Going up alone to the Headmaster's office on the eighth floor, Kate hadn't even knocked when a great bird—all glowing red and gleaming gold—came flying straight at her.
"Fawkes? Your feathers have grown back!" Kate cried in delight, throwing her arms around him like she was hugging an enormous goose, and carried him into the office.
But the moment she stepped inside, she saw a tall, black-haired boy bound and seated right in the center of the reception room.
"You are—" Somehow Kate felt the boy looked oddly familiar. Carrying Fawkes, she took a few steps closer, and watched as he slowly raised his head.
The boy's entire form seemed shrouded in a faintly glowing mist, blurred and indistinct.
But when he lifted his head, that youthful, quintessentially English face nearly startled Kate into flinging Fawkes right out of her arms.
"Tom Riddle?" She spoke his name in a daze. "How are you here?"
Glancing around somewhat frantically, she found Dumbledore was not in the office. Apart from her and Riddle, there was no one else at all.
Riddle's face was weak and pale, but his eyes still fixed on her intently. "Katherine, is that you?"
Kate's face twitched. She took a wary step back, lifting her chin slightly. "Looks like you haven't had a good time of it lately, Tom."
"And isn't that all thanks to you?" Riddle's eyes brimmed with intense hatred. "You planned with Dumbledore long ago how to deal with me—that's why you kept deceiving me all this while."
Kate fell silent for a moment, her stirred emotions finally settling back into calm. Composedly, she set Fawkes back on his perch, then grabbed a handful of birdseed and fed it to him.
Her utter indifference to his accusations enraged Riddle completely. Struggling with all his might, he roared at her, "You had Dumbledore keep me here—what on earth do you still want!"
So Old Man Dumbledore had deliberately kept it?
Sneaking a glance at the desk, Kate noticed the diary's cover had become riddled with holes—she couldn't imagine what it had been through to end up like that.
No wonder this little Voldemort's mental state was even more unstable than before.
"What do you think I want to do?"
Having finished feeding Fawkes, Kate ambled over to Riddle, the smile on her face growing more pronounced.
"You're a fragment of the Dark Lord's soul. Through you, I can get hold of quite a lot of information about him."
She watched with satisfaction as Riddle's face grew paler still, the corners of her lips curling slightly.
After all, he was a fragment of Voldemort's soul, so he ought to understand perfectly well that Dumbledore had kept him in order to probe more of Voldemort's secrets.
Only, judging from its current state, Old Man Dumbledore must have tried no small number of methods, yet still failed to pry any information about Voldemort or the other Horcruxes out of its mouth.
This was actually quite normal: the diary was a Horcrux created back in Voldemort's fifth year, so by rights it should only know things from before that time.
After that, it could only obtain information about the outside world through whatever words others wrote in it each time.
So it was entirely possible that although the little Riddle before her could sense that Voldemort had later split off other pieces of his soul, he had no idea where Voldemort's other Horcruxes were.
But Dumbledore probably still wasn't willing to give up, which was why he'd had her come up—to coax a little more out of it.
Having deduced Dumbledore's purpose in summoning her from a few scattered words and Riddle's current state, Kate deliberately shot a glance toward the small compartment at the very back of the office.
Old Man Dumbledore was most likely hiding in there right now, enjoying the show.
"I'm guessing you've already dealt with Dumbledore. The old man's getting on in years and doesn't have much energy left, so he's sent me to ask again—where would the Dark Lord hide his other Horcruxes?"
Kate pulled up a chair and sat down in front of him, laying out her purpose directly.
"Your real name isn't Katherine, is it?" Riddle was utterly unmoved by her words, his vicious gaze never leaving her.
"You know, if my true self ever learns your identity, do you know what will become of you one day?"
"He'll make it so that you can neither live nor die!"
Riddle smiled wickedly, the venomous words spilling from his mouth enough to send chills down anyone's spine.
He stared fixedly at Kate, a strange smile spreading across his face. "Not just you—Dumbledore too, and your family and friends. They'll all die because of you!"
Kate was silent for a moment, then simply drew her wand and cast a Flame Binding at the diary on the desk across the room.
In an instant, Riddle's own already illusory body was rapidly devoured by coil after coil of flame-tongues, forcing an agonized scream out of him.
"You want to provoke me into killing you outright," Kate exposed his aim without the slightest pretense, "but your acting is too poor. I suggest you go take a remedial course at Lanxiang Technical School next time."
As she spoke, the blue flame hooked up the diary and flung it down at Kate's feet.
The instant the flames vanished, Riddle finally stopped howling, panting heavily. He hung his head, in so much pain he could barely get the words out.
"Since the performance is over, let's get down to business." Kate stamped a foot down on the diary and asked in a flat voice, "Did your true self make any other Horcruxes? What are they? Where are they hidden?"
Riddle kept his head down the entire time, giving no reaction at all apart from the occasional twitch from the pain wracking his body.
Come to think of it, a creature that had held out this long under Old Man Dumbledore without breathing a word was hardly going to talk over a few sentences from her.
Kate scratched her cheek helplessly and had no choice but to start analyzing on her own. "I looked it up in the books. A Horcrux is when you split your soul and hide a portion of it in a storage object outside your body.
"This object can be perfectly ordinary, utterly inconspicuous—like a single grain of sand in a desert, or a drop of water in the sea.
"As long as the Horcrux isn't destroyed, then even if the true self dies, he can return to the world of the living through the soul stored within it. That's the immortality Tom Riddle longs for, isn't it?"
The other party gave no answer.
"All right. Since you could use any inconspicuous thing at all to make a Horcrux, yet after using the Basilisk to kill Myrtle in your fifth year, you made your very first Horcrux out of the diary you carried on you—that is, the you standing here now.
"You had countless other options, so why choose this diary that had been with you for years? That would only expose your Horcrux more quickly, wouldn't it?"
As if she'd struck a nerve, Riddle silently raised his head, his eyes—now gone blood-red—staring straight into hers.
But Kate remained entirely unmoved and continued her analysis. "I also asked Dumbledore. He said you were an orphan, and that he was the one who brought you from the orphanage to Hogwarts.
"In other words, back then you had nothing valuable to your name—a poor student who bought even his textbooks with the school's financial aid."
Watching Riddle suddenly clench his jaw, Kate actually laughed. "So I've hit a sore spot, have I?"
She wasn't finished yet.
"Back then you were penniless. Apart from those textbooks and stationery, the only thing of any special significance was probably that diary you'd brought from the orphanage.
"So can I assume that, in Tom Riddle's eyes, the meaning and significance of a Horcrux's vessel mattered far more than the safety of where it was kept?
"Which is why I think that after your fifth year, if you were to make more Horcruxes, you'd likewise seek out things of extraordinary significance to you as their vessels."
All of this was really reverse-reasoning verification carried out from a god's-eye view, but regardless, judging by Riddle's reaction now, she could prove she hadn't been wrong.
"Even so, the range of things important to Tom Riddle is far too broad.
"For a poor fifth-year student back then, something important might be a diary.
"But for the Dark Lord he would later become, what would count as important?"
Kate tilted her head, posing the question to him.
"Hmph!" Riddle sneered, his voice weak. "Say everything you've guessed is correct—so what?
"You and Dumbledore will never pry the whereabouts or vessels of the other Horcruxes out of my mouth, so give up the notion while you're ahead!"
Kate raised an eyebrow at that. "So there really are other Horcruxes—plural—and they're all objects important to Tom Riddle. Thank you for the valuable information."
With that, she saw Riddle's expression change abruptly, but before he could curse her aloud, she rose to her feet first. "Professor, I've asked everything I needed to. Do you have any other instructions?"
From the small compartment inside came the sound of something scattering, and Dumbledore emerged, still struggling to kick aside the Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans strewn all over the floor.
"Oh, I just ate a bogey-flavored one in there." He furrowed his brow with an indescribable expression and held out the remaining half-packet of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans to her. "Care to try?"
Kate took them calmly, completely ignoring the diary still pinned beneath her foot, and popped one into her mouth. "Toasted marshmallow!"
Dumbledore sighed. "I'd best steer clear of this sort of sweet next time."
His luck in this area had always been dreadful.
The two of them chatted about sweets for ages as though no one else were there, until Riddle—thoroughly tormented—finally couldn't help crying out, "Dumbledore! Kill me!"
Kate shrugged, picked the diary up from under her foot, and handed it over. "Has this fellow been this noisy the whole time?"
"Part of the reason may be that you provoked him." Dumbledore smiled faintly, took out the small wooden box from before, and placed the diary inside.
In an instant, Riddle's phantom dispersed along with it.
"This box was left to you by Nicolas Flamel," he said, holding it up. "I imagine you still don't know what it's used for."
Kate studied the golden patterns on it thoughtfully. "Could it be that it can completely seal off whatever's inside from the outside world?"
Dumbledore nodded, gratified.
The isolation here was not simply a matter of stashing the diary away; it truly severed all of its connections to everything—including the link between the Horcrux and the true self's soul.
"This box was originally something Nicolas used to hold highly reactive alchemical materials—only a device like this can properly preserve an alchemical item. Who'd have thought you'd stumble into using it to store a Horcrux instead."
Kate raised her eyebrows in surprise. So once she no longer needed it for the diary, she could use the thing as a fresh-keeping box, tossing in some fruit and vegetables whenever she had nothing better to do?
"Then let me try it out once you're done with it." She grinned playfully, and the room filled with a merry atmosphere for a moment.
As for the isolated diary?
Who cared how it felt!
Not destroying it outright was already giving it plenty of face.
"By the way, I'm very pleased with your performance today." Dumbledore poured himself another cup of black tea.
Quick-eyed and quick-handed, Kate whisked the teacup away before he could add any sugar, laughing it off. "It was just a lucky coincidence, really."
The main thing was that the setup just now had looked far too much like the scenarios in which Old Man Dumbledore had deliberately tested her before—she couldn't help reading into it.
She wasn't arrogant enough to think Old Man Dumbledore couldn't have guessed at the analysis she'd just laid out.
He was, after all, the person in the world who understood Voldemort best!
Taking a sip of the mild, warm black tea, she asked again, "Still, even though I've deduced some conditions, the number of things that fit them is vast as an ocean—I'm afraid they'll still be very hard to find."
She said this, but she also knew full well: this man was Dumbledore.
In the original works, he'd been able to track down most of Voldemort's Horcruxes without a single clue; now, with these deductions in hand, he had more than enough to uncover a whole pile of things.
Starting the investigation now was at least a little better than in the original works, where the Horcruxes weren't dealt with in bulk until the sixth year.
"I'll handle all this; you needn't worry in the least." Dumbledore took a sip of his specially made milk tea, not forgetting to give her a mischievous wink. "I hear that during class today, someone confessed their feelings to you?"
The topic swerved fast enough to rival a roller coaster; Kate nearly choked to death, coughing several times with a flushed face before she recovered. "Professor, how could you possibly know…"
"Professor McGonagall told me," Dumbledore said with a chuckle. "It seems you're surprisingly popular."
Kate gave a dry laugh. "Please don't tease me, Professor. With the mysterious person still out there, how could I have the heart to think about such things? What's more…"
What's more, she didn't like Amber's type.
A tsundere young mistress and all that—having one Malfoy was already more than enough for her to handle.
The mere thought of the way Malfoy had looked tonight, and the way Hermione had fled that afternoon, left her feeling utterly drained.
"Professor, if there's nothing else, I'll be off." she said, hanging her head dejectedly.
Dumbledore lifted an eyebrow slightly. "I thought that, as a crotchety old man of over a hundred years, I might offer you a bit of life experience for reference."
Kate started. "Professor, do you mean…"
"When the people around you are behaving strangely, and you can't find any fault in yourself, then you might consider how they regard you."
How did Hermione and Malfoy regard her?
The two of them, though vastly different in background and experience, did share a certain similarity in personality.
So the way the two of them saw her…
As if something had struck her, Kate knit her brows, and when she looked up again, she found Dumbledore had vanished once more.
Tsk—the old man had run off mid-sentence again!
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