James Potter and the Curse of the Gatekeeper

in the first place. He understands them better than I do. He owes his service to the world to render this one useless.'

        'If only that were possible, Severus,' the portrait of Dumbledore replied. 'But it is not. You may destroy the Horcrux, yes, but no one can simply render it ineffective. Besides, I seem to recall that my instruction was to simply poison the instrument, assuring it would kill both the mother and the son it was meant to infiltrate.'

        'I cannot destroy the dagger while the Dark Lord still lives,' Snape replied. 'He has bound it to Lucius Malfoy; he will know if it is compromised, and my loyalties will be revealed.'

        'Then do as I instructed,' Dumbledore insisted ardently. 'Poison the blade. It is within your abilities. There are any number of undetectable poisons in this very room. Let the same instrument that carries that dark soul also carry its doom.'

        'You might have been able to oversee the murder of the woman and her child 'for the greater good', Albus, but I'm afraid that that ability has fled me.'

        The portrait replied sadly. 'Then you are a fool, Severus. The fruit of this Horcrux will be on your head, not Horace Slughorn's.'

        Snape exhaled slowly, thinking. Finally, he glanced up. 'Perhaps not,' he said, as if to himself. 'Perhaps there is another way.'

        'You are mistaken, Severus,' Dumbledore replied. 'My way is the only responsible method. Otherwise, the boy will be born with the thread of Voldemort himself beating in his veins.'

        Snape smiled slowly, coldly. 'Perhaps not…,' he said again.

        'Surely you do not doubt that the dagger Horcrux will transmit the remnant of Voldemort's soul?'

        'I do not,' Snape said, narrowing his eyes. 'But perhaps it will not be transmitted into a boy…'

        Dumbledore sighed patiently. 'This is not the time for conspiracies, Severus.'

        'Indulge me,' Snape replied slowly. 'I am merely speculating. The Dark Lord believes his soul will pass into a boy child. He is, in his heart, that most arrogant of men, the sort that believes unquestioningly in the superiority of his own gender. But what if Lucius' judgment were to become impaired? What if his divinations were clouded? And as a result, what if the final Horcrux were transmitted to a girl child?'

        'That is not evidence that his soul would not dominate the child's personality. She would still be influenced by his living essence.'

        'His quintessentially male essence,' Snape muttered, hardly listening to the portrait. 'But how would that balance against the unexpected polarity of her own female heart? How indeed…'

        The portrait interrupted gently. 'This is speculative foolishness, my friend. I tell you: poison the dagger, or if you cannot, destroy it when the proper time comes.'

        Snape looked up at the portrait, his eyes narrowed. He took the dagger out of his robes and held it in his hands. It glinted darkly, just as ugly as James had last seen it. Snape nodded.

        'Yes,' he agreed. 'You're right, of course, Albus. When the time is right. I cannot destroy the Horcrux yet; there is too much at stake for my loyalties to be challenged. In the meantime, however, perhaps I will experiment. Lucius Malfoy is bonded to the dagger. I may be able to use that bond, pervert it, cause it to cloud his mind in the event that it does survive. If Lucius succeeds in using the dagger, he will 'accidentally' use it on an unborn girl child, thus foiling his master's wishes. Perhaps, just perhaps, that would be enough to tip the balance. Otherwise, I will destroy the Horcrux myself when the time is right.'

        'Forgive me, Severus,' Dumbledore said, looking him evenly in the eye, 'but what if you do not live that long?'

         'I have more than one reason to stay alive, Albus,' Snape answered, slipping the dagger back into his robes. 'And as you well know, destroying this mysterious object is not even the most important. Trust me, I shall be careful.'

        On Snape's last word—careful—the memory rippled and faded. Swirling, silvery smoke filled James' vision and he realized he was leaning on something hard. It was uncomfortable, so he pushed back from it. As he did, he drew his face away from the bowl of Dumbledore's Pensieve, disoriented and dizzy. Ralph and Rose pulled away at the same moment. They clutched at each other, struggling to stay upright.

        'Did you see it?' Scorpius asked. James blinked, recovering his balance. Scorpius was seated on a trunk in the corner of the storage room, leaning languidly against the wall. 'Did you see the dagger?'

        'I did,' James said. 'Did you, Rose? And Ralph? I never saw either of you in there.'

        Rose shook her head in dismay. 'I saw it all. I saw Headmaster Dumbledore and Professor Snape talking about the possibility of some sort of successor. And then… I saw him. He Who Must Not Be Named. He was awful.'

        'I didn't understand a lot of what he said, but I think I got the gist of it,' Ralph said, his face pale. 'Those Horcrux things were supposed to keep little bits of Voldemort's soul safe, so even if he got killed, he wouldn't really die, right?'

        'But the last Horcrux, the one embedded in his father's dagger, was different,' Rose nodded. 'He couldn't reclaim that part again, no matter what. It was meant to be passed on to a baby boy, carrying that bit of his soul to a new life.'

        James furrowed his brow. 'But why would someone so obsessed with immortality waste a Horcrux on someone else's life?'

        Ralph shrugged as if the answer was obvious. 'It's still his life, but hidden away. Who'd suspect it? As long as Voldemort was inside Voldemort, all the good wizards in the world were gunning for him. He knew that at least a few people, like your dad, James, would never stop until every last Horcrux was destroyed and every shred of Voldemort was killed. Hiding one last little bit of his soul in some anonymous new baby was sort of genius. I mean, you saw the way Voldemort looked. It wasn't like he could pass himself off unnoticed in a crowd, was it? But if he was part of some little kid, who would ever think to look there? It's the perfect disguise.'

        'But even so, he wouldn't be that little kid,' Rose said, screwing her face up in disgust. 'That little bit of his soul would have to compete against the whole soul of the person it was inside of.'

        'Or work with it,' Scorpius said. 'If it could find some weak place in the host soul, it could exploit it, somehow bend it to Voldemort's will. Even a tree can be bent if it's manipulated from the time it's a seedling. Voldemort was very patient and wily. His essence would take the time to prune and bend that new soul to his will.'

        'So what happened to the dagger?' Rose asked, seating herself on a crate. 'We have to assume that Professor Snape was killed before he got a chance to destroy the Horcrux. But did he succeed in hexing the dagger to fool your grandfather?'

        'Not according to him,' Scorpius said, smiling grimly. 'My grandfather knows nothing of the Pensieve or the memories it contains. He tells the entire story rather differently, of course…'

        Scorpius launched into the rest of the tale as he knew it.

        It began, he explained, with the death of Severus Snape at the hand of Voldemort, killed not because the Dark Lord suspected his divided allegiance—Scorpius himself hadn't even known of that until he'd discovered it in the Pensieve's stored memories—but because of the mistaken notion that Snape must die for the Elder Wand, the unbeatable instrument of magic, to belong fully to Voldemort. Snape had not expected this, and thus had not destroyed the dagger Horcrux. Snape had, however, been wily enough to hide the dagger extremely well, and to tell no one of its location. Shortly thereafter, after Voldemort himself had been killed and his Death Eaters scattered, Lucius Malfoy had gone after the dagger Horcrux, fanatically intent on fulfilling his duties to his dead master. He crept into the school shortly after the battle was over, while its defences were still very weak. He used every art at his disposal to search for the dagger, but even though he could sense its presence, he was utterly unable to find its hiding place. It drove him mad with fear and rage, for he believed that if he failed, the Dark Lord would exact his