Chương 276: Ch266- WWW

Cassian and Bathsheda strolled down Diagon Alley, hands linked, weaving through the mess of weekend traffic. Witches crowded the street with bags of spell supplies, pastries, and protesting children. A shopkeeper shouted something about anti-chafing robes. Someone else banged into a display of quills and let out a stream of swears so colourful Cassian considered applauding.

"Did you hear," a young man said behind them, "they're discussing spell licensing now?"

"More forms," his friend muttered.

"That's all it means." A younger woman, clearly repeating an official line for the tenth time that day, snapped, "Only in public spaces for crowd safety." A knot of teenagers passed by on their left, talking loudly.

"I heard the Skiving Snackbox gives you a nosebleed and a hall pass," one girl said.

"Only if you eat the green end first," another chimed in. Further ahead, a pack of fourth-years giggled their way out of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, arms loaded with suspicious-looking tins and boxes. One of the twins' newer tricks, something that fizzed when you opened it, smelled of ozone, and probably turned your eyebrows into hedge animals.

"Someone's getting hexed before lunch," Bathsheda muttered.

"Hopefully it's their head of house," Cassian said. She turned to look at him, her mouth tugging into something caught between a smile and a wince.

"Do you regret it?" He blinked.

"What?"

"Making them more academic. Letting them graduate." Cassian sighed, long and theatrical.

"Every day. They used to just be dangerous. Now they're dangerous and clever. Worst combination possible." She laughed softly.

"You did that."

"I know. I'll take full responsibility." A small crowd had gathered outside the shop, half of them clutching new joke boxes, the other half clearly trying to work out what the noise was that had come from inside. The front door banged open. Fred stepped out with a grin. George followed, arms wide, cutting through the crowd like a knife through butter.

"There they are!" Fred bellowed.

"Right on time." George swept into a half-bow.

"Rosier and Babbling, patron saints of our academic legitimacy!" The crowd shuffled aside. A few of the younger ones stared like they'd spotted celebrities. Someone held up a notebook. Cassian pretended not to see it. Fred was about to throw an arm round his shoulder then thought better of it, and pointed inside.

"Come in, come in. We've just finished the new display. It's bloody majestic." George stood on the other side.

"Mind the floor. The new shoes aren't properly bound yet." Bathsheda raised an eyebrow.

"Bound?"

"They've got opinions," Fred said cheerfully.

"And a fondness for stealing socks." Cassian muttered, "We should invite the Headmaster." They beamed. The place was exploding. A queue trailed halfway down the street, and someone had spelled glitter onto the signage. Every five minutes, a different shelf went up in noisy sparks. Chaos, neatly bottled and sold by the handful. Cassian blinked as a box rolled past his foot. It meowed. Inside, people were stripping shelves bare. George pointed to the basin just outside the shop.

"That's new." A wide stone bowl sat on a stand, water rippling with a faint pink shimmer. A charm above it ticked once every three hours, releasing a single drop of something rose-coloured into the mix. Cassian tilted his head.

"That ours?" Bathsheda nodded.

"Rose Bath. Looks like they are distributing it now." Back when they'd made it, they'd sold it cheap. At cost, for the first month. After that, they'd just started giving it away. The schools took it gladly. The twins had joined in, it seemed. They'd made enough money by now to slap it on their shelves, price it at half nothing, and drop vats of it into major stations across Britain. Now even Knockturn had a tap installed near their market fountain. George waved vaguely at the basin.

"We added a side note: 'If your date don't like our shop, ask why.'" Fred added, "And a discount coupon if they do." Cassian deadpanned.

"Romance, weaponised." Fred tilted his head.

"We owe you both for this one. Properly." Cassian waved him off.

"We didn't invent it for the glory." Some shelves shimmered, rearranging themselves mid-air. Others groaned under weight, clearly not enjoying the amount of foot traffic. Fred stepped aside as a customer leaned past them to grab a bag of what looked like Bladderwort Putty. George jerked his chin toward the back room.

"You two staying for the new line demo?" Cassian eyed the gathering crowd. A girl just accidentally hexed her own boots. A second-year was trying to talk a rubber duck into doing a backflip. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. He glanced at Bathsheda.

"Do we dare?" She gave him a look.

"Alright," he said.

"But if this one explodes, I'm blaming your optimism." Fred grinned.

"No explosions. Just a little temporal displacement." Cassian groaned.

"You made time bombs."

"Educational ones," George said. Bathsheda sighed.

"Of course they did." They stepped deeper inside. A wave of steam rolled off a shelf to their left. The crowd parted around them, and somewhere above, a floating sign read: YOU SURVIVED ROSIER'S CLASS. YOU DESERVE TO BLOW SOMETHING UP. Cassian didn't even argue.

Cassian and Dumbledore Apparated just outside Slughorn's front garden. The place looked like it had been in a fight with a banshee and lost. Windows smashed, drapes torn, bits of ceiling on the floor like confetti. Books overturned. Spatters of something unpleasant along the hallway wall. Cassian took one glance around and muttered, "Bit theatrical, even for a kidnapping." Dumbledore didn't reply. He was already eyeing the mess with a faint frown, lips pressed. Cassian's gaze drifted to the armchair.

"Here," he said.

"Indeed," Dumbledore murmured. He walked over and gave the armchair a sharp jab with his wand.

"Ouch," it snapped, voice thoroughly offended. The whole thing gave a shudder, then peeled backwards into flesh. One blink and the furniture was gone. In its place, a very large, very pink man unfolded himself onto the carpet, groaning as he clutched his gut.

"There was no need to stick the wand in that hard," he grumbled, squinting up at Dumbledore with watery eyes.

"It hurt." Cassian arched a brow. The man clambered upright, still muttering about internal bruising and professional courtesy. Then his eyes landed on Cassian and brightened in a way that should've come with fanfare.

"Cassian, my boy!" he cried.

"Heavens, I've heard your name non-stop these days. You remember, don't you? When I first invited you to the Slug Club? Everyone said I'd lost the plot, but I knew. I always believed in you." Cassian rolled his eyes.

"You believed in my surname," he said.

"Close enough." Dumbledore had been right, it seemed, unfortunately. Slughorn still remembered him. Back then he had never invited him because he showed promise. When Cassian was a student, he had been dead weight magically. Could not cast Lumos to save his life. Everyone knew it. Slughorn knew it too. That'd never stopped the invitations. The Rosier name had done the work for him. Slughorn collected surnames the way other people collected teacups, and Cassian's had been one worth polishing.

Dumbledore had brought him here for the same reason. Slughorn sat on memories, the soft, sticky sort people liked to keep half-buried. If anyone knew how far Tom Riddle had pushed the theory, it would be him. They let Slughorn finish preening. Then Cassian turned to him.

"Well, Professor, we're here for a former student of yours. You'll remember the name. Tom Marvolo Riddle. He calls himself Voldemort these days." The colour drained from Slughorn's face.

"What?" he blurted.

"Are those two related?" Cassian shut his eyes for half a second and reopened them.

"I am really not in the mood for riddles, no pun intended, Professor," he said.

"We are here for information. Voldemort is not as frightening as you make him out to be. You heard about last year's battle. You have enough ears in the Ministry to know how it ended. He tucked his tail between his legs and ran." Slughorn stood stiff in the wreckage, eyes darting from the shattered chairs to the buckled table.

"I, really. Talk like that, it's far too grim," he said, voice high, thin.

"Not the sort of thing one discusses... in a place like this." Cassian flicked his wand and the room rebuilt itself with a soft whoosh, scattered books stacked, broken glass zipped into place, chairs straightened like nervous students. Then with a second wave, plates slid into view, followed by dishes so obscenely fancy they had to be conjured from memory. Cassian gestured grandly to the table.

"There. Now it's a dinner conversation." Slughorn stared. His mouth clenched. Cassian pushed a goblet towards him.

"We're asking about Horcruxes," he said.

"Specifically how many little death nuggets Tommy made before you realised your club wasn't just hosting budding sociopaths."

"I... well-," he muttered, flustered, "it's all speculation, really. Tom was an advanced student, but I wouldn't-" He fiddled with his napkin, even though he hadn't sat down. His eyes flicked to Dumbledore, then back to Cassian, who did not look away.

"I suppose... in theory... if one were so inclined..." Cassian gave a sunny smile.

"Horace. I know what a Horcrux is. The question isn't 'what if,' it's 'how many.' I've got a number. The Headmaster's got a guess. We want confirmation." Slughorn's shoulders hunched like someone had dropped a sack of guilt on them. He grabbed a fork, fiddled with it, then finally gave up and said, "Six." Cassian's brow twitched.

"Six?" Slughorn nodded, eyes darting.

"That's what he said. Seven was the goal. Six Horcruxes and his soul. He thought it powerful. Magical numbers, you know, seven being the most-""Yeah, yeah, numerology," Cassian waved it off.

"So he made six." That meant seven in total, with the original soul stub included. Slughorn blinked.

"Possibly." Cassian raised a hand.

"Just so I'm clear. He came to you, tea, biscuits, hey-professor-how-much-murder-for-immortality, and you didn't think to follow up when he casually mentioned splitting his soul like a chocolate bar?" Slughorn's face went pink.

"I was horrified! I told him off, as any decent teacher would. I thought he was joking!" Cassian gave him a look.

"I thought he was bright, not... not evil," Slughorn said, softer. Dumbledore finally spoke.

"Do you remember when this conversation happened?" Slughorn hesitated.

"Sixth year. No, maybe earlier. He was always... curious. Always pushing." Cassian stood upright.

"So you gave him the theory. Maybe not the method, but the base."

"I didn't know he'd go through with it," Slughorn said.

"It was just a theoretical conversation-""No," Cassian cut in, voice low.

"It wasn't." Slughorn looked like he might sink into the floor. Cassian tapped the table.

"Seven. That's what we needed." Slughorn slumped into the nearest chair.

"Merlin help us." Cassian got up.

"Bit late for that, Horace. But sure, let's hope."

Two of them walked down the narrow garden path. They'd told Slughorn to take a holiday, vanish far, preferably somewhere warm and wandless. Maybe he'd take the hint and not stop halfway to write memoirs. Tommy wouldn't like anyone remembering his little after-school murder chat, much less someone dumb enough to say it out loud. Whether it helped or not didn't matter much. Cassian remembered this part too well. His mates used to argue about it in his old life, was it seven or eight?

Depends if you counted the original soul, or the accident, or the snake, or whatever bloody thing Riddle sneezed into next. They spent more time fighting over grammar than the murder bits. Someone had even got stuck on the plural. Horcruxes? Horcruxen? Horcri? Cassian told them to sod off with their fake Latin and read a real textbook. They never did.

"We've got the diary, the fake locket, the ring, the diadem, and Potter," he muttered, counting off on his fingers. He stopped walking.

"And Helga's cup is likely one," he went on.

"Which puts it on the board. That's six known anchors. Potter was accidental, though. Which means we're still short." Dumbledore frowned slightly.

"I believe one was used to tether his return. The ritual itself consumed it. If that involved the cup, I cannot say. One is gone, regardless." Cassian clicked his tongue.

"That still leaves two."

"At most," Dumbledore said.

"His soul was unstable long before his return. I doubt he managed more than one or two after that. Even he has limits."

"Brilliant," Cassian muttered. They reached the pavement and stopped. Cassian turned to him.

"One more thing," he said.

"That note. R. A. B. You ever work out who that was?" Dumbledore gave a hesitant nod.

"I believe it was Regulus Black." Cassian frowned. That name he knew. Regulus had been a proper little Slytherin poster boy back when Cassian was new at Hogwarts. Fifth year when he arrived.

"Black's younger brother," Cassian said.

"Sirius's."

"Yes." Cassian's eyes narrowed.

"You're telling me he turned."

"I think he did," Dumbledore said.

"And I think it cost him his life." Cassian stared at the street, if he drank that thing in the cave, yeah. It's possible. He looked back at Dumbledore.

"What was his middle name again?"

"Arcturus," Dumbledore said, just as they reached the gate. Cassian hummed.

"Thought so. Go ask Sirius, then. Maybe he'll throw a family heirloom at your head." Dumbledore smiled, tired but warm.

"See you at school, Cassian." Cassian gave him a two-fingered mock salute.

"Safe travels, Headmaster."