Chapter 64: 4-12: Into Darkness

Disclaimer: Being neither British nor Japanese, it should therefore come as no surprise that I own neither Harry Potter nor Naruto, nor anything from their respective franchises.

A/N: A substantial portion of this chapter is an exploration of events that are mentioned and briefly described in canon but never properly shown. I won't be offended if you decide to skim through and/or skip over those parts, but I felt that since Iruka will be a direct(ish) witness and it's not gone over in any detail in canon that I should do my best to actually write out those scenes rather than just summarizing them.

Once the memory of the door slammed, the four wizards left the past and returned to the present, as before landing precisely where they'd been standing before.

"Merlin," Sirius breathed as he sat heavily in his chair, "seeing those two back-to-back, you have to wonder what turned pretty-boy Tom into something that looked like a monster trying to pass for human. How much Dark magic does that take?"

"Far more than any good or reasonable wizard would touch," Albus replied, "of that I am certain. I suspect, though it obviously cannot be proven, that his creation of Horcruxes played a significant role in his transformation. With each one of those abominations he made, he tore away more of his soul, more of his humanity. Beyond that, it is likely that he performed one or more foul rituals seeking to enhance himself somehow, as some of his physical and magical feats during the war were beyond the capability of a wizard of even Tom Riddle's caliber. Dark magic always exacts a toll on its user, however, and given Tom's boast of pushing the boundaries of the Dark Arts farther than anyone prior, the cumulative impact of his fell experimentation must have been horrific indeed."

"The question remains, though," Iruka cut in, "why did he come here again? He didn't want to teach, and he knew you wouldn't let him. There must have been some other reason, as you said, and his reaction bears that out."

"The question, indeed," the Headmaster nodded, "though I wouldn't say that Tom had no interest in the job. You see, he was seeking the post of Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, and since then I have been unable to retain anyone in that position for more than one year. It seems most plausible to me that Tom lashed out, as he was always wont to do when denied that which he desired, and cursed the position out of spite."

"Could that have been his plan going in?" Remus asked, "After all, years of spotty Defense instruction didn't exactly do my generation any favors when it came to fighting the Death Eaters and their allies. Most of Riddle's younger recruits had access to their families' knowledge of Dark magic to make up the difference."

"Not to mention prigs like Malfoy with their private tutors," Sirius snarled.

"That might be it," Iruka allowed, "but something just doesn't fit. It's too small a payoff - Riddle strikes me as the type to go for big plays whenever possible, especially those aimed at spectacular results. He doesn't just want power, he wants people to know he has power."

"In other words, he's a drama queen with a huge ego," Black quipped.

Albus coughed politely. "Be that as it may, I have yet to discern any other motive for his visit that day, save for a token effort at obtaining a position through which he could influence the young and impressionable minds of Hogwarts' student body. Now, what have we learned from these two memories and the tales surrounding them?"

"He frames other people for his crimes," Remus observed, "first the murder of Myrtle, then his family, then Smith, and who knows what others before, since, or in-between?"

"Must be where the rat learned it," Sirius growled darkly.

"He's aware that his actions have consequences," the werewolf continued hastily, "he just doesn't want those consequences to fall on him. Again we see plenty of fear but absolutely no empathy or remorse."

Iruka nodded. "He also really doesn't take it well when people tell him 'no'. It's his ego again; in his mind, he's special and important and therefore entitled to whatever he wants, so he's outraged at being denied or frustrated. Combine that with his lack of empathy or restraint, and I wouldn't be surprised if he murdered people for even the most trivial of slights, whether real or imagined."

"That is consistent with what I know of his behaviour," Albus frowned, "including towards his own followers. Angering Voldemort in any way - whether by disobedience, failure, or even simply bringing bad news - generally resulted in at least a painful hex or curse, and not infrequently torture or even death. Every Death Eater knew to avoid their master when he was in a foul mood unless they could provide another target for him to vent his spleen upon."

"Putting the gritty details of Riddle's personality aside," Iruka said, "we should get back to the Horcruxes. If he made more than the two we've found, as you suspect, we need to look at what and where they might be. You said before that you had two objects in mind: I'm guessing that you're referring to the Gaunt ring and Hufflepuff's cup?"

"That makes sense," Remus commented, "since we know he was fond of keeping trophies. If he wanted special items to hold his soul fragments, what could be more special than his precious trophies?"

"But wait," Sirius said, "how does the diary fit in, then? I mean, the other three things would be expensive just on their own, with the locket and cup's connections to the Founders just adding to that. A diary from a Muggle stationery store couldn't be worth more than a Sickle."

"Trophies, Sirius," the werewolf explained, "the diary was a tangible reminder of his first kill, of being the only known wizard since the Founders to uncover the Chamber of Secrets, of terrorizing the entire school and getting away with it all."

Albus nodded. "There is also the fact that the diary was almost certainly Tom's first Horcrux, made at a time when he had no access to precious relics or family heirlooms."

"So we're looking for important or valuable historical items that have gone missing, or whatever he happened to have in his pocket the day he did something particularly evil?" Sirius sounded neither confident nor enthusiastic.

"I doubt he'd have gone with an ordinary object again," Iruka replied, "not once he'd started getting his hands on more valuable things. Albus's explanation makes sense, the diary was the best he had available, especially since he was probably in a hurry to get his first Horcrux made and secure his immortality. He wouldn't have settled for something so mundane later on, when he had access to better prizes and the luxury of time. So that's the diary and the locket, both destroyed, probably the cup and ring, yet to be found, and possibly further items we haven't identified yet. Any other ideas on that front?" A round of head-shakes was his answer.

"That's what we've got on the 'what'," prompted Remus, "now what about the 'where'? We know Malfoy had the diary, so other prominent Death Eaters might have been given Horcruxes to guard..."

"Bet You-Know-Who will be less than pleased with ol' Lucius when he finds out, yeah?" Sirius smiled viciously, before sobering somewhat. "My dear cousin Bella seems like the most likely guess for who he'd give one of those things to: She was totally devoted to him, and not exactly shy about it, and one of his best fighters to boot. Of course, if he did give one to her it won't be easy getting her to give it up. Please tell me the DMLE at least bothered to search the properties of the Death Eaters they actually managed to convict?"

Albus nodded. "All were searched thoroughly, with special care given to the Lestrange and Rookwood properties. Any Dark artifacts in those locations that could be found without the aid of the homeowners have been found and dealt with. That does not discount the possibility that they could have hidden a Horcrux elsewhere, or that one or more of the Death Eaters still at liberty might have one."

"So every Death Eater, free, imprisoned, or dead, is a potential lead," Iruka sighed, "which means a lot of possibilities to work through in that direction." He frowned in thought. "Sirius, did Kreacher tell you where Riddle originally hid that locket?"

Sirius scowled. "Yeah, some cave on the ocean, with a big underground lake inside full of Inferi."

"A cave?" Iruka blinked. "Albus, in your memory of the orphanage..."

"Indeed," the Headmaster mused, "my thoughts have run along similar lines, I believe. A seaside outing would already have been a fond memory for one who grew up in such conditions, but for Tom Riddle the true relish would have been in his exercise of power over the other children. In a sense, one could say that the location itself is a sort of trophy to him, one he claimed by hiding one of his greatest treasures there, along with the reanimated remains of an unknown number of his later victims. Regardless, we should consider and investigate other locations important to Tom in some way."

"The orphanage, for starters," Sirius said, "along with his parents' houses and maybe wherever they lived together when he was conceived. It sounds like Hepzibah Smith's house was searched top to bottom after she died, though it's possible he came back later. I'd suggest Borgin and Burkes, hiding a tree in a forest sort of thing, but they'd probably find it and sell it off."

Iruka hesitated. "If you're looking into insight on what Riddle would have valued, Harry might be your best resource. While the paths they've taken go in nearly opposite directions, their backgrounds are similar enough that he might have insights we don't."

Albus shook his head. "While it may come to that eventually, I would much prefer to keep the children out of this, for as long as possible if not forever. Even adults should not have to delve into such dark topics, but better we do it than they."

The chuunin nodded reluctantly. "Harry's told me a lot about himself the past few years, so I'll give you my best approximation of his thoughts, but nothing can replace firsthand experience." There was something niggling at the back of his mind, something important, but he just couldn't get hold of it.

"Very well." The Headmaster stood, and his guests did the same. "Remus, if I gave you the address of Wool's Orphanage, could you check for me whether it is still in operation and if not, what has taken its place? Sirius, I know it is a painful topic for you but I must ask you to have Kreacher show you where the sea-cave is, and pass me its location. Copies of his memories of both his visits would be ideal. Iruka, please ponder the information we have in light of Harry's and your experiences, and inform me if you should glean any new insights." Their tasks assigned, the three men took their leave.

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Near the end of the first full week of May, the quartet of Horcrux hunters gathered again. All were grim, knowing what this meeting's memories contained. Sirius in particular was pale and unkempt, looking more like he had before his release from Saint Mungo's.

"You do not need to watch either of these with us, Sirius." Albus's voice was filled with pained sympathy. "I have witnessed the death of my own younger sibling, and it is not an experience I would wish upon anyone. In fact, given what you've already suffered, I would strongly advise against joining us in this for the sake of your own health."

"None of us will think any less of you if you sit this out," Iruka added.

Sirius shook his head vehemently. "No. Ever since Kreacher told us about how Reggie died, it's been eating away at me. I know what we're going to see is horrible, but it can't be worse than what my imagination and my nightmares have already shown me. He won't be begging me to save him..." That last sentence was mumbled so quietly that Iruka felt like an eavesdropper for hearing it. Remus's pained look showed that he'd caught it too, and he put an arm around his friend's shoulders, gripping him tight in reassurance to help ground him in the here and now.

"I have to see it," he continued. "Regulus deserves to have someone from our family bear witness."

Albus seemed to droop somewhat in place. "Very well, if that is your wish." He poured the first of the two memories into the Pensieve, and all four dove in, landing in what was clearly the kitchen of what Iruka presumed to be the Black family home on Grimmauld Place. Kreacher was there, polishing a set of ornate dishware.

A young man then stepped into the room. He looked to be in his late teens, with dark hair, gray eyes, and an unmistakable resemblance to Sirius. "Kreacher," he said firmly but not unkindly, "The Dark Lord requires your service. You will go with him and do as he tells you. Any orders from him are to be obeyed as my own. Return when your task is finished." He gestured behind him.

"As Master Regulus commands," Kreacher croaked with a bow, before turning walking out of the kitchen and up into the entryway. Waiting for him was a Lord Voldemort that had changed further since the time of the last memory: His skin was as pale as a bloodless corpse, with an unnatural sheen; his lips were basically non- existent, his mouth just a thin line currently quirked in a supremely confident smirk, and his once delicately-pointed nose had flattened and receded into his face as if he'd run into a brick wall at high speed. It was his eyes, however, that were most striking, now having luminous red irises surrounded by red sclera.

The elf walked up to the Voldemort and bowed. "Kreacher is at the Dark Lord's service."

"Excellent," Riddle said. "In that case, I must be off. Come, elf." The two stepped out into the entryway. "Wait ten seconds, then follow," Voldemort commanded Kreacher before Disapparating.

Ten seconds later, the vista changed to a damp cave, the sound of nearby ocean waves coming from the entrance. Voldemort stood by the wall of the cave near the back. "Your hand," he ordered, and Kreacher extended one wrinkled hand. A twitch of a yew wand opened an ugly gash in Kreacher's palm, with a second twitch directing the stream of blood from that cut to fly out and splash against the stone. Almost instantly silver-white light streamed from the rock face, as if the outline of an arched doorway had been backlit by a brilliant moon. "Impressive, is it not? A payment of blood, forcing any intruder to sacrifice a portion of their strength and vitality merely to open the door, weakening them before they even properly enter my defenses."

"The Dark Lord is a wise and powerful wizard," Kreacher fawned, the wizard nodding as if accepting his due.

Riddle stepped through the archway into the darkness beyond, a negligent gesture conjuring a cold green flame over his left palm to light the way. Kreacher followed obediently, clutching his wounded hand. The pale light from the magical flames showed a vast cavern, easily hundreds of meters across and over a dozen high, its floor dominated by an underground lake with a surface as calm and smooth as polished glass. A greenish glow also shone some distance away across the water, its source too far to see clearly. Neither light source seemed to reach as far as they should given their brightness, as if the darkness of the cave ate away at their illumination.

"Do not disturb the water," came the command, and Kreacher gave a silent nod as he trailed after the Dark Lord. "This cave is a place of fond memory for me," Riddle said idly as two walked along the narrow ledge of stone between the cavern wall and the edge of the lake, "one of the first times I showed a couple of worthless Muggles the true power of magic. It holds a prized piece of my past, and soon it will hold far more - both of the past and of an unending future..." After several minutes of travel, it seemed clear that the other glow was coming from at or near the lake's center. Finally, at a spot that seemed no different from any other, Voldemort reached out and tapped his wand on what appeared to be thin air but sounded like metal. A chain appeared, the green of aged copper, emerging from the water with its end hovering over the lake's edge. With a second tap, the chain began to rapidly pull in towards the wall, coiling on the stone beside Voldemort's feet, and eventually pulling a small wooden boat (that also glowed green) to the water's surface.

Once the tiny vessel, which looked too small and rickety to hold even one person safely, had fully surfaced, Riddle confidently stepped aboard. "Come." Kreacher did as he was told, carefully clambering into the boat to crouch at the wizard's feet. The boat turned and began smoothly gliding towards the glow at the lake's center. Both this movement and its earlier emergence produced far less of a disturbance in the water's surface than they should, and those ripples that did form died out unnaturally quickly.

As the boat slid through the still, black water, a pale form came into view. Floating unmoving just below the water's surface was a human body, what was once a brown-haired girl in her late teens wearing a Muggle sundress. Her open eyes, clouded over in death, stared sightlessly upward into the darkness that hid the cavern's ceiling. "Ah," Voldemort commented smugly, "I see you've noticed one of my little guardians. They sleep beneath the water, waiting and ready to destroy any who might seek to take what is mine. Gathering the raw materials for so many was one of the more time-consuming parts of preparing this place, a tedious but rewarding process." She was not the only one, either, as the boat passed two other such figures over the five or so minutes it took to reach its destination.

That destination, it turned out, was a small island of the same rock as the rest of the cave. It was round and flat, indicating that the stone had been worked in some way, and about the same diameter as the office from which the four men had entered this memory. Also like the Headmaster's office, there was a stone basin set at its center, though this one rested on a stone pedestal rather than the Headmaster's desk. Looking closer, both the basin and the pedestal were, in spite of the sinister carvings of snakes entwining around them, formed of a single seamless piece of stone extending up from the island's floor. The glow they'd seen all this time was coming from the basin's contents.

Voldemort walked over to the basin, which was filled with a luminous green potion unlike anything Iruka had yet seen, and with a smug smirk conjured a passable replica of Hufflepuff's Cup. "Nothing can touch this potion except with the intent of bringing it to a drinker's mouth. Should even a drop touch the stones beneath us or be carried over the water, my loyal soldiers will awaken." He held this cup by one of its handles, using it to scoop some of the potion from the basin before holding it out to Kreacher. "Drink it all. Allow none to spill."

Kreacher took the ornate vessel reverently, and began to drink as ordered. After only a couple of swallows it was clear that he was in distress, something that brought a cruel grin to Riddle's face. Once the cup was empty, the Dark Lord held his hand out and the elf obediently returned it, clutching at his abdomen with his other hand and glancing furtively at the lake. "No," Voldemort chuckled, "you may drink nothing but this potion until it is all gone. Until I say otherwise, you may not touch water." His smile widened at the elf's poorly-hidden expression of dismay.

Again and again, Riddle refilled the cup from the basin and handed it to Kreacher, and with every cupful the elf's suffering became more profound. After the third his eyes began darting around wildly, looking at horrors only he could see. After four he started to mutter and mumble and plead unintelligibly. After five Voldemort had to reinforce his order to drink, so great was Kreacher's reluctance. All the while, the Dark wizard's pleasure and satisfaction and the watchers' disgust and horror grew along with the elf's pain and fear.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to those viewing the memory, the basin was emptied, its last dregs actually flowing eagerly up and into the cup on the last scoop. Only then did Voldemort reach into his robes and withdraw a very familiar locket, holding it out examining it, seemingly admiring how it shined in the light cast by his magical flame. "The locket of Salazar Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Founders and the only one among them wise enough to recognize the worthlessness of Muggles and those that cling to them. It opens only to those of his noble lineage - a worthy vessel to safeguard a part of the wizard who will one day rule all of magic, wouldn't you say? Truly a pity that I must hide it away like this, at least for now. Perhaps once my rule is absolute and those who would defy me have been ground to dust, it and my other treasures can be put on display so that all might bear witness to my full greatness." His boasting done, he placed the locket in the very bottom of the basin. Once the locket and its chain came to rest, droplets of that vile potion began to appear on the inner surface of the basin, seeming to seep out from the pores of the very stone itself. What began as a slow sweating sped up, refilling the basin within only a few minutes, all while an agonized Kreacher stood nearby.

"Perfection," Riddle nodded in smug satisfaction, before turning and stepping back into the small boat. As it began its return journey across the subterranean lake he looked to the house-elf one last time. "Very well done," he said in condescending mock-pride. "Your task is finished, and with it, your use to me. I cannot, after all, allow anyone else to know where I've secured my soul. However, Lord Voldemort is merciful," his grin grew wider, "so I reward your obedient service with my permission to sate your thirst." He turned away then, soon vanishing into the darkness to the echoing sound of his cruel, mocking laughter.

Kreacher collapsed to the stone then, before desperately crawling his way to the edge of the island and drinking greedily from the lake. Within seconds, pale hands exploded from the water and dragged him below. He struggled for several minutes, before the delirium in his eyes seemed to clear for a moment and the scenery abruptly changed back to a bedroom in what was presumably Grimmauld Place with a loud crack.

"Kreacher!" came the frantic shout from Regulus Black as he leapt from his bed and dashed over to cradle the huddled form of his sodden and trembling house-elf. "Oh, Kreacher, what did the Dark Lord do to you?"

A/N: Monologuing. Not even once. Aside from the obvious need for Regulus to have enough clues to identify the locket as a Horcrux sight-unseen, I do have an in-story reason for Riddle's chattiness that'll be explained next chapter.

Hooray for having to reference two separate books to write the same bloody scene.

Sirius's reasons for watching both memories go beyond what he says here. He's also still dealing with some massive unresolved guilt and grief over Regulus's death, blaming himself for not giving his brother a supportive person to turn to for help. On top of that, there's the unconscious drive to live up to the stereotype of the courageous Gryffindor, which in this case is motivating some distinctly unhealthy choices.

Fic Recommendation: "Poison Pen" by GenkaiFan - Harry starts sending anonymous Letters to the Editor asking questions that people in power really don't want asked.

Posted 11 August, 2019

Current WIP Chapter: 79/80