The Secret We Share In Dark || Draco x Reader ||

Previously:

Tom turned to face him again, and this time, his smile didn't even try to hide its intent. "Of course, sir," he said quietly. The memory dissolved into mist. We were back in Dumbledore's office. Silence settled, heavy and suffocating. Dumbledore's expression was grave, his eyes shadowed with worry and something colder certainty.

.........

"Sir—" Harry began, but Dumbledore lifted a hand, stopping him with a silent command.

He turned away from us without another word, moving with the slow, deliberate steps of a man carrying far too much. The flickering candlelight caught the edge of his robes as he sank onto the narrow stone steps at the far end of the room. The silence he brought with him was suffocating.

I stepped forward, unwilling to wait any longer. My shoes scraped against the floor as I moved to stand before him, watching the shadows shift across his face. His gaze was distant, anchored to something far beyond the room.

"This is beyond anything I imagined," he said finally, voice rasping as though it had been buried in ash. "You mean to say he... succeeded?" Harry asked, hesitant. "In making a Horcrux?" I let out a sharp breath, rolling my eyes. "Didn't think your peanut-sized brain could figure that out."

Harry bristled. I saw the retort forming on his tongue, but Dumbledore cut through the tension before it could spark. "This is not the time to fight, Y/N," he said quietly. "There is enough darkness in this room already."

He turned back to Harry, answering the question neither of us truly wanted to hear. "Yes," he said. "He succeeded. And not just once." The words landed like stones in water, sending ripples we couldn't yet see the end of.

"What are they?" I asked, my voice steadier than I felt.

Dumbledore stood slowly, crossing the room with the weariness of someone who had walked this road too many times in his mind. He reached his desk, fingers trailing across its surface before opening a drawer.

"They can be anything," he said. "Things that go unnoticed. Commonplace objects with uncommon purposes. A ring, for example."

He pulled it out dark, ancient, glinting faintly under the candlelight. It felt wrong just looking at it. "Or a book," he added, retrieving another object. My stomach twisted. The diary. "Tom Riddle's diary," Harry said, the words barely audible.

"It was a Horcrux," I whispered, more to myself than to either of them. The memory of Ginny, pale and half-conscious in that chamber, rushed back like a tide.

Dumbledore nodded. "Yes. Four years ago, when you saved her and brought me this diary, I sensed there was something... off about it. It was dark magic, ancient, unnaturally powerful. But I didn't know just how powerful."

Harry leaned in, his brow furrowed. "And the ring?" Dumbledore held it up, the light catching on the worn gold band, revealing the fine crack running through its center. "It belonged to Voldemort's mother," he said. "It was well hidden. In a place touched only by grief and obsession. Difficult to find... and even more difficult to destroy."

I pressed a finger to my lips, not to hush the room, but to still my thoughts as they formed into words. "If you found them all... if you managed to destroy every Horcrux..." I hesitated, the weight of the question settling in my chest. "Would that be enough to kill him?"

"One would destroy Voldemort," Dumbledore answered before I could finish, his voice flat, certain but not triumphant. Harry took a sharp breath. "But how did you even find them? They could be hidden anywhere."

"True," Dumbledore said quietly. "But magic especially dark magic—" Before he could finish, Harry stepped forward, drawn toward the ring like a moth to flame. His fingers brushed against its edge. A sudden jolt. He flinched back as if shocked, his hand recoiling in an instant.