Harry Potter and the Serpent's Eye by Marauder9744
Chapter Notes: Thanks to all, once again, who have read and reviewed… I’m really glad that so many of you are enjoying the story and I can’t tell you how much the reviews mean to me! Also, once again, I’d like to thank my beta, Priya, for editing this story for me. If anyone is looking for a great beta, she is, by far, one of the best. I hope you all enjoy!
Chapter 18 - Harry, Ron and Hermione explore Voldemort’s childhood orphanage in an effort to find another Horcrux; a familiar object makes an appearance.
“This is it, Hermione,” Harry said, hurrying to where Hermione stood. “Don’t touch anything.”
Hermione, who was about to reach out and push open the gate, withdrew her hand quickly. Harry looked between her and Ron, both of whom had worried looks on their faces, and then stepped forward, reached out and grabbed the gate.
Hermione let out a small shriek, but nothing happened to Harry. He simply swung the gate open and stepped cautiously into the barren courtyard. He slowly made his way down the stone pathway that led up to the front steps, taking extra care with each step. Harry wasn’t quite sure what he thought was going to happen “ but he was sure that Voldemort would have set up a massive array of defenses.
When Harry reached the door, however, he found it unlocked. He pushed it open and, almost immediately, he was hit with the stench of rot and decay… as if someone had not been in this orphanage in fifty years. There was a thick layer of dust that covered the floor, and countless spider webs hung across the ceiling and on the walls. Mrs. Cole wouldn’t be too happy if she saw what had become of this place, Harry thought to himself dryly.
Harry made to take a step, but Hermione grabbed his shoulder, holding him back.
“Be careful, Harry “ we don’t know what kind of defenses Voldemort has in place.”
She looked anxious.
“This doesn’t look like anything special,” Ron said, staring around the room, “do you reckon You-Know-Who hid a Horcrux here?”
“The cave didn’t look like much either, Ron,” Hermione replied matter-of-factly.
Harry ignored them and stepped into the front room of the orphanage where he saw that the main desk was in the same spot as it had been more than fifty years ago, in Dumbledore’s Pensieve. He walked across the floor, his steps echoing of the walls, and to the desk. He opened a few desk drawers, searching for something… but he wasn’t quite sure what. The only thing that Harry did unearth was a moldy, yellow slip of paper that had been sitting on the desk; it looked something like a data page.
“What’s that?” Ron asked, moving closer to Harry and looking over his shoulder.
“Dunno… looks like something out of a record book, but I can’t read it.”
Hermione whipped out her wand and muttered, “Lumos,” casting light upon the slip of paper.
“Here we go!” Harry exclaimed, “Sign-In Sheet, Alexandra Orphanage, January 17, 1947.”
There were no names written below this heading. Harry thought about this for a moment “ he was not entirely sure how old Voldemort would have been in 1947, but Hermione seemed to be reading his mind.
“1947?” Hermione said, sounding astonished, “why would a building that hasn’t been used since 1947 still be standing?”
“Could be some kind of historical building that they can’t tear down,” Ron stated, shrugging his shoulders.
“No, no, I don’t think so,” Hermione responded, her brow furrowed, “Harry, how old is Voldemort?”
“Well…” Harry started, sitting down on the dusty chair that sat behind the front desk and pulling out his leather-bound notebook, “we know that Merope Gaunt was nineteen when she had Voldemort “ I remember that much from Dumbledore’s Pensieve and then… oh, I don’t know… Dumbledore never told me.”
Hermione immediately snatched Harry’s notebook and began furiously writing. Harry had no idea what she could possibly be doing, nor did Ron, by the slightly skeptical look on his face. After a few minutes, Hermione stopped writing and looked down upon the notebook with a smile.
“There you are “ Voldemort was born in 1926.”
Harry looked at Ron, who said exactly what Harry was thinking.
“Are you completely mental… how could you possibly know when You-Know-Who was born?”
“Easy,” Hermione said, glaring at Ron. She took a deep breath.
“Voldemort told Harry, in the Chamber of Secrets, that he was sixteen years old at the time of Hagrid’s expulsion from Hogwarts. Hagrid told us that he was expelled in his third year, which would have been fifty years ago from June of our second year, 1993. Voldemort was, therefore, sixteen in 1943 “ his sixteenth birthday would then be New Year’s Eve of 1942, because that’s what Dumbledore told Harry in the Pensieve. This means, if his sixteenth birthday was on New Year’s Eve of 1942, Voldemort’s date of birth would have to be New Year’s Eve of 1926.”
Harry shared another look with Ron, fully expecting him to snipe at Hermione, or, at least, suggest that she belonged at St. Mungo’s. What Ron did say, however, surprised Harry.
“Hermione, that was amazing!” he said, smiling at her, “I wish I could do that,” he added wistfully.
Hermione flushed brilliantly before saying anything.
“Thanks… so if he was born in 1926, Voldemort would have been twenty-one at the time this sign-in sheet was dated,” she said, gesturing towards the paper in Harry’s hand. “That matches up with what Dumbledore told you, right, Harry?”
Harry thought for a moment. What had Dumbledore told me?
“Er “ oh, yeah, Dumbledore said that sometime after Voldemort graduated from Hogwarts he went to work at Borgin and Burkes. He stole the locket and Hufflepuff’s cup while he was working at Borgin and Burkes, which would have been sometime after 1944….”
“So, if You-Know-Who stole the cup after 1944 and hid it here, that would be why no one has been in this building since then… or why it hasn’t been torn down,” Ron said, looking slightly pleased with himself.
“Well, it’s not necessarily the cup, but there’s a good chance that there is a Horcrux here,” Harry said, standing up and moving back in front of the desk, “which means that we have to be careful.”
Harry and Ron both drew their wands and muttered, “Lumos,” to match Hermione.
“Where do we start?” Ron asked, sounding apprehensive.
“No idea “ just stay close; we’ll start on the ground floor,” answered Harry in much the same voice.
This was not entirely the truth, however. Harry was quite sure that if Voldemort was going to hide anything here, he would have done so in the room that had been his as a child.
After checking five rooms on the lower floor they came to a larger room, one that had to have been an office. There was a tattered, old desk facing the door and two filthy chairs facing it.
“This is odd,” exclaimed Hermione, reaching for a piece of paper that lay flat on the desk, “Harry, look at this.”
She handed him the paper and he saw that it seemed to be an unfinished memo. On half of the page there was clear, legible writing that discussed a young boy named Dan, who, according to the memo, was caught walking the orphanage at night in the nude. The last sentence on the page, however, was unfinished and there was an ink stroke that trailed away from where the last word was written.
“Whoever was writing that must have been in a hurry,” Ron said, reading the memo over Harry’s shoulder.
“It’s dated the same date as that sign-in sheet,” exclaimed Hermione, “January 17, 1947.”
“I don’t reckon that that’s a coincidence,” Harry said, an idea of what happened here finally beginning to crystallize in his mind. “By the looks of this, (he gestured towards the memo) and that unmarked sign-in sheet, Voldemort must have arrived sometime in the early morning of January 17, 1947 and killed anyone who was unlucky enough to be here.”
“Yes “ that would explain both the sign-in sheet and this. He must have caught whoever was in here by surprise,” said Hermione gravely. “They probably didn’t… didn’t even stand a chance.”
Ron shuddered involuntarily.
“Come on,” he said, ushering Harry and Hermione out of the room, “let’s check the upstairs.”
Ron led them out of the room, back towards the entrance hall, and up the stone steps, until they were forced to pass underneath a large cluster of spider webs, that is; Ron let Harry lead after that.
They soon reached the second landing and Harry led them to what was once Tom Riddle’s room. Harry tried the closed door but it was locked.
“Locked? Why do you reckon that that’s the only door here that’s been locked?” Ron said, looking slightly unnerved, though Harry knew this was more from the excess of spider webs than from the door being locked.
“This was Voldemort’s bedroom,” Harry answered gravely, moving his hand across the surface of the door, much like Dumbledore had done in the cave.
“That would explain why the door’s locked then,” Hermione said, more to herself than anyone, as she too examined the door.
After a moment or so, Hermione tapped the handle of the door with her wand and muttered, “Alohomora!”
She tried the door again, but it remained firmly locked. Hermione moved back from the door, frowning at it, and then shrugged.
Harry still continued to examine the door, but he wasn’t able to “feel” anything magical about the door. He backed away from the door and aimed his wand at the center of it. Ron and Hermione quickly followed suit.
“Reductor Curse, on the count of three,” Harry said, gripping his wand tightly, “one… two… three!”
“Reducto!” they all cried, blasting the door away and reducing it to splinters.
They were immediately hit with a thick cloud of foul-smelling dust and dirt that had been released from the room. The stench was almost too much to bear as Harry, Ron and Hermione stepped into the room.
“Blimey,” Ron exclaimed, holding his shirt over his nose protectively, “it smells worse than Crabbe after a Quidditch match in here.”
Both Harry and Hermione allowed small smiles to creep across their faces.
Harry looked around the room through the still present cloud of dust and noticed that it looked very similar to what he saw in the Pensieve, except for the fact that it was covered in thick spider webs hanging all across the walls. The iron bedstead still sat in the far corner as did the hard wooden chair. Harry also noticed that Riddle’s large wardrobe had not been moved either.
He waved his hand in front of his face, clearing the dust away, as he walked around the room. If he was hoping for a “feeling” that would tell him where the Horcrux was hidden, he wasn’t going to get it. Ron and Hermione stood in the corner of the room, watching Harry intently, as he walked around the room again, pausing for a long while at the bed, chair and wardrobe in turn. He was careful, however, not to touch anything.
After finishing his round of the room he started the process all over again, pausing even longer still at each piece of furniture.
Nothing unusual about the bed, he thought to himself, nothing weird about the chair either, and nothing odd about the “ hold on.
He was now standing in front of the wardrobe and he noticed that it was pushed as far back as possible leaving no space between it and the wall. Harry moved to the side of the wardrobe, but was careful not to touch it. Once he put his hand at the point where the wardrobe and the wall met he could feel a slight vibration that shook his entire body. Harry quickly withdrew his hand and backed away from the wardrobe.
“I think there’s something here,” he said, an air of excitement in his voice.
Ron and Hermione moved forward, drawing their wands again, and stared expectantly at Harry.
“Do you think that we have to use blood again?” Ron asked, anxiety etched across his face.
“Maybe,” Harry said, pulling out his knife and holding his left arm out.
“Oh, no you don’t,” said Ron, seeing what Harry was about to do and rushing forward. “I already told you, mate, you’re more important than me. We can’t have you hurt.”
Before Harry could protest, Ron snatched the knife from his hand. Harry saw Hermione look away as Ron, for the second time on their Horcrux hunt, cut a deep gash in his arm.
He winced in pain, but remained standing, and spread the bloodied knife across the front of the wardrobe. Ron moved away, cradling his arm, and waited along with Harry and Hermione for the wardrobe to open. The wardrobe, however, did not open. It merely sat there, motionless, almost mocking them.
Harry frowned at the door while Hermione moved to Harry’s other side so she could tend to Ron.
“Here let me help you,” she said, grabbing his arm and tearing off a piece of her robes.
She tied the piece of her robe around Ron’s arm to stop the bleeding and Harry saw them share a look while Hermione rubbed Ron’s arm soothingly and almost unmindfully. The moment she saw that Harry had noticed what she was doing, however, she seemed to “wake-up” and dropped Ron’s arm instantly.
“What should we try next?” Hermione asked Harry quickly, her face a delicate shade of pink.
“Dunno “ hmm.…”
Harry marched back over to the wardrobe and knelt down on one knee, examining the handle. Suddenly, Harry, noticing something, jumped back in surprise.
“Hey, come look at this,” Harry said excitedly, motioning for Ron and Hermione to come over.
They quickly hurried over and knelt down next to him.
“Look at this “ there’s something here now that wasn’t there before,” he said. “Your blood must have made this appear,” he added, gesturing towards Ron.
“This doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen before,” Hermione said, leaning in closer to the wardrobe.
Harry leant in even closer still and saw that the strange something that had appeared was a small, circular indent in the wood, roughly the size of Harry’s thumbprint.
“Do you reckon it’s some kind of keyhole?” asked Ron, sounding slightly worried.
“I don’t know,” Harry answered, “but there’s a good chance that whatever fits into this is hidden in the building.”
Harry saw Ron and Hermione share a quizzical glance.
“How do you know?” Hermione asked, a hint of skepticism in her voice.
“I just know,” Harry answered, growing slightly annoyed.
There was no real way to explain how Harry knew that the key was hidden somewhere in the orphanage “ all he knew was that it was. It would be something that Voldemort would do. Harry wasn’t sure how to explain it “ Voldemort would be so confident in his defenses, he would have no qualms about hiding the key in the orphanage. It was almost as if Voldemort was daring someone to try to steal the Horcrux.
Harry didn’t voice any of this to Ron or Hermione, but instead, decided to look around the room on the off chance that the key was hidden there.
“The key, or whatever it is, has to be quite small “ and probably silver,” Hermione said, following Harry’s example by looking around the room as well.
After a few minutes of searching, Harry realized that looking around the room was all for naught.
“I doubt it’s hidden anywhere in here,” he said wistfully. “This orphanage isn’t that big. We should be able to search it pretty quickly.”
Ron and Hermione nodded in agreement and then quickly followed Harry out of the room.
Their search, however, proved to be anything but quick. They spent nearly three hours scouring the first floor, to no avail. Night had fallen now and Harry could hear heavy rain pummeling the roof and strong winds that caused the windows panes to rattle non-stop.
Never the less, Harry was still hopeful that they would find the key on the upper floors of the orphanage. This, however, also proved to be wishful thinking, as there was no sign of the key on the second floor either.
It was now nearing midnight as Harry, Ron and Hermione sat dejectedly on the top step of the staircase, listening to the heavy pounding of wind and rain.
“Do you reckon we might have missed it?” Ron asked, doing his best to keep some trace of hope in his voice.
Harry shook his head.
“No, we looked everywhere “ in every room,” Harry answered dismally.
They had failed, he thought to himself.
Voldemort must have the key.
In retrospect, Harry realized that it would be foolish for Voldemort not to keep the key on his person at all times. After all the time they had taken to find the location of another Horcrux they were going to have to give up and start again. He was about to voice this to Ron and Hermione when Hermione spoke up.
“Not necessarily,” she said.
It took Harry a second to realize that she was responding to the answer he had given Ron.
“Look up there.”
Harry looked up and saw that Hermione was pointing to a small, concealed trapdoor in the ceiling above the stairs, nearly ten feet above them. They would never have been able to see it had it not been for the constant flashes of lightning that illuminated the inside of the building. It looked slightly similar to the trapdoor at Hogwarts that led to Professor Trelawney’s classroom.
“That looks like it leads up to an attic,” Ron said, holding his illuminated wand up above his head so that they could see the trapdoor better.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Hermione replied rather ominously. “No one in their right mind would put the entrance to the attic all the way up there “ no one would be able to reach it.”
“I’m taking a wild guess that that door wasn’t part of the original building plan,” replied Harry forebodingly. “And I’m also guessing that that is where the key is hidden.”
Ron and Hermione glanced sideways at him, worried looks on both of their faces.
“Now we just have to figure out how to get up there,” Harry said quietly, more to himself than to Ron and Hermione. He turned to look at his two best friends.
“Any thoughts?”
Sadly, both Ron and Hermione looked utterly perplexed.
“I suppose we could try to Conjure a ladder,” Hermione said, after a minute or so.
“Give it a go then,” Harry answered, standing back and letting Hermione work.
Unfortunately, however, Hermione could not Conjure a ladder, nor could she Summon a ladder or Transfigure a strip of wood into a ladder. It seemed as if there was some sort of enchantment that prevented any sort of magic from being done.
But no, Harry thought, that couldn’t be right. He was, in fact, standing there with his wand tip illuminated magically.
“I can’t figure this out,” Hermione said, sounding exasperated. “How else are we suppose to get up“”
But Harry had just thought of something “ how could he have been so stupid?
“Ron, come here, mate,” he said, as Ron hurried forward. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier. Okay, Ron, I’m going to levitate you up to the trapdoor.”
Ron turned white but nodded his head in agreement.
“Just “ just be careful,” Ron said, his voice shaking slightly, as he looked over the edge, “it’s a long way down.”
“Don’t worry,” Harry answered, his voice not sounding as confident as he would have liked.
Ron moved out to the edge of the stairs, next to the railing, and braced himself. Hermione was looking between Ron and Harry and nervously rubbing her hands together. Harry took a steadying breath and took aim at Ron with his wand.
“Okay, are you ready, mate?” Harry asked, his heart in his throat.
“Yeah,” Ron replied rather meekly.
“Winga“”
“Wait!” Ron yelled, stopping Harry before he could cast the spell. Harry was sure that Ron glanced at Hermione before speaking again.
“Just “ make sure you say it right… and don’t forget the ‘swish and flick’.”
Harry let a small smile creep across his face before he took careful aim with his wand again.
“Wingardium Leviosa!” Harry said very clearly, taking extra care to do the proper swish and flick movement with his wand and to keep eye-contact with Ron.
It was like nothing Harry had ever felt before. It felt as if his wand had become a fishing rod with Ron as a particularly large fish attached to the other end.
Harry directed his wand upward and Ron was lifted off of his feet. Harry took a step forward, directing Ron out over the banister and towards the trapdoor.
Once Ron had crossed the banister, however, it became increasingly harder to hold him up. Within a few seconds, Harry could feel gravity weighing Ron down.
“Whoa “ Whoa “ WHOA!” Ron yelled, as he started to fall lower and lower.
“Hold on, Ron!”
Harry concentrated harder than he ever had before and poured all his energy into forcing Ron higher. Hermione, clearly horrified, had her wand out as well and was on the verge of casting the Levitation Charm on Ron, too.
“Go on, Hermione!” Harry urged, his wand beginning to vibrate.
Ron, meanwhile, hung motionless, some twenty feet above the entrance hall below.
“I don’t know, Harry. I’m not sure what would happen if we both cast the spell,” she replied, looking torn.
“Hang on, Ron!” Harry called, trying with all his might to push Ron upward.
Ron’s body shuddered, and for a moment, Harry thought he was going to fall. Thankfully, however, after a second of uncertainty, Ron began to steadily rise upward.
He rose up higher and higher until he could reach up and grab hold of the handle of the trapdoor.
“Pull the handle, Ron!” Harry yelled, trying his best to hold Ron steady.
Ron reached up, grabbed the handle of the door, and pulled down. The trapdoor swung open in a massive cloud of dust, showering the three of them in the grime and dirt, making it impossible for Harry to see Ron, or anything else for that matter.
Harry felt his wand slacken, and almost immediately, he felt like he had been hit hard in the stomach. He knew that he no longer had Ron under the spell. He knew that he had let Ron fall.
Please be alive, Harry thought, furiously swiping at the thick cloud of dust that had engulfed him, please don’t be dead.
“RON!” he yelled, brushing his hand in front of his face to clear his vision.
He hurried forward, through the dust, towards where he knew the edge stairs to be.
Please don’t be dead.
“RON!” Hermione yelled from somewhere to Harry’s left, though Harry could not see her either.
Please be alive.
The dust cloud finally settled and Harry was able to see again. His heart was in his throat as he looked down over the banister, expecting to see his best friend lying in a heap far below. Strangely enough, he did not see Ron at all. Harry turned to look at Hermione, who was stark white and had her hands clenched on the banister.
“Where’s“”
“How long are you planning on leaving me up here?”
Harry looked up towards the voice he heard and saw Ron, holding onto the trapdoor with one hand, dangling innocently above them with a large grin spread across his face.
Harry allowed a grin to cross his face as well, as the panic that had engulfed him moments ago subsided.
A rickety, wooden ladder had descended from the trapdoor, and Ron, with the ease of remounting a broom, threw his leg over the ladder and clambered down to where Harry and Hermione stood waiting.
“Just like you planned it, right, Harry?”
Harry answered this with smirk and clapped Ron on the back before he turned his attention to the trapdoor.
He stared at it for only a moment and then, with a small backward glance at Ron and Hermione, Harry reached out and grabbed onto the ladder.
The ladder shook violently the moment Harry grabbed onto it and Harry was quite sure that it wouldn’t hold for much longer.
He quickly scaled the ladder and entered the attic, a massive room filled with hundreds of old boxes covered with dust.
“Be careful on your way up,” Harry called down to Ron and Hermione before he stood up and took a good look at the room. The boxes, Harry noticed once he neared the closest one, were filled with dusty, old clothes and other small trinkets that must have belonged to the orphans.
“It doesn’t look like anyone’s been up here in years,” Ron said, once he had climbed the ladder himself.
Harry would normally agree with Ron, but there was something strange about this place “ he could feel it.
Not quite sure where he was going, Harry led the way down rows and rows of boxes, stopping randomly to sift through a random box here or there.
“They’re all filled with clothes,” Hermione said, sounding slightly exasperated. “Do you really think that the key is hidden up here?”
Harry straightened up from over the box he had been filtering through and took a look around the huge room, a feeling of confusion beginning to rise within him.
“I dunno “ but there’s something about this place,” Harry replied, and from the looks on both Ron and Hermione’s faces, they were just as confused as he was.
Harry moved further along the countless rows of boxes, a new feeling spreading through him, a feeling of anticipation.
“We’re close now,” Harry said, though he wasn’t sure how he knew this “ he just knew. As a mark of loyalty, neither Ron nor Hermione disputed this.
They reached a dead-end where they could either take a right or a left. Harry chose right, again, not quite sure why. They continued on, Harry leading the way, but he did not stop at any random boxes this time. Something was leading him past all of these boxes and down this row “ something inside of him.
They reached another dead-end where a lone box sat directly in front of them, its flaps damp, dilapidated and lying open, with a name written sloppily across the front: D. Gibbon.
Harry didn’t know who D. Gibbon was, but he was quite sure that he or she was, at one time, living at this orphanage.
Harry reached down and, despite Hermione’s gasp of protest, opened the box fully. It was now Harry’s turn to let out a gasp.
There, lying on top of an old and tattered sweater, was a silver thimble that Harry recognized at once to be the same silver thimble he had seen in Dumbledore’s Pensieve so many months ago.
He reached down and picked it up slowly. It seemed normal, except for the fact that it was unnaturally warm.
“Harry,” Hermione began, looking over his shoulder at the silver thimble, “I think that’s the key.”
Within mere moments, Harry, Ron and Hermione had raced back to the trapdoor, down the wooden ladder and back into Voldemort’s childhood bedroom.
“Well…” Harry began as the three of them stood facing the large wardrobe, but he could think of nothing to say.
This was either going to work or they would be back at square one.
Harry knelt down, moved into position and placed the thimble into the indent in the wood. Almost immediately, the entire room shook violently and the doors to the wardrobe swung open, revealing a set of stone steps that led down, before disappearing into darkness.