A/N:
Why hello there! How are you all? Thank you so much for the support—it really means a lot knowing my efforts are being appreciated.
I know my uploads haven't been very consistent lately. I've got some personal things going on, and my focus is kind of all over the place right now, so writing has been a bit difficult. But I'll do my best to update as steadily as I can.
And don't worry—I will finish this fic… as long as I'm not dead or paralyzed.
If you're enjoying the story, please comment, review, and send some Power Stones. Don't be shy!
*********
"Do you even know my mother — Lily Potter?"
The day before the first task of the Triwizard Tournament, the boy had stood up in Potions and challenged him in front of the entire class, his voice shaking with anger.
He had the same eyes as her. The same shape. The same colour.
"Wasn't she a childhood friend of yours?" Potter's face wore that arrogant, smug expression, as though he were deliberately picking at a wound he knew nothing about. "Is this how you treat the son of your oldest friend? I suppose you've long forgotten her—"
"Shut up, Potter!" Severus snapped, his eyes fixed on that insufferable face.
Potter fell silent. He stared back with resentment, wounded and defiant.
Her eyes. His face. The same resentment.
It was as though all three of them — every version of that gaze across every year — had lined up to look at him with the same eyes, wearing the same expression.
They despised him.
Exactly as he had always despised himself.
It was all his fault.
"Three days' detention, Potter!" Severus closed his eyes, turned, and swept toward the front of the classroom. His robes concealed the rigidity in his shoulders, and his lowered lashes hid the brief, searing flash of regret in his eyes.
He could not look into those green eyes a moment longer.
He did not know how to deal with this stupid, reckless, infuriating boy.
After that disastrous Potions lesson, Dumbledore had found him and said, with maddening serenity, "Severus, you're surely aware that a detention cannot serve as a legitimate reason to bar Harry from the Triwizard Tournament."
"Then do as you like," Severus said, dropping into his chair. "I'm done involving myself in anything concerning that boy."
"You would abandon your promise because a hot-tempered boy answered back in class?" Dumbledore said gently. "Severus, something is very wrong this year — I can smell conspiracy. I need every available pair of eyes in this castle watching Harry. He may be in grave danger."
"You've planned for everything. Half the castle is already watching Potter," Severus said, exhausted. "He doesn't need my attention. He despises me. He has his dear godfather watching his every move—"
"A child in danger can never have too many people looking out for him," Dumbledore said calmly. "You gave me your word. You promised to protect Lily's son."
Severus said nothing.
He thought of Lily's eyes, and then of Potter's words.
Those words he could not face, could not answer, could not bear to hear a second time.
Like a splinter buried deep in the flesh, they had worked their way through him for seven months, surfacing at odd hours, reopening things he had tried very hard to seal shut. Amid the endless, grinding tide of regret, before it swallowed him entirely, he had chosen the only option that kept him upright:
Ignore the boy.
"Other Slytherins are watching him on my behalf," Severus said to Dumbledore after the second task, his voice flat. "He handles it well — better than I would. He knows how to manage a Gryffindor." He paused. "Dumbledore, I'm tired. Release me from this, for now."
Dumbledore regarded him with those infuriatingly perceptive eyes.
"Severus," he said quietly, "you need to learn to forgive yourself."
Forgive yourself. Severus raised his eyes slowly — dark, pain-filled — and met Dumbledore's blue gaze, which held an expression of such earnest compassion that it made his chest tighten.
"Once, you bound me to this with those same eyes, and left me to carry it alone ever since; and now you tell me, quite casually, to simply let it go?" His voice was like a river shot through with ice — cold enough to stop anyone in their tracks. "How am I to forgive myself? Can she come back?"
"Is this regret, Severus?" Dumbledore said. "What does it serve?"
"Tell me — if I forgave myself, would you still trust me?" He attempted a smile; it came out as a grimace. "Or rather — have you ever truly trusted me at all?"
"Severus, it is not a matter of trust. I simply do not place all my secrets in one person's keeping—" Dumbledore began.
"Enough." His voice cracked. "So many years. So many questions left unanswered. You have never once given me a proper explanation." He stood abruptly. "Albus Dumbledore — don't say these things to me again."
He strode out of the Headmaster's office, leaving Dumbledore's soft sigh behind him.
---
Time passed, and it was the twenty-fourth of June.
Severus Snape had managed, against every inclination, to find himself caught up in Dumbledore's plans — despite having arranged his leave three months in advance specifically to avoid the Tournament, and having spent the day attempting to grade the end-of-year examinations in peace.
The day had not been peaceful. In the morning, seven months' worth of near-successful improvement to a complex potion had been demolished by the deliberate interference of a large, obnoxious black dog; in the afternoon, the ever-unreliable light in his dungeon stores had caused him, as usual, to lose track of time entirely, and he had missed dinner once again.
The Head of Slytherin could only groan miserably and scavenge a sandwich from a trembling house-elf, while resisting the urge to mark a "T" on Longbottom's final Potions report and grudgingly scratching a barely legible "D" onto the parchment, privately disgusted by his own uncharacteristic restraint.
(Hogwarts examination grades, in descending order: O — Outstanding; E — Exceeds Expectations; A — Acceptable; P — Poor; D — Dreadful; T — Troll.)
At that moment, the door to his office was kicked open.
"Up you get, Snape," said Sirius, leaning in the doorway with the expression of a man surveying a particularly uninspiring broom cupboard. He waved a hand theatrically in front of his nose. "Dumbledore needs you. Headmaster's office. Now."
"Sirius Black, you were raised in a kennel." Severus's expression darkened considerably. "Has anyone ever explained to you the concept of knocking? I haven't finished settling the score with you over the potion you destroyed this morning—"
"Save it for later," Sirius said, already turning away. "Grab every potion and ingredient you've got for curse suppression and get up there."
Severus glared after his retreating figure and silently promised himself — for the nine hundred and eighty-first time — that he would one day find a reason to put a Blemish-Blitzer in that man's pumpkin juice.
With a sharp wave of his wand, he summoned the materials stowed in every corner of his office, swept out of the door, and slammed it behind him.
The still-damp report card trembled in the draught from his robes. A slow trickle of ink ran down the vertical stroke of the "D," nudging it toward something that might, generously, be read as a "P."
(Neville Longbottom would later examine that parchment for a very long time before quietly clasping his hands together in sincere, wordless gratitude to whatever force governed the universe.)
---
"Severus — I didn't expect you so soon," Albus Dumbledore said pleasantly, standing before the Pensieve in his office.
He was drawing a gleaming, silver thread of thought from his temple with the tip of his wand, guiding it carefully into a small crystal vial.
On the wall behind him, a portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black was in full voice, both hands planted on his hips: "Give that sword back this instant! What did I tell you — caught red-handed by Dumbledore himself, you thankless, thieving grandchild—!"
"Oh, do be quiet," Sirius said, unmoved, and set the sword back into the now-empty display case with a decisive click.
Phineas Nigellus immediately adopted an expression of deep self-congratulation, as though it had been entirely his doing.
Severus transferred his scowl to Sirius, who responded by directing a firm two-fingered salute at the portrait, entirely unruffled.
"Well?" Dumbledore asked softly, still facing the Pensieve. "Is there any hope for him?"
Severus set aside the wand he'd used and said flatly, "None." He clasped his hands and addressed Dumbledore's back. "This curse is exceedingly difficult. I can suppress it temporarily and contain it within the blackened tissue, slowing the spread — but it will continue to advance. And the longer it is left, the stronger it becomes."
Ludo Bagman, who had been hovering somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness, went pale.
He raised the goblet in his shaking hands — a thick, golden liquid with dark, sluggish bubbles rising to the surface — and drank. His face contorted.
"How long?" he asked, barely above a whisper.
"Three to four months," Snape said, "provided he takes the Draught consistently and without interruption."
Despair crossed Bagman's face like a shadow.
"But the ring has been destroyed!" he cried.
"You believe destroying the vessel breaks the curse?" Snape said coldly.
Bagman let out a sob and tipped the scalding, bitter potion back without hesitation, as though the pain of it was preferable to thinking.
"He won't remain lucid for long," Snape told Dumbledore. "If you have questions, ask them now."
"Understood. Severus — would you go down to the arena at once? Minerva and Alastor could use another set of hands." Dumbledore turned from the Pensieve, his expression composed. "And please tell Harry and Cedric to come to my office once the ceremony has concluded. I'll need to speak with them."
Snape paused. "I told you, I have no interest in—"
"This is not a request," Dumbledore said, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Go. Immediately."
Snape pressed his lips together. "If Cornelius Fudge asks for you—"
"Tell him I am always available to receive him in the Headmaster's office," Dumbledore said serenely.
Snape looked at him for a moment, said nothing further, and swept out of the room.
---
Sirius, meanwhile, had been occupying the chair beside Bagman ever since he'd successfully driven Phineas Nigellus back to his own frame at Grimmauld Place. He sat now with his arms folded, watching Bagman gulp down his Draught with the desperation of a man drowning.
"Ludo," Dumbledore said gently, crossing the room to stand before him. "Why did you do this? I don't believe it is in your nature."
"Oh, Dumbledore…" Bagman let out a sound halfway between a sigh and a moan.
He looked up at the quiet old man and found no contempt in his face — only a measured, sorrowful pity.
Something broke loose inside him. A wave of heat surged up from his chest and crowded into his throat.
His hands trembled as he set the empty cup down on the desk.
"I — I owed too much," he whispered. "He said he could help me. I had no other choice — no other way out—"
"No other choice?" Sirius said coolly. "You brought this on yourself, Ludo. During the Quidditch World Cup, you were offering odds to half the wizarding world, weren't you?"
Bagman's eyes darted. "Everyone does it — it wasn't only me — I had certain contacts, inside information, everything was going smoothly right up until the Final—" His voice collapsed. He buried his face in his blackened palms. "I wanted to bet big. They gave me their word. But the result — the result ruined everything. When the winners came to collect, I couldn't cover the odds. I simply couldn't."
"Save the self-pity," Sirius said. "I've heard that many of the small punters never got a Knut back from you — not even their original stake. The ones really pressing you aren't gamblers at all, are they?"
Bagman flinched as though struck. He didn't look up, but a low, miserable sound escaped him.
"I'm utterly ruined! I could sell every last thing I own and still not clear the debt! And they follow me everywhere — the tavern, my home, outside the Ministry itself!" He shuddered. "Those goblins — they smile at you when you're borrowing, and they look at you like something to be consumed when it's time to collect—"
Sirius leaned back and studied Bagman's thin, harrowed face with dispassion.
"Goblins," he said evenly. "Dealing with dangerous creditors isn't the worst thing a man can do. Dealing with them while having no clear idea of what you're getting into — that's another matter."
"I didn't understand how their interest worked!" Bagman said wretchedly. "All I knew was that they could give me a large sum at once, and I was certain it would be easy to repay — I truly thought I could manage it. I suppose they counted on exactly that." He swallowed. "When I finally understood how deep I was in, I tried to ask old friends for help. The moment they heard what I needed and how much — they changed completely. I would have taken a hand from anyone willing to extend one."
"Anyone willing?" Sirius said with disdain. "You should have been more discerning about whose hand you grasped. How could you go begging to Voldemort? He barely has a body to call his own — what exactly was he going to give you?"
Bagman shuddered at the name spoken so plainly.
"He said his most loyal followers were men of great wealth — the Malfoys, the Lestranges, the Selwyns — and that once I helped restore his strength, they would come forward and give generously…" There was an echo of desperate, misplaced hope in his voice, even now.
"Wishful thinking," Sirius said.
He privately considered the matter. The Malfoy family being used as a financial promise by Voldemort — yes, Lucius might well have sunk that far, spineless as he was. But would Draco, the future head of that family, consent to such a thing? Sirius doubted it very sincerely.
"I had my own doubts about that," Bagman admitted softly. "Those families have been rehabilitated and pardoned; their lives are comfortable now. There was no guarantee they'd still back him. But he dismissed my concerns — said the goblins might love gold, but they feared death more." He swallowed again, his expression haunted. "He told me that once he had a body again, I would be celebrated as the hero of his return, and no creditor would dare come near me — they'd write off every last Galleon of debt of their own accord. I was completely taken in by those words."
"Ludo." Dumbledore had quietly closed the cabinet beside the Pensieve and now moved across the room. He stood before Bagman, studying the black marks crawling up his neck and the backs of his hands, his expression grave but composed. "The debt is no longer your most pressing concern. What you must focus on now is how to slow the curse and buy yourself time." He paused. "Tell me about the dark marks. How did they begin? Was it the ring?"
Bagman's hand flew to his neck, and his expression shifted — wild-eyed suddenly, frantic.
"The ring! Where is it? Where's my ring?"
"Here." Dumbledore produced it unhurriedly, setting the black-gemstone ring on the desk by its handkerchief, without touching it directly.
Sirius, who had been running the velvet cloth through his fingers absently, straightened and looked again at the stone.
In the bright light of the Headmaster's office, every detail was sharp. At the very centre of the black stone was a jagged crack — nearly overlapping the original vertical line of the engraved mark — and around it, unmistakably, was the triangle enclosing the line and circle: the Peverell symbol, refracting faintly under the candlelight.
Bagman stared at the ring the way a starving man stares at a meal. He was leaning forward before he knew he was doing it, a dreamy, involuntary sound escaping his throat.
The next instant, he caught himself, recoiled, and pressed both hands against his eyes as though he'd looked directly into a flame.
His expression cycled through a dozen things at once. Dumbledore quietly replaced the corner of the handkerchief over the stone.
"Tell me," Dumbledore said. "How did it come to you, and how did it end up on your hand?"
Bagman spoke in a halting voice, his gaze fixed on the covered ring as if he couldn't entirely trust it to stay hidden.
"He was controlling me at the time. He took me to a ruin, made me wander through it in circles." His eyes went distant. "When I passed a certain corner of the rubble, he made me stop — there was a sound, almost like hissing — and that's when the ring appeared."
Sirius went very still.
Of course. The reason neither he nor Dumbledore had been able to locate the Horcruxes, despite their considerable efforts, was this: neither of them was a true Parselmouth. They couldn't speak to the ruins. They couldn't ask the right questions of the right stones.
He thought, with a grim sort of irony, that bringing Harry along — a genuine Parselmouth — might have been worth considering.
Another thought followed, harder and colder: there was likely some subtle connection between the Horcruxes and Voldemort's main soul. The reason Bagman had been made to circle those ruins was to allow Voldemort to feel out the precise location of whichever Horcrux was hidden there.
"Unless one were to examine every single brick and broken stone in that ruin," Sirius murmured.
"Precisely," Dumbledore said softly. "I had intended to begin that search immediately after the Tournament concluded."
Bagman had not heard them. He was staring at his charred, blackened hands and continuing.
"He told me to put the ring on. Said it would strengthen me — make me unafraid of those debt-collectors, make me more useful to him. I don't know what came over me; I was bewitched, and I put it on."
"The ring carries a powerful bewitching enchantment," Dumbledore said simply. "I could sense it from across the room."
"Yes. I saw visions — beautiful ones, at first. And then unspeakable pain." Bagman extended one hand toward Dumbledore, his fingers like charred sticks, his skin withered and blackened from the tips inward. "It started here — the fingertips — and crept inward, over weeks. Like Fiendfyre that doesn't burn out."
"Make you stronger?" Sirius said. "It's made you a husk."
"He deceived me," Bagman said quietly. "There's something in that ring. I could feel it — taking hold of my thoughts."
"Describe it," Dumbledore said. "What does it feel like?"
"As though I'm half-asleep, always. Sometimes I come to my senses in places I don't recognise, doing things I have no memory of beginning. Other times it's like trying to see through smoke — I know things are happening around me but I can't reach them, can't make myself act." Bagman's breath shuddered. "Since I put on that ring, I've grown more and more lost. What I have now — this moment of clarity — is rare. It doesn't last long."
These symptoms were not unfamiliar.
The last time Sirius had heard anything like them had been from Ginny Weasley, describing what it had felt like when the diary had been slowly occupying her mind.
He and Dumbledore exchanged a glance across the room, and the same word passed silently between them: Horcrux.
Silence settled for a moment. The only sound was Fawkes on his perch, studying Bagman's blackened arm with great interest and methodically gnawing on a bit of cuttlefish bone.
"These beautiful visions you mentioned," Sirius said slowly, his gaze on the covered ring. "Tell me more about them."
"An illusion—" Bagman's voice dropped to a murmur. "I would see people who had died. Standing beside me. Talking to me."
"A strange variety of magic," Sirius said, glancing at Dumbledore.
He noticed that Dumbledore showed no surprise at this. He was watching Bagman closely, with an expression of quiet, concentrated attention — waiting for him to say more.
"Would you describe these illusions as entirely beautiful?" Dumbledore asked.
"I — it's difficult to say entirely. But yes, in many ways." Bagman's voice softened with something that was almost fondness. "I could always see my great-grandmother — the one who loved me most when I was small. She was always there, always smiling." Tears tracked silently down his withered face.
Sirius sat up a little straighter and studied the handkerchief with renewed intensity.
Can the ring show you the dead? Only blood relatives, or anyone? Could it show you someone you had lost?
He filed the thought away.
"She told me things," Bagman continued, his eyes going vague and peaceful, as though he were already half back in the vision. "She was always encouraging me. Inspiring courage. Helping me through the worst of the panic." A faint, fond smile crossed his face. "She told me not to be afraid. To embrace everything — even death. That people living in this world are already half-lost; that only by casting off the chains of the body can one reach true happiness and freedom…"
The warmth in Sirius's chest went cold.
"That ring is dangerous," he thought, carefully withdrawing his gaze.
What those so-called "beautiful visions" were encouraging was not the courage to face difficulties. It was the far more sinister kind — the kind that persuades a person to stop fighting.
"You are free of it now," Dumbledore said, and with a quiet, decisive motion, folded the handkerchief over the ring and placed it inside the locked drawer beside him. "It will not have another opportunity to influence you."
Bagman slumped back in his chair, pale and shaking, and breathed for a long time.
Sirius turned the velvet cloth over in his hands and said, "The snake. Tell me about the snake."
"The snake — oh, a very rare breed. Enormous. Always hissing, always looking for something to sink its fangs into." Bagman shuddered. "Horrible thing."
"Was it carrying anything?" Dumbledore asked.
"This morning — he moved from the infant into the snake. Merlin help me, I don't know how it was done; I lost consciousness entirely in that moment." Bagman's voice rose in panic. "The thing that had been riding me — it was gone. It seemed to move into the infant. And it wasn't until this morning that I fully understood that whatever was in the ring might be sentient—"
"What made you realise that?" Dumbledore asked, his eyes sharp.
"Because they were communicating." Bagman swallowed hard. "Not with words, exactly — but the infant always seemed to respond to the snake, even when the snake made no sound at all. As if they shared a thought."
"A shared consciousness," Dumbledore murmured, as though this confirmed something he had long suspected.
"Who was following whom?" Sirius pressed.
"The infant was following the snake's lead — deferring to it. That hierarchy was absolutely clear to me. Twenty years in the Ministry teaches you something about who holds the real authority in a room." Bagman's voice was hollow with remembered fear. "I still can't fully explain what was in that ring, how it came to inhabit the infant, or how they could communicate without speaking."
Sirius said nothing. Several guesses had formed in his mind, but he saw no reason to share them with Bagman.
"So you were entirely lucid tonight," Sirius said, his voice turning sharp. "By your own account, nothing has been controlling your mind since this morning. And yet you still chose to be an accomplice."
"I had no choice!" Bagman stammered. "I've been cursed — he said he could cure me — and my own body wouldn't obey me, it was like the ring still had a hold on my limbs even when my mind was my own — I was bewitched, I couldn't resist—"
Sirius looked at him without expression and said nothing further.
Bagman turned to Dumbledore, his voice fraying into desperation. "Dumbledore, I swear to you — I am the victim here! I was deceived at every turn — by You-Know-Who, by that wretched ring, by all of it—"
"Ludo—" Dumbledore said softly.
"But first," the old wizard said, his blue eyes steady behind his half-moon spectacles, his voice unhurried and absolutely clear, "answer me one last question. I have been told you cast the Killing Curse."
Bagman's eyes went wide.
"Ludo — was that something done while you were being controlled?" Dumbledore's voice did not waver. "If he could direct your body at will, why would he need to order you aloud to 'be rid of the trouble'? Why give the instruction at all?"
Bagman's lips moved without sound.
"Can you still tell me that you bear no responsibility?" Dumbledore asked gently.
"I was wrong." For the first time, something genuine cracked through Bagman's voice — the first real flicker of remorse, swamped immediately by a raw, animal need to survive. "I was wrong, I know it, I knew it was terrible — but I was bewitched! I only wanted to live! What else could I have done? Dumbledore, I've told you everything — everything, I've kept nothing back — you have to help me! I don't want to die!"
He lurched forward, grasping toward Dumbledore's sleeve. Dumbledore stepped back, and the hand closed on empty air.
"As Severus said — the curse can be slowed, and your time extended, but it cannot be broken," Dumbledore said, his voice very quiet. "Ludo, I don't believe there is anyone in this world who can cure you entirely—"
"You can, Dumbledore — you're the most powerful wizard alive, you can!" Bagman's voice pitched upward, wild with desperation.
"I cannot," Dumbledore said. The two words were spoken with genuine regret.
Bagman recoiled as though struck. The shock of it — the absolute finality — sent a rush of blood to his ashen face, and he began to cough violently, bringing up a dark, oily substance into his palm.
He stared at it for a long moment, then screamed, and fainted.
Sirius pressed his lips together, turned his face away, and found something very interesting to study in the middle distance.
Dumbledore sighed softly and tapped his wand. Within moments, the door flew open with a bang, and Madam Pomfrey appeared in the doorway, hands on her hips, her face set with the expression of a woman who has spent an entire evening performing miracles and is not remotely impressed by any of them.
"Always more work! I've barely finished with the warrior who was in serious condition, and there's a Gryffindor student with a Stinging Jinx, and a Hufflepuff with a Compound Curse—"
"I'm afraid Hogwarts hasn't had the most tranquil of evenings," Dumbledore agreed pleasantly.
"Tranquil!" Madam Pomfrey threw up her hands. "I'm about to go back and re-bandage a Gryffindor boy who got half-scalded by an exploding cauldron! Dumbledore, you had better have something genuinely critical for me up here, something worse than the last three—"
"My deepest sympathies to the student in question," Dumbledore said warmly. "But yes, I'm afraid Mr Bagman is in rather urgent need of your expertise."
Madam Pomfrey looked at the half-blackened, slumped figure in the chair and inhaled sharply.
"Merlin's beard!" She pulled a small model of a stretcher from her pocket, enlarged it with a quick Engorgio, and manoeuvred the unconscious man onto it with brisk, practised efficiency, all while muttering under her breath. "In all my years — I strongly suspect this office is jinxed — the patients I've had to collect from in here, Dumbledore, each one worse than the last—"
"Thank you, Poppy," Dumbledore said warmly, to her retreating back.
She lifted one hand in acknowledgement without turning around, and propelled Bagman out the door.
---
"Was what the Horcrux said true?" Sirius asked, once Madam Pomfrey's footsteps had faded. "It wasn't genuinely Voldemort — not in any meaningful sense?"
"In some respects, it was as much Voldemort as anything could be." Dumbledore's brow furrowed. "Based on what Bagman has told us, Voldemort has some method of maintaining mental contact with his Horcruxes — an active connection, at least at close range. During that conversation tonight, I believe he was present: directing, listening, and speaking through it, in part or in whole."
"How much of what it said was true, and how much was misdirection?" Sirius asked.
"I think most of it was truthful," Dumbledore said. "At the very least, his description of the agony of existing in that state rings true — it would serve no purpose to lie about that. What he withheld is more interesting." He paused. "He was evasive every time Bertha Jorkins came up. I believe she revealed something substantial to him — something he didn't want us to know he possessed."
Sirius nodded slowly.
Bertha Jorkins, former Ministry official. She would have known a great deal.
"Sirius — how did you first make the connection?" Dumbledore asked. "Was it McNeil who told you about her?"
"It was Hermione Granger, actually," Sirius said. "She went looking on her own initiative and established that the woman who appeared in Harry's dream was Bertha Jorkins — which led her to suspect Bertha's immediate superior at the Ministry." He paused. "Ludo Bagman."
"Impressive," Dumbledore said, with genuine approval. "A very sharp mind."
"Extraordinarily so. She found the thread connecting everything and followed it through the smallest details." Sirius allowed himself a small measure of pride on her behalf. "After that, she and Draco established that McNeil was impersonating Bagman, which put us in a position to act. If it weren't for them, McNeil would have walked out of that maze without anyone the wiser."
"Draco was involved as well, I take it?" Dumbledore asked, with a slight smile.
"Yes." Sirius kept his tone easy. "He also reminded me to bring the sword — in case the snake needed dealing with."
"Interesting," Dumbledore said. "He noticed the snake. Think of it — if we had destroyed the ring and then killed the serpent in the same night—"
"We still don't know how many Horcruxes remain," Sirius said. He spoke as though he knew for certain that others had not yet been found — and, in a way, he did. "The snake might simply have been another escape route."
Dumbledore glanced at him.
"That's true," he said calmly. "But it might equally have been a crippling blow. A soul requires a suitable vessel and considerable magic in order to transfer and persist. Voldemort cannot keep jumping indefinitely."
"Then why put the Horcrux's soul into the infant at all?" Sirius asked. "What was the actual goal tonight — resurrection, or giving the Horcrux a living body?"
"I suspect Voldemort prepared for several outcomes and arranged contingencies for each," Dumbledore said.
"That would make sense," Sirius said slowly. "McNeil's instructions, as far as we could establish, suggest that Voldemort didn't fully trust Barty Crouch Junior's work. If he'd trusted it completely, there would have been no need for McNeil to attend the match at all."
"Which implies that Voldemort anticipated the plan might be compromised," Dumbledore said. "He was probably prepared for the possibility of exposure from the start."
"And Bertha Jorkins didn't help matters," Sirius said. "She knew Barty Crouch's affairs. If she'd let something slip to anyone at the Ministry — anyone who then let it reach Voldemort — he'd know there was a risk that Barty Crouch Senior might have talked."
"And yet," Dumbledore said, "even with all those doubts, he still came to the graveyard tonight. He wanted this chance desperately enough to take the risk."
"Foolish," Sirius said.
"On the contrary," Dumbledore said, "I think his plan tonight was, in its way, quite elegant." He began to pace. "Consider: if Barty Crouch Junior had completed his work without detection, and Harry had been quietly delivered to the graveyard, tonight would have been the night of Voldemort's full resurrection. The world would have changed before morning." He paused. "But even if the imposture had been uncovered — if McNeil in Bagman's skin had managed what he attempted in the maze — Harry could still have been sent to the graveyard. As long as Voldemort could get his hands on Harry, some version of the plan remained viable."
"He's too arrogant," Sirius said. "Once Barty Crouch Junior was exposed, any sensible mind would have anticipated an ambush."
"I suspect he wasn't entirely unprepared for one," Dumbledore said. "Ask yourself — what if walking into the ambush was always part of his plan?"
Sirius looked at him sharply.
"Yes," he said after a moment. "He never answered directly when you asked why he wasn't afraid of being intercepted. He deflected. At the time I thought he was being evasive because the question unsettled him — but if the ambush itself was factored in from the beginning, then that evasiveness was something else entirely."
He continued thinking aloud: "So Voldemort came to the graveyard knowing full well he might be walking into a trap. He harboured a faint hope of resurrection and was always prepared to flee; and he put the Horcrux forward to draw our fire and buy himself time to slip away."
"You noticed it too," Dumbledore said. "The infant was extraordinarily forthcoming tonight — telling us a remarkable amount, even feeding us the occasional falsehood. Its claim that it intended to have McNeil silenced, for instance—" He shook his head. "An unnecessary lie. With Legilimency, a silenced prisoner is no barrier to anything. Voldemort knows that perfectly well. The infant was stalling."
"I wondered about that." Sirius turned it over. "But giving the Horcrux a living body — was that really part of the plan? Or was it an opportunity Voldemort was willing to take if things went smoothly?"
"Consider what we would have faced, had we not had the Sword of Gryffindor," Dumbledore said. "An apparently living child — with a soul bound into it. Kill it, or preserve it? I will say with confidence that if Fudge had discovered a living infant, however monstrous its origins, the political consequences alone would have paralysed us for months." He looked at Sirius steadily. "And we would have had no way of destroying it."
"I wouldn't have given Fudge the chance to find out," Sirius said pleasantly. "And there are ways to deal with Horcruxes that don't require a sword."
"Perhaps," Dumbledore said. "What I do believe is that Voldemort was confident the Horcrux in that ring was indestructible. That confidence is what allowed him to sacrifice it so readily — throw it forward as a distraction while he escaped. He assumed it would survive the encounter and cause considerable trouble in the aftermath."
"He was wrong," Sirius said, with considerable satisfaction. He thought of the jagged crack across the black stone, and felt something like pride on behalf of the Gryffindor sword. "I'd wager the price of the sacrifice was far higher than he expected."
"Indeed. But consider what he gained." Dumbledore turned to face the tall window. The arena beyond was blazing with light. "I've just had a peculiar thought, Sirius. Whether that infant succeeded in absorbing Bagman's life force or not — I'm not certain that was truly Voldemort's primary concern."
Sirius looked at him.
"He may not have cared greatly whether the Horcrux was destroyed," Dumbledore said. His blue eyes caught the candlelight. "What he cared about was that we believed it was his true soul — and that its death meant his annihilation."
"Because we don't know about the Horcruxes," Sirius said quietly.
"He wanted us to believe that what died in that graveyard tonight was Voldemort himself. To cut off an arm in order to survive; to feign death in order to disappear; to buy time and wait for another opportunity." Dumbledore watched the stream of people pouring out of the arena exits below. "A clever design, if you think about it clearly."
"He's afraid," Sirius said.
Dumbledore nodded.
"At this moment, we have a significant advantage. We know he is still alive; he does not know that we know. We know the secret of his Horcruxes; he does not know that either." He turned from the window, his expression serious and precise. "We must protect that advantage at all costs. Any disclosure — of any piece of what we know — could alter everything."
Sirius nodded in silence.
His mind had drifted, inevitably, back to Harry — to the scar, and to the question that had been gathering weight for months, the one he had been turning over and setting down and turning over again.
The terrible conjecture about what Harry might truly be.
It seemed, after tonight, that he could no longer keep it from Dumbledore.
Dumbledore, at that particular moment, appeared entirely unaware of Sirius's inner turmoil.
He turned from the window, made a face at nothing in particular, and completed the transformation from formidable and profound to warm and thoroughly eccentric with the ease of a man changing his hat.
"I expect Harry and the others will arrive shortly," he said pleasantly. "Would you like a lemon sherbet while we wait?"
"No, thank you," Sirius said. He watched the old man for a moment, his expression caught somewhere between exasperation and inexplicable fondness.
He pressed on. "Everything tonight points to one conclusion: Voldemort can communicate with his Horcruxes, and in extreme circumstances, transfer his soul between them. But we've destroyed several Horcruxes already, and he apparently hasn't noticed. How is that possible?"
"You'll recall what Bagman said about how the ring was found — the circling of the ruins, the need to be physically present to activate the Horcrux through a particular means?" Dumbledore unwrapped a lemon sherbet with practised ease and regarded Sirius thoughtfully. "Are you quite certain you don't want one? These are really very good."
"Completely certain," Sirius said.
"I shall have to hope Harry and Cedric are more receptive—" Dumbledore said regretfully.
"Dumbledore. You were saying that Voldemort needed proximity to activate his Horcruxes," Sirius said, with great patience.
"Yes. I suspect that he has been separated from his Horcruxes for long enough, and in sufficient pain, that the distant echoes of their existence have become a kind of low, constant noise — present, but imperceptible amid the greater agony of his shattered soul." Dumbledore's expression grew thoughtful. "He cannot feel the difference between a Horcrux that is dormant and one that has been destroyed unless he makes a deliberate effort to seek it out."
"So he simply hasn't checked?" Sirius said, leaning forward.
"In my estimation — no," Dumbledore said tranquilly, reaching for a second lemon sherbet. "And the proof is this: tonight, he threw a Horcrux away as a calculated sacrifice without the slightest hesitation. If he had any true sense of how few he had left, I believe he would have been rather more careful with it."