Mother nodded. "I took Father home after they spoke to him once, and stayed with him the entire time. They did get Draco into an interrogation room, but he told his story once and then didn't speak again. He's at home now, too."
"I'm sorry. I should have kept silent, too."
"Why should you? You should be able to trust Aurors."
Harry didn't know what made him ask it. "Is it true what she said? That Father murdered her aunt and uncle?"
"I do not know," Mother said, her voice so low that it felt like it was thrumming in Harry's bones. "I suggest that we go home, and you can ask Father yourself when you're both feeling better."
Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then nodded. He followed along with Mother as they made their way to the Floo, Mother's hand an iron anchor on his shoulder.
He knew his father had been an active Death Eater. He knew that he had committed murders. Harry would ask him about that, and he would bear the answer, whatever it was.
But he also knew that his father was no longer an active Death Eater, and had fought someone who was today to save both Harry and his brother. Harry was going to think about that during the Christmas holidays, and then write to Father about it when he was back at Hogwarts.
He wanted to enjoy Christmas, despite the traumatic beginning to it.
Andromeda hesitated a little in the sitting room where Henry had gone to read some of his new books after they had opened gifts. Narcissa was sitting in the chair next to Henry. She lifted her head when she saw Andromeda in the doorway, and tilted her chin down.
Andromeda knew what that meant. You're the one who thought of this. You're the one who has to tell him.
Andromeda took a deep breath and walked into the sitting room. Henry immediately lifted his head and tracked her. For all that he and Draco were superficially identical, Andromeda had never found it hard to tell them apart since she'd been invited into their lives. Henry was so much warier, as though expecting to be hit at every moment.
The mere thought made Andromeda's stomach clench. To think of her own Nymphadora growing up like that…
Instead, it had been her own nephew.
"Yes, Aunt Andromeda?" Henry asked politely, putting his book down and focusing on her.
"I think I've figured out a way to remove the Horcrux from you."
Henry jolted, his mouth opening a little. Then he cast a glance at his mother and narrowed his eyes.
"We chose not to tell you with the trauma of the Auror attack and then the excitement of Christmas," Narcissa said. "Besides, we knew that the announcement should come from the person who discovered it."
"How did you do that, Aunt Andromeda?"
And she was the focus of those grey eyes again. Andromeda sat down in a chair near the fireplace and shook her head a little. "The most ordinary way. I was walking down Diagon Alley and peering into the windows, looking for a gift for Ted. I saw a small collection of toys, various pieces of a puzzle that could be assembled into a horse that would move."
Henry blinked.
"It came to me in a flash that it would be dangerous to try and remove the Horcrux from you because it is so rooted in your soul, and no one knows the exact consequences of placing a Horcrux in a living being in the first place. But it could perhaps be broken apart and removed, a bit at a time."
"How—is that actually going to be less dangerous than just sucking it out of me?"
"I don't know how to suck a soul shard out of anybody," Andromeda admitted. "Except if we used a Dementor, and that option is not one that I am willing to use."
Henry shivered. Andromeda could feel Narcissa's glacial stare from the side, the kind that said, If my child has nightmares, I am blaming you.
"Of course not," Henry whispered. "No."
"But I know how to remove small pieces of something from someone's mind and soul and magic," Andromeda said. "There are curses that crack them as others crack bones. I've practiced taking out the shards of magic over and over again, in my time as a Healer."
Harry licked his lips. "I—it sounds great, Aunt Andromeda, but if it's that simple, why didn't one of the Healers at St. Mungo's think of it? They've been working on it for months now. Maybe even over a year?"
Andromeda canted her head and smiled grimly. "I don't believe it occurred to them to crack it into shards. Or if it did, they might have been afraid that the pieces would scatter and root themselves further."
Henry turned grey. Narcissa leaned in to smooth her hand over his shoulder, and gave Andromeda a harsh look.
Andromeda stared back at her sister. She would never suggest something like this if she had thought it wouldn't work. What did Narcissa think of her?
For long years, nothing at all.
Andromeda clenched her hands. She would not go back to that. She would get the Horcrux out of Henry and prove that she could do something. And she thought she knew where to start.
"Would you consent to me casting a spell on you and seeing what the Horcrux shard looks like, Henry?"
"I thought—well, why didn't anyone cast that spell before?"
"They were afraid to hurt you," Andromeda said bluntly. "It's painful. But I need an idea of the size and shape of the shard, so that I know how to target it."
Henry nodded without even glancing at his mother, although Narcissa opened her mouth as if she would protest it. "I want to do it, Mum," he added, still without looking away from Andromeda. "The visions I get because of it are a lot more painful."
It was too bad that Henry wasn't looking at Narcissa, and didn't see the softened expression that passed over her face at the word "Mum." But Andromeda used that moment to draw her wand. "Animam revelio," she whispered, gesturing at Henry.
His head arched backwards and he bit down on his lip, but he didn't scream. Andromeda blinked away tears. That said a lot about his pain tolerance, none of it good.
His body glowed as if lit from within. Then a dark light traced up to the scar. Andromeda leaned forwards, concentrating. She had a Pensieve she would place the memory within later, but she needed to be alive, aware in this moment, seeing all of it, all the details, so as to have the best possible insight into how to get rid of it.
The black light glowed. It surrounded Henry's scar and shimmered like that. Andromeda nodded. She wasn't entirely surprised that it was the same shape as the scar, considering—
Then the light whirled and spread.
Andromeda stared at a jagged, glinting thing, spread throughout Henry's body, from his head to his feet, covering almost the whole of his own soul like a slimy film.
She ended the spell and passed a hand over her face. She had thought, when they'd discussed the shard being an accidental Horcrux, that it was small. Why?
It wasn't. It was—huge.
"Aunt Andromeda?"
She looked up, met Henry's eyes, and decided that telling the truth was the best thing she could do for him in this instance. "It's spread all throughout your body," she said. "Like a cancer. We have to begin cracking it and getting it out of you as soon as possible. I don't know what will happen if we don't."
Narcissa gasped. Henry stared down at his lap, looking overwhelmed, and Andromeda wondered if she shouldn't have told the truth after all.
At last Henry looked up, his lips thin. "Then let's start."
....
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