Diana, Dumbledore, and Harry landed in the new memory. At once, her eyes landed on a much younger Horace Slughorn, sitting back in a comfortable, extravagant arm chair. He held a small glass of wine and sipped it idly. Diana peered around wearily, first noticing the location. They were standing in Slughorn's office. A dozen boys sat around a large table next to Slughorn, their chairs lower than his. All were in their teens, and Diana trailed her eyes over the faces.

She thought there had been twelve boys, but her eyes landed on the beautiful, feminine face of Vera Beauregard. She sat between Tom and Horace Slughorn, and she idly tapped her fork with her finger. Tom was the most handsome out of all of the boys, and he looked relaxed and calm. One hand was resting casually on the arm of his chair, and the other, much to Diana's surprise, was intertwined with Vera's. For a fleeting moment, Diana thought it was sweet, but then she remember who she was looking at.

"Sir, is it true that Professor Merrythought is retiring?" Tom asked conversationally. His voice was calm and collected, and he was charming with the way he spoke. Diana could understand how he had gained the trust of so many people.

"Tom, Tom, if I knew, I couldn't tell you," said Slughorn, wagging a reproving finger at Riddle, though he winked. "I must say, I'd like to know where you get your information, boy, more knowledgeable than half the staff, you are. You and Vera are quite the intuitive duo!"

Tom smiled and the other boys laughed and cast him admiring looks. Vera gave a polite smile, though she looked slightly uncomfortable. Diana saw Vera tighten her grip on Tom's hand slightly.

"What, with your uncanny ability to know things you shouldn't, and your careful flattery of the people who matter--thank you for the pineapple, by the way, you're quite right, it is my favorite."

Several of the boys chuckled, but something strange began to happen. The room was suddenly clouded in a thick, white fog so that Diana could only see Dumbledore and Harry. What was happening behind the fog was obscured and muddled, and the only words Diana was then able to understand were said by Slughorn, in a loud, uncharacteristically angry voice:

"You'll go wrong, boy, mark my words!"

As quickly as it had appeared, the smog cleared and the group sat just as they were as if that hadn't happened. None of them alluded to it, and Diana decided that it was a malfunction of the memory itself. The clock on the wall chimed eleven.

"Good gracious, is it that time already?" said Slughorn. "You'd better get going, boys, and lady, or we'll be in trouble. Lestrange, I want your essay by tomorrow or it's detention. Same goes for you, Avery."

Slughorn lugged himself out of his chair, and the boys all filed out of the door obediently. Diana watched Tom stand up alongside Vera, their hands still clasped together, and she watched the two walk around the table toward where Slughorn was standing.

Tom whispered something in Vera's ear, and she nodded once he had pulled back. She kissed him on the cheek lightly and walked out of the office. Tom watched her leave with an expression that rattled Diana severely. He watched her with something similar to awe; It was bizarre seeing such a serene expression on his face, and it made Diana furrow her eyebrows.

"Look sharp, Tom," said Slughorn, who had turned around to find Tom still standing there. "You don't want to be caught out of bed out of hours, and you a prefect..."

"Sir, I wanted to ask you something."

"Ask away, then, m'boy, ask away..."

"Sir, I wondered what you know about...Horcruxes?"

As Diana's throat tightened, the room filled once again with the thick, white, swirling fog. They could not see Tom nor Slughorn.

"I don't know anything about Horcruxes and I wouldn't tell you if I did! Now get out of here at once and don't let me catch you mentioning them again!" boomed Slughorn's voice, but again, it was unnaturally loud and peculiar.

"Well, that's that," said Dumbledore, and he seized both teenagers and they hurtled up through the dark tunnel and back into his office.

"That's all there is?" Harry asked bluntly, and the three took their seats.

"The memory," Diana said quietly, staring out of the closed window at the setting sun, "has been tampered with. Someone's gone and tried to hide what really happened."

"Tampered with?" repeated Harry.

"Certainly," agreed Dumbledore. "Professor Slughorn has meddled with his own recollections."

"But why would he do that?"

"Because he is ashamed of what he remembers," whispered Diana. She almost didn't mean to say it aloud, and she was unsure if they had even heard her. "He's tried to change it because he knows he did the wrong thing."

"And so, for the first time, I am giving you homework, Harry. It will be your job to persuade Professor Slughorn to divulge the real memory, which will undoubtedly be our most crucial piece of information of all."

"But surely, sir," said Harry hesitantly, "you don't need me--you could use Legilimency...or Veritaserum...surely Diana could do a better job..."

"Professor Slughorn is an extremely able wizard who will be expecting all three of those instances," said Dumbledore. "He is much more accomplished at Occlumency than Morfin Gaunt, and I would be astonished if he had not carried an antidote to Veritaserum with him ever since I coerced him into giving me this travesty of a recollection. I believe that you are the only person who might be able to fight past his defenses. It is most important that we secure the true memory, Harry."

Harry obliged and left, bidding them both goodnight. They plunged into silence.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she whispered weakly. She felt pathetic, but her brain felt like lead and she had such a huge lump in her throat that it took all of her energy to keep from letting out a sob.

"I didn't want you to think ill of your mother," he replied gently. "Vera loved Tom very much, and because of that, she might've done some terrible things. But what I do know indefinitely was that your mother was a wonderful and strong woman, and that she did what she did for love."

Diana sunk lower into her chair, and she placed her head into her hands wearily. "How is she able to speak Parseltongue?"

There was a heavy silence that lasted so long she wondered if she had even spoken. Her cheeks were wet, and she wiped them angrily with her sleeve.

Dumbledore peered at her with such heavy sadness. His eyes were dim, and they didn't have the bright twinkle in them that they usually did.

"I'm afraid I haven't been entirely truthful," he said quietly. "I have omitted the truth on some occasions, and I'm truly sorry."

Diana felt like she wanted to scream at him, hit him, kick him, throw something at him, but all she had the energy to do was shake her head sadly and let a few more tears escape. She was so tired, she didn't have the energy to be angry.

She was so tired of the responsibility, and the life of her parents, and when she watched them act so in love all she could think of was the bitterness toward them, that this is their fault. Whatever made her mother do it, whether it was love or something else, she still helped ruin the world. She ruined Diana before she was even born, and Diana was so sick of it. She was so sick of having to clean up the mess her parents had made.

"If I am to tell you the truth, you must promise that you will not interrupt me until I have finished," he said quietly. She merely nodded, and watched him with tired eyes.

With a deep breath, he began the story of Vera Beauregard and Tom Riddle, and Diana listened with bated breath.

"Vera Beauregard, as you know, grew up in an orphanage with no knowledge of her family. She didn't figure out the identity of her heritage until long after she had left Hogwarts, and even then were the facts and details muddled enough that she could not decipher any more than a few scattered pieces of information.

"Last year, I showed you a collection of memories about your mother, and among them was a memory of myself talking with an old and neurotic Seer, who just so happened to be a relative of our very own Professor Trelawney. I showed you this memory, of how she had an old prophecy that she needed to confide in me. If you can recall, I had blocked this part out so you could not hear the prophecy."

Diana nodded. She remembered it. It was the night that she had learned her mother's name, and she had stormed into Dumbledore's office for answers.

"Well, Diana, before I show you this prophecy, I'd first like to give you some background information that will be important. As you know, this prophecy is of Tom and Vera and their destruction of the Wizarding world. When I first heard it, I had not yet met either of them, so I was biding my time until it was revealed to me who these two in the prophecy would be. I met Vera, and she told me that she heard voices in her head. It struck me as odd, so from then on I kept a close watch on her for any other similarities to the girl in the prophecy. The moment Tom told me that he was a Parselmouth, I had deemed him as the other in the prophecy. I knew from that moment forward that I would have to keep watch over Tom Riddle and Vera Beauregard.

"Tom Riddle is unable to love because he was conceived under a love potion. He lacks the ability for compassion and empathy, and is driven by the need for power. When I had come to realize that Tom was incapable to love, I was befuddled. After all, isn't this prophecy of two lovers? In my feeble attempts to understand the prophecy, I wrote the old Seer if she could clarify for me. I received a letter back merely days later, and she had only written one sentence on the piece of faded parchment.

"Fate is the only thing stronger than magic. That's what she had written, and in that moment, I understood how loveless Tom could possibly love someone other than himself.

"Fate. They had been fated for each other for centuries. This prophecy was told long, long ago to another wizard, and then told to me by the Seer. Their lives were destined to intertwine before their lives were even written; so, the only thing that was strong enough to overpower Tom's lack of emotion and yearn for power was his destiny.

"So I studied Tom, with the developing notion that he was going to do horrible things to our world. I watched as this boy fell in love with the shy little Ravenclaw from school, and I watched as he tried to take over the world for her. He had an odd way of proving his love to her, though he proved it nonetheless.

"So, this brings us to the prophecy. As I mentioned, it was originally told a long, long time ago to an older wizard, but after he died, it was lost. It wasn't until Clairella Trelawney reached out to me that this prophecy was once more made known." He prodded the swirling fog inside the Pensieve and muttered something under his breath. A figure rose from the mass; a woman, draped in various shawls and jewelry not unlike Professor Trelawney. Her voice was mystical, yet raspy and deep like she had been possessed. She stared into space as she recited the prophecy.

"Son of the Snake, brought through means unholy...Daughter of the Magician, stricken with a luck so bitter...pure, though tainted; smart, though naive...For fate shall bring two together, only to be royalty or be conquered by the hands of Death...they are a storm to the world, and they will not go lightly until the next Snake is born...The gods will cower in fear under their gaze, and the world shall not be saved until the Chosen One and the Snake."

Clairella Trelawney sank back into the Pensieve, and the silence was deafening.

"What is the 'Daughter of the Magician'?" she asked quietly. Her head throbbed in pain, and she was so tired. So tired of everything.

Dumbledore looked down for a moment before meeting her eyes. "A long time ago, after the downfall of the roman empire, there was a small group of individuals who possessed the power of magic. Not much is known about them, but they were called the Magicians.

"The Magicians could be essentially named as a cult. They were a powerful and dedicated group who shared the common trait of Magic. The Magicians, though, had a leader. He was the most powerful wizard in recorded history, told in all of the old tales of our kind and regarded as the greatest who had ever lived. The Magicians worshiped him as a God, to the extent that if he asked them to kill themselves, they would do it with no hesitation. The Magicians hunted those who defied their leader and brutally murdered them. Their leader, on the other hand, was compassionate and kind and clever, with a knack for recruiting followers. Whether he did it unconsciously or not, he had a whole legion at his command, though he was pure enough that he would never use it."

It was silent as he seemed to collect himself. What was only a few seconds felt like years to her, and she suppressed the urge to hurry him.

"This wizard was named Merlin."

It took Diana a very long time to register this. She stared at him stupidly, her eyes wide and unblinking. When she said nothing and continued to stay frozen, Dumbledore elaborated with a slight, amused smile.

"The prophecy called for a 'Son of the Snake' and the 'Daughter of the Magician.' In other words, it was foretelling the lives of a male descendant of Slytherin and a female descendant of Merlin."

"Uh," Diana mumbled. She was entirely unable to produce a coherent string of thought. "Does--does that mean that I am a descendant of Merlin?"

"Yes," he said quietly. "You are the youngest heir to both the Slytherin and Merlinian bloodlines."

"How--how was my mother a Parselmouth?"

"As I explained, Merlin was arguably one of the greatest wizards to have ever lived. He could do things that no one could even fathom, things that would long stay unique to him. Now, the history on Merlin is murky at best. Only limited information had been recorded and preserved, so all that I have just told you is about the extent of my immediate knowledge of this wizard; but, one thing that stands out in many texts I have studied, was that he was believed by many to have been the first Parselmouth. Whether he was the original or not, I cannot say, but Merlin was the only Parselmouth of his time."

She pinched the bridge of her nose as her head spun. She was the heir of two powerful bloodlines, giving her power that had never been discovered. She was descended from Merlin, which was so incredibly fantastic and extreme that she couldn't breathe. But, she realized that she had encountered things that were just as odd as this. She knew that magic was much more complex than anyone could imagine.

"This--this doesn't make sense," she mumbled. She didn't quite expect a reply, but Dumbledore smiled lightly.

"Think about it, Diana. Your mother, who was almost, dare I say, more powerful than Tom Riddle himself, was a Parselmouth. She was strong and brilliant and wise; she was a warrior, with a personality so strong that she ruled. The only person Tom could ever love would be someone who was as intelligent as he was, and your mother was the most intelligent person I had ever met. Your mother, with the blood of the Magician running through her veins, was born for a future of inevitable destruction, just as you were born to mend it."

She couldn't decide whether she wanted to scream or cry or laugh. All felt like decent options, but she didn't know which one she felt the most. Angry at Dumbledore and her parents and her ancestors, or sad because the future of the world is on her shoulders, or incredulous, because everything about this was completely and utterly ridiculous.

"So...so, in the prophecy, it said that their destruction can only be mended by 'the Chosen One' and the next born Snake. Is that...?"

"Yes, Diana," said Dumbledore gently. "You and Harry are the only people who can save our world."

Silence.

Then, like a floodgate opening, she began to sob so violently she felt like she might vomit with the pain of it. She cried for the rest of the night, and in the morning, she wiped her eyes and stared at herself in the mirror until she was numb. At that moment, as she stared at her broken and pitiful figure in the mirror, she straightened herself up and changed into clean clothes. She wiped her tears and brushed her hair and didn't dare breathe a word of this to anyone for now, for if she said it aloud, it would be real.

And if this was real, she thought she would die with the pain of it.