Several weeks after her strategic departure, Ariana returned to Hogwarts.
She walked into the Great Hall during dinner. A hush fell over the students as they saw her. She was dressed in simple, elegant, dark robes, and she moved with a serene purpose that made every eye in the hall follow her. She did not go to the Gryffindor table. She walked directly to the staff table at the head of the hall.
She stopped behind Professor Dumbledore's golden chair, ignoring the stunned looks from the other professors. She leaned down slightly.
"Professor," she said, her voice a low, clear murmur that only he could hear. "The timetable has been accelerated. We need to talk. My research is complete."
Then, she straightened up, looked out at the silent, watching student body, and with a soft but definitive snap of her fingers, cast a powerful, localized silencing charm around herself and the Headmaster, cocooning them in a bubble of perfect privacy.
Dumbledore looked up at her, his blue eyes sharp and serious. He had been expecting her return, but this display of public, confident power was new. "What have you discovered, Ariana?"
"A method," she said simply. "To end this. All of it. Now."
After a brief, intense conversation that no one else could hear, Dumbledore's eyes widened in a mixture of shock and dawning, incredible hope. He stood up, the silencing charm dissolving.
"Mr. Potter," his voice boomed across the silent hall, "Miss Dumbledore and I require your presence in my office. Immediately."
Harry, startled and nervous, got up from his seat, leaving a bewildered Ron and Hermione behind. He followed Ariana and Dumbledore out of the Great Hall, the weight of a thousand pairs of eyes on his back.
Once they were in the familiar, circular office, the door sealed behind them, Ariana got straight to the point.
"My apologies for the recent disruption, Harry," she began. "My withdrawal was a necessary tactical maneuver to allow certain interpersonal conflicts to resolve themselves. But it also afforded me the time to solve the final variable."
She looked at him, her periwinkle eyes clear and resolved. "It is time to deal with the Horcrux in your scar."
Harry's hand flew to his forehead. "Now? But… how? You said it was dangerous, that it was bonded to me…"
"My work on the Maledictus curse and the Lycanthropy virus, combined with my analysis of the other contained Horcruxes, as well as the fact that I have already healed Nagini whose situation mirrored yours, has provided a new, modified methodology." she explained. "I can remove it. The procedure will be… taxing, but I am confident of its success."
Dumbledore, who had been listening, stepped forward. "Ariana, are you certain? The risks…"
"The risks of inaction are far greater, Professor," she countered calmly. "As long as that connection exists, Harry is vulnerable. Voldemort has a window into his mind. And as long as that soul fragment exists, Voldemort remains tethered to life. It is the final anchor. We must remove it."
She turned back to Harry. "This is my plan. We remove the Horcrux from you tonight. With that done, all of his anchors to this world will be gone. We will then have the final contained soul fragments. Professor Dumbledore will destroy them, rendering Voldemort truly mortal."
Her voice dropped, becoming as cold and hard as diamond. "And then, we will no longer wait for him to act. We will force the final confrontation. We will publicly challenge him to a final duel. A duel he will be too arrogant to refuse. We will end this war, not in months or years, but in a matter of days."
The sheer, breathtaking audacity of the plan left both Harry and Dumbledore momentarily speechless. She was not just proposing a cure; she was proposing an immediate, decisive checkmate.
"The procedure is simple, Harry," she said, her voice softening as she saw the fear and hope warring on his face. "It will be a more refined version of what I did for Nagini. A state of deep magical anesthesia. A precise, contained application of soul-magic siphoning. You will feel no pain. You will simply sleep, and when you wake up, it will be gone."
Harry looked from Ariana's confident face to Dumbledore's stunned but hopeful one. To be free of the visions, of the burning pain, of the dark presence that had haunted him his entire life… it was a gift he had never dared to dream of.
"Do it," he said, his voice firm. "Let's finish it."
The procedure was conducted right there, in the Headmaster's office, the safest and most magically secure place in the world. Harry lay on a conjured couch. Dumbledore and Snape, who had been summoned for his medical expertise with dark curses, stood as silent, powerful guardians.
Ariana knelt beside Harry. She administered the anesthetic potion, her touch gentle. As Harry drifted into a deep, peaceful sleep, she placed her hands on his forehead, her fingers hovering over the lightning-bolt scar.
She closed her eyes and reached out with her will. She did not fight the Horcrux. She did not try to overpower it. She simply, gently, presented it with an offer it could not refuse. She created a perfect, irresistible vacuum next to it—the empty, waiting obsidian sphere she held in her other hand. A new, clean, and unguarded vessel.
The fragment of Tom Riddle's soul, a being of pure, parasitic ego, felt the pull. It sensed a chance to escape the protection of Lily's love, to be free of the messy, emotional human it was bonded to. It made a decision.
Ariana felt the shift, the dark energy detaching itself from Harry's core. With a final, focused pull, she siphoned the last vestiges of the soul-fragment out of the scar and into the sphere. Then, with a whispered Claustrum Aeternum, she sealed it away forever.
A wave of profound exhaustion hit her, but it was less severe than before. The ambient magic of Hogwarts, the most powerful magical nexus in Britain, seemed to flow into her, a willing transfusion of energy, replenishing what she had spent.
Harry stirred, his brow, for the first time in his life, completely free of its dark, twisting pain. He opened his eyes and looked at Ariana. He felt… clean. He felt whole. He felt, for the first time, completely and utterly like himself.
Ariana stood up, holding the seventh and final obsidian sphere. She looked at Dumbledore, her expression one of quiet, absolute triumph.
"All seven Horcruxes are now accounted for," she declared. "Voldemort will soon be mortal."
She walked to the window and looked out at the dark, sleeping grounds of Hogwarts. "Now," she said, her voice ringing with the quiet, final authority of a queen moving her last piece into place.
"Let's end this war."