The gold locket suddenly stopped trembling, and the wildly twisting gold chain lost all its strength as it hit the table. Immediately after, along with a crisp "click" sound, its small gold lid popped open.
They saw the inner structure of the locket, two small glass windows behind each a living eye blinking, black shiny, and crystal clear eyes. Harry felt, if not sealed in a locket, the eyes should belong to a living person.
There is a black mist filling the air. From inside came a hoarse, grim voice, "I saw your heart ...," said the locket to Felix, who is nearest to it.
"Oh? So?" Felix operated the occlumency.
"... Felix Hap, I know you, I can sense everything around me, what is in that book you read the first day you came here? Don't deny it, I see your most desperate desire to be powerful, to live forever, to transcend death - you want to be the next me."
"Who is this?" Harry called out, Sirius took him as he take a few steps back and said in a complicated way, "It's Voldemort, I really didn't expect that, he hid in a locket as big as an stone."
Harry opened his mouth wide, he is the one he met in his first year? He had a much worse time now than being glued to the back of Professor Quirrell's head.
The eyes in the locket still whispered: "You have the potential, why don't we work together? Together we can rule the wizards as well as the muggles ... and I, the greatest wizard who ever lived, I am willing to share my secret of immortality, the Horcrux, with you."
Something that looked like a soap bubble twisted and appeared, and from above the locket rose a human figure, a rather handsome young man with a slim face, dark hair. Standing tall, he smiled graciously and opened his arms as if he wanted to embrace Felix.
But his feet remained in the locket and could not come out at all. He smiled more affectionately and said in a soft tone, "How about starting now, right from this moment, on the road to eternal life ... just a gentle wave of the wand, and there are two insignificant offerings over there. "
However, Felix said calmly: "I thought you would say a more brilliant insight, Tom. close it off, Harry."
"What?" The red glint in the young Voldemort's eyes flickered so brightly that if he hadn't been staring, he might have thought it's an illusion. He raised his voice, still Stoic, and tried to convince him: "You don't know what you're missing, I'm further along the road to immortality than anyone else, join forces ..."
But Harry had made a "hissing" sound, the next second, the lid of the locket closed, a black fog full of hatred tumbled away, Voldemort's image disappeared very vividly.
Harry's heart pounded hard as he gasped for breath, he really thought Voldemort was going to jump out and fight with them.
Felix picked up the locket and tapped on it for a while, then finally put it away in his pocket, "I'll give it to Dumbledore," he said emotionally, "the Headmaster hasn't touched a single one yet, and I've seen three."
They sat down again on the sofa, without speaking to each other, and Kreacher, grasping the door, said with a shudder: "Mr. Hap, will you destroy it? It was the last order that Master Regulus left to the old Kreacher."
"I assure you, Kreacher, the locket will be destroyed." Felix said.
"Thank you, thank you--" Kreacher huffed and disappeared with a bang.
Harry calmed down a bit and asked curiously, "Voldemort just mentioned the Horcrux, what's that?" His eyes darted between Sirius and Felix, hoping for an answer, his gut feeling told him that he had glimpsed very deeply into Voldemort's hidden secrets.
Sirius looked at Felix as well.
"Horcrux... a very evil kind of dark magic, by splitting the soul and storing the soul fragments in a item, then that item is called Horcrux." Felix explained simply: "As long as the Horcrux is still there, Voldemort will not die, although he will be miserable, there will be a day of re-return."
"This is the secret of Voldemort's immortality?" Harry asked in shock: "No wonder he said he transcended death, by splitting his soul, what an evil practice."
"But more than that Harry, splitting the soul is the result, and the process requires the completion of a ritual of killing, stripping the soul by killing, not to mention what I told you, the actual process is far more complicated than that." Felix said.
"So what's in the locket is just a fragment of Voldemort?" Harry understood that the two Voldemort he had seen were not the same soul.
"Exactly."
"So if we destroy the locket now, will Voldemort die silently in some dark corner?" Harry said thinking outside the box, extraordinarily excited by the idea.
"Not very likely, Harry. He made more than one Horcrux, I've seen and destroyed two of them alone, and Dumbledore is still looking for more information." Felix said.
Harry listened in awe, "You've been doing this? Against Voldemort?" He knew nothing about it.
"It's what Dumbledore has been doing, he's been actively pursuing the past that Voldemort is trying to hide," Felix said, "and I, for one, just happened to be there."
"Harry, even while you sleep, the world still goes on, you just don't see that."
Harry nodded, he knew what the professor meant, there is no need to take responsibility upon himself, he is simply a little impulsive, not stupid. The professor had told him what the Horcrux is capable of, he wouldn't dare to think about trying to confront Voldemort before it all got destroyed.
He perked up a bit, feeling like he had one more task in life, and if Voldemort's Horcruxes still existed when he graduated, he would spend his life tracking them.
Thinking about that future isn't so bad, especially since it's not a lonely path, with Dumbledore, Professor Hap ... and perhaps many people popped into Harry's head.
He asked the key question, "If the Horcrux were not one, well ... now it looks like at least three, or four, will there be more, like seventeen or eighteen?"
Felix smiled a little, "Are you treating a soul like a cookie that you can break open at will and crumble it?" He thought seriously for a moment and said, "Actually, I have no way of knowing it for sure, the book, Advanced Dark Magic Unveiled, doesn't state a limit on the number of Horcrux, so maybe the person who wrote the book didn't expect future generations to be so crazy."
"Does it hurt to strip the soul?" Harry asked.
"Well, an odd question," Felix tilted his head, " although the book says it's painful, I've never tried it myself, maybe Voldemort doesn't care much?"
"Well," he stood up, "that's enough for today Harry, we should head back." He looked at Sirius again, "Our appointment will remain the same."
The two returned to Hogwarts, Felix sent Harry away who is questioning everything, and went to Dumbledore's office.
Dumbledore is still flipping through the papers, listening to Felix saying the reason for his visit, he carefully examined the locket.
After looking at it for a while, he wearily took off his glasses and wiped them with a small piece of velvet: "It just verifies the suspicion I got from Hokey."
"Hokey?"
"I told you, that poor little house elf."
"You came back so late today, that's where you went ..."
"Azkaban, yes."
Dumbledore told the story he heard from Hokey, the story itself is very simple, almost fifty years ago, when Voldemort, who was working as a shopkeeper in Borgin and Burkes, had visited a very rich witch - Hepzibah Smith, the master of Hokey, and two days after that, she died suddenly.
"Two notable points in this incident are that with Hepzibah's death, two of her most precious collections went missing, which happened to be the relics of the four founders of Hogwarts - the Slytherin locket, and the golden cup of Hufflepuff."
"Voldemort did it." Felix said with great certainty.
"That's right, it took Hepzibah's family a long time to be sure about this, because she had a lot of secret hideouts and always kept a particularly close eye on her collection."
"Did you just say that ... Hokey is in Azkaban?"
"Yeah, an obvious scapegoat, but Hokey herself admitted she put something in her mistress' cocoa, which was later found to be not a sugar, but a rare and deadly poison. The verdict said that she didn't commit the murder deliberately, but rather she is old and confused-"
"Her memory was tampered with?"
"I'm glad we agree," Dumbledore said, "Hokey is not in a good state at the moment, and I'm planning to file an application to reopen the investigation of this old case."
"However, after all these years, Hokey's memory has been messed up, it is difficult to distinguish whether she was tampered with at that time, and I can only raise the suspicion of the case ..."
Felix also feels it's difficult, now there is no evidence, everything is deduced out of logic, but Fudge is just scared to death, I wonder if he has the courage to refuse Dumbledore now.
The two switched to other issues -
"Headmaster Dumbledore, how many Horcruxes do you think Voldemort actually made?"
"That's a real head-scratcher. From what I know about him, Voldemort would find a number that makes sense. Three, seven, nine, thirteen, it's all possible. I'd have to determine what he thought and find some evidence to support it. On top of that, we don't know if he accomplished his intended goal on the night he went to the Potters' house or not ..."
That is to say, the number is uncertain, whether the goal was accomplished is also uncertain, Felix's mind bubbled with a number, seven, but he did not speak about it, it would be useless to say, Dumbledore still has to explore and verify it.
But he thought of a point, "Ravenclaw's diadem, Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's golden cup ... Dumbledore, that Gryffindor's sword would not also be a Horcrux?"
Dumbledore shook his head, "I happen to know where the sword is, Voldemort did not get it."
Out of the office, a fine rain fell from the sky, Felix stepped on the wet mud, still thinking back on the appearance of the golden cup of Hufflepuff that Dumbledore just morphed out.
Dumbledore's words are a bit jarring: " Oddly enough, I feel that you and Voldemort still have a few points of fate, maybe you will bump into other Horcrux in the future, better let you see what that Cup looks like."
Felix can't help but slander, you have a destiny with him, Dumbledore is not trying to push the job of dealing with Voldemort to him, right?
----------
Thanks for all your support.
There are 336+ chapters on P_atreon, if you have some extra pocket money, Support me on Pa_treon: www.pa_treon.com/Crazy_Cat.