Chapter 48: Minus One

Hogwarts Castle, Somewhere in the Scottish Highlands

November 30th, 1992, 9:25 AM - Monday

Erik was seated in the lounge area of the Headmaster's office, looking through the letters from people applying to teach History of Magic when he felt the wards warning of visitors. With a quick look at his wrist watch, Erik saw that it was almost time for the meeting and went back to reading the letters waiting for them to arrive in the office. Selena had already gone through the letter and scheduled the interviews, but she had asked him to go through them too.

It was like that, reading letters, that two Unspeakables found Erik when they entered the Headmaster's office. Erik had let the door open for them to enter. He put the letters back down on the low central table of the lounge area and got up to greet the Unspeakables.

"Gentleman, good morning and welcome to Hogwarts."

Erik said to the gray duo.

"Good morning, Lord Ravenclaw."

Said one of the two Unspeakables, which Erik could deduce was Croaker. The other one just nodded his head at Erik.

"Please, take a seat."

Erik said to them, while pointing to the sofa in front of him. The Unspeakable that Erik thought was Croaker accepted his offer and walked to the sofa and sat on it. The other Unspeakable took a standing position near the lounge area. As Croaker took his seat, Erik took his seat too.

"So, I suppose that this is not a social visit?"

Erik said, starting the meeting.

"Indeed it is not, Lord Ravenclaw."

Croaker said and put his hand inside his robe and retrieved a mokeskin pouch from some inside pocket. He opened the mouth of the sack and took three items from inside it.

"As you can see, we managed to find all the other horcruxes that the Dark Lord had hid inside the British Isles."

Croaker said to Erik, who was looking at the items that were on top of the low central table. Of the three items, he recognized two of them. One of them was a golden cup with a badger motif on it, and two little golden wings that served as handles to the cup. It was Helga Hufflepuff's cup. The second one was a silver locket with a thick silver chain and a big pendant with a snake on it that formed a big 'S'. It was Salazar's locket. The third of the items was a big golden ring that contained a round black stone encrusted on it. This last one he didn't recognize, but he did recognize the symbol engraved on the stone: a triangle with a line in the middle and circle inside it, the Deathly Hallows symbol.

"Interesting, I do recognize two of three items as being items that once belonged to Helga and Salazar, that being the cup and the locket. The third one I don't recognize, but I can deduce its origins."

Erik said to Croaker, who nodded with his head at what he said.

"The cup we had confirmed already as being the one that once was owned by the Smiths. The locket, we didn't manage to find anything about it, but we had our suspicions when nobody managed to open it. The ring, just like you, Lord Ravenclaw, we have our suspicions too."

Croaker said to Erik.

"The locket was a gift from Salazar to his wife, Esmeralda. It was lost with her death, and later recovered by his disowned son. He killed an entire family for it. Women, children, elderly. No one was spared. The worst was that all of them presented signs of torture before their deaths, and the children were used in… sacrifices. It was one of the things that made Salazar disown him. Salazar found later, from a servant that was not at the place at the time, that a teen son of the family had found it inside a cloth bundle in the forest while hunting for game with his dogs. And it can only be opened by a parselmouth, so that's why you didn't manage to open it."

Erik explained what the locket was and its history.

"The ring… The symbol on the stone I recognize. It's the Deathly Hallows symbol. It was stolen and used by Grindelwald as his personal flag for his war. And I suppose that the stone is the genuine thing, since I can feel the taint of the Horcrux on the entire golden band, but not in the stone."

Erik finished the explanation about the two items.

"So, you are saying that the legends are true?"

Croaker asked Erik with caution.

"The legends that the three Peverell brothers encountered Death and it 'gifted' them three items of power and the one who managed to unite the three will be the Master of Death?"

Erik answered, resuming the legend to its main points.

"Yes, that legend."

Croaker replied to Erik, who let out a chuckle and answered the Unspeakable.

"No, no. That part is just a legend. What the items truly are, I believe, are heavily enchanted items that can be considered the pinnacle of their craft fields. No entity that governs over death would be that bored…"

Erik answered. After some silence he continued.

"Ok, maybe most of them would be too bored to the point to play games with three humans, but definitely none of them would give mortals a possibility to have power over them. They care too much about the little freedom that they have out of their realms to jeopardize it in a game with humans. And the items could very well be taken by an enemy of them too. So the part about being Master of Death is totally a sham."

Erik spoke again, admitting that the items could really have had a 'divine origin', but it was very unlikely.

"Of the three Deathly Hallows, I believe that the stone is the only one that could have a god involved during its craft in a sort of blessing."

Erik finished saying. Croaker nodded his head at Erik and said.

"Can you take the items to cleanse?"

"Sure."

Erik replied to the Unspeakable.

"Ah, that reminds me…"

Erik said and put one of his hands inside his blazer and retrieved a mokeskin pouch from inside an internal pocket. He opened the mouth of the pouch and retrieved from it a blackened orb of glass, and put it on top of the low central table. Croaker looked at the orb and could see a mass of black fog swirling inside it. He could swear that, sometimes, a face could be seen in the fog.

"... This is the piece of soul that was inside the Diadem. As you must have read in the Daily Prophet, the extraction was successful. And I imagined that you would want the pieces to match that prophecy."

Erik said to Croaker.

"Yes, I saw the pictures in the newspaper, and we received a visit from a very talkative Albus Dumbledore, and I suppose that I have to thank you, Lord Ravenclaw, for that."

Croaker said to Erik. They had indeed received a visit from Albus Dumbledore. The man was accompanied by Amelia Bones, and he told them everything that he knew about Tom Riddle. It was… an enlightening experience.

"You have nothing to thank me, Croaker. I just told the old goat that information was power, but it had no power if it was not used."

Erik said to the Unspeakable.

"About the ring, you really want me to cleanse it? It is very probable that it will not survive the extraction. At least not the golden band. The stone would be alright."

Erik asked Croaker. The golden band had no enchantment whatsoever beyond a 'auto resizing' one.

"What do you suggest? We don't have another way to destroy the horcrux beyond the use of fiendfyre, and we don't want to risk losing the stone."

Croaker said to Erik, who thought for a moment and extended his hand. Croaker thought that Erik would summon the sword of Gryffindor, but was surprised that when Erik made his grabbing motion, what appeared was not a sword, but a dagger inside a sheat. Erik was holding the dagger by its sheath, which was made of an unknown material that had a very dark blue color on it. In fact, it was so dark that it was almost black. The handle of the dagger seemed to be made from the same material as the sheath. The guard was in silver and had the shape of two raven heads with a dark blue diamond encrusted between them. The pommel was in silver too and it was round with two engraved ravens following each other while circling another encrusted dark blue diamond. Erik held the sheath of the dagger with his right hand and took the dagger's handle with his left hand. Slowly, he pulled the dagger from its sheath to reveal a dangerous looking silver blade that had 'RAVENCLAW' engraved on its body in small Olde English format. Erik looked at the blade and gave it a smile.

"This is Ravenclaw's Lord Dagger. It was crafted by goblins and it has the same properties as the swords of Gryffindor and Slytherin. One of those properties is that the metal takes anything that can't destroy it, and uses it to enhance its power. And one of the things that I 'fed' it was Basilisk's venom."

Erik explained, while looking to the blade.

"Amazing. I thought that there were no more relics from the founders."

Croaker said while looking at the dagger too. Erik let out a chuckle after hearing that.

"Oh no, Mr. Croaker. This is not a 'founder's relic'. The dagger was crafted by the goblins at my request. After all, I'm Lord Ravenclaw, and can name the dagger with Ravenclaw's name on it. It is one of a set of two. The other would be the Lady's Dagger, and it is Selena's."

Erik said to Croaker and put the dagger sheath on top of the low central table. With his right hand, he made a gesture with it and the golden ring with the stone started to float from the table. It floated in the air until it reached Erik's eye height while seated and stood in place. It moved a little in place, staying in a position that Erik thought was perfect. Erik then closed his right hand into a fist and the ring froze in place.

"Shield yourself, Mr. Croaker."

Erik said to the Unspeakable while preparing the dagger in position to strike the ring. Croaker hastily retrieved his wand and silently erected a strong shield in front of him. Erik, seeing that the shield was up, struck the ring with a very quick movement. So quick, that the Unspeakables in the office couldn't see the strike. They only heard the aftermath of it, with the shrieking sound of the piece of soul inside the golden ring being destroyed. And then they saw it. A dark smoke wafted out of the ring and went up, and as the shriek ended, the black smoke disappeared in nothingness.

When the Unspeakables looked at the ring, the golden band of it was parted in two parts and the gold of it was blackened as it had been sullied by coal dust. Erik opened his right hand and the ring floated back to the table.

"And that is minus one."

Erik said.

"Want me to destroy the glass orb too?"

Erik asked Croaker, who was looking at the broken ring on the table.

"That would not be necessary, Lord Ravenclaw. We want to keep at least two Horcruxes intact, as a reserve, until we find the disembodied soul of Tom Riddle. And this glass orb, together with the black diary, makes two."

Croaker said to Erik, who nodded his head.

"Ok then."

Erik simply said and grabbed the dagger sheath from the low central table with his right hand and sheathed the dagger. He then let go of it and the dagger disappeared in thin air, just like it had happened with the swords.

"Thank you, Lord Ravencalw. Can we keep the stone? For research purposes, of course."

Croaker thanked Erik and asked about the stone. He would not assume anything with a person of Erik's power. He could want to keep the stone, and there was nothing that he or the entire Unpeakables corps could do about it.

"Sure. I imagine that the Unspeakables would love to hear the history from the person's mouth. Just remember the Legend: The dead do not belong to the world of the living. So do not keep them summoned for too much time, and be sure to let them rest between summons."

Erik said, warning the Unspeakable. Croaker nodded his head and took the mokeskin pouch and stored the broken ring with the stone inside it, followed by the glass orb. He then stored the mokeskin pouch in an inside pocket of his robes.

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a/n: Early chapter today, so no chapter at the 'normal' time.