August 3rd. Spellhaven, Potter Château basement.
Rabastan Lestrange abruptly jerked awake and tried to get up, only to find himself restrained.
He quickly recalled his last memories. Having some fun with one of the muggle prisoners, then Aurors knocking down the door. A flash of pain as his right arm was blasted off. Furious orange eyes glaring out of the deep shadows of a hood. The Castration Hex.....
The pain of his wounds suddenly registered. The seared nerves of his severed arm and genitalia made him scream in horror and thrash in his bindings, as if seeing them would make it not true.
The struggling exhausted him quickly, his body still wasted and ruined from the long stay in Azkaban.
"Are you done?" A man asked blandly as he stepped out of the darkness .
"Potter." Rabastan said hatefully, recognising him from the picture he'd seen in the Daily Prophet. "I'm going to kill you for this. What happened to the Longbottoms will seem like paradise compared to what I'll do to you and your whores."
Potter looked neither insulted nor threatened, merely amused.
"Well then, I suppose I best finish up with you before you can manage some kind of miracle escape and carry out your threats without a wand, arm or cock." He mocked.
Rabastan wasn't sure how to reply to that and merely glared fiercely into Potter's bright green eyes. Then he realised that he couldn't look away and that he was being attacked with Legilimency.
As a scion of the Lestrange family, Rabastan had been taught Occlumency from a young age and had been reasonably proficient in the discipline. Had been, before over a decade and a half of keeping company with dementors had left his mind a mess. He hadn't had nearly enough time to put himself back together and regain the equanimity required to properly defend his mind.
Even so, Rabastan quickly began to doubt that it would have done him much good. Potter's mental assault was incredibly powerful, piercing through his feeble defenses like a diamond-hard spear. His vision swam as memories rushed past his thoughts against his will, memories of his interactions with the Dark Lord.
Rabastan began sweating heavily as his mind was violated. Accepting that it was no use trying to shut Potter out, he instead attemped to deflect his attention by throwing inconsequential memories in his way, but it was no good. The mental assault was too focused and sharp to be diverted and the violation continued.
In a last ditch attempt, Rabastan tried to counter-attack. He had never learned Legilimency, but with the connection already open, it was easy enough to do. Even a complete novice could manage.
He threw everything he had into his attack, expecting to find powerful defenses. To his shock, he fell into Potter's mind practically without resistance, like a man throwing his full weight at what he thought was a sturdy oak door only to find that it was as thin as paper.
His sense of reality twisted and faded as he was assaulted by memories not his own.
Horcruxes. The diary. Slytherin's Locket. Harry himself. Destroyed. The Dark Lord inching back towards mortality with every step.
Rabastan was shocked and awed at what the Dark Lord had done. The great wizard he followed was even greater than he'd thought, but Potter was working to undo it.
Instantly, his mind turned to what other possible objects the Dark Lord may have hidden his soul in. Bella, Bella would definitely have been entrusted with guarding one. She was his favorite.
With a jolt, Rabastan realised that Potter had turned his counter-attack back on itself and was now dredging up his every interaction with Bellatrix in excruciating detail for any hint as to where she might have hidden it.
This time there was no hope of putting up even a feeble defense, not in a mind not his own. Potter was not letting him go, instead using his own mind as a prison and prisoners were at the mercy of the warden. It was the opposite of a possession, which was an ability available to highly skilled legilimancers such as the Dark Lord, and Rabastan did not have the required skill in the Mind Arts to free himself.
Rabastan had had the Dark Lord use Legilimency on him twice before and it had been unpleasant, but it was nothing compared to what he felt now. While his mind was being raped for all of its secrets, his sense of self was being assault by the nature of his prison.
It was worse than the dementors. For all their horror, they were still an outside threat. Rabastan was now trapped in the Void without the luxury of having a body to provide a buffer, leaving his mind exposed to it completely. It was terrible and black and filled with a darkness that had never known light, laden with a silence that swallowed all sound. Its greedy chill leeched away every flicker of emotion and the weight of its emptiness threatened to grind his spirit to ash.
Rabastan struggled and railed against it with everything he was, threw every shred of hatred at his captor, but it was as if he was submerged up to his head in quicksand. The more he fought, the deeper he sank.
The Dark Lord. He thought desperately, clinging to what had become his greatest pillar of strength during his long imprisonment in Azkaban. The Dark Lord is eternal and invincible. Even if I fall, he will prevail and rule the world forever.
Rabastan was truly loyal to his chosen master, loyal enough to go to prison rather than denounce him. Loyal enough that he would gladly die in his service. It had always been a source of strength to him.
But even that did not sustain him now. Harry Potter did not see Voldemort's steps to make himself immortal as a great deed, but as the actions of a coward afraid to die. The Dark Lord's ambitions of world domination were dismissed as stupid and pointless. In this realm of thought where Harry Potter was the nearest thing to a god, that had more weight than gravity did in the real world. Even Rabastan's fanaticism withered in those conditions and he was left with nothing.
XXXXX
Harry frowned thoughtfully to himself, ignoring Lestrange's sobbing. That reverse possession trick tended to have that effect on people. Few had the mental fortitude to endure the nihilistic hell he'd created inside his mind with his knowledge of the Void. Pity that it only worked on those with mediocre skill in the Mind Arts.
Another dead end in the horcrux search, apart from yet another finger pointing at Bellatrix. Perhaps Rodolphus might have known something, seeing as he used to be married to the crazy bitch before Harry had annulled it. More than likely he would have to get his hands on Bellatrix herself though.
Ah well, a problem for another day. For now, he had to study the active Dark Mark in order to develop a way to block Voldemort from tracking its location. Keeping his marked prisoners locked up in trunks here in the chateâu wasn't very practical and he wanted to move them to Ravenhead as soon as possible. Maybe he could even find a way to trace the connection back to Voldemort or the other Death Eaters.
XXXXX
August 3rd. Somewhere in Russia.
Even a full day after the disaster at Malfoy Manor, Voldemort was still enraged. He'd lost twenty-five of his forty-six servants in one fell swoop, three of which he had only just gotten out of Azkaban. The seven remaining ones had pushed themselves nearly to the point of death in order to escape and would be of no use for at least a week, nevermind how much longer their recovery from Azkaban would take. That left him with fourteen able-bodied wizards that were in a state of mild shock due to the immediate and brutal consequences they'd suffered for attacking Azkaban.
Perhaps even worse, he had been forced to flee Britain entirely and then Albania as well just to be on the safe side. It was intolerable. People fled from Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters, not the other way around!
While pride was a significant reason for Voldemort's rage, there was also a practical component to it. His followers would begin to have doubts about following him if he couldn't show that he was more powerful than Harry Potter.
Buried beneath the rage was the fear that Potter might actually be stronger than him. If not now, then in the future. Though their battle had been brief, Voldemort had clearly seen that his young nemesis possessed far greater skill with wandless magic than he did. While that alone would not decide the victor of a battle between them, it implied a troubling depth of potential. Still, as long as he was immortal Potter was no real threat.
But he had no time to think about that now. Before anything else, he needed to make sure that there wasn't another Malfoy Manor. The problem was that Voldemort didn't know how they had been found.
Lacking that information, he had no choice but to put up a paranoid number of safeguards. First was casting every concealment, obscuration and alarm spell that he knew on the large, remote house that they had taken over after murdering its muggle occupants. Then the emergency escape routes in the form of portkeys. Lastly came thoughts of perhaps splitting his forces up so that they couldn't all be ambushed at once again.
He was just pondering who could be trusted to lead the individual groups of Death Eaters that he felt someone poking around the magic of the Dark Mark and his eyes widened in outrage. It was coming from Rabastan, which meant Potter again.
XXXXX
Spellhaven.
Harry scowled as the Dark Mark on Lestrange's arm suddenly flared with magic and sealed itself, causing the man to scream in pain.
Then he shrugged philosophically. The chances of Voldemort not sensing someone fiddling around a spell linked to him had always been extremely low. At least he had managed to isolate its unique signature and could now create spells that targeted the Dark Mark specifically. With this knowledge, he could create an obscuration ward that would prevent Voldemort from divining the location of his marked followers if they were under it and a detection spell that would reveal the presence of the Dark Mark.
Hopefully it would allow him to track down more Death Eaters, but the obscuration ward would have to be first so that he could start moving the prisoners to Ravenhead.
XXXXX
August 7th. British Ministry of Magic, Amelia Bones' office.
"Nothing." Harry said with a scowl. "Either Voldemort has hidden himself much better this time, or they've left Albania entirely and gone into hiding somewhere much further away."
"I suppose it was too much to hope for that we've be able to hound him ceaselessly no matter where he went." Amelia sighed, unhappy but not surprised.
XXXXX
August 9th, 2017. Hogwarts Headmaster's office.
"Every so often, a man encounters something so monumentally stupid that he can do nothing but stare in awe." Harry said, staring at Dumbledore's blackened hand. "In case you haven't figured it out yet, putting on a heavily cursed ring is one such thing."
Albus felt that he probably deserved that. He'd gone to the old Gaunt shack as part of his investigation into locations of significance to Voldemort and discovered the place to be protected rather more heavily than old Morfin Gaunt's abilities allowed. Seeing as it was well within his ability to undo those protections he had done so, even if having a parseltongue such as Harry along would have made it much easier.
He had reasoned to himself that just because Voldemort had apparently come back and warded the place was no guarantee that a horcurx was present, so he had decided to investigate on his own until he could confirm it. Then he had recognised the Resurrection Stone set into the ring and lost all sense in his temptation. Foolish. Even with the powerful compulsion charm on the ring, he should have known better.
"Yes, Severus has already made that eminently clear." Albus sighed.
"And over a useless trinket like the Resurrection Stone on top of it. Honestly, Dumbledore, how did you ever convince anyone that you were wise? Did they just see your ridiculous beard and assume?" Harry continued.
"Perhaps." Albus replied with a touch of humor as he reflected on the words.
While he could say without hubris that he did have some wisdom to him, Albus was well aware that it was a wisdom born from the many mistakes of his life. And what mistakes they were.....
Hearing Harry call the Resurrection Stone, an artifact that Albus had coveted for over a century, a useless trinket....well, it made him wonder how this boy of seventeen could have more sense than him. The worst part was that now that he finally had the Deathly Hallow in his possession, he found himself lacking the courage to actually summon Ariana, fearing to learn that it had indeed been his spell that had taken her life. Useless trinket indeed.
"How are you still alive anyway? I know that the Withering Curse doesn't work that slow."
"My own skill combined with Severus' mastery of the Dark Arts and Potions was sufficient to contain it. Although he tells me that a year is the best I can hope for before the curse kills me." Albus answered, not even surprised that Harry would be familiar with the curse.
"A potion, huh?" Harry mused. "Something to fortify the body against foreign magic?"
"Just so."
"Hmm." Harry peered at the affected hand. "You know, I think I might be able to give you a bit more than a year."
Albus blinked in surprise. "You believe you can contain the curse even further?"
"I'm thinking that I might be able to contain it completely."
"You are certainly welcome to try." Albus offered. He was in no particular hurry to die, especially not in the horrid manner that this curse would do it in.
"We'll need to have Pomfrey and Snape present though, best to just do this in the infirmary actually."
"Let us make our way to Poppy's domain then."
XXXXX
Both Poppy Pomfrey and Severus Snape were semi-permanent residents of Hogwarts, so summoning them to the school was achieved without issue.
The issues cropped up when the specifics of how Harry planned to help Dumbledore came up.
"Could the house elf named Blinky please pop in? Excellent. Now, Blinky, I need you to find me an axe or even better, a guillotine, with a very sharp blade at least thirty centimeters long. I'm sure there's one lying around the castle somewhere."
"Potter, I am not letting you perform an amateur amputation of the Headmaster's hand in my infirmary!" Poppy raged.
"Nobody asked you. Just do your job once the blood starts flying." Harry replied dismissively.
Poppy was stunned speechless by the audacity. To talk to her like that, in her infirmary....the nerve of the boy!
Sitting on one of the beds, Albus didn't bother hiding his amusement. "Harry, while I can appreciate a good amputation as much as the next man, I am afraid the curse has taken hold deeper than merely the flesh. Cutting off my hand will not save me, else I would have done it already."
Harry gave the much older wizard a look of contempt. "I know that, what kind of third-rate wizard do you take me for?"
"The Potter kind." Severus muttered. He was still feeling sour and resentful about what had happened the last time he'd seen Potter. Although he had to admit, albeit grudgingly, that getting stunned did indeed provide him with a good excuse when Voldemort demanded to know why he hadn't received any warning of the attack from his spy.
"What is it you intend to do then?" Albus asked curiously.
"Have you ever heard the tale of Horror the Ancient?" Harry asked, trying desperately not to smile or worse, cackle. Who would've thought that Dora's insistence that we watch 'The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy' would actually be good for something.
"I can't say that I have." Albus answered, now intrigued. He would have expected to hear of any wizard with such a distinctive name.
"Allow me to share it then. As the story goes, Horror was a man plagued by fears many and varied, yet his greatest wish was to be brave beyond brave. One day, he devised a plan that would allow him to achieve his dreams. He magically channeled all his fears into his left hand and then lopped it off, which eventually became an artifact of terrible power known as the Left Hand of Horror. Alas, in his haste to rid himself of all fear, Horror forgot that he was left-handed."
While Severus and Poppy stared at Harry with incredulity and no small measure of skepticism, Albus found the story both amusing and a valuable anecdote on the dangers of doing before thinking. More to the point, he understood what Harry was suggesting.
"You propose then to channel the curse completely into the flesh of my already ruined hand and then amputate it?"
"Pretty much."
"Severus, what do you think?"
"It could work, if Potter has the skill and power necessary to bind the curse to your hand." The words were drawn out of Snape as if they pained him.
Blinky chose that moment to pop back in to the infirmary.
"Blinky could not find a guillotine, Harry Potter sir." Blinky said apologetically, balancing a large axe in her small hands. "But there be lots of axes in the castle."
Harry relieved her of the burden and looked at the weapon with bemusement. "What the fuck is a Dane axe doing in Hogwarts? Did Vikings try to raid it or something? No matter, this is exactly what I needed. Thank you, Blinky."
"Be's you needing anything else, Harry Potter sir?" The house elf asked hopefully.
Harry thought it over while experimentally swinging the axe. "Yes, actually. A block of wood."
Poppy's outrage deflated slightly as the elf popped away again. She could see that the idiot men were determined to go through with this despite her protests. It wasn't like she was a healer or anything!
"Can't you at least use a spell to do the amputation if you are going to do this?" She groused.
"Nope, might destabilise the binding." Harry replied airily.
"Bah, fine. I'll get the potions ready then." She grumbled and left, continuing to mutter under her breath the entire way.
"I see that hag's bedside manner hasn't improved any." Harry commented once she was gone.
"Harry, that isn't very nice of you." Dumbledore chastised gently.
"I'm not a very nice man."
It took a few minutes for Blinky to show up with the requested block of wood and Pomfrey was already bustling around with her potions by then.
"Here you go, Albus. Something to numb the pain." She said, holding out a concoction.
"Hold up." Harry interrupted. "Is that going to slow his mind in any way?"
"A little." Poppy answered aprehensively, already anticipating what the clearly unstable teenager was going to say in response.
Harry didn't disappoint.
"Then he can't have it. I'll need his cooperation to do this properly and for that he needs to be focused."
"You can't expect him to have his hand chopped off without any anesthetic!" Poppy exploded.
"Well it's up to him in the end, but if the potion screws up our attempts to do this then expect me to say that I told you so in an extremely condescending manner." Harry shrugged uncaringly.
"It's alright, Poppy." Albus said soothingly and placed his withered hand on the block of wood. "A little pain is a small price to pay for my life."
Poppy made a sound like grinding rocks and threw her arms up in frustration.
"Albus, I cannot condone this." The healer tried one last time.
"I agree with Poppy, Albus." Severus said with a sneer directed at Harry. "We have no idea how much of Potter's confidence is just hot air and I'll note that he hasn't mentioned the risks involved."
"If we fail, it would shorten his time in this world by months at best, kill him instantly at worst." Harry provided.
Albus sighed tiredly as Poppy erupted into another protest. While those were significant risks, it wasn't as if he had much to lose either. He had already been making tentative plans to have Severus kill him and thus gain Voldemort's complete trust, so that wouldn't change if his life was shortened further.
"We will proceed." He said simply.
"Finally." Harry said with a roll of his eyes, taking out his little used wand. He didn't want to touch that curse without a buffer and potentially contracting it himself. "Now then....Dumbledore, I'll need you to pull your magic away from your hand while I channel it into the flesh. This will hurt, but you can't let your control slip or the curse will latch back on. Snape, you're on binding duty."
What followed was a half hour of tense silence as Harry and Dumbledore worked together to separate the stubborn curse from the old wizard's magic. Both of them were sweating under the mental focus required and Dumbledore was also gritting his teeth against the pain as his hand withered completely, but he didn't make a sound, something that won him some grudging respect from Harry.
Snape had the easiest job by far, but he too was glad when it was over. The curse had been cast by a wizard far more powerful than him and it showed in the effort it took him to contain it.
"Alright, now hold that hand and curse steady.....and don't flinch." Harry said, hefting the Dane axe after catching his breath.
Albus nodded silently. His hand now looked like something you'd find on a five thousand-year-old mummy and he could feel the vicious curse attempting to escape the binding that Severus had placed on it. Honestly, he would be glad to be rid of the hand at this point, as it was causing him quite a bit of pain.
Harry placed the blade of the axe a an inch upwards from the place of the binding, just to be on the safe side. He was silently hoping that he didn't miss, having never swung an axe before in his life.
Fortunately, he was a wizard of great skill and knew how to use his magic to alter probability on this kind of thing even without a structured spell. Guided by both hand and magic, the axe struck true and severed the cursed hand exactly where he wanted it to.
While Dumbledore cried out in pain, Pomfrey plied him with potions and Snape cast diagnostic spells to check if the old wizard was now free of the curse, Harry helped himself to one of the bedsheets and wrapped the severed hand in it.
"I'll be taking your hand as payment for serviced rendered, Dumbledore." Harry said airily. "This has been fun, we should do it again someday. Toodles"
And then he swaggered out of the room with his prize in hand, pun very much intended.
Albus, who was in the middle of being force fed a potion by the greatly agitated mistress of the infirmary, went wide-eyed as he realised something.
The Resurrection Stone was still in the ring, which was on his hand! The hand that Harry had just taken with him. He'd just gotten swindled out of one of the Hallows.
XXXXX
Harry was still chuckling to himself as he placed the Right Hand of Dumbledore on a shelf in Ravenhead. The Withering Curse was still in there and there was no telling when that kind of thing might come in handy, pun intended, so he wasn't going to throw it away.
But the real prize was the Resurrection Stone. Although he had boasted to Dumbledore that he could make a new set of Deathly Hallows, he had neglected to mention the time or potential sacrifice it would take him to actually do it.
The Elder Wand didn't really interest him. For all the stories about it being invincible, he knew what it truly was. Being an artifact of Dark, the wand would give quite a bit of extra zing to any offensive spells, especially ones that were cast with lethal intent. That was all and it was boring.
The Resurrection Stone though.....that could help him advance his studies of Necromancy considerably. Combined with his dabbling in fleshcrafting, he might even figure out how to perform a true resurrection or how to create a proper revenant rather than just mindless zombies....inferi....whatever you wanted to call them.
Unfortunately, Harry also had the sneaking suspicion that this might be something that his girls were likely to put the kibosh on. He didn't personally see what the problem with dragging the souls of his enemies back to the land of the living and putting them into enslaved bodies was, but it sounded like one of those 'crimes against basic human decency' that Dora sometimes talked about. Feh.
Ah well, there was no guarantee that he'd actually be able to do it anyway. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that one of his projects bore no fruit.
If nothing else, having the Resurrection Stone meant that he could now also interrogate the dead, although it would be best not to rely on it. He couldn't threaten the dead if they weren't feeling cooperative after all.
The thought of summoning his parents or Sirius just to talk to them never even crossed Harry's mind.
XXXXX
Luna's first thought when Harry showed them the Resurrection Stone was of her parents.
"Gimme!" She squeed, snatching it from his hand. "Now I can introduce you all to Mummy and Daddy without us dying first."
"And here I thought that I was done with the in-laws." Harry said, bemused.
"Oh, you're never done with the in-laws." Dora said, nodding sagely as if she was imparting some great wisdom.
Luna had completed the summoning by this point and was beaming as the forms of Xenophilius and Pandora Lovegood faded into reality.
Xeno looked much like he had back when he'd died, with long, pale blond hair and an absent smile.
Pandora's hair was darker, but still blonde. It was immediately clear that Luna got her petite build and slightly protuberant eyes from her mother.
"Luna, my little girl." Pandora said emotionally. "You're all grown up."
"Hello again, Turnip." Xeno said, smiling at his daughter as if seeing a dream.
"Mum, Dad." Luna said happily. "I'd like you to meet my boyfriend, Harry Potter and our girlfriend, Nymphadora Tonks and our other girlfriend, Fleur Delacour."
"Thank you for making Luna part of your orgies." Xeno said gratefully. "You have no idea how happy that makes me."
"Sure." Harry, Dora and Fleur chorused, exchanging bemused looks.
"Xeno means that he is happy that our daughter is part of such a loving relationship." Pandora clarified with an eyeroll.
"Ah." Harry, Dora and Fleur nodded in unison.
"Daddy, I broke my promise." Luna said soberly. "I had fun with Harry's penis before I turned sixteen. I'm sorry."
"What's this, Xeno?" Pandora asked in surprise. "Did you make our little girl promise to stay away from sex until she was sixteen?"
"Only penises." Xeno defended himself. "You know how teenage boys are, and she's so innocent. I couldn't bear to see her hurt, not after losing you."
"Be that as it may, it isn't your place to decide when or with who she has sex." Pandora scolded and then turned to her daughter. "It's alright, Luna. What you put in your vagina and when you do it is your own business."
"And my bum?" Luna asked just to make sure.
"All your orifices." Pandora nodded firmly.
"Thanks, Mum."
What is up with this conversation? The other three people in the room wondered.
"It was wonderful to see you again, Luna, but we have to go now." Pandora said regretfully. "Don't call us too often, the dead should stay dead."
"Wait!" Luna exclaimed. "Just one more thing. Are there any crumple-horned snorkacks in the afterlife?"
Xeno adopted a thoughtful look and then beamed at his daughter. "I can't remember, so there must be."
"Yes! I knew they were real!" Luna apparently took that as proof.
The deceased Lovegoods faded away after a final goodbye, leaving the behind a contemplative silence.
Harry pondered what had just happened. Those had definitely been the souls of Xeno and Pandora Lovegood, sans their magic, he had been able to 'hear' that, but he didn't buy any of this afterlife tripe. Not the classical definition of it at any rate. His knowledge of the Void contradicted it.
He was starting to develop a theory for the workings of the Resurrection Stone, but further testing was required. Now who to call....?
"Do you want to summon Sirius or your parents?" Dora asked softly.
"That wouldn't help me prove anything." He replied absently, still thinking. "What I need is a recently dead magical I didn't personally know, a recently dead mundane I didn't personally know and then another set of those that have been long dead. And also a recently dead mundane that I did personally know just to round things out."
The metamorphmagus grabbed his face and stared him in the eye. "Harry, I am asking you if you want to talk to your parents and godfather and maybe get some closure, not if you want to use them as test subjects for your experiments."
Harry blinked and then smiled at her. "That's sweet of you, Dora, but unnecessary. I've made peace with death a long time ago."
XXXXX
"Napoleon Bonaparte." Harry said, activating the Resurrection Stone.
As expected, the French conqueror failed to appear.
Harry put a cross next to 'long dead mundane unknown to user' in his notebook. So far, the only thing that the stone had been able to summon was Luna's parents, which were in the category of 'recently dead magicals personally known to user'.
While he had been unable to test for a recently dead mundane personally known to the user, Harry was fairly sure that it would work. The stone seemed to only be capable of summoning those that the user had personally known, which would make sense. The Stone was powerful, but the user still needed at least a faint familiarity with the soul they were summoning for it to work.
Well, that did kind of limit what he could do with it, but it was nothing to scoff at.
XXXXX
August 13th, 2017.
Harry steadied himself after being side-along apparated by Dumbledore and looked around. They were on a windswept cliff at the edge of the ocean.
"This is a dead end." Harry sighed.
"I assure you, Harry, that there is a horcurx hidden in a cave at the base of this cliff." Albus said.
"There was a horcrux here." Harry contended. "Slytherin's Locket to be precise. I've already destroyed it."
Albus was taken aback. "When?"
"Oh, years ago."
"What?"
"Yeah, Regulus Black betrayed Voldemort and his elf, Kreacher, brought the horcrux to Grimmauld Place when he died doing so. There it sat for years until Sirius and I visited the place. I studied it for a year, trying to figure out if I could use the Law of Similarity to track down the others, but no luck, so I destroyed it."
"I see." Dumbledore said with a frown. "Why didn't you tell me? I thought we agreed to share information."
"Sucks when things are being kept from you, doesn't it?" Harry grinned at the old man's displeasure. "It wasn't critical information and I didn't really trust you to actually stop hoarding secrets, so I used it as a test. You pass, congratulations."
Albus sighed, but was at least hopeful that the rift of distrust between him and Harry would lessen now. "So, we have managed to destroy four horcruxes now."
"And three more to go. Two, if Voldemort was aware of the one in my head, but I find that unlikely." Harry continued.
"Huflepuff's Cup, Ravenclaw's Diadem and Gryffindor's Sword presumably." Albus mused. "And I have no more leads to follow."
"Lucius Malfoy was entrusted with the Diary and my interrogations are all pointing fingers at Bellatrix as being the most likely to be trusted with another."
Albus's expression faltered slightly at the mention of Harry's prisoners. "Harry, would it not be better to release those men into Amelia Bones' custody? They should be tried and-"
"No." Harry interrupted. "If Voldemort is going to make me fight a war with him, then the least that I'm getting out of it is test subjects for my research."
"Test subjects?" Albus repeated, horrified. "Harry, these are human beings!"
"So? The pork chops you're so fond of eating used to be living pigs."
Albus blinked in surprise at Harry's knowledge of his dietary preferences. "There is a great difference between a pig and a human."
"According to humans." Harry countered, smirking sarcastically. "I'm sure the pigs would disagree."
"Very well, I still stop eating meat if you stop killing people." Albus tried to bargain.
Harry burst out laughing. "Bwahahahaha. Nice try, but no. I still eat meat, not particularly often but I do, so your offer to become vegetarian is a superfluous."
"Then why bring it up?"
"To make a point. You would defend the lives of the worst of humanity while being the indirect cause for the death of who knows how many innocent creatures."
"If you are so concerned with life, then why do you treat it so callously?"
"Who said I'm concerned with it? As for treating it callously.....the goal of all life is death, I'm just refusing to give humanity special status."
Albus disagreed, but decided not to pursue the tangent. "You could use your great resources and power to work towards the betterment of the world, rather than adding to its pain."
"I am removing the causes of pain. Is that not bettering the world?"
"You are inflicting pain on those no longer capable of doing harm to others. That does not better the world."
"Hmm." Harry hummed thoughtfully. "Point to you, but I have to admit that I'm not really interested in bettering the world. What I am interested in is expanding my knowledge and having test subjects helps me do that."
"Have you no pity in your heart?"
Harry only chuckled in response to that. "What use would that be? They would have been executed or imprisoned for the rest of their lives with only dementors for company anyway."
"That is no reason to rob them of their dignity."
"And I see no reason to allow them to keep their dignity, they didn't allow their victims any and they certainly won't be needing it anymore."
Albus thought he had finally come to the root of Harry's cruelty. "The path of revenge is a dangerous one, Harry. The horrors done to the unfortunate women we found at Malfoy Manor will not be undone by inflicting other horrors on their tormentors."
"This isn't about revenge, I'm just being practical. Imprisonment and execution are both wasteful. Why shouldn't I make use of them now that their lives are effectively over anyway? And while the damage done to them can't be undone, quite a few of the women were positively gleeful to hear what was in store for the people that raped and tortured them. It was the first time they'd smiled since their rescue."
Albus sighed in defeat, seeing that he was not going to get through to Harry. The way that the younger wizard spoke about the captured prisoners, as if they were not even people, disturbed him greatly. He decided to change the subject.
"How are they doing?"
"As well as can be expected. twelve were snatched off the street and have been returned to their families with their memories wiped. Five had their families murdered when they were taken, two of which decided on a memory wipe and a return to their lives anyway. All fourteen of the ones that chose a memory wipe have had a sizable chunk of money deposited in their bank accounts at Dora's insistence. Four of the fourteen were pregnant and needed abortions. All of them will probably have a subconscious fear of men for the rest of their lives due to lack of psychiatric help, which they were offered but refused in favor of simply forgetting about it all."
"What about the other three?" Albus asked sorrowfully.
"They said that they had nothing to go back to and asked to stay on Spellhaven. Two of them were also pregnant and refused to abort their rapespawn for whatever idiotic reason."
"Children are a gift, no matter where they come from." Albus chided.
"Children are sacks of meat filled with piss and shit, just like the rest of us. Don't try to romanticise it."
"You will understand when you have your own."
"Unlikely, but stranger things have happened. Failing that, I'll pretend to understand to keep my women happy."