Harry Potter: Beyond Good and Evil in the Wizarding World-Chapter 87 - 82: The False Resurrection Stone

Lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling, Severus ran his fingers slowly along Nagini’s head.

Did I rush that? I wanted to move her toward it gradually, not tip everything out at once. He exhaled slowly and closed his eyes. Why is it always this complicated with women?

"You are thinking about her." Nagini’s voice was calm and knowing.

"How did you know?"

"Women’s intuition. You have been odd since you got back. Did something happen?"

"Nothing significant. I am probably just overthinking. That is enough. Sleep. Tomorrow I need to go somewhere and check on something." He poked her gently in the face, settled his head on the pillow, and closed his eyes. Let us hope I did not make a mistake.

The next day began with a short trip to a village in the north of England. Little Hangleton. There was nothing to distinguish it from any of the dozens of similar villages scattered across the country, except for one detail: a manor sat on one of the two hills between which the village rested.

The manor currently belonged to a certain George Mason, who had never once been seen since the purchase. Before him, it had belonged to the Riddle family, who were found dead in that very house sometime in the forties, no signs of violence on any of them. The Muggle investigation had gone nowhere and never been closed.

But that was not why Severus had come, though he did want to see the place where Tom had killed his family. Just to see it. Nothing more than that.

He had come for Voldemort’s Horcrux. Not to destroy it. Only to protect himself in the event that Voldemort somehow managed to be reborn and decided to move against him. And beyond that, he simply wanted to look at the artefacts Riddle had chosen as vessels. They were not ordinary trinkets. They were genuine founder artefacts.

Since he had never been here before, Apparition was not an option. He flew, and Nagini did not object, because who would pass up the chance to look down at the world from the height of a bird.

Once he reached the village, he put eye-aversion charms on himself and walked without drawing any attention. A few minutes later he was at the slope of the second hill, where a dilapidated shack sat almost completely buried in tall undergrowth. The building looked as though no one had visited it in decades, and as though it might come down in a strong wind.

"Charming."

"And you would never guess this was once home to the pureblooded Gaunt family, direct descendants of Salazar Slytherin," he said, weighing for a moment whether to take out the portrait and let Salazar have a look at what his legacy had come to.

Inside it was filthy and thick with dust. The ceiling was almost entirely cobweb. The floor was smeared with soot and some dark viscous substance. A cold draught moved through the broken windows, and the fist-sized stones scattered near the frames and the glass on the floor made it fairly clear who was responsible.

He looked at the table. Unwashed plates, spoons, a pot crusted with something that had been food once. He let out a slow, disappointed breath.

"I still cannot understand how anyone squanders a fortune like the one Salazar left behind. He had millions of Galleons and a vast number of patents. They should have been drawing thousands a month, tens of thousands. How does anyone end up living like this?" Nagini asked, genuinely baffled.

"I am glad the history lessons were not wasted." He nodded at her. "The answer is simple and depressing: they were fools with no idea how to handle money. Instead of growing what their ancestor built, they spent until it was gone. That is the whole story. It is precisely why you do not put fortunes in the hands of people who cannot think."

Compared to Hogwarts, the magic in this place was minimal, which made finding the Horcrux straightforward. He did not even need to consult the Grimoire. He walked the room and almost immediately felt it: a concentration of magic far denser than the air around it. He crossed to one of the wooden walls, drove his fist through it, and pulled out a box.

"Easier than expected." He opened it, and the expression that crossed his face was a complicated mixture of shock and a hard, burning hostility that did not look like anything Nagini had seen from him before.

"What is it? What did you find?" She watched his face with concern. "A ring. What is wrong with it?" She tilted her head, studying the gold ring with its plain black stone.

Severus did not answer immediately. He held it up and looked at it in silence. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

"No. The stone resembles the Resurrection Stone from that sect, but the set of charms and runes is different. The real one could draw a soul from the other side, though it could not survive in this world for long and eventually came apart. This is something else: a False Resurrection Stone. It cannot do what the real one did. It can reach that world, yes, but only to copy a personality." Something cold and metallic moved through his eyes. "I would take the hands off whoever built this thing."

He had encountered a stone like this once before, long ago. He had almost used it to try to bring back his mother, trusting blindly in everything he had been told about the Resurrection Stone. If Ichiros had not arrived in time and stopped him, explained what the stone actually was and what using it would have done, he would have gone through with it, and carried that mistake with him for the rest of his life.

He took a slow breath and pulled himself back.

"I am fine. Do not worry." He put on his usual easy expression and looked at Nagini, feeling her concern come through the bond between them clearly. "I just remembered something I would rather not."

"If something is troubling you, you can tell me. Whatever it is. I am not going anywhere."

"Thank you. I mean that." He looked at her for a moment. "I am glad I found you."

"Those are my words," she murmured, pressing close and rubbing her head against his cheek. "I know you are keeping a great deal back. I am not going to demand you tell me everything. But I hope that one day you trust me enough to."

"I promise I will. Not yet. But one day."

"Good enough."

He raised his gaze back to the ring, nicked his finger, and turned his palm toward the stone. He closed his eyes and began tracing patterns in the air. When the last one was finished, they all shot into the stone at once and the same red inscriptions flared briefly inside it, then settled.

"That one is done. One more remains, though I am not certain it is still where it was. Worth checking."

A few hours later, Severus and Nagini stood in front of a cave near the sea. Disappointment registered on his face almost immediately: he could not feel a Horcrux anywhere inside. He checked the interior anyway, because Riddle had layered charms on everything and blocking a detection spell would have been straightforward for him. Even inside, he found nothing.

According to Tom’s memories, a Horcrux, Salazar Slytherin’s locket, should have been on a small rise in the centre of an underground lake, surrounded by a barrier and guarded by Inferi in the water below. Everything was there. Except the Inferi, and except the locket. That could mean only one thing: Voldemort had moved it. Without any indication of where, it would be almost impossible to find, and Severus decided to stop at the ring for now. He had already destroyed three of the five Horcruxes and marked one with a slave brand.

Working from the feel of the soul fragment, he estimated there could be no more than six in total. Which meant that beyond the locket, one more was somewhere out there. Without a lead, finding either of them was close to impossible, and he was comfortable leaving it where it was for the time being. If they ever surfaced, he would deal with them.

For the rest of the day they stayed by the sea. Severus had not been to the coast in a long time, and he let himself simply be there, mixing in the additional business of teaching Nagini to swim, or more accurately standing in the shallows while she tried.

The next day they returned to Hogwarts, and the routine resumed: the founders’ caches, regular lessons, Slughorn, everything else. One disruption: Lucinda Talkalot, the Slytherin Quidditch captain, had decided she wanted Severus on her team and was not taking no for an answer. He could not entirely explain it, because his flying had never been impressive. He had tried to match Potter in that area, since Potter was Gryffindor’s Seeker, but talent was simply not something he had there.

Strange and confusing, but there was also good news: the brooms had been replaced. The Galleons Severus had left were spent on what they were meant for, rather than disappearing into Dumbledore’s accounts. Several areas around the castle had seen small repairs and updated charms, and a few staircases that had not worked properly in years were finally fixed.

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