The screams abruptly died. Henry pushed at the confinement of her arms, and Narcissa sighed and turned around, still holding his shoulder. Henry trembled as he stared at the circle, eyes wide and fixed. Narcissa wanted to make sure that he wouldn't go bolting off towards the book because of some compulsion to get closer.
"Narcissa? Henry? Are you all right?"
Lucius's voice was calm, if cold, the voice he used when he was in the middle of great spells or magical workings. Narcissa called back, "I'm fine." She smoothed Henry's hair. "Are you all right, dear?"
After a long, tense moment, Henry nodded.
"And so is Henry."
"And so am I," Andromeda said, "If anyone cared."
Narcissa gave her sister a chiding frown, but most of her attention was on the center of the circle, where the floating dome above the book was flashing with sharp, regular colors that seemed to come from several different directions. Then the colors settled into the runes and made them glow.
A second later, five beams of incredibly bright light—golden, silver, sapphire, black, and green—shot away from the book. The green light focused on Henry's scar, and Narcissa tightened her mouth when she saw that it was the color of the Killing Curse that had placed the Horcrux there. She wrapped her arms around Henry again.
Henry swallowed and said, "I'm all right." But the words were so soft that Narcissa could pretend she hadn't heard them, and she promptly did so.
The light flickered out a second later. Andromeda cursed. "I hoped they would remain longer so we could see where they went," she muttered.
"The spell isn't as powerful as that," Lucius murmured. "We would have to carve the runes directly on the object, and I am afraid of what the Horcrux might do if someone touches it."
"I could try—"
"I don't want to lose you when we've just found each other again," Narcissa interrupted.
Andromeda gave her a conflicted look and fell silent. Narcissa smiled inwardly. For a Healer, Andromeda had never been that comfortable with the "softer" emotions that Narcissa and Bellatrix had had no problem expressing.
Not Bellatrix, perhaps.
But her elder sister was not here and not concerned with the problem at hand, so Narcissa asked, "I was right in thinking that there were five beams, Lucius? Not dazzled?"
"Yes," Lucius said. "Not one for the diary itself, and not one for the snake I killed in the graveyard, since it was already destroyed. So…seven Horcruxes."
Henry shuddered so hard he nearly tore himself out of Narcissa's grasp. Narcissa stroked his hair. "Dear one," she murmured. "Are you all right?" Do you think we will give up on this task because it is difficult? But she couldn't speak those words aloud with their audience.
"Seven," Harry whispered. "Well, six now. How are we ever going to hunt them all down or destroy them?"
"The spell your father found to destroy the snake in the graveyard will bring them down," Narcissa said.
"Except for the one in me."
Narcissa nodded. That was true enough. "But you know that Healer Percival at St. Mungo's is still researching a way to take care of that. And while we could not maintain the beams of light long enough to follow them to their sources, still, there are other ways to seek out Dark Arts objects so powerful. I promise you, Henry, we'll find them."
"What will we do about the one in me?"
"Continue to work on it."
"But we don't have an answer yet!"
"We will."
Henry fell silent, apparently confounded about that. Narcissa understood. Adults had ignored him in the past when he had problems far less severe than this, or lied to him about them. And he probably thought that no one could prevail against a Horcrux located not in an object but a living human being.
Narcissa could only stroke his hair and hope he would believe them one day. And she stood aside to let him watch as Lucius used Fiendfyre on the diary, and endured the screams and the smoke and the black blood that spilled on the floor of the circle, utterly destroying the silver crescent and the box the diary had been placed in.
Two dead, Narcissa whispered to herself, shaping the words with her lips, and caught Lucius's eye. He was looking at her, sharing her thoughts so well that it was almost like Legilimency. Five to go.
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