Chapter 271: Voldemort's Horcruxes
The free-crafting stage had now passed its halfway point in total days. Leonardo, having finished the day's planned progress, returned to his temporary quarters at Beauxbatons for a brief rest.
He'd only just settled back onto the sofa by the window when the air in front of him rippled, faint and unseen.
Aurelius's form surfaced without a sound, a small, finely made cloth pouch hanging at his chest, the auspicious clouds swirling gently around him. A small rolled scroll of parchment, cradled by those clouds, drifted forward to hover in front of Leonardo.
"Master, a letter from Mr Scamander." Aurelius's ethereal voice sounded directly in Leonardo's mind, then went on, a touch of anticipation in it. "Would you like to reply now? If you don't need me for a while, might I go explore the mountains? Just call for me whenever you need."
Leonardo reached out and took the letter, waving a hand at Aurelius. "Go on, then. Stay safe."
Since arriving in this new place, the little Qilin had been brimming with the urge to explore the mountains around Beauxbatons, just as he had been on first entering the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts.
Aurelius nodded happily and, with a flicker, teleported away.
Leonardo opened the envelope, marked with familiar handwriting, and scanned through it quickly.
As he read, a clear flash of delight lifted the corners of his eyebrows. Found her! Mr Scamander had found Nagini in the forest in Albania!
He kept reading, and the frown he'd just let go of drew back together slightly, and he let out a soft breath.
The letter mentioned that Nagini had suddenly turned savage and attacked during the encounter, and it was only thanks to the alchemical charms given to him beforehand triggering in time, that Newt had managed to subdue her and bring her along, coming away unscathed.
Leonardo's fingers absently traced the fine texture of the letter paper. Going by the timeline, Voldemort shouldn't yet have had the chance to turn Nagini into a Horcrux.
But whether his own interference, particularly after badly weakening Voldemort's remnant of a soul the previous year, would hasten or delay the Dark Lord's creation of a new Horcrux was genuinely hard to say.
Perhaps, having dealt him such a serious blow, Voldemort now needed longer to recover his strength, which had in turn pushed back his plan to make Nagini into a Horcrux?
Leonardo shook his head, setting these speculations aside for now. Whatever the case, the first priority was confirming Nagini's current state in person.
Once the competition here at Beauxbatons wrapped up, he could go and visit Mr Scamander, or it could wait until the summer holidays; the matter mattered, but it wasn't urgent.
Leonardo's thoughts drifted onward from there, toward Voldemort's other Horcruxes.
In the original story, Voldemort had made seven Horcruxes in total: Tom Riddle's diary, the Gaunt family ring, Slytherin's locket, Ravenclaw's diadem, Hufflepuff's cup, the great serpent Nagini, and Harry himself.
Leonardo got up, went to his desk, pulled out a blank sheet of parchment, picked up his quill, and began writing rapidly, sorting through what he already knew.
The diary: already in Dumbledore's hands. (circled)
The Gaunt ring: should be in the abandoned Gaunt family house. (Right, he needed to find a chance to warn Dumbledore about the curse on the ring.)
Slytherin's locket: in the hands of the Black family's house-elf, Kreacher? (question mark)
Ravenclaw's diadem: still in the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts. (circled)
Hufflepuff's cup: in the Lestrange family vault at Gringotts? (question mark)
Nagini: already found by Newt, possibly not yet made into a Horcrux. (circled)
Harry: …
The page was soon covered in circles and question marks.
Looking over this list, Leonardo found he couldn't recall the precise details of some of the timelines either; a few of the Horcruxes still needed confirming in person.
Slytherin's locket, for instance, he'd still need to track down the Black family's elderly house-elf first.
But the Black family's ancestral home wasn't somewhere one could simply walk into either.
The portrait of former Hogwarts headmaster Phineas Nigellus Black surely knew the way back to the old family home, but asking that portrait outright would almost certainly get him nowhere.
Still, that wasn't much of a problem.
Leonardo tapped the end of his quill lightly against the parchment. In a few more months, the House of Black's sole remaining legitimate heir, the wrongfully convicted Sirius Black, would successfully break out of prison.
He could simply go find him then; that would be convenient enough.
Leonardo wasn't worried about failing to find Sirius.
Going by how the "story" went, once he escaped, Sirius's first priority would be finding Harry.
All he'd need to do, then, was "lie in wait" somewhere near Harry…
Use Harry as bait?
That odd, distinctly fisherman's turn of thought caught Leonardo off guard, and the corner of his mouth had just started to curl into a smile when he frowned slightly instead.
His gaze settled back on that name on the page: Harry.
Leonardo drew two heavy circles around Harry, his brow furrowing. How was he supposed to deal with the fragment of Voldemort's soul lodged inside the boy?
Would he really have to recreate what happened in the original story, letting Harry walk to his death and be "killed" by Voldemort's own hand once?
No, there was still real risk in that. After all, he himself had already brought about so many changes; any single misstep could lead to irreversible consequences.
Was there a better way…