The Latest Shard

Before the beginning

 Harry was strolling back and forth along the empty corridor of the Seventh Floor opposite a tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.

At last, after several strolls in front of the wall, the door appeared.

Harry let out a tired sigh of satisfaction and gestured towards the entrance to the Room of Requirement, inviting those who waited for him patiently (for the most part): his best friends – Ron and Hermione, and his girlfriend – Ginny; the trio of Malfoys – Lucius, Narcissa and Draco – completed this strange company.

"I'll explain everything to all of you inside. Please, come in," he ushered his bewildered audience in with one hand, his other obviously holding something, though it was invisible.

Once everyone got inside and got seated at simply looking sofas and chairs, surrounding the lit fireplace, which the Room provided for its guests, Harry finally removed the Cloak of Invisibility, revealing the suspicious looking bundle of rags underneath. The bundle was moving at odd moments, giving the feeling it was alive, though no sounds escaped form inside the knots.

"We have a problem," Harry deadpanned. Then turned towards his friends, "Herm, Ron, remember, I've taken you to the chamber where we'd put Voldemort's body?"

"Yeah, mate. It disappeared!" Ron exclaimed loudly, making elder Malfoys startle. Draco's face lost all color at hearing that.

"Wh-what?!" he let out an undignified squeak, coughed, then continued in more normal, though clearly still frightened tone, "What do you mean, 'disappeared'?! How's that possible?!"

"Indeed, Mr. Potter, please, elaborate," Lucius pleaded in a more subdued, than his son's, tone, although he, too, was obviously shocked. Only Narcissa out of them three appeared more calm, aside from slight nervous twitch of her left eye.

"Harry?" Hermione prompted him tentatively, seeing as he still didn't say a word, after dropping the proverbial bomb.

Harry took a deep breath as if before a dive, than started talking:

"Firstly Malfoys here need to know about those things, guys. Which we hunted down all these months."

"What?!" Ron barked. "Are you mad?! Are you suggesting we lay all to their feet after all this secrecy?!"

"Ron, please," Harry pleaded. "That's important that they know. Not everything, obviously, but the main part." He turned to Lucius and Narcissa. "Have you ever heard of the Horcruxes?"

Lucius raised an inquiring brow, while Narcissa just shook her head in negative.

"Allow me, Harry," Hermione suggested, continuing after his nod, "I won't go into tiny details but the short version goes like this: there is very old and very dark magic, which somehow allows the caster to split their soul in order to reach immortality. Well, almost. The Horcruxes – the soul pieces – are put into something for safekeeping, and if the owner of that soul is, for example, killed, these things allow them to be resurrected with the help of those Horcruxes. Something like that. The Dark Lord had got his soul splintered into many tiny shreds, that's why he's become the monster we know him to be." She shook her head disapprovingly and looked back at Harry.

"Do you understand this, Mr. Malfoy? Mrs. Malfoy?" Harry looked at each of them in turn and waited for confirmation nods. Then turned to Draco. "And you?" Young Malfoy also nodded, though he still looked puzzled.

"But, harry, what the Horcruxes have to do with anything? I thought they were all destroyed," Hermione asked.

"Kind of," Harry winced, than retrieved his wand and swished it above the clothing bundle on his lap in a familiar gesture to lift the Silencio charm off of it. Immediately the room filled with sounds of baby crying and wailing.