The Most Beautiful Witch Chapter 43 (Patreon)

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

All characters are over the age of eighteen (18)

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They were met with the shattered remnants of a golden goblet when they returned to Grimmauld Place. Sirius was grinning, revelling in the destruction of yet another piece of Voldemort’s soul.

Though they were exhausted, a night of hard work had left Harry, Daphne, and Astoria quite famished. Kreacher eagerly got to work on an early-morning breakfast of fried kippers and eggs, pork sausages, grilled tomatoes, and a vegetable hash as Sirius woke up Cyrus and Anastasia.

Together, the six of them sat around the dining table.

“The diary, ring, locket, and cup are all destroyed now. That just leaves the snake and whatever’s hidden in Hogwarts,” Anastasia frowned deeply.

“If Dumbledore still hasn’t managed to find it at Hogwarts, we might have better luck,” Daphne suggested. “The snake’s bound to be near Voldemort or with his followers; if we go after it, Voldemort will surely realise that something’s wrong.”

“Classes are still in session,” Cyrus pointed out. “It might be troublesome if you all go back there. I know that what happened to Draco was done in self defence, but some students might not see it that way.”

“Our only other option is to sit around and wait for Dumbledore to find it,” Harry said. Even though everything had been fine with the old man since the ring incident, he still harboured doubts over trusting him with the retrieval of another horcrux. “And the longer we wait, the more time Voldemort has to gain even more power.”

It was a worry that plagued everyone’s minds these days. Ever since the first article from the Daily Prophet came in announcing that Minister Malfoy had met with Voldemort, there were a steady stream of articles that trickled out, painting Voldemort or his Death Eaters in a positive light. It was opinion pieces or passionate speeches from members of the Wizengamot that got the most attention, and they were all designed to lull the population of Britain into a false sense of security that Voldemort wouldn’t ignite another war.

At the same time, there were more than twice as many articles focusing on supposed sightings of Harry and the Greengrass family throughout Britain. Tales of his wicked exploits dominated centrefold pages, all ridiculous and fabricated. It seemed as though anything that went wrong across the country was blamed on him or Dumbledore.

Dumbledore still got the worst of it though. He held Hogwarts as a bastion against the forces of Voldemort, and that couldn’t stand in the eyes of the Ministry. Articles claimed that he was holding children hostage or turning them into secret assassins designed to destabilise Britain from within. They made outlandish claims about the professors who continued to teach there and implied that they were all effectively supporting an insurrection against the Ministry.

Apparently, there were Aurors standing watch outside of the castle’s grounds day and night on the lookout for anyone they could rescue. However, Harry feared that any ‘rescue’ would lead to a long interrogation about the goings on within the castle.

“We should contact Dumbledore then,” Anastasia decided. “In the meantime, the three of you should finish up and go get some rest while you can. We’ll come get you the second we hear anything back from him.”

That sounded like a wonderful plan.

The three of them scarfed down their breakfast before making their way upstairs back to their rooms. Astoria was barely awake on her feet as she stumbled off to her room, leaving Harry to join Daphne in hers.

After stripping out of their dirty robes, they slipped naked beneath the sheets. Daphne clung to him, resting her head against his shoulder as she threw a leg over his. In minutes, they drifted off to sleep.

Harry awoke before Daphne did. He blinked his eyes open, barely able to see thanks to the light streaming in from around the edges of the curtains. After all this time sleeping with Astoria and Daphne, he’d gotten quite good and not waking them up whenever he did.

All of his dreams felt truly within reach now. With two horcruxes left to go, they were closer than ever to finally killing Voldemort. That latter point was what worried Harry the most though. He still sometimes had nightmares of that battle in the graveyard. He’d pushed himself to the brink, taking the easy way out with dark magic, and nearly lost himself entirely because of it. And what was worse was that it still hadn’t been enough to stop Voldemort. If Harry hadn’t gotten lucky by grabbing the Triwizard Cup, he would’ve died there.

Relentless training had improved his skills exponentially. On the days they had nothing to do here, Harry often trained to keep his skills sharp. Sometimes he walked in on Astoria or Daphne doing the same, or they’d come and join him. He was far, far stronger than he’d been even six months ago, but even that didn’t seem enough when faced with the decades of experience that Voldemort had over him.

When the time came though, Harry couldn’t let a single doubt creep into his mind. He needed to fight with all of his power and cleverness to kill the man who was set on ruining everything good in Harry’s life.

He needed to kill him in order to keep Astoria and Daphne safe.

It was this mantra that gave him the drive, more than anything else, to keep on going.

Harry rested in bed, enjoying the calming sensation of Daphne’s soft breathing, until he felt her begin to stir awake. He greeted her with a gentle kiss.

“Morning,” he smiled down at her.

“What time is it?” She asked sleepily.

“Half-past four.”

Daphne groaned and forced herself to sit up, stretching her arms overhead. “You shouldn’t have let me sleep in for so long.”

“You were too cute to wake up.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“For me it is.” Harry kissed her again.

They both showered and dressed in fresh robes. But when they stepped out into the hall, they found the house oddly quiet.

“Hello?” Harry called out down the stairwell, expecting Sirius to pop into view.

Instead, Kreacher suddenly appeared right behind him and Daphne. “Lord and Lady Greengrass have left with Master Black to Hogwarts. Lady Astoria is in the library.”

“Thank you,” Harry replied, puzzled. What were the three of them doing at Hogwarts? Had they gotten through to Dumbledore and he asked them to come to Hogwarts? If so, why didn’t they come get the rest of them.

As Kreacher disappeared, Daphne met his puzzled look with a shrug. “Let’s just check in with Astoria.”

They found her in the library seated at the largest table there with a couple dozen books splayed out around her. Nearly half of them were open to some page of significance, but Astoria only had eyes for the book in her hands. She was scanning through a passage so fervently that she didn’t even notice Harry and Daphne’s arrival until they were right at the table next to her.

“Oh, hello,” she said, startled.

Harry saw the dark bags under her eyes. “Did you get any sleep?”

“Not much,” she admitted readily. “I had a lot on my mind.”

“About what happened back at Gringotts?” He asked, grimacing.

“Not really,” Astoria said, gesturing down at her books. “It’s more about horcruxes and how they work.”

“I don’t know if any of these have much new information,” Daphne said as she looked over several titles. “Didn’t mum say that she’d already gone through most of these with dad and Sirius?”

“Most, but not all,” Astoria said. “Look at this one. I found it hidden in a false wall on the side of one of the shelves. It’s some type of journal I think; an exploration into esoteric dark magic. There’s half a page on horcruxes. It doesn’t say much that we don’t already know, but I wasn’t really looking for that. It’s the language books use when they talk about horcruxes that confuses me.”

“How so?” Daphne asked, slipping down into a chair opposite her sister.

“Well, Harry saw himself as a snake, right? The thing is that I’ve never once seen a single reference to a horcrux as being able to be in a living thing,” Astoria frowned. “All of these books say that horcruxes are soul containers, inanimate objects that now house part of a soul. I’ve been hoping to find a book that even mentions a soul being housed in a living thing.”

“That is odd,” Harry agreed. “But what are you trying to get out of this?”

Astoria glanced back down at her book, not quite meeting his gaze. “I don’t know. Information, I guess. We know so little about horcruxes that anything that could give us a hint on how to deal with them could be a benefit to us. I…” she bit her lip, hesitating, before shaking her head. “Maybe I’m just being silly.”

“No, you’re not,” Daphne said sweetly. “You’re right that anything could help us. I mean, if it wasn’t for Dumbledore, we wouldn’t have known how to do that ritual to find the other horcruxes in the first place.”

“I was hoping to ask him if I could read through any books he has on the subject. And to see if he could answer a few questions for me,” Astoria said.

“Good luck getting anything out of him,” Harry snorted in amusement.

“I know he’s been difficult with you in the past, but he’s been trying to be more open with us now,” Astoria reminded him. “At the very least, he knows how close we are to the end too. There’s no reason to hide things anymore, not if it will help us finish this once and for all.”

Harry smiled at her optimism even if he still harboured his own doubts. “Can we do anything to help you?”

“No,” Astoria shook her head. “Actually, Daphne, I’ve been meaning to speak to you about something, but—”

Suddenly, the fireplace ignited, and Dumbledore’s head appeared in the flames.

“Harry?” He called out.

He quickly strode over to the fire and knelt down. “Yes?”

“Ah, there you are,” Dumbledore smiled. “I have opened a connection to my office. If you and your lovely ladies could come through to us here in my office, we’d most appreciate it. There are some important matters we need to discuss.”

“Of course,” Harry nodded before Dumbledore’s face disappeared from the flames. Astoria and Daphne were already making their way to his side.

Calling out the man’s office, Harry threw in a fistful of floo powder and stepped into the flames. Astoria and Daphne followed him, and the three were whisked away to Dumbledore’s office.

They were spat out into Dumbledore’s office. Sirius, Anastasia, and Cyrus were all seated off on the far side of the room while Dumbledore sat behind his desk. Snape was flanking the man, and three chairs were left for Harry, Astoria, and Daphne in front of Dumbledore’s desk.

“You fools,” Snape scowled at them the second they seated themselves down. “It was already a risk to break into the Lestrange Estate, but you then dared confront a pair of Death Eaters.”

“It was unavoidable,” Daphne argued quickly.

“If it was so then you ought to have finished the job,” Snape snapped at them. “Dolohov returned to the Dark Lord this very evening—”

“We watched him fall into the depths of Gringotts,” Harry interjected.

“Indeed,” Snape sneered. “Yet you failed to secure his wand. Jugson, at least, is certainly dead, but Dolohov returned with quite a tale to tell. The Dark Lord visited Gringotts himself when he learned of this. Goblin blood is now pouring down into the depths of the bank, and he is aware of the fact that his horcrux is missing. He’s on his way to investigate the rest.”

Harry’s blood went cold. Voldemort knew of their plan? That changed everything. Time became all the more of the essence.

“Then we have to act now and scour Hogwarts—”

“Sit down,” Snape glared. “Your foolhardy actions got us into this mess.”

“Now now, Severus,” Dumbledore said calmly. “It was only a matter of time before Voldemort learned of what we were doing. We are lucky to have gotten this far without detection.”

“And it is still not enough,” Snape argued. “He has put out orders to have you killed on sight, Potter. The entire Greengrass family is to be taken alive, unless any of you fight back. He fears how much you know about his immortality, and thus he is reacting brashly.”

“Let them waste their time searching for us,” Harry retorted. “It will give us more time to uncover his final two horcruxes.”

“Of all the arrogant…” Snape growled under his breath. “He will tear through innocent people’s lives to try to find you. It has always been a matter of time before he comes to take Hogwarts. Your actions have accelerated this timeline. I expect that once he calls off the search for you, he will try to take the castle.”

“How long will that take?” Daphne asked.

“Hours, days, minutes,” Snape shook his head. “The Dark Lord is rarely caught off guard like this. He will not react as he normally does.”

“All we can do is focus on our actions going forward,” Dumbledore said. “To that end, I regret to inform you all that I have still failed to uncover the horcrux hidden within Hogwarts. Sirius has been aiding us by taking us to all of the secret passages and rooms that he is aware of today, but we have yet to find anything.”

“The castle is full of secrets that even I am unaware of,” Sirius admitted. “I took us through every possible place I remembered that could hold a secret room like the one Harry saw. I don’t even know where to go from here.”

“I think Harry needs to search it from top to bottom,” Daphne suggested. “He’s the only one who’s actually seen the room that the horcrux is in. Maybe he’ll recognise something… even just a hint.”

“I don’t know,” Harry murmured. In his vision, he saw a room bigger than the Great Hall itself. It was filled with so much junk that it seemed impossible for a room like this to still be hidden.

“You’re the best lead we have right now,” Daphne reminded him.

“While I appreciate your eagerness to begin a search, I must remind you that Hogwarts is still a school,” Dumbledore spoke up. “We have students going to and from classes, attending meals, studying in the library, and relaxing throughout the castle. Your appearance here would be another distraction for them when they have so many already. I would ask that you keep all of your excursions to after hours when all of the students have returned to their common rooms. I will personally ensure that no professor or prefect interferes with your investigation.”

“We can work with that,” Harry said.

“Excellent, then everything is settled,” Dumbledore clapped his hands together.

“Not quite, Headmaster,” Snape interjected. “There’s still the matter of preparing for the Dark Lord’s—”

“This castle has stood for over a thousand years. It has faced more sieges than are recalled in our history, and it has withstood each and every one. This time shall be no different,” Dumbledore declared.

“Albus, you can’t just treat this as nothing. The Dark Lord is more powerful than any who’ve tried to attack Hogwarts before.”

“The protections on this institution are ancient,” Dumbledore argued gently. “We must trust in them while we focus our efforts on keeping the students safe from harm should Voldemort make it past the wards.”

Snape nodded stiffly, not looking pleased with the decision but accepting it nonetheless.

“Now, I believe it is nearly time for us to make an appearance at supper,” Dumbledore said to the sallow-faced man. “Food will be sent up here for the rest of you. I do apologise for having you wait until the students are in bed, but it will make your jobs scouring the castle much easier. In the meantime, you are welcome to make yourselves at home.”

“Actually, Albus, I was wondering if I might have a look at any books you have on horcruxes,” Astoria interjected just as Dumbledore was getting to his feet.

He peered over his glasses at her curiously. “You may, though I fear that you’ll find little that you do not already know.” With a mere flick of his wrist, several books floated off of the bookshelves around Dumbledore’s office and arranged themselves in neat piles atop his desk. “These are all that I have.”

“Thank you,” Astoria said as she eagerly eyed them.

Once Dumbledore and Snape had left the room, Astoria quickly picked up the first book from the pile and started reading. Daphne again offered her help, but Astoria reassured her that she was fine on her own. In the meantime, Hogwarts house-elves appeared with several dishes of food and a stack of plates and cutlery for them to use. Anastasia conjured a table in the middle of Dumbledore’s office for them to share, and they tucked into a delicious meal.

Several hours passed by with little to do. Astoria continued her research as Harry and Daphne coordinated with Sirius, Anastasia, and Cyrus, asking what places they’d already explored throughout the castle and any possible areas that they believed could still be of interest. Sirius sketched out a rough map of the castle on parchment, similar to the Marauder’s Map, as a guide to help them plan out where Harry would be sent to look. Everyone else was sent to search through the castle again, ensuring that they hadn’t accidentally missed anything.

It was just after half-past nine when Dumbledore returned to his office.

“The last of the upper-year students will be returning to their common rooms right now,” he told them. “The corridors will be clear, and you will all have free reign of the castle to search to your heart’s content. I wish you all luck in your endeavour.”

“Thank you,” Harry said as he stood up, eager to get on with it.

But just as everyone was getting ready to leave, Astoria spoke up again.

“I’d like to stay back here, if that’s alright,” she asked everyone.

“Whatever for?” Anastasia asked.

Astoria glanced over at the stack of books she’d read through. “I have a few clarifying questions about horcruxes that I’d like to ask Albus about. I hope that they might provide some useful insight.”

“Like what?” Harry asked.

“It’s nothing important,” she brushed his question off. “I just want to make sure we aren’t missing anything that could help us here.”

She was being oddly evasive about horcruxes today, Harry noted, but he didn’t know why.

“That would be fine with me,” Dumbledore said when the silence in the room dragged for a hair too long.

“Alright then, looks like we’ve got our plans in place,” Sirius said before another awkward silence could fill the room.

As everyone began to shuffle out, Harry glanced back at Astoria, who was turned away from him. Something odd was going on with her today. He was worried that it was the lack of sleep getting to her, or was there something else amiss?

Daphne nudged him along, and they followed the other three down the stairs.

“We’ll start from the top of the castle,” Cyrus told them. “We started from the bottom earlier today, so maybe a reverse search will help us out.”

“Are you going to disguise yourself again so that no one realises who you are?” Sirius asked with an amused smirk.

“Maybe I will,” Cyrus replied as he puffed out his chest. “No one bothered to question us when we appeared to be Ministry officials, did they?”

Anastasia rolled her eyes playfully. “Good luck you two,” she said to Harry and Daphne.

The two groups split apart. As they headed down to the dungeons, Harry couldn’t help but ask Daphne a question.

“Has Astoria been acting off to you today?”

“It’s how she acts whenever she’s trying to piece something together,” Daphne explained to him. “Ever since she was young, she’d always get withdrawn and avoidant whenever she couldn’t quite find an answer that was bothering her. Surely you’ve noticed her get like this before.”

“Sometimes, but never this much,” Harry replied. “She can barely hold my gaze for a few seconds before looking away. The two of you told me that I needed to relax about everything around Voldemort and focus more on living in the moment, but today it feels like Astoria’s obsessed with Voldemort and his horcruxes.”

“She’s trying to help. A day of weirdness isn’t anything abnormal for any of us. If it lasts more than a couple of days, that’s when I’d start to get worried.”

It wasn’t exactly what Harry had hoped to hear, but it was good enough for now. He felt a little better knowing that he wasn’t the only person who’d noticed that something was up with Astoria.

The dungeons were quiet when they arrived. Harry tried his best to imagine the vision he’d seen in his mind. The room hadn’t appeared to be damp and dark like the dungeons typically were, but it would be foolish to rule them out as a possibility.

Together, he and Daphne meticulously searched through the dungeons, opening every door and checking every nook and cranny for any sign of the room that Harry had seen. A part of him wondered if the room was somewhere down in the Chamber of Secrets, but going back down there would be a last resort. He didn’t want to be reminded of the terrifying basilisk that’d nearly cost him his life and the site where Ginny had nearly died to resurrect Voldemort.

When it became clear that the dungeons held little of interest, they climbed up to the ground floor and began searching there. It felt odd to be searching through the castle so openly. There was never a single professor or prefect who crossed their paths. Somehow, Dumbledore was keeping them isolated so as to not cause a stir.

Again and again they went, spending hours steadily climbing through the castle and finding absolutely nothing. They crossed paths with Sirius, Anastasia, and Cyrus on the third floor. Both groups were disappointed to run into one another.

The higher they went, the more that Harry began to doubt himself. As sure as he was that he’d seen Hogwarts, a part of him wondered if the walls he’d seen were from somewhere else entirely. But the more he tried to remember, the more certain he was that it was as he originally thought. Somewhere within this castle was a hidden room that…

Everything clicked in his mind.

He and Astoria used to practice duelling in the Room of Requirement, a place that Dobby had found for them. They hadn’t used the room often, but Dobby had mentioned that it was able to transform into anything anyone wanted.

“I think I might know where it is,” he told Daphne with a bright grin.

They skipped the fifth and sixth floors to go straight up to the seventh. Harry quickly took Daphne off to the corridor he’d used before and found the empty stretch of wall that he had to pace in front of.

“I need a place where people can hide things,” Harry said and thought aloud as he paced back and forth three times.

A door appeared.

Holding his breath, Harry opened the door to reveal a room as enormous as the Great Hall. Stacks upon stacks of books, old furniture, clothes, and countless other miscellaneous objects filled the room, creating a maze-like expanse that seemed to go on forever.

The second he laid his eyes on it, Harry knew that the horcrux had to be somewhere within.

“We need to get everyone back here,” Daphne murmured, wide eyed.

The penultimate horcrux would be found tonight.