Kim Shimmers and the Veil of Death
HoA Harry Potter fanfic by me (and the 4th instalment in the Kim Shimmers series)
How could we ever hope to flicker on against a
darkness so complete, against an evil so prevailing?
This Harry Potter fan fiction (as long as all goes according to plan) will be posted at the beginning of every week. The pictures above are not mine, though I edited some.
Chapter 7
Horcrux
The Christmas season didn’t last forever, unfortunately. Too soon Fred and George were going back to the shop and Kim was going back to Hogwarts. Most else hadn’t changed, however. Harry was still having meetings with Professor Dumbledore. Kim wasn’t quite sure as of yet what he was trying to show Harry. She knew that Harry didn’t yet know what she did. He didn’t know where Dumbledore was going, which, to be fair, Kim didn’t exactly know either. But she did know he was off trying to figure out what the ring they had gathered over the summer had contained and whether or not it was the resurrection stone.
Another thing that hadn’t changed was Ron and Hermione. Ron was still in an infatious relationship with Lavander, and Hermione was still ignoring him whenever possible.
Monday afternoon Hermione, Kim, and Harry met up on break and walked lazily in the snowy courtyard. They had been discussing Harry’s most recent success in potions, Hermione chastising him for using the Half-Blood Prince as a guide yet again.
“Besides all that,” Harry said a bit roguishly, “there’s something else I need to tell you both about. I had another meeting with Dumbledore last night…”
“Oh, yes,” said Hermione, “how’d it go?”
“Well… he showed me more of Voldemort’s past, his childhood. He killed his father… Dumbledore gave me a task.”
“A task?” said Hermione.
“To do what?” asked Kim.
“To retrieve a memory from Professor Slughorn. I think that’s why it was so important that we got him to be our professor… Dumbledore wants me to sweeten Slughorn up to get the memory that he won’t give to Dumbledore.”
“What memory?” Kim asked keenly. This seemed like a very important task that almost certainly had to do with the quest to understand the Gaunt ring.
“It’s a memory of when Voldemort was one of Slughorns students… one of his favorites, it would seem. But the memory he gave Dumbledore is tampered with. Seems he didn’t want Dumbledore to know he favored Voldemort, did him favors even.”
“Of course he wouldn’t,” Hermione reasoned. “How humiliating.”
“Dumbledore can’t think that Slughorn is… sided with Voldemort? Can he?” asked Kim.
“No, no,” Harry said, shaking his head and his layers of black hair. “It’s not that. The memory is important because Voldemort was asking Slughorn about something… Something called a Horcrux?”
Kim’s leg froze up as she tried to find footing in the snow and she almost stumbled. She stood there, wide eyed, as Harry and Hermione continued forward. Horcrux… I’ve read that name… I read about it last year in the Mysterious Libraries. It’s very dark magic. Dark magic that allows a person to attach a piece of their sole to an object, but at a great cost…
“What’s the matter?” Hermione asked, looking over her shoulder at Kim. Shook from her thoughts she hurried the few paces forward to catch up with them.
“Nothing,” Kim muttered, still distracted.
“Do you know what it is?” Harry asked, but Kim didn’t answer right away. Dumbledore certainly knew, which meant that he hadn’t told Harry for a reason. If Voldemort had made a horcrux that would explain how he had survived… But why wouldn’t Dumbledore want Harry knowing that?
“I’ve never heard of it,” Hermione said after a moment of Kim not answering.
“You haven’t?” Harry said, almost surprised sounding. Kim smirked. She found it rather ironic that the one instance where she actually knew something that Hermione didn’t was involving something as dark and foreboding as Lord Voldemort himself.
“It must be really advanced Dark Magic, or why would Voldemort have wanted to know about it? I think it’s going to be difficult to get the information, Harry, you’ll have to be very careful about how you approach Slughorn, think out a strategy…”
“Ron reckons I should just hang back after Potions this afternoon…”
“Oh, well, if Won-Won thinks that, you’d better do it,” she snapped. “After all, when has Won-Won’s judgment ever been faulty?”
Kim snickered as Harry withered at Hermione.
“Hermione, can’t you—”
“ No! ” she said angrily, and stormed away leaving Kim and Harry alone.
