Dumbledore stared at the gold and green locket sitting on his table. A beautiful ruby snake was inlaid on the top cover, with its serpentine body forming a red 'S' over the surface.
He picked it up, and his fingers fiddled with it distractedly. He knew it was fake— a 'letter of UNauthetication' came with it to prove that it was a replica. Dumbledore wasn't happy to find a replica when he went had set out to find the original— he had bled for it, drank poison for it, fought Inferi while suffering from a cursed poison for it, and then had to face a disgruntled student out to kill him, had to come to a hard realization that he had lost a close friend and a closer confidant. . . and the aftermath that followed was something he would've like to deal with a clear and not tired mind.
And the worst part of it, it was only after everything that he had only found that the locket was a fake.
All of his effort for naught. . . bar one single thing. One thing that he had been able to get out of the entire debacle. He had found a clue to the real Horcrux. . . Voldemort's Horcrux.
RAB. Regulus Arcturus Black. Scion to the prestigious House of Black. Voldemort's loyal Death Eater. . . or it had seemed so as Regulus Black had betrayed Voldemort and had switched the locket when he had realized what it actually was.
Meaning, while the Horcrux was still there, it was out of Voldemort's reach, and he had no idea that the piece of his soul wasn't the place he had left, under the protection of the various protective and lethal magic.
It gave him a chance. As the situation stood now, neither party knew the location, but that was more of a disadvantage to Voldemort as the Horcrux user didn't know if his soul container was still active— if he would still depend on it for keeping himself alive. And if he could find it before Voldemort, it would be a strain on Voldemort's heart.
Fortunately for him, he had a clue, while Voldemort didn't. Unfortunately, Dumbledore had followed the clue that came in the form of a letter of powerful spite but wasn't able to find any lockets in places where one could find Regulus Black would go. . . sadly, the looking had turned out to be a dead-end as every place he went, he got opposite to what she accepted.
"Where did you hide it, Regulus?" Dumbledore muttered. He had to try to put himself in Regulas' mind but hadn't gotten much from it.
The problem with Regulus Black was that there weren't left who knew the man. His own brother, Sirius, didn't know much about him because of the differences in childhood. Those who knew Regulus, and were still alive, wouldn't talk to Dumbledore.
"This isn't getting anywhere," he sighed and pushed the locket away. He popped his favorite lemon pop into his mouth, feeling the pleasant sourness that let the made way for sweetness.
He leaned into his chair with thoughts about Horcruxes pouring into his mind. Seven. The number which held power with magic and something Dumbledore suspected Voldemort to aim for his Horcruxes.
'He's going to aim for six pieces. . . with the seventh being himself,' he thought. 'But. . . he doesn't know that the number he's going to have seven Horcruxes.'
He got up and walked to a portrait and pulled for the frame to open up like a door on its hinges. Dumbledore tapped his wand against the wall, and a portion vanished as if it was never there, leaving behind a square cavity in it. He stared at the black diary— half-melted, half-burnt, with a stabbing hole in the middle. He picked it up and brought it to his table.
Tom Riddle's Diary, what Dumbledore considered to be the first Horcrux. It was the only. . . one of the two Horcruxes he had within his grasp, and as far as he knew, the only Horcrux that he knew to be destroyed.
He sank into his mindscape and went back to the memory of the Potter Twins and Hermione Granger telling him about the Chamber of Secret incident. He recalled them telling him about the Basilisk and how a young Tom Riddle had appeared by using the diary as the medium. But as he recalled the memory, a frown appeared between his brow. He remembered how Harry recalled that the diary had been stabbed with the Basilisk fang when he woke up.
"Epsy!" A house-elf popped up in the office and stared at Dumbledore with her doe eyes. He wrote something on a parchment slip and gave it to Epsy. "Please give this to Professor McGonagall and tell her to bring them now."
Epsy popped away with the slip and left Dumbledore staring at the burnt diary with a hole in the middle.
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"Why did you want to see us, Headmaster?" asked Ivy as she took a seat in the Headmaster's Office. She had been playing cards with some of the fifth years when McGonagall came in to tell them that Dumbledore wanted her, Harry, Hermione, and Ron in his office. Harry and Hermione hadn't been pleased to have their snogging session interrupted. On the way, they picked up her mother.
Dumbledore retrieved a diary that was well familiar to her and placed it on the table. "About this," he said.
Ivy stared at Tom Riddle's diary. . . or Voldemort's diary. Her pupil shrunk when she recalled the memories of that day inside the Chamber of Secrets.
"What about it?" asked Harry with an edge in his voice.
"Harry, you told me when you woke up, you found this diary stabbed with the Basilisk fang. . . and it wasn't you who stabbed the diary," said Dumbledore. "I was wondering if you could think back to that day and try to see if there was something else that you might've missed." He turned to Ivy and Hermione, "You two as well. Please try to recall if you remember something from that day before you got petrified."
Ivy nodded and tried to remember that day, starting from the morning, but she couldn't find anything odd other than the horrifying yellow eyes. Then her mind wandered to what Harry had told her happened in the Chamber of Secrets.
Her body tensed.
It wasn't what Harry had told her that tensed her, but what she had done to find the truth. Ivy closed her eyes and pretended to use Occlumency as if she was going through her memories. She didn't want to match eyes with Dumbledore, and neither did she want to open her mouth— it was better if she kept her mouth shut.
"I. . . I think I know who stabbed the diary," came a voice from beside her.
Ivy's eyes flew open in shock. She turned to Hermione, who had just spoken. Ivy bit the inside of her cheek— it had slipped her mind that Hermione was there with her when she had asked.
Hermione glanced at Ivy, who couldn't give her a look to stop. Any attempt to stop Hermione would be caught by Dumbledore, and over that, her mother was in the same room.
"That year, Ivy and I were trying to find the identity of the Slytherin's monster, but we weren't able to find the identity. . . so we decided to seek some help. . . ."
"Help?" said Lily, confused. Not only her but all others than Hermione and Ivy looked confused.
"We went to AID to see if we could find an answer there."
Dumbledore leaned forward, "AID. . . you mean Quinn West?"
Hemione nodded, "We asked Quinn if he knew about the Slytherin's monster, and he knew who the monster was."
"He knew!" McGonagall exclaimed.
"He pointed out the facts surrounding all the petrifications that had happened throughout the year, and the only magical beast he could equate all of them to was the Basilisk. He pointed us to a book in the library and sent us away. . ."
Ivy began praying that Hermione would stop, that she wouldn't continue, but it seemed that luck wasn't with Ivy today.
". . . but before we could leave, Ivy asked another question," Hermione glanced at Ivy as she continued. "She asked Quinn if he knew where the opening to the Chamber of Secrets was?"
Lily gasped, "He knew?"
"Yes, he knew. Or at least, at that time, we thought he had a guess where it was. He told us the entrance was in the Moaning Myrtle's lavatory. . . but as you know, we both never made it there. Because of Quinn, we weren't dead and only petrified— he had pointed out the presence of reflective surface near every petrification victim."
Both of them had been caught by the Basilisk's glare through their mirrors, turning their body to stone. . . the next thing they remembered was waking up in the Hospital room with aching and sore bodies.
"But how does that make Mr. West the one who stabbed the diary?" asked Dumbledore.
"We asked him if he was the one who did it."
"He admitted it?" asked Dumbledore with surprise.
Hermione shook her head, "No, he denied it outright. But he had let it slip in his wording that he had been inside the Chamber of Secrets." Hermione then explained how when Quinn had asked them what happened in the Chamber of Secrets, he had used the wording 'down' as if he knew the chamber was somewhere beneath. "And in his own wording, Quinn had said that he never saw the opening, only that he knew it existed there."
"Ms. Granger. Just this. . . just the wording isn't enough to say that Mr. West was the one inside the Chamber of Secrets," said Dumbledore, but his tone and eyes were one of thought and contemplation. "But it does make him one of the most likely suspects. . . . If we could only have someone who could have witnessed what had happened."
"Fawkes!" suddenly Harry yelled. "Fawkes was there. We should ask him if Fawkes was there."
The Pheonix had been the main reason why the Basilisk was slain with such less effort. The immortal bird has plucked the deadly eyes of the Basilisk, ridding him of its most lethal weapon.
"Unfortunately for us, Harry, we can't ask Fawkes," said Dumbledore.
"Eh, why?!"
"I have communicated with Fawkes about it, and from what I gathered, he didn't know what had happened because of the sudden burning day, which reverted him back to his chick form."
Harry's shoulder slumped. "Then we don't have anyone who could answer our question."
Ivy internally sighed with relief. She was petrified, Harry was knocked out, the Basilisk was dead, Teen-Voldemort was purged, Hermoine wasn't inside, Ron was far away from the actual chamber. . . making no one who could confirm if Quinn was inside. Even she herself couldn't as she hadn't had that conversation with Quinn yet.
But then. . .
"Ahem, perhaps I could help you all with this problem."
All eyes, even the ones on the Headmaster/misteress' portraits, turned to the speaker.
Ivy blinked in surprise as she looked at the speaker. At first, she was confused, but then Harry's recollection of events started to ring inside her head. She realized what she and everyone had missed.
Two people, one Phoenix, one Basilisk, and one ghost.
That's who everyone thought was inside the Chamber of Secrets that day. . . but all were wrong.
There had been another.
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Quinn West - MC - Hmm, strange. . . lately, it feels like I'm not getting appropriate screentime.
Ivy Potter - Wants to keep secrets - Stunned.
Albus Dumbledore - Headmaster - As stunned as the one above him.
FictionOnlyReader - Author - You guys can either think/find out who's the unknown speaker at the end— it's not going to be challenging to find it all my fanfiction, the books, or the movies. Or you can shut your brain down and wait for the .
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The link is in the synopsis!
