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Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I own nothing but the original characters I create.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 183: Gaunt Manor
"What a mess," Harry observed the remains of what was once the Gaunt Manor.
Most of the property had completely collapsed, with only a small part still standing.
A police perimeter had been set around the area, warning onlookers against approaching, for fear of the house collapsing.
"I don't think this was done by a few children," Dumbledore commented.
This was the story the caretaker told them. Two years ago, some rascals from the nearby town came to the house to have some fun and accidentally set it ablaze.
"Of course not. Even in its abandoned state, this was a pureblood wizard manor. It must still have some protections remaining. The idea of some Muggle kids going inside and starting a fire is ridiculous. This was done with magic."
"I agree… we should proceed with caution. From what I know of the Gaunts, they were a very dark family. Some old traps may remain in place."
Harry tapped the entrance door with his wand, and it fell backward with a loud 'thud'.
"Lumos." Multiple spheres of light came out of his wand and spread over the house, illuminating its interior completely.
Dumbledore continued to cast detection spells as they moved.
"The part remaining is like what… twenty percent of the house? We will be lucky if anything useful remains here," Harry commented.
"I don't think this part of the house survived the fire by luck alone, Harry. " Dumbledore pointed at the walls.
Harry looked more closely until he found what he had missed.
The room was not burned equally. While the entrance was almost turned into charcoal, some of the walls and furniture inside were in much better shape.
"I believe that something in here had protected this part of the house," Dumbledore said.
Harry noticed a pattern then. He followed the path that was least burned.
The more he followed it, the fewer burns he found. Finally, they came across a corner of the house that was completely intact.
"There!... that cabinet looks good as new," Harry pointed.
"Indeed… whatever protected this room...is in there." Dumbledore's words also contained a warning.
This magical object or artifact was powerful enough to protect itself from a massive fire, so it stands to reason that it could also be very harmful to handle or even get close to.
"Mmm… look at that." Harry used his wand to call attention to one particular drawer but didn't get too close.
The cabinet appeared to be in pristine shape, but the top right drawer had a small hole burned in it.
"Something came out of there. And it was hot enough to burn its way out and leave such a clean hole," Dumbledore pointed out.
"Yes, that could be the origin of the fire." Harry knelt down and tapped on the wooden planks.
Several planks of wood separated from the ground and melded together while starting to change shapes.
Dumbledore stared with interest at Harry's work until it was finished.
"Impressive. You can create them very quickly."
The mass of wood had transformed until it formed a humanoid golem, almost the same size as Harry.
"Thanks, I'm getting really good at making these golems." He had gained a lot of practice recently.
"I assume this fellow will be opening that cabinet for us?" Dumbledore asked.
"Yes, let's take a few steps back," Harry recommended.
The duo stood a safe distance away and let Harry's golem take the risk.
He had a mental connection with the construct, so there was no need to speak any orders out loud.
Harry directed the golem to open the drawer that had the burned hole in it.
As the golem pulled it open, some yellow substance was squirted out by some mechanism inside the cabinet and landed on the golem's face and chest.
The parts touched by the viscous liquid started to dissolve immediately.
"Some kind of acid…" Dumbledore concluded after observing it carefully.
"Very nasty, and it didn't use any magic, so the detection spell would not have picked up this kind of trap."
Dumbledore had been relying on these same detection spells since they entered.
"Perhaps you can make another golem to escort us out. We may have been fortunate to not trigger anything else so far."
"I assume most traps were destroyed in the fire. But we are not done yet."
The golem was damaged but could still move. Harry had it pull the entire drawer out and empty its contents on the ground.
"Let's see…" He moved the golem and used it to better examine the contents while Dumbledore watched with rapt attention.
"Jewels… paper… oh? look at that box."
The golem picked up a small metallic box. It had a velvet cushion inside and a melted hole on the side.
"That thing came out of this box," Harry said.
"It's a box meant for a ring." Dumbledore pointed out.
"There is a symbol at the top," Harry observed.
"That is the Gaunt Emblem," Dumbledore added.
"The Gaunt family ring was in there… He must have recalled it somehow. And in doing so, it started a fire… damn… the stone we were looking for was on that ring."
"The Resurrection Stone was part of the Gaunt family ring?" Dumbledore was surprised to hear this.
"Yes, but I doubt Voldemort knew that he had one of the Hallows in his power. He would not have used it to make one of his Horcruxes."
Dumbledore appeared to be thinking something. "Did he actually turn the Resurrection Stone into a Horcrux or just the ring part?"
"Huh?... I didn't think about that." Harry tried to recall the events of his past. Dumbledore found the ring and was cursed when he put it on, and then, after destroying the Horcrux, they were still left with the intact stone.
"There is a good chance he only managed to use the ring and not the stone…"
"That would make more sense… turning a Hallow into a Horcrux should not be possible. Those are not artifacts that a mere mortal wizard could meddle with and alter in any way." Dumbledore pointed at the bottom of the drawer that the golem took out.
"And look at that…"
Harry followed his finger and saw it too.
There was a second burned hole at the bottom of the drawer.
His eyes moved back to the cabinet. "There is something still in there."
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