Not Retribution, Just Returning Favor!

Chapter 1: Bloody Fail safe

The scream of rage, of denial, left him as if it were a stranger's: he was crazed, frenzied, it could not be true, it was impossible, nobody had ever known: how was it possible that the girl could have discovered his secret?

The Elder Wand slashed through the air and green light erupted through the room, the kneeling goblin rolled over, dead, the watching wizards scattered before him, terrified: Bellatrix and Lucius Malfoy threw others behind them in their race for the door, and again and again his wand fell, and those who were left were slain, all of them, for bringing him this news, for hearing about the golden cup –

Alone among the dead, he stormed up and down, and they passed before him in vision: his treasures, his safeguards, his anchors to immortality – the diary was destroyed and the cup was stolen; what if, what if, the girl knew about the others? Could she know, had she already acted, had she traced more of them? Was Dumbledore at the root of this? Dumbledore, who had always suspected him, Dumbledore, dead on his orders, Dumbledore, whose wand was his now, yet who reached out from the ignominy of death through the girl, the girl–

But surely if the girl had destroyed any of his Horcruxes, he, Lord Voldemort, would have known, would have felt it? He, the greatest wizard of them all, he, the most powerful, he, the killer of Dumbledore and of how many other worthless, nameless men: how could Lord Voldemort not have known, if he, himself, most important and precious, had been attacked, mutilated?

True, he had not felt it when the diary had been destroyed, but he had thought that was because he had no body to feel, being less than ghost ... no, surely, the rest were safe ... the other Horcruxes must be intact ...

But he must know, he must be sure ... He paced the room, kicking aside the goblin's corpse as he passed, and the pictures blurred and burned in his boiling brain: the lake, the shack, and Hogwarts –

A modicum of calm cooled his rage now: how could the girl know that he had hidden the ring in the Gaunt shack? No one had ever known him to be related to the Gaunts, he had hidden the connection, the killings had never been traced to him: the ring, surely, was safe.

And how could the girl, or anybody else, know about the cave or penetrate its protection? The idea of the locket being stolen was absurd ...

As for the school: he alone knew where in Hogwarts he had stowed the Horcrux, because he alone had plumbed the deepest secrets of that place ...

And there was still Nagini, who must remain close now, no longer sent to do his bidding, under his protection ...

But to be sure, to be utterly sure, he must return to each of his hiding places, he must redouble protection around each of his Horcruxes ... a job, like the quest for the Elder Wand, that he must undertake alone ...

Which should he visit first, which was in most danger? An old unease flickered inside him. Dumbledore had known his middle name ... Dumbledore might have made the connection with the Gaunts ... their abandoned home was, perhaps, the least secure of his hiding places, it was there that he would go first ...

The lake, surely impossible ... though was there a slight possibility that Dumbledore might have known some of his past misdeeds, through the orphanage.

And Hogwarts ... but he knew that his Horcrux there was safe, it would be impossible for Potter to enter Hogsmeade without detection, let alone the school. Nevertheless, it would be prudent to alert Snape to the fact that the girl might try to re-enter the castle ... to tell Snape why the girl might return would be foolish, of course; it had been a grave mistake to trust Bellatrix and Malfoy: didn't their stupidity and carelessness prove how unwise it was, ever, to trust?