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"Head-professor Dumbly called?"
"Could you please go and retrieve young Harry's trunk in his dorms and bring it here, please? A dangerous artefact may be stored in it. Take every precaution and do not touch it under any circumstance."
Wait, in his dorm room? The empty one where no one had slept in for weeks now?
"Errrh... Sir? I don't think that's really necessary."
Dumbledore brought his attention back to him for an instant, before turning his eyes to his decayed hand.
"I made the mistake of underestimating these artefacts once, Harry, and I paid dearly for it. I do not want to risk another incident."
"I mean... Now that I think about it, I didn't want to risk another headache so I hid it somewhere in the castle. I can go get it right now."
The scrutinising gaze of Dumbledore pierced him for a tense moment, as if the headmaster sought to somehow see the truth in his words through him.
"Please... Trust me."
With a heavy sigh, Dumbledore sat back in his chair.
"Alright. But promise me that you will be careful."
Harry did not waste any time and left to retrieve the locket from its hiding place, which happened to still be at the bottom of his trunk, presently stored in a corner of his room on Requirement. When he returned to the office, it was with a small chest made out of solid silver that he held at arm's length. The elf was gone and Dumbledore was standing next to his desk.
"Quite an impressive box you found. Another forgotten heirloom you found in Grimmauld I presume?"
"Er... Yes, sir."
It wasn't technically a lie. He had first seen it there, though it had been made on the ship and sent to him via owl.
After setting the box down on the headmaster's desk delicately, Harry took a step back and turned, only to be met with the sight of Dumbledore offering him the sword of Gryffindor.
"If you would do me the honour of disposing of it. I am afraid my strength is not quite what it used to be."
Awkwardly taking the sword by its ruby-encrusted hilt, Harry hesitated an instant. Sure, the locket was definitely a dark artefact, one passed down by Voldemort's family, but stabbing it with a sword seemed a bit overkill. Dumbledore, however, did not seem perturbed in the least. He watched Harry with a serious look, all traces of the joyful headmaster searching for the castle's mysterious chamber pot room gone.
Harry opened the box and was instantly taken by a severe headache. Whispers of words he could not make out filled his ears and his scar throbbed in pain. Gritting his teeth, he took the sword with two hands and raised it above the box before thrusting the blade downward.
The instant the tip of the blade made contact with the locket, the whispers became incoherent screams of fear, rage and agony, and thick black smoke spread from the box as a black liquid boiled from the locket's wound.
The moment seemed to last an eternity until Harry felt a hand rest on his shoulder. The sights and sounds blurring his senses calmed down, the pain and his strength fading away as Dumbledore guided him to a chair. He sat down heavily and lost his grip on the sword, which fell to the floor with a metallic clatter. Dumbledore carefully picked it up and stored it away in a display case on the wall before he sat down at his desk
They stayed like this for a moment, Dumbledore giving him the time to settle down before he spoke once more.
"I need your word Harry, that you will not speak of what I am to tell you to anyone, for as long as you live. The task ahead of us is perilous and you will be tempted to share it with your friends. Its secrecy is vital however if we are to ever win this fight against Voldemort and any who would rise to replace him."
Forget the step back, it seemed like tonight was a sprint to the finish line.
"Of course, professor."
What followed was a long retelling of Dumbledore's quest of these last few years. He had always suspected Voldemort somehow managed to escape death that fateful night, but his suspicions as to how began when Harry brought him the remains of the diary. This was a magic so dark and obscure that few dared speak of it, and fewer still to record traces of its existence. The very purpose of the magic made its secret both its best defence and the greatest insurance against its use. One could not create or destroy what they did not know existed. Dumbledore did however manage to gather enough information to make an educated guess as to the nature of these artefacts, before finding century-old texts describing them.Horcruxes. Phylacteries. Soul jars. They had borne many names since ancient times but those abominations could be found spread out throughout history if one knew what to look for.
He was unsure of how many Voldemort made but he had a lead to obtaining this information. He searched for any artefacts linked to the founders and Voldemort's own past that he could have used to host fragments of his soul. He'd even considered Hogwarts to be the hiding place of one such object but he did not find anything after searching the castle from top to bottom. It was only this summer that his search bore fruits when he found the ring and lost his arm to its protection. The last things he revealed were the very rare and dangerous ways of destroying a Horcrux and the importance of the sword in their endeavour.
The moon shone high in the sky and the candle in the office melted the last of its wax when he finished.
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