The New Trio and the Chamber of Secrets

Chapter 5: Something Wicked

Sirius received an owl at breakfast in the middle of August, telling him that they were afforded a meeting within Gringotts later that day, so the four occupants of Grimmauld Place got ready and made their way to Gringotts. Once inside the grand white building, they were escorted into the office of Urzog, the goblin they'd first met on Harry's tenth birthday.

"Let's get straight to business, shall we? Mr Malfoy, the readings you acquired from this diary you mentioned are very troubling," stated Urzog gruffly.

"How so?" asked Remus.

"They very clearly show that the object in question contains an enormous amount of black magic, so much so, in fact, that it is clearly a Horcrux. This is extremely troubling, as it is the fourth Horcrux we at Gringotts have come across due to your family."

"Fourth? I thought there'd only been three! When did you find the fourth one?" exclaimed Sirius.

"Shortly after cleansing Mr Potter-Black of his," Urzog said. "You see, we were concerned when we discovered that locket in your household almost eleven years ago, but since you had no knowledge of its existence, let alone the black magic within, we did nothing further, other than to cleanse it and give it to the goblin clan that had originally made it. Then, your godson was discovered to have another piece imbedded in his scar, again without your knowledge, and we were enraged. To goblins, Horcruxes are the epitome of evil and selfishness, both of which goblins abhor."

"So after you cleansed Harry, you found another one? How?" asked Draco.

"It was decided that the House of Black seemed to be the centerpoint, so we unintrusively scanned each vault that belonged to someone who was even remotely connected to your House, which turned out to be approximately half of the vaults. In the vault belonging to your cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, there was a cup which had a large enough black aura to be a Horcrux, so we cleansed it and returned it to the vault. After all, even though it's goblin-made, it was in her vault, and we take theft very seriously." Urzog then smiled, and the amount of pointy teeth shown made Harry shudder.

"Finally, we come to this diary you discovered. The size of the Horcrux within is much bigger than the one in the locket, which was the largest soul-piece we had found from the false Lord Voldemort. Before we received young Mr Black's readings, we'd had the impression that the locket represented half of Voldemort's soul, but we have since reanalysed our findings. The diary we believe to be half of his soul, then there is a missing piece which represents a quarter of his soul, then the locket at 12.5%, or an eighth, followed by the cup at 6.25%, a missing piece at approximately 3.1%, Mr Potter-Black's piece at around 1.5%, and finally what we believe is the remaining piece, also known as Lord Voldemort himself."

There was utter silence in the room as they all struggled to comprehend the absolute horror and gravity of what Voldemort had done. Finally, Remus spoke up. "Do you have any idea where the two missing pieces are?"

"I'm afraid not, Consort Lupin-Black. The location of the discovered ones offers no insight into the missing ones. The Horcruxes we have encountered so far are extremely well done, and do not have the tell-tale links that lead toward the maker, which indicates that they have been completely separated from his soul, and even if he wanted to, he could not make himself whole again if they still existed."

Remus nodded miserably. Sirius then said, "We will keep you informed if we find any more, but I would like to request that you do the same for us."

The goblin nodded. "I suppose that seems fair. Is there any other business we need to go over today?"

Draco piped up, "My father should be at lunch right now. Should I try to get it? I brought dragonhide gloves, just in case."

Urzog gazed at Draco with a calculating look in his eyes, then looked to Remus and Sirius, who were extremely pale at the thought of Draco going back there.

"Why don't you go with him, Pads?" suggested Harry. "That way, if it has a compulsion spell on it, you can prevent it from taking hold fully. Besides, you're an auror, so you know how not to leave clues behind in these types of situations."

Remus and Sirius looked at one another for a long moment, then turned to Draco. "If you're willing, little cousin," Sirius said.

Draco nodded, then called Dobby. After quickly explaining what he needed to the elf, Dobby grabbed a hold of him and Sirius, and with a soft pop, they were gone. The three remaining in the room sat in a tense silence for five agonisingly long minutes. Finally, they returned, but straight away Harry saw that Draco wasn't wearing gloves, and neither he nor Sirius held the small black book that Draco had previously described. "Where is it?" he asked, confused.

Sirius opened his mouth, then closed it again when words seemed to fail him. Draco said, "It wasn't there. I let my magic search the whole room, and I couldn't find it. I'm very sure that he wouldn't risk putting it anywhere else in the house, so..." he trailed off, unsure of what else to tell them.

"That probably means he's given it to someone else," Remus said gravely. "Whether that person is an accomplice or a victim, it doesn't matter. The point is that it's gone, and until it reappears again, we've lost the trail."

*

The rest of the holidays fluctuated between tense and fearful, until finally, with five days to go until the 1st of September, Sirius had enough. "Alright, that's it! No more moping or stressing about. We are having a prank war, and that's final!"

"Prank war?" questioned Draco.

"A very messy game," Harry said sagely. "We take it in turns, from youngest to oldest, to prank the other people in the house. We each get one day to pull off a prank on every other person, and then on the last day, it'll be all out war. It can be something as simple as a sticking charm to extra body parts, just as long as whatever the prank is will disappear from the victim within an hour or two. Basically anything goes, except obviously nothing illegal. Got it?"

Draco nodded, then his eyes lit up when Sirius handed him a well-thumbed notebook. "As this is your first prank war, you get the Lesser Marauder Grimoire. Lots of prank ideas in it, and all of them are easy to set up. Good luck, cousin," Sirius said.

They all retreated to their rooms, or in Remus' case, the library, and began to plot. By the end of the war, Harry'd been transformed into a bunny rabbit by Draco, made to speak in lymerics by Remus, his hair turned into leaves by Sirius, and numerous other pranks on the last day. In return, Harry had turned Draco's entire body hot pink, made Remus see everything upside down, and cast a low-level glamour to make Sirius look like Severus. Even Enya had taken part in the prank war-she'd taken to tripping someone whenever they came close enough. His favourite prank though was when Sirius had cast a tricky charm on the last day that made all the water in the house become lemonade; even casting Aguamenti would give lemonade instead of water. They all decided that the week of fun had been very much needed after learning the lengths to which Voldemort had gone in order to become immortal.

They woke on the first of September to Neville screeching downstairs. Harry and Draco hurried downstairs to see what the problem was, and found that Neville had been covered in mud from head to toe. "Oh, sorry about that, Neville. Completely forgot about that one," called Sirius from two stories up. "I stuck a water balloon filled with mud to the ceiling. The sticking charm must've worn off overnight, and failed just as you walked underneath it."

Neville was still gasping in shock from what had occurred, and managed to say, "This... is why I don't... visit... during a prank war..."

*

Compared to the past week, the trip from Platform 9 ¾ to Hogsmeade Station was extremely uneventful. The trio found an empty compartment, and not much later had been joined by Hermione, Ron, the twins, Ginny, and Luna, although Ron excused himself soon after the Express started moving to go find his friends. Not surprisingly, Ginny was Sorted into Gryffindor, and Luna into Ravenclaw. A tiny, mousey-haired first-year Gryffindor (Harry was sure he'd never been that small) by the name of Colin Creevey appeared so excited to be sitting near Harry, that he looked as though he might pass out at any given moment. The rest of the Welcoming Feast passed rather quickly, and Harry soon found himself tucked into his bed, listening to the sounds of his dorm mates sleeping, and then he succumbed to sleep as well.