The Potions Master's Daughter (Book Five)

Chapter 31

The next morning was the first morning of classes. I decided to go see Servers to see what he knew about Horcruxes before class. I slipped out of the Gryffindor common room and down the stairs to the dungeon well before anyone else would even begin to get up.

I knocked on the door to his private quarters knowing full well that he was up already, since he's always been an early riser, "Good morning JEss," he greeted.

"Hello, I just wanted to talk to you about something that happened in our meeting yesterday with Dumbledore. We saw a few memories about Voldemort, and now he wants Harry to get the rest of one of them from Professor Slughorn. I think it's about Horcruxes, so I haven't ever heard of them, so I figured I'd ask you about them."

His face looked stricken when I said the word Horcruxes, andI briefly wondered about why everyone was so horrified by them, "If I am to tell you what they are you have to promise me you won't tell any of the other kids. I understand you tell them most things, but this you can't under any circumstances tell them. It would be extremely dangerous, and they will learn in due time."

I nodded and scrunched my eyebrows in confusion, "I won't tell them if it's that dangerous then. But then what are they? And why is everyone so skeeved out by them?"

He sighed and began to explain, "A Horcrux is a particularly bad bit of the Dark Arts. It can be any sort of old object. A person ties their soul to that object, by splitting their soul into tiny little bits and placing them protected in that object."

"How do you split your soul though?" I questioned,

"By killing," Severus replied, "You have to kill in order to split your soul into pieces. In theory you could continue to live even if it appears as though you've been killed."

"So Dumbledore thinks that VOldemort did this?"

Severus shrugged, "If he's asking Harry to get the memory regarding Horcruxes then I'd assume he believes that the Dark Lord did something like this if not this."

"So could you split your soul into several pieces?" I asked, "It would be kinda cool if you could. You'd become nearly immortal."

"I suppose in theory you could split your soul several times. It does sound good on the surface until you realize to do that, you would have to kill that many people."

I shrugged, "Yeah that's true I suppose. The concept itself is cool though."

"I don't think it's for us humans to try to deny death's grasp."

I paused to consider his words. I supposed he had a point, but I'm not sure I'd ever be ready to stop living. If I could live life more, I was sure I would want to.

I thanked him for explaining the concept to me and went up to the Gryffindor common room where I knew my friends would be.

Harry, Hermione and ROn were sitting on the couch when I walked through the portal door, "Neville and Ginny are still sleeping," Hermione explained as I approached them as way of explaining the rest of my friend's disappearance.

"We were talking about what Dumbledore said about Horcruxes. Hermione doesn't know what they are either, and if both of you don't know, then I don't know where to find out what they are and Dumbledore didn't seem to be in a rush to tell us about it."

"I guess we could try the Library," I said hesitantly, "I'm sure if it's that dark the regular section of the library won't have any information on it but we can definitely look."

"Maybe we could get a pass to the Restricted Section too," Ron suggested.

"You'll have to be careful about talking to Slughorn," Hermione told Harry, "If it's that bad of a memory for him to alter it, then he's going to be really dcey about talking about it."