” said Hermione, looking shocked. “ItТ s dreadful that heТ s dead! But weТ re being reali s
tic!”
For the first time, Harry imagined Mad-EyeТ s body, broken as DumbledoreТ s had been, yet with that one eye still whizzing in its socket. He felt a stab of revulsion mixed with a bizarre desire to laugh.
“The Death Eaters probably tidied up after the m selves, thatТ s why no oneТ s found him,”
said Ron wisely.
“Yeah,” said Harry. “Like Barty Crouch, turned into a bone and buried in HagridТ s front ga r
den. They probably tran s figured Moody and stuffed him Ц “
“DonТ t!” squealed Hermione. Startled, Harry looked over just in time to see her burst into tears over her copy of SpellmanТ s Syll
a bary .
“Oh no,” said Harry, struggling to get up from the old camp bed. “Hermione, I wasnТ t tr y
ing to upset Ц “
But with a great creaking of rusty bedsprings, Ron bounded off the bed and got there first. One arm around Hermione, he fished in his jeans pocket and withdrew a revolting-looking handke
r chief that he had used to clean out the
oven earlier. Hastily pulling out his wand, he pointed it at the rag and said, “ Tergeo. ”
The wand siphoned off most of the grease. Loo k
ing rather pleased with himself, Ron handed the slightly smoking handke r chief to Hermione.
“Oh . . . thanks, Ron. . . . IТ m sorry. . . .” She blew her nose and hiccupped. “ItТ s just so awf-ful, isnТ t it? R-right after Dumbledore . . . I j-just n-never imagined Mad-Eye dying, som
e how, he seemed so tough!”
“Yeah, I know,” said Ron, giving her a squeeze. “But you know what heТ d say to us if he was here?”
“Т C-constant vigilance,Т ” said Hermione, mo p ping her eyes.
“ThatТ s right,” said Ron, nodding. “HeТ
d tell us to learn from what happened to him. And what IТ ve learned is not to trust that cowardly little squit, Mundungus.”
Hermione gave a shaky laugh and leaned fo r
ward to pick up two more books. A second later, Ron had snatched his arm back from around her shoulders; she had dropped The Monster of Monsters
on his foot. The book had broken free from its restraining belt and snapped viciously at RonТ s ankle.
“IТ m sorry, IТ m sorry!” Hermione cried as Harry wrenched the book from RonТ s leg and r e
tied it shit.
“What are you doing with all those books an y way?” Ron asked, limping back to his bed.
“Just trying to decide which ones to take with us,” said Hermione, “When weТ re looking for the Horcruxes.”
“Oh, of course,” said Ron, clapping a hand to his forehead. “I forgot weТ ll be hunting down Vold e
mort in a mobile library.”
“Ha ha,” said Hermione, looking down at Spel l
manТ s Syllabary . “I wonder . . . will we need to tran
s late runes? ItТ s possible. . . . I think weТ d better take it, to be safe.”
She dropped the syllabary onto the larger of the two piles and picked up Hogwarts, A Hi s
tory.
“Listen,” said Harry.
He had sat up straight. Ron and Hermione looked at him with similar mixtures of resignation and def i ance.
“I know you said after DumbledoreТ s funeral that you wanted to come with me,” Harry b e gan.
“Here he goes,” Ron said to Hermione, rolling his eyes.
“As we knew he would,” he sighed, turning back to the books. “You know, I think I will take
Ho g warts, A History.
Even if weТ re not going back there, I donТ t think IТ d feel right if I didnТ t have it with Ц “
“Listen!” said Harry again.
“No, Harry, you listen,” said Hermione. “WeТ re coming with you. That was decided months ago
Ц years, really.”
“But Ц “
“Shut up,” Ron advised him.
“Ц are you sure youТ ve thought this through?” Harry persisted.
“LetТ s see,” said Hermione, slamming Travels with Trolls
onto the discarded pile with a rather fierce look. “IТ ve been packing for days, so weТ re ready to leave at a momentТ s notice, which for your inform a
tion has included doing some pretty difficult magic, not to mention smuggling Mad-EyeТ s whole stock of Polyjuice Potion right under RonТ s mumТ s nose.
“IТ ve also modified my parentsТ memories so that theyТ re convinced theyТ re really called Wendell and Monica Wilkins, and that their lifeТ s ambition is to move to Australia, which they have now done. ThatТ
s to make it more difficult for Voldemort to track them down and interrogate them about me Ц or you, b e
cause unfortunately, IТ ve told them quite a bit about you.
“Assuming I survive our hunt for the Horcruxes, IТ ll find Mum and Dad and lift the enchan t ment. If I don
Т t Ц well, I think IТ ve cast a good enough charm to keep them
safe and happy. Wendell and Monica Wi l kins donТ t know that theyТ ve got a daug
h ter, you see.”
HermioneТ s eyes were swimming with tears again. Ron got back off the bed, put his arm around her once more, and frowned at Harry as though r e
proaching him for lack of tact. Harry could not think of anything to say, not least because it was highly u n
usual for Ron to be teaching anyone else tact.
“I Ц Hermione, IТ m sorry Ц I didnТ t Ц “
“DidnТ t realize that Ron and I know pe r fectly well what might happen
if we come with you? Well, we do. Ron, show Harry what youТ ve done.”
“Nah, heТ s just eaten,” said Ron.
“Go on, he needs to know!”
“Oh, all right. Harry, come here.”
For the second time Ron withdrew his arm from around Hermione and stumped over to the door.
“CТ mon.”
“Why?” Harry asked, following Ron out of the room onto the tiny landing.
“ Descendo ,”
muttered Ron, pointing his wand at the low ceiling. A hatch opened right over their heads and a ladder slid down to their feet. A horrible, half-sucking, half-moaning sound came out of the square hole, along with an unpleasant smell like open drains.

“ThatТ s your ghoul, isnТ t it?” asked Harry, who had never actually met the creature that som e
times disrupted the nightly s i lence.
“Yeah, it is,” said Ron, climbing the ladder. “Come and have a look at him.”
Harry followed Ron up the few short steps into the tiny attic space. His head and shoulders were in the room before he caught sight of the creature curled up a few feet from him, fast asleep in the gloom with its large mouth wide open.
“But it . . . it looks . . . do ghouls normally wear pajamas?”
“No,” said Ron. “Nor have they usually got red hair or that number of pustules.”
Harry contemplated the thing, slightly r e volted. It was human in shape and size, and was wea
r ing what, now that HarryТ s eyes b e
came used to the darkness, was clearly an old pair of RonТ
s pajamas. He was also sure that ghouls were generally rather slimy and bald, rather than distinctly hairy and covered in angry pu r
ple blisters.
“HeТ s me, see?” said Ron.
“No,” said Harry. “I donТ t.”
“IТ ll explain it back in my room, the smellТ s ge t ting to me,”
said Ron. They climbed back down the ladder, which Ron returned to the ceiling, and r e
joined Hermione, who was still sorting books.
“Once weТ ve left, the ghoulТ s going to come and live down here in my room,” said Ron. “I think heТ s really looking forward to it Ц well, itТ s hard to tell, because all he can do is moan and drool Ц
but he nods a lot when you mention it. Anyway, heТ s going to be me with spattergroit. Good, eh?”
Harry merely looked his confusion.
“It is!” said Ron, clearly frustrated that Harry had not grasped the brilliance of the plan. “Look, when we three donТ t turn up at Hogwarts again, everyoneТ s g o
ing to think Hermione and I must be with you, right? Which means the Death Eaters will go straight for our families to see if theyТ ve got inform
a tion on where you are.”
“But hopefully itТ ll look like IТ ve gone away with Mum and Dad; a lot of Mu
g gle-borns are talking about going into hiding at the m
o ment,” said Hermione.
“We canТ t hide my whole family, itТ ll look too fishy and they canТ t all leave their jobs,” said Ron. “So weТ re going to put out the story that IТ m seriously ill with spatte
r groit, which is why I canТ t go back to school. If an
y one comes calling to investigate, Mum or Dad can show them the ghoul in my bed, covered in pustules. Spattergroit
Т s really co n tagious, so theyТ re not going to want to go near him. It wonТ t matter that he can
Т t say anything, either, because apparently you canТ t once the fungus has spread to your uvula.”
“And your mum and dad are in on this plan?” asked Harry.
“Dad is. He helped Fred and George transform the ghoul. Mum . . . well, youТ ve seen what sheТ s like. She wonТ t accept weТ re going till weТ re gone.”
There was silence in the room, broken only by gentle thuds as Hermione continued to throw books onto one pile or the other. Ron sat watching her, and Harry looked from one to the other, unable to say an
y thing. The measure they had taken to protect their families made him r
e
alize, more than anything else could have done, that they really were going to come with him and that they knew exactly how dangerous that would be. He wanted to tell them what that meant to him, but he si
m ply could not find words important enough.
Through the silence came the muffled sounds of Mrs. Weasley shouting from four floors b e low.
“GinnyТ s probably left a speck of dust on a poxy napkin ring,” said Ron. “I dunno why the Del a
cours have got to come two days before the wedding.”
“FleurТ s sisterТ s a bridesmaid, she needs to be here for the rehearsal, and sheТ s too young to come on her own,” said Hermione, as she pored indecisively over
Break with a Banshee .
“Well, guests arenТ t going to help MumТ s stress levels,” said Ron.
“What we really need to decide,” said Hermione, tossing Defensive Magical Theory
into the bin without a second glance and picking up An A p
praisal of Magical Education in Europe , “is where weТ
re going after we leave here. I know you said you wanted to go to Go d ricТ s Hollow first,
Harry, and I understand why, but . . . well . . . shouldnТ t we make the Ho r cruxes our priority?”
“If we knew where any of the Horcruxes were, IТ d agree with you,” said Harry, who did not believe that Hermione really u n
derstood his desire to return to GodricТ s Ho l
low. His parentsТ graves were only part of the attraction: He had a strong, though inexplic a
ble, feeling that the place held answers for him. Perhaps it was si m
ply because it was there that he had survived VoldemortТ s Killing Curse; now that he was facing the cha l
lenge of repeating the feat, Harry was drawn to the place where it had happened, wanting to unde r
stand.
“DonТ t you think thereТ s a possibility that VoldemortТ s keeping a watch on GodricТ s Ho l
low?” Hermione asked. “He might expect you to go back and visit your parentsТ graves once youТ re free to go wherever you like?”
This had not occurred to Harry. While he stru g gled to find a counterargument, Ron spoke up, ev
i dently following his own train of thought.
“This R.A.B. person,” he said. “You know, the one who stole the real locket?”
Hermione nodded.
“He said in his note he was going to destroy it, didnТ t he?”
Harry dragged his rucksack toward him and pulled out the fake Horcrux in which R.A.B.Т s note was still folded.
“ Т I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to d e
stroy it as soon as I can.Т ” Harry read out.
“Well, what if he did finish it off?” said Ron.
“Or she.” Interposed Hermione.
“Whichever,” said Ron. “itТ d be one less for us to do!”
“Yes, but weТ re still going to have to try and trace the real locket, arenТ t we?” said Hermione, “to find out whether or not itТ s d e
stroyed.”
“And once we get hold of it, how do you d
e stroy a Horcrux?” asked Ron.
“Well,” said Hermione, “IТ ve been researching that.”
“How?” asked Harry. “I didnТ t think there were any books on Horcruxes in the l i brary?”
“There werenТ t,” said Hermione, who had turned pink. “Dumbledore removed them all, but he Ц he didnТ t destroy them.”
Ron sat up straight, wide-eyed.
“How in the name of MerlinТ s pants have you managed to get your hands on those Horcrux books?”
“It Ц it wasnТ t stealing!” said Hermione, looking from Harry to Ron with a kind of de s
peration. “They were still library books, even if Dumbledore had taken them off the shelves. Anyway, if he really
didnТ t want anyone to get at them, IТ m sure he would have made it much harder to Ц “
“Get to the point!” said Ron.
“Well . . . it was easy,” said Hermione in a small voice. “I just did a Summoning Charm. You know Ц Accio. And Ц they zoomed out of Dumbl e
doreТ s study window right into the girlsТ dormitory.”
“But when did you do this?” Harry asked, regar d ing Hermione with a mixture of admiration and incr
e dulity.
“Just after his Ц DumbledoreТ s Ц funeral,” said Hermione in an even smaller voice. “Right after we agreed weТ d leave school and go and look for the Horcruxes. When I went back upstairs to get my things it Ц
it just o c
curred to me that the more we knew about them, the better it would be . . . and I was alone in there . . . so I tried . . . and it worked. They flew straight in through the open window and I Ц I packed them.”
She swallowed and then said imploringly, “I canТ t believe Dumbledore would have been angry, itТ s not as though weТ re g o
ing to use the information to make a Horcrux, is it?”
“Can you hear us complaining?” said Ron. “Where are these books anyway?”
Hermione rummaged for a moment and then e x tracted from the pile a large vo
l
ume, bound in faded black leather. She looked a little nauseated and held it as gingerly as if it were something recently dead.
“This is the one that gives explicit i n structions on how to make a Horcrux.
Secrets of the Darkest Art Ц itТ s a horrible book, really a
w ful, full of evil magic. I wonder when Dumbledore removed it from the l
i brary. . . . if he didnТ t do it until he was headmaster, I bet Vold
emort got all the instruction he needed from here.”
“Why did he have to ask Slughorn how to make a Horcrux, then, if heТ d already read that?” asked Ron.

“He only approached Slughorn to find out what would happen if you split your soul into seven,” said Harry. “Dumbledore was sure Riddle already knew how to make a Ho r
crux by the time he asked Slughorn about them. I think youТ re right, Hermione, that could easily have been where he got the inform
a tion.”
“And the more IТ ve read about them,” said Hermione, “the more horrible they seem, and the less I can believe that he actually made six. It warns in this book how unstable you make the rest of your soul by ripping it, and thatТ
s just by making one Horcrux!”
Harry remembered what Dumbledore had said about Voldemort moving beyond “usual evil.”
“IsnТ t there any way of putting yourself back t o gether?” Ron asked.
“Yes,” said Hermione with a hollow smile, “but it would be excruciatingly pai n ful.”
“Why? How do you do it?” asked Harry.
“Remorse,” said Hermione. “YouТ ve got to really feel what youТ ve done. ThereТ s a footnote. A p
parently the pain of it can destroy you. I canТ t see Voldemort attempting it somehow, can you?”
“No,” said Ron, before Harry could answer. “So does it say how to destroy Ho r cruxes in that book?”

“Yes,” said Hermione, now turning the fragile pages as if examining rotting entrails, “b e
cause it warns Dark wizards how strong they have to make the enchantments on them. From all that IТ ve read, what Harry did to RiddleТ s diary was one of the few really foolproof ways of destroying a Horcrux.”
“What, stabbing it with a basilisk fang?” asked Harry.
“Oh well, lucky weТ ve got such a large supply of basilisk fangs, then,” said Ron. “I was wondering what we were going to do with them.”
“It doesnТ t have to be a basilisk fang,” said Hermione patiently. “It has to be something so d e
structive that the Horcrux canТ t repair i t self. Basilisk venom only has one antidote, and itТ s i
n credibly rare Ц “
“Ц phoenix tears,” said Harry, no d ding.
“Exactly,” said Hermione. “Our problem is that there are very few substances as destructive as bas i
lisk venom, and theyТ re all dange r ous to carry around with you. ThatТ s a problem weТ re g
o ing to have to solve, though, because ripping, smashing, or crushing a Horcrux wonТ t do the trick. You
Т ve got to put it b e yond mag i
cal repair.”
“But even if we wreck the thing it lives in,” said Ron, “why canТ t the bit of soul in it just go and live in something else?”
“Because a Horcrux is the complete opposite of a human being.”
Seeing that Harry and Ron looked tho r oughly confused, Hermione hurried on. “
Look, if I picked up a sword right now, Ron, and ran you through with it, I wouldnТ t da m
age your soul at all.”
”Which would be a real comfort to me, IТ m sure,” said Ron. Harry laughed.
“It should be, actually! But my point is that wha t ever happens to your body, your soul will survive, u
n touched,” said Hermione. “But itТ s the other way round with a
Horcrux. The fragment of soul i n
side it depends on its container, its enchanted body, for su r
vival. It canТ t exist without it.”
“That diary sort of died when I stabbed it,” said Harry, remembering ink pouring like blood from the punctured pages, and the screams of the piece of VoldemortТ s soul as it vanished.
“And once the diary was properly destroyed, the bit of soul trapped in it could no longer e x
ist. Ginny tried to get rid of the diary before you did, flushing it away, but obv i ously it came back good as new.
”
“Hang on,” said Ron, frowning. “The bit of soul in that diary was possessing Ginny, wasnТ t it? How does that work, then?”
“While the magical container is still i n
tact, the bit of soul inside it can flit in and out of someone if they get too close to the o b ject. I donТ
t mean holding it for too long, itТ s nothing to do with touching it,” she added before Ron could speak. “I mean close em o
tionally. Ginny poured her heart out into that d i
ary, she made herself incredibly vulnerable. YouТ re in trouble if you get too fond of or dependent on the Horcrux.”
“I wonder how Dumbledore destroyed the ring?” said Harry. “Why didnТ t I ask him? I never really . . .”
His voice trailed away: He was thin k ing of all the things he should have asked Dumbl
e dore, and of how, since the headma s
ter had died, it seemed to Harry that he had wasted so many opportunities when Dumbl e
dore had been alive, to find out more . . . to find out ever y
thing. . . .
The silence was shattered as the be d room door flew open with a wall-shaking crash. Hermione shrieked and dropped
Secrets of the Darkest Art ; Crookshanks streaked under the bed, hissing indi
g nantly; Ron jumped off the bed, skidded on a di
s
carded Chocolate Frog wrapper, and smacked his head on the opposite wall; and Harry instinctively dived for his wand before realizing that he was loo k
ing up at Mrs. Weasley, whose hair was disheveled and whose face was contorted with rage.
“IТ m so sorry to break up this cozy little gathe r ing,” she said, her voice trembling. “IТ
m sure you all need your rest . . . but there are wedding presents stacked in my room that need sorting out and I was under the impre s
sion that you had agreed to help.”
“Oh yes,” said Hermione, looking terrified as she leapt to her feet, sending books flying in every dire c
tion. “we will . . . weТ re sorry . . .”
With an anguished look at Harry and Ron, Hermione hurried out of the room after Mrs. Weasley.
“itТ s like being a house-elf,” complained Ron in an undertone, still massaging his head as he and Harry followed. “Except without the job satisfaction. The sooner this weddingТ s over, the ha
p pier, IТ ll be.”
“Yeah,” said Harry, “then weТ ll have nothing to do except find Horcruxes. . . . ItТ ll be like a holiday, wonТ t it?”
Ron started to laugh, but at the sight of the eno r mous pile of wedding presents wai
t ing for them in Mrs. WeasleyТ s room, stopped quite abruptly.
The Delacours arrived the following morning at eleven oТ clock. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were feeling quite resen t
ful toward FleurТ s family by this time; and it was with ill grace that Ron stumped back upstairs to put on matching socks, and Harry a
t tempted to flatten his hair. O
nce they had all been deemed smart enough, they trooped out into the sunny backyard to await the vis i tors.
Harry had never seen the place looking so tidy. The rusty cauldrons and old We l
lington boots that usually littered the steps by the back door were gone, replaced by two new Flutterby bushes standing either side of the door in large pots; though there was no breeze, the leaves waved lazily, giving an attra
c tive rippling e f
fect. The chickens had been shut away, the yard had been swept, and the nearby garden had been pruned, plucked, and generally spruced up, a
l though Harry, who liked it in its overgrown state, thought that it looked rather forlorn without its usual conti
n gent of capering gnomes.
He had lost track of how many security enchan t ments had been
placed upon the Burrow by both the Order and the Ministry; all he knew was that it was no longer possible for anybody to travel by magic d i
rectly into the place. Mr. Weasley had therefore gone to meet the Del a
cours on top of a nearby hill, where they were to arrive by Portkey. The first sound of their a p

proach was an unusually high-pitched laugh, which turned out to be coming from Mr. Weasley, who appeared at the gate moments later, laden with luggage and leading a beautiful blonde woman in long, leaf green robes, who could be FleurТ s mother.

“Maman!” cried Fleur, rushing forward to e m brace her. “Papa!”
Monsieur Delacour was nowhere near as attra c tive as his wife; he was a head shorter and e
x tremely plumb, with a little, pointed black beard. However, he looked good-natured. Bouncing t
o wards Mrs. Weasley on high-heeled boots, he kissed her twice on each cheek, lea
v ing her flustered.
“You С ave been so much trouble,” he said in a deep voice. “Fleur tells us you С ave been working very С ard.”
“Oh, itТ s been nothing, nothing!” trilled Mrs. Weasley. “No trouble at all!”
Ron relieved his feelings by aiming a kick at a gnome who was peering out from b e
hind one of the new Flutterby bushes.
“Dear lady!” said Monsieur Delacour, still hol d ing Mrs. WeasleyТ s hand between h
is own two plump ones and beaming. “We are most honored at the a p
proaching union of our two families!

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