Little Hangleton

Where could it be?

Ginny had searched the Riddle house from top to bottom without luck. Her Horcrux detector, Slytherin's locket, had remained resolutely still; its occasional heartbeat thrumming against her breast being her only reminder that within its cold shell hid one of her other selves.

She frowned; it was getting late, and Daphne was still waiting for her to return. Her excuse of grocery shopping wouldn't hold up to scrutiny if she wasted any more time here.

Ginny's frown deepened; it would be a shame to leave this place empty handed… Little Hangleton was in northern England; about halfway between London and Hogwarts, so it would be a pain to consecutively Apparate to return here…

Perhaps taking a step back would allow her to see the big picture…

Ginny thought back to her youth. By his fifth year at Hogwarts, Tom Riddle had already figured out that his mother had been his magical parent. And not only that, his mother had been a Gaunt; a descendant of Salazar Slytherin himself. As for his father, and his paternal grandparents, they were all Muggles: inconsequential rubbish.

Armed with the information hidden in Slytherin's Scriptorium and in the library's restricted section, Tom Riddle had then created the diary Horcrux by using the half of his soul that had already split off when he had murdered Myrtle Warren using the Basilisk. The only problem now was that Ginny's memories as Tom Riddle ended right before the original had killed Myrtle, so Ginny couldn't know for certain if Voldemort had changed his mind on certain future projects since then.

In his fifth year, Tom Riddle had already toyed with the idea of a seven-part soul, but he'd been hesitating, since the feasibility of such a concept was debatable. Ginny had already confirmed that a seven-part soul was indeed possible, since she was Horcrux number one, and she had come across Horcruxes numbers three and five. And if five Horcruxes was possible, then six Horcruxes was definitely in the realm of possibility!

Ginny racked her brains some more; she knew she must have missed something important. She remembered that as Tom Riddle, she had been planning to visit the village of his ancestors on the summer after opening the Chamber of Secrets, which was why she'd been so certain that her other self must have come here.

According to the Muggle townspeople's minds she had read, the Riddles had died under mysterious circumstances, and then the Gaunts had disappeared not long afterwards. In all likelihood, this was her original self's work; he'd murdered his father and his grandparents with the Killing Curse, while protecting his identity with the very Trace-blocking spell she was using right at this moment. And then, most likely, he had blamed the Riddle family killings on the only Wizarding family in the region… the Gaunts.

Knowing herself, she would have made and then hidden a Horcrux here; if only to celebrate the symbolic severance of the shameful Muggle bloodline that had previously run through Tom Riddle's veins. Unfortunately, knowing this wouldn't help her find the hidden Horcrux. There had to be something else…

But what else was there?

By reading more minds, Ginny had also discovered that Frank Bryce, the Muggle gardener living on the Riddle estate, had died a year ago…

…And that's when the obvious hit her like a sack of bricks; she'd been focusing too much on Muggles!

Ginny had unconsciously dismissed Voldemort's bias against Muggles, since her Weasley side had tempered her dark side's disdain and scorn for non-Wizards. Voldemort, the original one, wouldn't have left his legacy, a part of his soul, to wallow in a building steeped with Muggleness; if he had indeed hidden a Horcrux in this village, then it would have been in the Gaunt ancestral home!

The more Ginny thought about it, the more it made sense; Voldemort wouldn't have wasted a murder for nothing; it was increasingly likely that he had made his second Horcrux here by ritually killing his kin. She, as the diary Horcrux, had been designed as a weapon, so it stood to reason that Voldemort would have sought to make a second Horcrux as soon as possible to maintain his immortality. The summer following the events of the first opening of the Chamber of Secrets seemed like as good a time as any…

Wild joy coursed through Ginny's body, as she Disapparated on the spot and Apparated at the edge of the woods outside of the village. Thanks to the villagers' memories, she quickly managed to find a path that led into the depths of the forest.

Unfortunately, the path was overgrown with thorny plants and brambles. Ginny realized that it must have been a while since any of the older folks had come to snoop around, because there was an enormous discrepancy between their memories and reality.

Still, Ginny would not be denied her prize; she strode forwards, wand in hand, and slashed her way through the plants until she had reached the Gaunts' home. Had she not known it was there, she would never have found it; the hedges surrounding the house had kept growing unhindered all these years, and the house, which was actually little more than a shack, was completely covered in moss and vines.

"Open," Ginny hissed to the locket on her chest.

Its little doors opened, revealing its interior, and it immediately began to burn cold and sing. Ginny's lips curled upwards slightly; if she had guessed correctly, then she was about to find the second Horcrux, which would contain a quarter of Voldemort's soul. What form would it take, Ginny wondered? Would this one be able to communicate better than numbers three and five?

She entered the shack, and the singing grew louder.

Under the floor?

"Deprimo," Ginny said quietly, pointing her wand downwards.

The rotten floorboards burst inwards as Ginny's magic blasted a hole into the ground. The house shook dangerously; splinters of wood rained from the ceiling, but Ginny remained perfectly still, her eyes fixed on her prize. Then, when the dust had settled, she strode forwards and inspected the depression that she had made in the soil beneath the wooden planks.

"Close," Ginny whispered to the locket, and it fell silent.

At the bottom of the hole that Ginny had created lay a golden ring inlaid with a stone; as round as Pac-Man, as black as the night. Despite having borne the full brunt of her magical might, the object of her quest had remained perfectly intact…