The Inadequate Life

Harry tried not to jerk in surprise when Ginny’s hand slid up his thigh. It was getting late and they were trying to have a serious conversation with Ron and Hermione about planning the final battle. At least Harry was trying—Ginny seemed more focused on toying with Harry, although she was participating in the conversation perfectly well. Not that Harry minded, exactly, but it was only a few hours since their rather exhausting shag with Luna. Harry wondered if Luna’s insatiable sexual appetite was rubbing off on Ginny somehow.

“Harry, are you sure you want to do this in Diagon Alley?” Ron asked for what seemed like the millionth time—every time they’d discussed the final battle, he’d raised the same objection. “I mean, a big fight like this? It’s a really complicated place—we’re sure to miss something. And that’s assuming there’s no one else around, and I don’t think we can count on that, not in Diagon Alley! Couldn’t we try to lure Voldemort to a meadow or something?”

“There’s nowhere to hide in a meadow, Ron,” Harry answered patiently, surreptitiously pushing Ginny’s hand away under the table. “We’re going to be fighting against Death Eaters who won’t hesitate to cast the Killing Curse at us—there will be moments when we’re going to need to be able to duck behind something.”

“That may be true, Harry,” Hermione agreed, “but Ron’s point is still valid. Even when Diagon Alley was shut down temporarily by the Ministry, there were still people about. I don’t see how we can guarantee that there won’t be any innocent bystanders.”

Harry nodded. “I know. I agree. But I really don’t see a choice here—we have to do this in a place we’re all familiar with so we’ll know where we can go safely, and Diagon Alley’s the only place that fits.” He pushed Ginny’s hand away again and stood up so he could look down at the map in front of them; he tried to ignore Ginny’s subtle pout. “Diagon Alley is a simple design,” he said. “It’s just one long street, with the Leaky Cauldron at one end and a dead end at the other. The only other way in by foot is through Knockturn Alley, and I think that we could almost completely cut that off with a mess of Fred and George’s inventions.”

“That’s the only way in by foot,” Ginny pointed out. “We still haven’t solved the problem of Apparition.”

“Or the Floo,” Ron added. “I did some looking around, and as near as I can tell there are almost fifty fireplaces in Diagon Alley connected to the Floo network! We don’t even have fifty people in the D.A.!”

“Actually, I might have come up with a way to deal with the Floo,” Harry said, surprising the others. “That’s why I told Angelina, Katie and Alicia we’d need to talk to them later.”

“Oh yes!” Hermione exclaimed. “I was curious about that!”

“What a surprise,” Ginny said sardonically, and Hermione flushed.

Harry laid out his thoughts on the problem with the Floo, and his idea for dealing with it. It was fairly crazy and incredibly dangerous, Harry admitted, but after arguing for a while they all agreed that it might be possible, and if anyone could pull it off then the three Gryffindor girls could. “We’ll have to keep thinking on the rest,” Harry said finally. “Right now I thought we should discuss the fight itself—does anyone have any thoughts about how we should go about it?”

“People should fight in pairs or trios,” Ginny said immediately. “No one should be alone, not even for a second. And everyone should be partnered with someone they trust and are completely comfortable with. Otherwise they may second-guess each other.”

“That’s sound reasoning,” Hermione agreed. “But that means we’ll need to be able to break the Death Eaters up as well, or they’ll fight in large groups.”

“I think I have an idea about that,” Harry said, surprising them. “I think it’s time to bring Tonks here to the House of Black.”

“You want Tonks fighting in the final battle?” Ron asked in surprise. “Why?”

“Because she may be the best way for us to confuse and break up the Death Eaters,” Harry said, and began to explain.

Everyone thought Harry’s idea for Tonks was a sound one, although it would be dangerous and would require a lot of preparation. “We should get her in here as soon as possible so she can get started.”

“Right. Ron, will you send her a message when we’re through here?” Harry asked; Ron nodded. “Okay. Any other ideas for how the D.A. should be distributed?”

I was thinking that perhaps we should designate specific responsibilities to particular people during the battle,” Hermione suggested. “Rather as we have people assigned to chores now.”

“What did you have in mind?” Harry asked.

“Well, for example… I think that Cho Chang shouldn’t be expected to fight directly with Death Eaters,” Hermione said. “She’s simply too timid—you saw how she reacted even to the idea of teaching us all some basic Healing. I think she’d be better off if we only ask her to Heal people and get them to St. Mungo’s. We should really have someone doing that anyway.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Harry agreed. “And I see what you mean—if Dementors come into the fight, not everyone in the D.A. will be able to fight them off. So those of us who can cast Patronuses are going to have to be prepared to drop whatever they’re doing to help those who can’t.”

Hermione nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly! And a few people—probably Fred, George, Seamus and Dean—should all carry some of the twins’ inventions for emergency use.”

“Say… is there any way to make Portkeys that would work if you just touch them?” Ron asked out of the blue. “Like say, if you were wearing it on a chain around your neck?”

“Why—yes, that would work fine,” Hermione answered in surprise. “A Portkey will work if it’s touching you anywhere, not just the hand. Why?”

“Well, you talked about having Cho be responsible for getting us to St. Mungo’s if we needed it,” Ron said. “But she can’t be everywhere at once. So it got me thinking—what if we all had Portkeys around our necks, that were set so that whenever we just said ‘St. Mungo’s’ we’d automatically get transported there? That way any of us could get there instantly if we were hurt, or take anyone else who was too hurt to transport themselves. And we could also set them so if we said ‘Diagon Alley’ the Portkey would take us back.”

Harry, Ginny and Hermione all gaped at Ron. “That’s brilliant!” Harry exclaimed. “If we were too hurt to Apparate, or it was one of the D.A. that wasn’t very good at it to begin with—bloody hell, Ron!”

Ron flushed. “Hey, it was only what Hermione said about Cho and St. Mungo’s that made me think of it—”

“But you thought of it, Ron,” Ginny insisted. “Don’t sell yourself short—it’s a brilliant idea.”

“I’ll get to work on that right away,” Hermione said happily. “I’ll see if I can figure out a way to get the Portkeys to recognize when we mean to activate them and when we don’t, so that we don’t trigger them during normal conversation.”

Harry grinned and nodded. “Good thinking. And I like the idea of everyone fighting in teams, too,” he said to Ginny. “We’ll have to figure out who’s best suited to fight alongside who.”

“I claim you to fight with,” Ginny retorted, half-teasing, half-serious. “You get the Dementors, I’ll handle the Death Eaters.”

Harry looked surprised. “I, er… I don’t think we’ll be out there fighting Death Eaters,” he said. “I think we’ll have our hands full with Voldemort. Defeating him is the whole point of this—we have to figure out a way to separate him from the Death Eaters so that we can take him down.”

“How are we going to do that, exactly?” Hermione asked. “Even without the Horcruxes to keep him immortal, Voldemort is still an incredibly powerful wizard. The four of us together are most likely still no match for him.”

Harry gave Hermione an odd look, but didn’t comment. After a moment, Ginny said “I think we should worry about the Horcruxes for now. If we can figure out how to destroy them, then we can reveal to Voldemort that they’re gone at the right time—it might give us the opening we need to beat him.”

“Have we made any progress on that?” Harry asked.

“Luna told me that she was meeting Terry, Padma and Sally-Ann in one of the conference rooms tonight to keep talking about it,” Ginny said. “But I wouldn’t get your hopes up, they’ve just gotten started on it. Hell, Luna’s the only one of the four who even knew about the Horcruxes before this morning!”

“Well, it couldn’t hurt to ask,” Harry decided. “I think I’ll head down there and see what’s going on—maybe I can answer any more questions they have.”

“I’ll go with you,” Ginny offered, standing up. “Are we through for now?”

“I think we all have a lot to think about,” Hermione said. “But we should probably start having these meetings every night, so we can make certain we’re all on the same page, as it were. In fact, we probably should have months ago,” she added sternly.

They all agreed (although Ron and Ginny both grumbled a bit at having their evenings taken for the foreseeable future), and after Harry reminded Ron to send the owl to Tonks, he and Ginny left Ron and Hermione alone in their room. “Were you trying to kill me in there, Gin?” Harry muttered as they walked down the stairs to the second floor, where the conference rooms were. “I don’t even know if I could go again today!”

“Of course you can,” Ginny replied mildly, the corners of her mouth twitching. “Back during my first week here, you managed four in one day. All you need is proper incentive.”

“What’s gotten into you?” Harry asked—not accusatorily, but still slightly suspicious. “Did Luna slip you a Potency Potion or something?”

Ginny laughed. “Of course not. This is the magical binding of our marriage coming through again, Harry. I just—want to be close to you, all the time. And I love shagging you, so…” she looked at him nervously. “It doesn’t bother you, does it? I’m sorry—”

“No, it doesn’t bother me,” Harry said quickly. “It’s just—uh, unexpected. But I like it, Ginny. A lot.”

Ginny flushed.

When they reached the second floor, the first conference room was unoccupied, but the door to the second one had vanished, meaning someone was inside. Ginny knocked on the wall, and they waited for a moment before the door shimmered into existence; it swung open, and Luna poked her head out. “Hello,” she said pleasantly. “I’m glad you’re here, perhaps you can help us—we seem to have a minor problem.”

“Hah!” a voice from inside exclaimed. “Minor my arse!”

“Sally-Ann thinks it’s worse than that,” Luna admitted calmly.

“I think we caught that,” Harry said wryly, walking inside behind Ginny. “Why don’t you tell us what the problem is?”

“The problem,” Sally-Ann said the moment Luna had shut the door, “is that we have no information about Horcruxes! And it’s not like Padma can just go to her job at Flourish and Blotts and look in their inventory for books on the subject!”

“We are having difficulty figuring out how to get more information,” Padma agreed a bit more moderately.

“Yeah… we had the same problem,” Ginny agreed. “That’s why we had Pansy Polyjuice into Snape and get Sawol Immortalis—” she gestured to the book open on the table in front of Luna “—from Borgin & Burkes, and asked Luna to translate it. We were hoping that it might be the one book out there with more information.”

“Unfortunately, that turned out to be not particularly useful on Horcruxes,” Padma said wryly.

Everyone looked at Luna, who shrugged slightly. “I’ve just about completed the translation,” she said. “The only mentions of Horcruxes I’ve found were in passing; the only comment about destroying them is that it’s ‘nigh-impossible’.”

Harry groaned. “So we’re back to square one.”

“There is information out there,” Luna said reasonably. “There has to be. Voldemort found out about them, after all.”

“He found out about them from Professor Slughorn,” Sally-Ann pointed out. “And Slughorn is dead, remember?”

“Not, that’s not right,” Harry corrected. “When Tom Riddle was a student he learned more about Horcruxes from Slughorn, sure—but he knew enough about them to think to ask. He’d heard of them before that.”

“It could have just been rumors,” Ginny said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the richer, more powerful pureblood families have information about Horcruxes in their family records.”

“That doesn’t really help us,” Terry said, chewing on his lower lip. “I doubt any of them would share that information with us. And anyway, word would be sure to reach Voldemort.”

“That’s assuming anyone would admit to knowing or owning information about them anyway,” Harry added. “From what Slughorn said, Horcruxes are considered the most despicable, vile things ever created by a wizard. I’m not sure, but I’d bet that being caught with anything to do with them would mean a long stay in Azkaban.”

“We don’t even know the functionality of creating a Horcrux,” Sally-Ann said with clear frustration. “All we know is that you have to kill someone to create one, but how do you create it? Does it catch the soul of the person you’ve killed?”

Harry shuddered. He had reason to suspect that the Horcrux Voldemort had made from Gryffindor’s gauntlet had been made with the death of one or both of Harry’s parents, the night he got his scar. The idea that one or both of their souls might still be trapped in the gauntlet made him feel sick. Fortunately, Padma said “No, that’s not how a Horcrux works, remember? The murder of another provides the power with which to remove a part of your own soul and bind it into an object. The victim’s deaths provide an enormous amount of magical power, but they have to die for it to work, which means that their souls are gone. The only thing we know of that can even directly affect a soul is the Killing Curse. Well, and Dementors.”

“Which proves that catching a soul is possible, in a way,” Terry commented. “Could a Horcrux be a sort of magical object created to behave like a Dementor?”

“No!” Harry said sharply, and everyone looked at him. “I mean—when I remember the night my parents were killed, I remember Voldemort using the Killing Curse on both of them. If a Horcrux acted like a Dementor, then Voldemort couldn’t make one once they were already dead, could he?”

Sally-Ann, Padma and Terry all looked horrified that Harry actually had memories of the infamous night his parents were murdered. Luna, however, seemed to take the revelation in stride. “Hmmm… I doubt it,” she said thoughtfully. “The Horcrux would have to be crafted the instant the victim was killed by other means. Besides, when a soul is sucked out by a Dementor, the Dementor consumes it, which is counter to the idea of a Horcrux. No, I would think that a Horcrux trapping a soul is unlikely.”

“Well then what?” Sally-Ann snapped, losing her usual calm. “How is it done? Does it involve blood? A lot of spells involving Dark magic do. But if so, in what way? And is it the creator’s blood, or the victim’s blood, or both? How can we hope to figure out how to destroy them if we can’t even figure out how they’re made in the first place?”

“Blood,” Harry said suddenly, his eyes wide. “They have to be made with blood—Voldemort’s blood!”

Padma raised an eyebrow at him. “How can you be certain?”

“Because my scar burns whenever I touch once of Voldemort’s Horcruxes,” Harry said slowly, picking his way carefully through his thoughts. “Voldemort’s blood is mingled with my own—he used my blood to resurrect himself after the Third Task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. And when he touched me afterwards, my scar burned. It was the mingling of our blood that caused that, and I get the same reaction from the Horcruxes! Doesn’t that mean they have Voldemort’s blood in them too?”

Everyone considered that. “That seems… possible, but there are still a lot of questions before I’ll be convinced,” Sally-Ann said finally. “It’s a place to start, though.”

Ginny looked askance at Harry. “That could be another reason why Voldemort insisted on using your blood for his resurrection,” she said a bit sadly. “Your blood would become significant to his Horcruxes, and it already was mingled with the gauntlet, through your parents. In a perverse way, it would make your blood even more valuable.” When Harry’s expression grew stricken, she snapped her mouth shut. “Oh hell,” she muttered. “I’m sorry, Harry—that’s probably the last thing you want to hear…”

“No, it’s not that,” Harry gasped. “You just reminded me of something Dumbledore said!”

“I did?” Ginny frowned. “What?”

“The night I went with Dumbledore to try and find the locket Horcrux,” Harry explained, “we went into a cave that Voldemort had used, years ago. There was a wall of stone there, sealed up with magic, and Dumbledore figured out that you had to splash a bit of blood on it to make it open.” Padma, Sally-Ann and Terry all wrinkled their noses in distaste. “When Dumbledore pulled out a knife to—to cut himself, I offered to do it myself. And he said that my blood was ‘worth more’ than his was!” His eyes met Ginny’s. “I thought he just meant that I was more important, but maybe he was being literal—maybe he’d already figured out about my blood connection to the Horcruxes.”

“Hmm,” Padma replied. “Was that before or after Dumbledore injured his hand while destroying the ring Horcrux, Harry?”

“Er… after,” Harry answered. “Dumbledore hurt his hand over the summer before sixth year, but we didn’t go to the cave until—until the night he died,” he finished sadly. “Why?”

“That might explain why Dumbledore got hurt,” Padma said. “Maybe he thought that any blood could destroy the Horcruxes. He tried to use his own blood to destroy the ring, and it worked, but because it wasn’t your blood it injured him. Maybe that’s when he realized that your blood would work best.”

“That explains why afterwards, Dumbledore knew enough to make that comment about Harry’s blood being worth more,” Terry added, nodding thoughtfully.

“Wait a minute,” Sally-Ann said. “That doesn’t make any sense. The Horcruxes were all created before Voldemort was resurrected with Harry’s blood. How could his blood be significant to them after the fact?”

“Maybe the Horcruxes are still connected to Voldemort in a very subtle way,” Luna suggested. “They’re affected by things that affect him, and vice versa.”

“Now, that makes sense!” Sally-Ann agreed, looking triumphant. “They were made with pieces of Voldemort’s soul—the idea that his soul ‘feels’ the other parts of itself is reasonably sound.”

The idea startled Harry. “But wouldn’t that mean that Voldemort would know whenever a Horcrux was destroyed?”

“Not necessarily,” Terry replied. “Think of it like a Sleeping Draught. If someone slipped you one without your knowledge, you would only recognize that you were tired. The fact that something from outside had directly affected your state of rest wouldn’t be obvious.” Harry nodded, relieved. If Voldemort knew they were aware of the existence of his Horcruxes, it could completely ruin any chance they had at catching Voldemort by surprise when they finally confronted him.

“I think this is a reasonable theory,” Padma said, “but we don’t really have any proof. There were three Horcruxes destroyed so far—the diary, the ring and the giant snake—but none of them were destroyed using Harry’s blood. I think, in order to—”

Ginny, who’d been deep in thought, suddenly gasped. “Oh, Merlin,” she muttered, looking sick.

“What? What is it?” Harry asked, surprised by her reaction.

“The diary,” Ginny whispered. “Riddle’s diary. Harry, when you destroyed it—” she swallowed, clearly upset. “You stabbed it with the basilisk’s fang, and the way you described it, I’d just assumed that the venom had done the job. But you p-pulled the fang out of your arm first, didn’t you? It—it had your blood on it.”

Harry understood why Ginny looked nauseated. “That’s right,” he replied faintly. “I didn’t even think of it—I was so messed up from the venom I wasn’t thinking clearly.” He reached out and pulled Ginny close, encircling her with his arms. She was trembling—not surprisingly, considering that her experience in the Chamber of Secrets her first year at Hogwarts had been the most traumatic thing she’d ever experienced.

“There’s no reason you should have thought of that,” Luna pointed out logically. “You didn’t even know the diary was a Horcrux, or even what that meant. Actually, you had no reason to think that the basilisk venom would be effective in destroying the diary at all. Why did you stab the diary with the fang?”

“I dunno,” Harry admitted weakly. “It just seemed like the thing to do.”

“Well, let’s hope your instincts keep working that well,” Sally-Ann said ironically.

“You know, something just occurred to me,” Terry said. “Of the three destroyed Horcruxes, the diary is the only one that didn’t do some damage on the way out. The snake exploded, and although we don’t know what the ring did, it was violent enough to permanently harm Dumbledore. But the diary didn’t.”

“Maybe the combination of Harry’s blood and the venom created a reaction?” Luna suggested.

“I still say that Harry’s blood wasn’t too important,” Padma said. “At least, not in the case of the diary. Voldemort hadn’t been resurrected at that point, so neither the diary itself or Voldemort’s soul had any kind of blood-related connection to Harry. I think that in that situation, the basilisk venom mixed with blood—anyone’s blood—was what worked.”

“So now, maybe Harry’s blood combined with basilisk venom would work, since the connection exists now?” Ginny asked hopefully, lifting her head from Harry’s chest. “I hate the idea that you would need Harry’s blood, but if it would work…” Harry nodded his agreement fervently. He would readily give up a bit of blood if it was that important to destroying Voldemort.

“I don’t know, Harry,” Terry replied, sounding skeptical. “If your blood is tied to the Horcruxes, I think it might be less useful for destroying them. It seems counterintuitive to think that a blood object could be destroyed by the very thing which created it.”

“Of course we shouldn’t attempt to destroy the Horcruxes with your blood, Harry,” Luna said, surprising them all. “But we should be able to change them.” At Harry’s confused look—at everyone’s confused look—she continued; “Your blood was used to alter Voldemort—from your description he was already kind of alive before they took your blood, so it didn’t give him life so much as change the bit of life that already existed, as well as his form, of course. Since the Horcruxes are parts of his soul, and if they also have your blood in them, then they should be susceptible to the same sort of changes—maybe even more malleable than they would have been. Perhaps we can change them so that the part of them that’s from your blood is brought to the surface, and the part of them that’s Voldemort’s soul is subsumed.”

Stunned silence followed Luna’s disproportionately mild suggestion. It was a full minute before Sally-Ann exclaimed “Brilliant!”

“That’s it,” Padma breathed, her inward-turned eyes gleaming. “Use Harry’s blood not to destroy, but to transform the Horcruxes into—”

“Into what?” Harry interrupted sharply, startling them. “Horcruxes of my own? Because if that’s what you’re suggesting—”

“No, definitely not,” Sally-Ann said, waving her hands frantically. “We’re not talking about messing with your soul at all! In fact—if I understand exactly what Luna’s suggesting, then the Horcruxes won’t have any soul left at all!”

“That’s right,” Luna said calmly. “Actually, we wouldn’t be able to call them Horcruxes any longer.”

“It’s an excellent theory, but in order to be certain we’re going to have to do some experiments. Harry, we’re going to need to get some blood from you to test,” Padma said apologetically. “And I think we should consider experimenting with basilisk venom as well—what happened to the diary makes it strongly plausible that the venom will have some strong effect on the other Horcruxes.” She looked concernedly at Harry. “Is that even something we can get? Basilisks are very rare, and their venom even more so…”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Harry promised, letting go of Ginny reluctantly. “If it will help destroy—or rather, transform—the Horcruxes, then I’ll do everything in my power to get it. It’s too important… Voldemort can’t be the same when we confront him, or there’ll be no point. He has to be vulnerable, and know he’s vulnerable.”

“You mean, find out at the right moment,” Padma corrected, and Harry nodded.

“Huh,” Ginny said. She was staring blankly at a bare spot on the table.

“What is it?” Harry asked. When Ginny didn’t respond, Harry touched her shoulder lightly. “Er—Ginny?”

“What? Oh,” Ginny said, and reddened slightly. “Sorry. Harry, I’ve just had an idea. I think it’s time we call Tonks in and bring her here to the house.”

Harry was thrown off by the apparently random direction in which Ginny’s thinking had taken her. “Uh… tell me about it,” he said. “Actually, let’s go find Ron and Hermione, and you can explain it to all of us.”

“Um, Harry…” Padma said nervously.

Harry grimaced. “Right after I give them some of my blood,” he added.