(1492 words)

Harry's POV 

Back in the dorm I hold my perfect vial of Felix Felicis in my hand. Opening it before drinking the hole thing and giving a slight cough. 

"Well, how do you feel?" Hermione asks as she looks at me. 

"Excellent, really excellent." 

We stand up and she starts to talk. 

"Remember, Slughorn usually eats early, takes a walk, and returns to his office." 

"Right." I take in a breath as I look at the two of them. "I'm going down to Hagrid's." 

"What?" 

I pat Ron's shoulder before I head for the door, grabbing my jacket on the way. 

"No, Harry you've got to go and speak to Slughorn. We have a plan." 

"I know, but I've got a really good feeling about Hagrid's I feel its the place to be tonight, Do you know what I mean?" 

She looks at me as she shakes her head slightly, her brows furrowed. "No." they both say. 

"Well, trust me. I know what I'm doing. Or Felix does." 

Turning I leave the common room and make my way towards Professor Sprouts green house. Walking down the small hall that was next to one of the rooms I stop as I find Slughorn in one of the windows. Taking something. 

Getting close to him he jumps. 

"Harry!" 

"Sorry sir, I should have announced myself, cleared my throat, coughed. You probably feared I was Professor Sprout." 

He chuckles as he answers. "Yes, I did, actually. What makes you think that?" 

"Ah, well just the general behavior sir. The sneaking around, jumping when you saw me. Are those Tentacula leaves sir? They're very valuable, aren't they?" 

He nods as he closes the small container he was putting them into. "Ten galleons a leaf to the right buyer. Not that I'm familiar with such back alley transactions, but one does hear rumors. My own interests are purely academic, of course." 

"Personally, these plants always kind of freaked me out." I hum before turning to walk towards the door to leave. 

"Exactly, how did you get out of the castle, Harry?" 

Stopping as I turn to him as he comes out from the window he opened. 

"Through the front door, sir. I'm off to Hagrid's you see, he's a very dear friend and I just fancied paying him a visit. So if you don't mind I will be going now." 

I turn to leave before I hear my name. Stopping again and turning to him. 

"Sir?" 

"It's nearly nightfall. Surely you realize I can't allow you to go roaming the grounds by yourself." 

"Well then by all means, come along, Sir." 

He turns to look back towards the castle before we were off towards Hagrid's. Walking along the field we find Hagrid and Fang standing on the side of a hill, still. Getting next to Hagrid, we find him crying slightly with a large curled up spider in front of him. 

"Horace." 

"Merlin's beard. Is that an actual Acromantula?"

"A dead one I think sir." 

Fang whines slightly, I rub his head as I stand there. 

"Good, God." he pauses as he looks up to Hagrid. "Dear fellow, however did  you manage to kill it?" 

"Kill it? My oldest friend, he was." 

"I'm so sorry, I didn't-" 

"Don't worry yourself, you're not alone. Seriously misunderstood creatures, spiders are. It's the eyes, I reckon. They unnerve some folk." 

Turning to look at Hagrid I bring my hands towards my face, curling my fingers a little. "Not to mention the pincers." I say making a clicking noise as I look at him. 

Hagrid looks at me as he raises a brow. "Yeah, I reckon that too." 

"Hagrid, the last thing  I wish to be indelicate, but Acromantular venom is uncommonly rare. Would you allow me to extract a vile or two? Purely for academic purposes, you understand." 

He nods slightly. "Well, I don't suppose it's going to do him much good now, is it?" he says on the verge of more tears. 

Slughorn nods as he walks over to the dead spider, digging into his cloak for a couple of vials before kneeling to get some of the venom from the spider. Once Slughorn was back next to Hagrid, he looks up at the half giant. 

"Would you like me to say a few words?" 

"Yes." 

"He had a family, I trust?" 

"Oh, yeah." I nod. 

"Farewell-" 

"Aragog."

"Farewell, Aragog. King of the Arachnids. Your body will decay, but your spirit lingers on. Your human friends find solace in the loss they have sustained." 

Back in Hagrid's hut, I listen to Hagrid and Slughorn as they drunkenly sing a song. Once they were done I clap and smile gently. 

Slughorn mentions something about a fish he had that vanished. After that we both watched as Hagrid leaned against the wall and started to snore. Looking at Slughorn as he turns to me. 

"It was a student who gave me Francis. One spring afternoon, I discovered a bowl on my desk, with just a few inches of clear water in it. Floating on the surface was a flower petal. As I watched, it sank. Just before it reached the bottom, it transformed, into a wee fish. It was beautiful magic. Wonderous to behold. The flower petal had come from a lily. Your mother. The day I came downstairs, the day the bowl was empty. Was the day your mother.." 

He looks at me for a moment, as his voice falls on the last sentence. "I know why you're here. But I can't help you. It would ruin me." 

"Do you know why I survived, Professor? The night I got this?" I ask as I reach to touch the scar on my forehead. "Because of her. Because she sacrificed herself. Because she refused to step aside. Because her love was more powerful than, Voldemort." 

"Don't say his name." 

"I'm not afraid of the name, professor." 

Standing I walk over to him. "I'm going to tell you something, something others have only guessed at. It's true, I am the Chosen One. Only I can destroy him, but in order to do so I need to know what Tom Riddle asked you all those years ago in your office, and I need to know what you told him." 

He shakes his head as he looks up at me. "Be brave, Professor. Be brave like my mother. Otherwise you disgrace her. Otherwise she died for nothing. Otherwise the bowl will remain empty, forever. " 

"Please don't think badly of me, when you see it. You have no idea what he was like, even then." He raises his wand to his temple, tapping it against his skin before pulling it away from his head, a trail of white light following off of the tip of his wand. 

He pulls a shaky hand with a vial towards the tip of his wand, I place my hand on his to help steady him as the memory is transferred into the vial. Once it as in my hand, I took it to Dumbledore. I stand there as he puts it into a fountain so we could both see the memory. 

"Sir." 

Dumbledore holds his hand up to silence me as he thinks.  He turns to sit on the steps behind him. 

"This is beyond anything I imagined." 

"You mean to say he succeeded sir, in making a Horcrux?" 

"Oh, yes he succeeded, all right. And not just once." 

"What are they exactly?" 

He stands and walks to his desk. "Could be anything, most commonplace of objects. A ring for example, or a book." He pushes a ring towards me slightly, and holds Tom Riddle's Diary from when I was in the Chamber of Secrets. 

"Tom Riddle's diary." 

"It's a Horcrux, yes. Four years ago when you saved Ginny Weasley's life in the Chamber of Secrets, you brought me this. I knew then this was a different kind of magic. Very dark, very powerful. But until tonight I had no idea just how powerful."

"The ring?" 

"Belonged to Riddle's mother. Difficult to find, even more difficult to destroy." 

He lifts his hand, showing part of it being almost skeletonized. 

"But if you could find them all, if you did destroy each Horcrux-"

"One destroys, Voldemort." 

"But how would you find them? They could be hidden anywhere."

"True, but magic, especially, dark magic.-" 

He stops as I reach out to touch the ring on the table. Only for it to stand on end and spin in place on the desk. 

"...leaves traces." 

He looks at for a moment, I shiver slightly as I had just watched a couple flashes of Voldemort's memories. Moving around his desk he gets closer to me. 

"It's where you've been going, isn't it sir? When you leave the school?" 

"Yes, and I think perhaps I may have found another. But this time I cannot hope to destroy it alone. Once again. I must ask too much of you, Harry."