time isn’t on our side!”

“I know that,” Harry reassured her. “But that doesn’t mean that we can be reckless. We need to plan these things out.”

“You’ve been reckless before,” she rightly pointed out.

“And it was sheer dumb luck that carried me through it all,” Harry replied as kindly as he could. “When I fought the basilisk, it was Dumbledore’s phoenix, Fawkes, who saved me. When I was in the graveyard, it was my instinctual thinking that led me to cast that dark spell that managed to keep me safe. Even when we were fleeing from your home, I managed through luck. We never planned for any of this, and look at what happened. Our lives were always at risk.”

Astoria pulled back slightly, backing until she hit the wall. She was staring down at her shoes as she toyed with her wand in her hand.

“What we need is preparations for when something goes wrong,” Harry insisted. “We’ve been lucky so far, but how long will it be until our luck runs out? We can’t put anything to chance.”

“But what if Voldemort beats us to our objective?” Astoria questioned him. “What if he realises what we’re after? What if one of his cronies spots us?”

“That’s where our planning comes in,” Harry argued. “We don’t need to rush in without scouting the area first and seeing if anyone is watching over us. We can create fallback plans if everything goes awry. What we can’t afford is any one of us going down to some stupid trap that Voldemort has set.”

“We won’t let that happen,” Astoria claimed.

“I don’t know about that,” Harry countered. “Voldemort has decades of experience on us. He could know of old magic that somehow escapes our detection spells, or he could create some trap that we overlook entirely. It’s truly important that we go into these situations as safely as possible.”

Astoria took in a deep breath before letting out a deep sigh. “I suppose you’re right.”

Seeing that the argument was virtually over with, Harry slid over to Astoria’s side and wrapped his arm around her. “Is there something else? This isn’t like you.” He asked her gently.

“I don’t know,” she shook her head. Quiet, timid breaths escaped her lips as she slowly steadied herself. “I just worry about what’s going to happen in the future. Each second we waste is another chance for Lucius and Voldemort to come up with something that’s bound to hurt us. They have so many resources at their fingertips, and we just have us.”

“I get that,” Harry said sympathetically. “But they also have to deal with the complexities of managing a large group. Every command they give will take time to be enacted. We’re small in number, but that lets us react faster than them, even if it doesn’t always seem like it. Spending a few hours planning is nothing compared to the monstrosity that the Ministry organisation is.”

Astoria sighed. “I suppose you’re right. It just feels like we’re stuck with an impossible mountain to climb.”

“I know,” Harry replied sympathetically. “We’ll always be second-guessing ourselves and relieving every decision we’ve ever made up until the moment that Voldemort is defeated. What matters most is that we react appropriately. We can’t get so bogged down that we never act against Voldemort, but neither can we jump ahead and strike before we think things out.”

“I hear what you’re saying,” Astoria grimaced. “But after all of these months of being held back by Dumbledore…”

“I know. I want to act too. All we can do is be as patient as we can until everything is ready for us. I’d never forgive myself if we rushed ahead and either you or Daphne were hurt unnecessarily.”

“And I’d never forgive myself if you did anything to hurt you either,” Astoria smiled softly.

Harry leaned in and kissed her. “We’ll deal with this one step at a time. Just don’t be afraid of taking a moment to reconsider our strategies.”

“I won’t,” Astoria promised him.

He kissed the top of her head. “I remember watching you in the library so long ago. You had so many books stacked on your table that no one dared sit with you or get in your way. You know how to step back and spend time analysing a situation before you run into it. Do that and we’ll all be safe.”

Astoria wrapped her arms around his chest and hugged him tightly. “Thank you,” she murmured.

Quietly, the two of them returned back with the others. Sirius and Anastasia were both pouring over the sketch that Harry had laid out, questioning if any traps could’ve been placed since he’d last been there and, if so, where they’d best be positioned. Daphne and Cyrus were off to the side, murmuring about something, but once they took notice of Harry and Astoria, their conversation broke off.

“So?” Harry asked as he approached the table. “Have you come up with anything new?”

“We think it would be best to scout the area further before you venture in,” Anastasia said, though Sirius scowled at her use of the word ‘we.’

“I doubt Voldemort left behind any traps in the graveyard,” Sirius commented.

Anastasia glared at him sharply. “It’s not your daughters’ lives who are on the line if you’re wrong.”

“No, it’s only my godson’s,” Sirius bit back sarcastically. “Look, Voldemort got his arse kicked there by Harry. He probably fled with his followers as soon as he could. Even if he came back to put up some traps, wouldn’t some muggle have stumbled upon it by now?”

“Unless he set the traps to only be activated by magical folk,” Anastasia replied.

Sirius scoffed. “Witches and wizards have only theorised of such a spell being possible. We’ve been able to identify humans instead of other magical beings, but the distinction between us and muggles is too small to account for.”

“This is the Dar… Voldemort that we are talking about,” Anastasia retorted. “If anyone can do the impossible, it’s him.”

Brimming with frustration, Sirius turned to Harry. “I trust that you’ll be fine. You can remember the edge of the road by the graveyard, right? Just apparate there and walk up the road to the manor from there. You’ll bypass any traps.”

“Unless Voldemort placed any upon the road,” Anastasia pointed out.

Sirius threw up his hands. “By your logic, Voldemort might’ve thrown up traps anywhere he’s ever walked in our bloody country.”

“Enough,” Harry said loudly enough to stop the two of them before they could continue their bickering. Once all eyes were on him, he continued. “The three of us will apparate to the road beside the graveyard and go to the Riddle House from there. If anything goes wrong, we’ll have our portkeys. Speaking of which…”

Cyrus reached into his robes and pulled out three thin sheets of parchment. “Sirius said these should work.”

“They will,” Sirius insisted. “It’s been a while since I’ve made any, but I’d be able to tell if something went wrong.”

“Good,” Harry said as he collected them. He handed Astoria and Daphne their portkeys and pocketed his own. “If there’s nothing else…?”

No one spoke up.

Astoria was bubbling with nervous energy as Harry led her and Daphne towards the entry hall where they could safely apparate out of Grimmauld Place. Sirius, Anastasia, and Cyrus followed them closely.

“You three need to report back to us within an hour or we’ll come looking for you,” Anastasia said firmly.

“We will,” Harry promised.

Taking Astoria and Daphne’s hands in his, Harry focused on the image of the road beside the graveyard clearly in his mind. With a deep breath, he twisted on the spot and apparated the three of them away.

The graveyard resembled little of what Harry remembered. The sun was out, banishing the darkness that’d been there on that terrible day. There was no bubbling cauldron, no horde of masked Death Eaters, no Voldemort to try to take his life.

Broken tombstones laid unrepaired, and his Fiendfyre has scorched the earth so badly that no grass grew. Any other signs of a battle here had been swept away by the elements.

“Was this where…” Daphne trailed off.

“It was,” Harry confirmed as he looked around. If he closed his eyes now, he could imagine the Fiendfyre swirling around, consuming everything in its path. He snapped his eyes open and pointed off in the distance. “There’s the Riddle House.”

The walk up to the old manor home was made in reverent silence. All of them knew what was at stake here. They were here to destroy another part of Voldemort, growing one step closer to finishing this war so that they could hopefully live in peace.

The road steadily grew in steepness before it suddenly levelled out at the top of the hill that the house sat atop. Overgrown grass surrounded the brick building, and wild rabbits had clearly made their home here. Small brown and white rabbits hopped away at their approach.

The Riddle House itself was old and decrepit. Weathered bricks, broken windows, and a shattered doorway greeted them, beckoning them inward. Once the rabbits disappeared, the area was utterly silent other than the distant dim of birds and insects.

“Quite the inauspicious place,” Daphne muttered.

Drawing his wand, Harry took the first steps into the old manor. A thick scent of dust and mildew filled Harry’s nostrils. The entry hall was narrow and long, stretching far down towards an open doorway that seemed to lead into some sort of kitchen. A bit of light flickered in through an open window back there, but the rest of the place was cloaked in darkness.

“Lumos,” Astoria cast, and the tip of her wand shone a brilliant light. There was a staircase further down that Harry spotted and a few doorways leading left and right.

“We stick together,” Harry reminded them as he carefully tread forward.

If anyone had been here since this past summer, there was no sign of it. Old dining rooms and dingy corridors sat untouched other than from insects and spiders who’d made this place their home. Still, Harry moved cautiously forward as the first line of defence with his wand at the ready. Astoria stayed close behind him with her light, illuminating the winding path they took through the rooms, while Daphne continuously cast a stream of detection charms, seeking to find anything out of place.

As they returned back to the entrance, they’d found nothing.

“Did anyone see an entrance to a basement or a cellar?” Harry asked Astoria and Daphne, already knowing the answer but wanting to be sure otherwise.

“No,” Astoria shook her head. “There might be an entrance to a root cellar outside of the house though.”

“Then let’s do that after we check upstairs,” Harry said.

As they ascended the staircase at the far end of the entrance hall, Harry had an uncomfortable sense of deja vu. The quiet groaning of the stairs seemed so familiar to him, and then he arrived upon a landing. Instinctively, his head swivelled to the right. There was a door there at the end of a short corridor. Why wasn’t there a flickering light? The fireplace had been burning here, hadn’t it?

Suddenly, Harry doubled over at the waist and clutched at the scar on his head. Astoria let out a sound of surprise and grabbed his arm to try to steady him.

“What’s wrong?” She hissed in a whisper, quickly scanning the area for anything that could’ve caused him harm.

“Nothing,” Harry said, stumbling forward to get away from her. The top of his head hit the wall, and he was finally able to suck in a breath. “My scar. It hurts sometimes. I think I had a dream about this place a couple summers ago.”

“A dream? Like a vision?” Daphne asked curiously.

“I don’t know,” Harry answered honestly. The cool surface of the wall felt good against his burning head. “It’s all so hazy. Even then, I couldn’t remember much. But this place feels so familiar. There was… I’m sure that Voldemort was through there.”

He pointed towards the closed door and forced himself to glance over at it. At once, the burning sensation in his skull faded, leaving behind a dull pounding that was deeply uncomfortable but at least tolerable. He stood up straight and trained his wand back on the door.

“You look rough. Let me take the lead,” Daphne insisted.

“I’m fine,” Harry lied.

She looked at him the way that Harry used to look at Ron whenever he’d said something especially dumb. “You’re not,” Daphne stated plainly. “We’re going against Voldemort here. If you’re not at your best, then you’re just going to get yourself killed. Now, do I need to activate our portkeys to send us all back home, or are you going to do the responsible thing and let me go in first?”

Harry sighed quietly. She was right, of course.

“Fine,” he begrudgingly agreed. “Just be careful.”

“What do you think we’ve been doing the whole time we’ve been in here?” Daphne replied as she stepped forward. She shifted her stance as she took a few steps forward, keeping her wand at the ready.

The pounding in his head made focusing on silently-casting detection spells difficult, but Harry powered through it and confirmed that there was nothing on the door that could harm them. He gave Daphne a nod to proceed.

Ever so gingerly, Daphne turned the doorknob and pushed open the door before taking a quick step back in case anything tried to lash out at her. But nothing did. All that sat within were a couple of chairs, a long coffee table, and an empty fireplace.

Immediately, a pair of red eyes seemed to appear out of nowhere as well as a flash of green light.

“Get down!” Harry shouted, throwing himself to the ground as he pulled Astoria and Daphne with him.

The three of them landed in a heap on the floor, and Harry quickly rolled onto his back to fight against Voldemort, but the man wasn’t there.

“What the hell was that?” Astoria exclaimed loudly, rubbing at her chin where she’d struck the floor.

“Voldemort was here just now,” Harry said breathlessly. “He cast the killing curse and—”

“Harry,” Daphne said gently, placing a comforting hand on his arm. “Voldemort’s not here. No one cast any spell, let alone the killing curse.”

“But… it was coming right for us…” Harry replied dumbly.

Daphne grimaced. “Was it a vision again?”

Or just a simple memory bubbling back up to the surface?

Embarrassment flooded through Harry. “Sorry, I, err…”

“It’s alright,” Daphne said sympathetically.

But as kind as she was being, Harry still felt like an utter fool. He didn’t know why these images were suddenly appearing within his mind. He hadn’t thought about them for nearly two years now. Was it the simple fact of being here that was awakening something within his mind or was this some sort of trap that Voldemort had laid for him?

“Take a minute to rest,” Astoria told Harry. “We won’t go anywhere until you’re ready.”

These things he was seeing perturbed him so much that he doubted that he’d be ready to investigate any further today, but he lied after a couple minutes and told them that he was ready to resume.

Every corner they passed, Harry expected Voldemort or one of his cronies to jump out and attack them. Thankfully, nothing of the sort happened.

Daphne and Astoria meticulously searched every inch of the upper floor while Harry trailed behind them. Daphne even took over casting detection spells again when Harry should’ve been doing it himself. They found absolutely nothing. Not even some left over vestiges of magic from an errant spell.

When they came out into the sunlight again, Harry finally felt like he could breathe. He selfishly took another few minutes of rest as the thudding from his head steadily faded. Thankfully, neither Daphne or Astoria pressed him on it. They just waited, and then they searched around the property together for an entrance to a root cellar. They didn’t find one.

Humiliated and dejected, Harry led the procession down the road back towards the graveyard and main street that led towards Little Hangleton proper. He’d truly hoped to find something of note here, and yet all he’d done was embarrass himself by seeing things that weren’t really there. His feelings quickly turned to frustration as he kicked a rock down the way, and that was when a passing car suddenly stopped and pulled over at the side of the street. The door opened, and a man stepped out.

“What’re you three doing there?” The man called out as he walked up to the gate leading to the road Harry, Daphne, and Astoria were walking on. He wore the dirty outfit of a farmhand after a long day of work, and he eyed them with the suspicion of a man who didn’t trust anyone he didn’t personally know.

“We’re a part of the county council’s historical research initiative,” Harry lied smoothly. It was one of the cases where knowing how the muggle world worked really helped, and the fact that the thudding in his head had receded made it far easier to think. “Our team is looking into the local history of Greater and Little Hangleton. Our archives noted that the Riddle family had a manor house here and that they might have more information on the local history of the area.”

The man spat on the ground. “The Riddles have been dead for years now. There’s nothing there anymore either after their old gardener died a couple years back.”

Harry grimaced. “That’s a shame. Do you happen to know of any other old families in the area who might—”

“Look here, boy,” the man interjected sharply. “I don’t care what your business is, but we don’t take kindly to any meddlers in our town. You’d best be on your way.”

“Please, sir,” Astoria said, stepping forward. “We’re just trying to do our job. If we go back with nothing, then the council will just send more researchers in. If you could just point us in the right direction, we’d be out of your hair faster.”

“That’s what all sorts who come here say,” the man scowled. “Get away, shoo!”

“We just need—” Astoria tried to speak up again, but the man waved her off.

“We’ve dealt with enough freakishness here for generations!” The man shouted. “The Riddles are all gone! The Lockes were all run out of town decades ago! Thomas King thought he was too good for us and left! And don’t get me started about Marvolo and his ilk! They’re all dead and we’re better off for it!”

Marvolo?

Even with the man shouting in his face, Harry barely registered a single sound more after he heard the name Marvolo. Tom Marvolo Riddle. That’d been Voldemort’s birth name.

Suddenly, Harry grabbed the man’s collar. “Where did Marvolo live?”

The man took a swipe at him with a meaty palm, but Astoria was faster with her wand. She immobilised him with a thick rope that bound his limbs together at his side. Suddenly, the angry man looked utterly terrified.

“F-freaks,” he stammered out.

“Where is Marvolo?” Harry demanded.

“Dead and buried,” the man answered quickly, his eyes flickering about as he searched for any help. But they were too far outside of Little Hangleton itself for anyone to be passing by except for the occasional farmer.

“Where did he live?”

“In that old shack of his just outside of town!” The man shouted. He threw himself back away from Harry, and Harry let go of his collar to let the man collapse onto the ground. He tried squirming away like a worm, but he didn’t make it far.

“Marvolo is Voldemort’s middle name,” he informed Daphne and Astoria. “That shack might be where he’s hidden a horcrux.” Kneeling down next to the man, Harry grabbed the back of his shirt. “Where is the shack? Which side of Little Hangleton?”

“North! It’s to the north!” The man shouted. “Help! Help!”

Quickly, Harry stunned him before stowing his wand. “Think you can obliviate the last few minutes of his day?” He asked Astoria.

“Of course,” she replied, kneeling down and placing the tip of her wand against the man’s temple.

As she cast her spell, Harry stared off in the distance towards Little Hangleton. Voldemort’s horcrux had to be there, he was sure of it.