Sometimes It's Good to be Bad

Chapter 12 Death of a Locket

The next day went by with no great issues unless one counted the row Harry had with Ginny. He refused to go to the wedding as her date, which she hadn't previously believed he was serious about. When she realized that he was, she threw one of the biggest tantrums Hermione had ever had the displeasure to witness. Harry held firm, though. If he went with her, it would only put her in danger.

He was the only one who saw this logic, as everyone else realized that anyone in the vicinity of him was endangered. Not to mention, as Ginny had pointed out, her family were all blood traitors, Hermione was a muggleborn, and everyone else was either in the Order or another similar place of danger. It all fell on deaf ears, and finally Harry left the room to get away from her ranting.

Now, though, was two days after her last meeting with her master. As each day had passed, Harry was getting more and more testy with his friends as they weren't finding anything, and yesterday's incident didn't help his mood. They were eating lunch at a sandwich shop in muggle London.

In the middle of a conversation about why the Chudley Cannons were the greatest quidditch team ever (okay, it was more of a monologue on the part of a certain red-head) Hermione dropped her tuna melt onto her plate, causing what was left of it to explode over the table. She quickly grabbed her napkin and cleaned up the mess, as people had turned to stare. Her own friends were giving her looks of curiousity and surprise.

When everyone had turned back to their own tables, Hermione leaned over the table. "We haven't been to Knockturn Alley yet! I can't believe we forgot about the place," she said in a low voice. Neither boy looked too happy at the prospect, but judging by the set look on Harry's face, it was where they would be going next. "Yeah, how did you forget about that?" Ron asked, causing Hermione to roll her eyes.

An hour later they were going through the shops in the infamous Dark area. They were going shop to shop, as they didn't really know which ones might carry such an item, and which ones wouldn't. Borgin and Burkes was the fifth shop they went into. Ron was the one who found it, in a display case in the back of the shop. He motioned Harry and Hermione over to where he was, but when they got there his face was almost pure white. He was looking at the price tag. "Blimey, that's gotta be it, if they're charging that much. It's more than my dad makes in... well... a long time."

The other two looked down at the locket. Caractacus Burke suddenly appeared behind the glass case, looking intently at they young Gryffindors in his shop. "May I help you with anything?" he inquired in a nasty voice.

Staring at the older man, Harry answered. "Yes, I'd like to look at that necklace."

Burke looked a bit surprised. "That's a pretty penny, that one. Belonged to Salazar Slytherin himself. Perhaps you kiddies would prefer something from Diagon Alley."

"No. I want that one." Harry's voice left no room for arguement. "Hold it aside, and we will be back shortly with the gold."

"Very well, young sir," responded the owner, slightly more respectful now he knew he was going to make a large sale.

As they were making their way to Gringott's, Ron had turned slightly green, though Hermione couldn't tell if it was because they had "found" a part of the Dark Lord's soul, or due to jealousy that Harry was about to spend more money on a locket than his family went through in a year. She suspected it was a mixture of the two.

"Are you sure it's the right locket?" she asked Harry.

"Yes, you heard him. It belonged to Slytherin. It's the right one."

"He could have just been saying that to make us want it less. After all, we aren't exactly his usual patrons."

Harry rounded on her. "Hermione, why aren't you happy we found it? You're just looking for problems with it."

She stood up straight looking him in the eyes before she answered him. "No, I'm not. I'm being logical. He didn't even take it out of the case so we could look at it. I don't want you to spend three thousand galleons on a locket and have it turn out to be the wrong one. Somehow I doubt Burke would refund you're money."

"I'm sorry, Hermione. You're right. Before I buy it, you can look it over to be sure the markings are right, but I think Burke would have tested it first to be sure of its authenticity, despite the fact that he had it before and would recognize it."

"That's all I'm asking, Harry." Since she had never let anything just pass it would have been out of the character her friends knew to just let something so big go unchallenged and she could see in their faces that her acceptance of the locket had made it truely real.

When they got back to the shop, and Hermione had said it was definately the same one from the drawing room, Harry paid for the item. When it was wrapped and safe in his cloak the three left the shop and once again side-apparated Harry to Grimmauld Place.

They locked themselves up in the Black library for the rest of the night, only making a quick appearance at dinner, much to the concern of the others who were in the house. They were looking for any spells or potions that might work on it. Since the basilisk fang had worked on the diary, they were mostly looking into poisons. There were a couple that they thought might work, but there was no way of getting either the means to make them, or the finished product.

Hermione did test after test to figure what spells were placed on it in her room after the other had finally passed out, and when she finally thought she had figured them all at was two in the morning. She was really impressed at the detail involved, given that it was made in a day and a half. The best part of it was that the makers had had the foresight to actually put a curse on it that would require a poison. She identified which poison it would need, now just to come up with a reason to convince Harry and Ron of WHY they had to use that particular one over the others. She decided to sleep on it.

The next morning was spent trying to still figure the locket out until Hermione had her "Eureeka!" moment and figured out exactly which potion was needed, and after explaining it in such a confusing way that it had to be right, they decided that they needed to take another trip to Knockturn Alley.

After lunch, Ron went to The Burrow for the rehearsal dinner and "family time", leaving the task to his two best friends. After a two hour search, they found the particular poison they needed, as well as its antidote in the fourth apothecary they visited. They had been amazed at all the dark potions and objects they could purchase. As antsy as they were to destroy the horcrux, the two decided that it would be best to wait until Ron was back that night. The rest of the day was spent in a much more relaxing fashion than the days previous, and they were better off for it.

Once Ron was back, thoroughly exhausted, they went to the library where Hermione and Harry had set up two small cauldrons they had found while cleaning earlier, and next to Harry's dragon hide quidditch gloves. When they were locked in, Hermione put the gloves on, took the poison and drained the bottle into one of the cauldrons. Harry handed her the locket and she lowered it into the puke-orange liquid. The trio stood around, having charmed saftey goggles onto their faces, looking into the cauldron as the poison turned to purple. Suddenly, a cloud of black smoke rose from the surface of the mixture as within its depths the locket opened, revealing the emptiness of the inner cavity.

All three breathed a sigh of relief, content with the knowledge that the third horcrux had been destroyed as Hermione took the antidote and poured it into the second cauldron before transferring the locket between the two. They disappeared the poison from the first cauldron before magically wrapping it in cellophane to be sure that the poison couldn't touch anyone's skin.

Once they thought enough time had passed in the antidote, Hermione pulled the locket out of the second cauldron, spelled it dry, and put it down on the desk. She followed the same procedure cleaning this second cauldron as the first before vanishing the two to Kreatcher's room, as she didn't really think anyone would go scrounging around it.

Harry picked the necklace up and held it out to Hermione, startling her. "What?" she asked.

"Hermione, I want you to have it. Now that it's not a horcrux it can't hurt anyone, and if it weren't for you, that wouldn't be the case."

"Harry, I didn't do anything all too spectacular, I'm just better at handling potions than either of you. And you paid so much money for it, you should give it to Ginny, or some other woman you fall in love with down the road."

"You need to stop being so modest all the time, Hermione. It doesn't matter how much it cost, this isn't something I could just give to a random woman. You destroyed the soul within it, you should have it. Just take it." Reluctantly, she let him do the clasp around her neck, inwardly smiling, though the look painted on her face showed more dislike than anything else.

Backstory for this chapter-----
The locket should have costed more, since it was supposed to have been Slytherin's, but Burke had been under orders that it was to only go to Harry Potter, and no one else, so it had to be a price that was high enough the naive boy wouldn't question the validity.