It took several weeks for the curse breakers to finish their work on the Chamber of Secrets. Among the things they found in Slytherin's apartment were some highly cursed items, one of which was identified as the source of the misfortunes falling on all DADA teachers since that position had been denied to Tom Riddle. Yet that was only a small, almost insignificant part of the finds. After having the chamber of secrets and its annex checked more thoroughly, the curse breakers also found some books in Latin and even in Olde English hidden behind another cursed partition, along with some wands, a staff, a few daggers and two swords. Like all other finds, they all became Sirius's, since he was the one who ordered the search and financed it. Dumbledore, who had refused to finance the search, had only himself to blame for missing such a treasure. Even without the books written in Parseltongue, the remaining finds were so unique, so precious that they were actually priceless, and that was even before trying to read any of the books.
Although they had finished scanning the whole castle, as far as anybody could tell, the curse breakers had something nagging in their minds. Bill told Sirius about it. "Our tests indicate that there are more cursed items in the castle, ones we've not found yet, but there doesn't seem to be any place we missed. That map you gave us proved priceless in finding hidden rooms and passages, and yet it didn't show Slytherin's Chamber. I have a feeling that there's at least another hidden room that we're missing."
Sirius gave it a thought. Knocking on the walls to find cavities, while seeming quite promising would not be very fruitful in a castle, where many of the walls were several feet thick. They wouldn't sound any different than a solid rock. What else could they try?
Harry and Hermione were also present, although they didn't take part in the conversation. They watched Sirius frown, trying to find a way. He sighed and called a house-elf for some refreshment. That was when the idea struck Hermione. "Don't house-elves know this place better than anyone? They're doing all the maintenance and the cleaning. They should be aware of rooms and passages that nobody else knows of."
Harry had no problem to agree with her. They moved to join Sirius and Bill. "Why don't you ask the house-elves about any hidden or otherwise inaccessible room or corridor?" he asked the adults.
A house elf popped in, bringing a tray with pumpkin juice, tea, coffee, some biscuits and four cups. Harry stopped it before it finished arranging the refreshments on the coffee table. "Is there a place in the castle where one would hide something, relatively safe from others?"
The elf looked at him with some surprise. "Of course, Sir. We call it the Come and Go room. Other have different names for it, like The Room of Requirement, or The Room of Hidden Things. Do you want me to show you?"
Harry barely held his excitement. "Yes, please. Can you show us all?"
The house elf beckoned them to follow it. They climbed to the seventh floor and stopped in front of an ugly tapestry. There was no door behind it (Sirius checked it twice) and the walls along that corridor were devoid of doors. They all looked questioningly at the house elf, who seemed to enjoy itself.
"One must walk three times to and fro in front of the tapestry, thinking of the room one wants to use, and then a door appears, leading to that room. It vanishes after one leaves the room," the house elf explained.
It was Bill who talked next. "Well, we're looking for a place where cursed items are hidden. What should we ask for?"
The elf shrugged. "Just that – a room where the cursed items are hidden. Do you want me to do it for you?"
Bill shook his head before starting pacing, his face showing some concentration. After he passed in front of that tapestry the third time, the wall opposite it glowed briefly, delineating a door. A moment later, a solid wooden door appeared, one looking quite old. Bill opened it cautiously.
The room they were looking at seemed to have collected items for a millennium, since it was full of various objects, many of which looked so old that they would crumble into dust at being merely touched. Bill didn't let them pass the threshold, though, and Harry fully agreed with him. Although most of the stuff in there was unharmful, Harry could sense an evil presence inside. He was sure it was what made Bill stop them.
"I'll lead the team here," Bill said after a moment of thought. "This room may take as long as the Chamber to check and clear. And who knows, we may even find some treasures here as well."
Indeed, the Room of Hidden Things, as some called it, proved to be a treasure in more than one way. Even a superficial scan showed some jewels, quite a few coins and other objects of potential value. Yet what held even more potential, and not just monetary, were the many old books one could see everywhere. Some seemed to be several centuries old. Harry suspected that they might hold some long forgotten knowledge. Hermione, at his side, seemed even more eager to put her hands on them. They still had to wait for the curse breakers to check each item and declare it free of any curses or other malicious magic before they could even touch one.
The children were not involved in this any further. Judging by the number of items visible from the door, and they noticed that the room was actually larger and taller than the Great Hall, the curse breakers would be busy quite a few weeks in that place. They also wondered what other forms that room could take and which of those would need cleansing like the one they'd seen. This could turn into quite a lengthy project. Just collecting and sorting all the items in there could take more than a month, so it seemed.
In a few days, they almost forgot about that room. They had their schedule quite full even without it. They had their lessons and their homework, which both took very seriously; they made sure to exercise each morning, running around the lake or in the corridors – depending on the weather. Harry even thought that the Room of Requirements might be able to give them a training course for bad weather, but that should wait until the curse breakers finished working on its other aspect.
They didn't neglect their friends either. They tried to help Neville with his studies, although he was improving quite nicely. They also met as much as they could with Daphne, Susan and Hannah. They had no problems meeting the two Hufflepuff girls, but meeting Daphne wasn't as easy. Despite Professor Slughorn trying to mellow the attitude of his house, the bigots were still a strong faction there and they could cause trouble for Daphne, had they known how frequently she met Harry and Hermione, who symbolized all that they opposed.
Yet Daphne wasn't one to be intimidated by the bigots. Some of them found this the hard way, costing them some time in the hospital wing. Actually, Daphne even invited her friend Tracey to join the group of friends. Harry thought it would do them good to add another boy or two to the mix, but Hermione stopped him. "Whom would you invite to join us? Ron is out, of course. He would only cause trouble. Seamus and Dean are too childish. They may fit in a few years, but not now. We don't know well enough the boys from other houses. We may find some suitable candidates after we speak with the girls."
Harry didn't mind. He liked the company of the girls. They were nicer to look at, not as noisy and certainly smelled nicer. He also enjoyed comparing them in his mind to Hermione. While some boys would consider Daphne prettier, he considered Hermione the prettiest. He still liked them all.
\/\/\/
Sirius asked the two to stay after class. Once alone, his expression turned very serious. "They found a Horcrux in there. It's the vilest piece of magic that only the darkest of the dark wizards ever tried to use. It basically saves a part of their soul in an object, keeping them from fully dying even if their body is destroyed. The curse breakers suspect it was Voldemort's. They managed to cleanse the item, moving the Horcrux to a piece of paper that they then destroyed with some Basilisk venom. The original item, a diadem previously owned by Rowena Ravenclaw, is now clean of curses while retaining its original enchantments."
He then sighed. "I now feel like I need to hurry and check all those dark items we've found in my house during the summer. We only cleansed the library of curses. I should have let the curse breakers check the whole house." A smile of mischief appeared on his face. "Well, this curse breaking expedition turned very profitable. I could use the profit to finance cleansing that house and still keep most of it."
Harry was glad that such an item was destroyed, making Voldemort less invincible. He told his aunt about it in a letter, also mentioning the diary and the chamber. He got a reply two days later.
"Dear Harry,
I'm glad that our intervention managed to rid the school of incompetent teachers. I'm sure that you enjoy having Sirius there, although you might have preferred somebody else as your teacher. It's difficult having dual relations with a single person, so I've heard.
I was really furious that Dumbledore let the school become host to so many dark items. Maybe his advanced age is not really helping him to cope with the responsibility of managing a school. I'll have to think of that.
At least Sirius, with your help, managed to remove the monster and find some treasures. I'm really disturbed by the idea of a Horcrux. Based on what you've told me, along with some books I've read about criminals, I suspect such a man (although he doesn't really deserved to be called a man) would try to make more than one such anchor. I'm not sure about the magical importance of numbers, but I suspect he'd try for one, so there might be more such items that need to be destroyed. Tell Sirius about this and let him check around. He has more knowledge about magical things than either of us.
I'm really glad he tries to keep you away from dangers, but you should remember that this is your own responsibility. I want you to stay safe and healthy and keep away from anything that might harm you in any way. It's not an easy task even in the normal world, and I suspect it's even more difficult in the magical one, but I trust you to do your best.
Love you,
Your Aunt Petunia."
Hermione agreed with Petunia. "We need to be attentive to our safety, of course. We also needed to tell Sirius of her suspicions that there could be more Horcruxes."
Sirius asked them to come to his room after dinner, even before they could talk with him about Petunia's letter. Once there, he went straight to the point. "The curse breakers in London found another Horcrux, one Kreacher has tried to destroy for years. He was so glad to have that object cleansed, that it looked really frightening." His face lighted at mentioning this but turned sombre immediately. "That means that Voldemort has probably made more such abominations. We've destroyed two, but how many does he still have?"
Harry gave it a thought. "I suspect that the diary was also one. It acted almost as if it had a mind of its own."
Sirius paled. "Three? How many more had he created? Was he completely nuts? Didn't he know that whenever he split his soul to create one, he made it less stable? There's always a stiff price for going against nature."
Hermione didn't let him dwell on it. "Aunt Petunia told Harry that she suspected there were more, probably a number which has magical significance."
Sirius gave it a thought. "Well, three is a powerful magical number. The next is seven and then thirteen. If he thought that three were not enough, he may have tried for seven. Thirteen is way too much. It could shred his soul to nothingness, making the Horcruxes irrelevant."
"So, we suspect seven?" Harry asked.
Sirius gave it another thought. "Well, I'd say six, to make a total of seven soul pieces, with one staying in his body." He contemplated the issue a bit longer. "If one was found at Grimmauld Place, maybe another may be hidden in one of the vaults. As Head of House Black, I can legally access any vault belonging to a Black, not that there are so many remaining. There's Narcissa Malfoy, formerly Black. As far as I know, she has no vault on her name. Andromeda Tonks may have a vault, but since she's married to a Mugglborn, she's one of the last I'd suspect of hiding something for Voldemort. That leaves Bela – Bellatrix Lestrange. She's been a fanatic follower of Voldemort and she stayed the same in prison. He also seemed to trust her more than others. If Malfoy had the diary, it's plausible she would also hold one of the Horcruxes. I'll check this as soon as I can."
Sirius left for Gringotts a few days later. He returned with a wide smile. "Success! Her vault held another Horcrux, one identified as the Hufflepuff cup. The Goblins took care of that, moving the Horcrux to a worthless object, that was later destroyed in a furnace." He then sobered up. "I wonder how many more we can find. Assuming he made six, we still lack two. They may be hidden anywhere in the world. How can we even try to find them?"
Harry gave it a thought and then sighed. "It looks like we'll need to involve Dumbledore, after all. He seems to be the most knowledgeable wizard, at least that's what everybody says. We'll have to tell him about our finds and ask for his advice, as much as I don't like it."