"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 revenge even from beyond the grave.
While he was still searching Snape's Headmaster office, Lucius' presence in the castle was detected. He fled, masked and cursing everyone and everything in his way. As he escaped through the Forbidden Forest, however, his heightened sensitivities detected a powerful magical object lost there. He had no time to search for the object, but he determined to return as soon as he could, for he believed he had quite by accident stumbled upon the hiding place of the dagger Horcrux.
Time passed, however, and Lucius was unable to return to the Forest. Most of his fellow Death Eaters were in hiding or had already been captured and imprisoned. Lucius covered his tracks exceptionally well, but lived in abject fear that he was being watched, that at any moment, he would be found out and apprehended. His wife, Narcissa, had left him shortly after the battle, and even his son, Draco, seemed to want little to do with him, so Lucius went into hiding. He used the last of his money to buy a rundown manor house on Cannery Row, protecting it with the best secrecy methods he knew. There, alone, he began to plan his return to Hogwarts castle to capture back the dagger.
Unfortunately, in the time that had passed, Hogwarts had been rebuilt and fortified. There was no way for someone like Lucius to get inside the grounds undetected. He needed partners and he needed money. Soon enough, he encountered both in the form of Gregor Tyrannicus, a soft but hate-filled refugee from his own royal wizarding family in Romania. Gregor came with a small fortune in gold, granted to him by his father in an effort to assure he left quietly and never returned. Gregor was instantly enthralled by Lucius' tales of his dealings with the famous Dark Lord, and vowed every bit of his treasure in support of the search for the mysterious dagger Horcrux. In exchange, he merely asked for his own position of power once the predicted pureblood kingdom was instated. Lucius graciously accepted Gregor's support, even catering to the man's rather obsessive infatuation with collecting relics from the Dark Lord's life.