Chapter 22
Having decided not to wait for the moment when Wood might once again get it into his head to drag Regulus to training, we quickly put ourselves in order with a couple of spells and, together with Hermione, dashed out of the room towards the Great Hall for breakfast, all the while listening to her lament that a girl—in this case, Andromeda—shouldn't be spending the night in the boys' dormitory. We didn't argue with her, even though we still held our own opinion and would still rather sleep together, as we had done for most of our lives. As for what others might think about it? That didn't really bother us.
The Great Hall was surprisingly empty at breakfast, making it clear that it wasn't only Gryffindors who took advantage of the fact that everyone ended up celebrating the holiday in their common rooms. The way Professor McGonagall looked at all this with disapproval was another matter entirely. If it weren't for Dumbledore's leniency, every house would probably have lost points this morning.
"Shall we go to that place after breakfast?" Hermione, sitting next to us, asked, clearly hinting at the Room of Requirement.
"Yes, I think we can. Anyway, we have classes only from the second period today, and Harry will be at training. Ron will probably go with him—to support him," we replied.
"Alright," the girl nodded before starting to eat her eggs and bacon more quickly. It seemed she really missed the times when it was just the three of us, and our training in the secret room added a certain flair of mystery that made things much more interesting. And, perhaps, there's something else: Harry and Ron can be rather noisy, while Hermione and I sometimes preferred cozy silence; we could easily spend hours in comfortable chairs simply lost in a book, whereas the boys always wanted to do something.
Now, again, as we entered the Room of Requirement, we took our books and sat down on a small sofa, leaning against each other. We took books on rituals, which we so desperately needed if we ever wanted to become Metamorphmagi.
But it seemed that someone else had slightly different plans.
"So, can you finally explain why Harry can't come here? I understand about Ron: I'm not sure he can keep a secret, but Harry isn't like that," Hermione asked, sitting down in the armchair across from us.
Indeed, we had previously promised to tell her about it but kept postponing the conversation. So, with a heavy sigh, we set aside our books and looked at her.
"Are you really that interested?"
"Yes," she immediately nodded, full of curiosity.
"Alright. For starters, tell us what you know about the night Lord Voldemort fell."
"That he used an Unforgivable Curse, and it bounced off Harry's forehead back at him, causing his death," she recited the most popular version of events.
"Okay, now let us tell you the version we know." Nodding at her words, we offered. To be honest, it was really nice that with Hermione we didn't have to hold ourselves back and could speak simultaneously with ease.
Hermione, holding her breath, was ready to listen. After all, this was another mystery, something almost no one else knew. How cool!
"It all started that Halloween night, as night was falling. Voldemort came to the Potter house. As if mocking them, he knocked on the door, just like a guest would," as we began telling the story, vivid images of that day seemed to flash before our eyes. "A minute later, the door was opened by the ever-friendly Potter, thinking a friend had come for the celebration. But upon seeing who it really was, the smile vanished from his face, replaced by terror. In his final moments, he could only regret not always carrying his wand with him. He had just enough time to shout for his wife to take the child and run. The next moment, a green flash struck the man, and a cold, lifeless body fell at the threshold.
"The Dark Lord was pleased: his victims had nowhere to run, and he saw two wands on the dresser, one clearly belonging to Lily Potter. What could a Muggle-born witch do without her wand? Nothing at all. Even if it had been Dumbledore, wandless, he wouldn't have been a match for Voldemort. Enjoying the air thick with terror, he made his way upstairs to the room where his prophesied enemy sat in his crib. He merely scoffed when Lily Potter locked the door, as if that could change anything. With one spell, he blasted the door into pieces, bringing half the ceiling down along with it. He wanted to demonstrate the vast gulf between himself and the one fate named as his enemy. The emotions of the witch, who shielded her child from falling debris with her own body, reached an absolute peak. Even when the Dark Lord, prompted by his servant's request, wanted to spare Lily Potter's life, she desperately shielded the child, begging him to kill her but leave the child alone.
"And then Voldemort made his biggest mistake: Lily Potter's emotions, pushed to the extreme, were about to explode in a magical surge; thanks to her willpower and knowledge, she managed to channel it, creating an enforced magical pact at the cost of her life. When the Dark Lord killed her, he unwittingly accepted this pact. When he tried to kill Harry, he violated the pact, triggering a backlash that annihilated his body. And a piece of his soul, broken off by such powerful magic, became trapped in the boy's forehead as a scar."
We fell silent at this point. The first thing that came to mind was: "What the hell just happened to us again?" It felt so strange—there weren't any such details in the movies or books. And these images—this felt far too odd and was something we'd definitely need to discuss with the Headmaster, serving as a great test of how much he could be trusted and as a good cover for our knowledge about Horcruxes.
"So you don't want to tell Harry about the Room of Requirement because he has a piece of Voldemort's soul in his forehead?" Hermione's voice pulled us out of our thoughts.
"Essentially, yes," we confirmed.
"Does it really matter? He's dead, after all."
"Not exactly," to be honest, we didn't exactly want to go into detail about Horcruxes to Hermione, at least not yet.
"I've already taken an oath, so there's no point hiding things—out with it."
"Alright," we said with a heavy sigh before looking at her seriously. "But first, you have to promise you won't make the same kind of mistake as Voldemort."
"Fine, I promise," the girl easily agreed, her eyes burning with curiosity as she pressed on: "So, what did he do?"
"He tore off several pieces of his soul and tied them to different objects. So, instead of his soul moving on after his body died, he remained in the world as a special kind of ghost, one who can come back to life using those objects—so-called Horcruxes."
"So Voldemort can possess Harry's body?!" the girl nearly jumped up from her seat as she reached her own terrifying conclusion.
"In fact, no," we shook our head. "Because of his mother's magic, even simple contact with Harry would be fatal for him. But there's still a connection, and they could potentially see each other's thoughts and memories."
"I see," Hermione sat back down, then after thinking for a while asked, "Doesn't that mean Harry himself is a Horcrux?"
"Unfortunately, you've hit the nail on the head," we reluctantly admitted. On the one hand, she's really a bit too young to know, but on the other, after the oath, it would be wrong to keep it from her.
"If you can make living things into Horcruxes, then what if someone used a phoenix—would that make a wizard immortal?" she suddenly put forward an astounding theory.
"We… aren't sure… In any case, it just isn't worth it. If you just want a long life, it's better to become a Metamorphmagus and, combining that with biology and genetic knowledge, simply not age, instead of damaging something as vital as your soul. And besides, look at Voldemort—he looks like a monster because of it, even though he was once handsome," her theory initially startled us, but so she wouldn't stray too far off, we offered her the alternative we planned to follow ourselves.
"What are Metamorphmagi?" she asked.
"They're wizards who can change their bodies however they wish."
"So, they could, for example, grow their hair out or shorten their teeth?" The latter was clearly a sore spot for her.
"Yes, it's all possible."
"Then, how do you become a Metamorphmagus?"
And this very question marked the beginning of something for which most of our ancestors would probably have cursed us—because we shared the hard-earned fruits of generations of Black family knowledge with a Muggle-born.