บท 438: Third Task Ⅳ

The diversion had worked to absolute perfection. While everyone moved in the direction of the wounded Death Eater, Rowan teleported to the old home hidden deep in the swamp. She had only done so because the place read as Death Eater Hide Out in her mind mapscape. Naturally, she was going to go and take a closer look.

Rowan teleported into the empty, worn mansion and closed her eyes again. Quickly she searched for any item that read like a diary. She found several, but all of which belonged to another Death Eater. Finally, it occurred to her to start in the most obvious place, Riddle's personal chambers. Resisting the urge to slap her forehead she closed her eyes again. She had to spend less time with wizards, she felt as though her common sense was being eroded away. But of course, that wasn't possible at all, when she was a witch herself.

Quickly in her mind, Rowan spots the chamber that reads as Lord Voldemort's Personal Chambers. Quickly scanning through the items in the room, her mind comes to rest upon a certain item that reads as Tom Marvolo Riddle's diary. Jackpot!

Another teleportation later, and Rowan appears in a dark room with green and silver serpents on the bedding. "Why is he still acting like a stereotypical Slytherin teenager?" Rowan muttered to herself as she made her way to the locked trunk. "How the hell is he not embarrassed? He's a grown a*s wizard for heaven's sake!"

Falling silent, Rowan pointedly stares at the trunk sitting at the foot of the bed in front of her. Now the question was how to get the thing open without killing herself. The locking charm would surely be too obvious to use, and the trunk is densely protected with magic, she could tell by the thick power surrounding the trunk.

If she cast such a spell, it would have surely caused the protection spells set in place to be released and attack her. And she wasn't foolish enough to believe that she could teleport faster than the spell matrix being flung at her. She knew that without a doubt she would catch the full brunt of the attack. The better question is whether she could survive such an attack.

Pointing her wand at the trunk, Rowan is about to cast a revealing spell, when her commonsense kicks in. Almost in pure disbelief, she mutters under her breath, "It surely can't be that easy, can it?" But then again, there's no other parselmouth in existence in Great Britain at least other than Riddle himself. And she wasn't foolish enough to assume that there weren't any other parselmouths in existence anywhere elsewhere in the magical known world.

Slowly lowering her wand, Rowan leans cautiously forward and whispers in parseltongue, "Open for Salazar's heir." The trunk springs open with a soft click as the trunk revealed the hidden contents found within. There at the bottom of the trunk is an innocent-looking black leather diary.

Rowan reflexively reached for her pouch to find it wasn't there. Glancing at the Horcrux, she knew she couldn't just leave it here. But neither could she take it away with her. The darkness of the Horcrux would slowly begin to chip away at her mind and body. And she knew that she wasn't impervious to the influence of a Horcrux, the Ravenclaw Diadem had proven that point almost too well for her comfort of mind.

Quickly Rowan automatically runs down the list of things capable of destroying a Horcrux. Basilisk Poison? Back at Hogwarts inside her mokeskin pouch safely inside her school trunk. Great good that did her now.

Godric Gryffindor's sword? Also located back at Hogwarts, and is still at present inside a most unsanitary, ancient magical hat. Plus, she would need to pour a drop of Basilisk venom or two on the blade in order for the silver goblin-forged blade to work.

That left one other option, Fiendfyre. But the more pertinent question was could she even control the magical flames? The flames tended to have a will of their own and if the caster was weak in any form, the flames would consume the caster, and the yet unborn, Vincent Crabbe had proven that point rather all too well.

Still, Rowan's lips pressed into a thin line as she made her choice. Raising her wand firmly into the air, she pointed her wand at the black diary and muttered the incantation. Strangely, the fearful fiery creatures don't emerge from the tip of her wand, but rather a mare Thestral. The flaming Thestral lets out a loud whicker, before stomping directly on the black diary.

Pulling back from the sudden wave of painful heat of the flames, Rowan can only squint as the black leather diary refuses to begin burning under the pounding of the fiery hoofs. On the other hand, a more worrisome fact is that tiny sparks of flames of the fiery Thestral are sprinkling off onto the floor and bed. All too soon the bed begins to smoke as the bed covers begin to catch fire.

The Thestral cries out almost angrily as it even more forcefully stomps its hooves against the black leather diary until it finally begins to smoke. Suddenly black ink began to ooze as the black diary began to loudly and rather shrilly scream. The screaming only grows louder and louder in volume until Rowan is forced herself to clap her hands over her ears. The screaming is so bad that one of her eardrums bursts rather painfully causing a trickle of blood to begin to pour out of her left ear. She didn't even realize it as she was already in so much pain.

Due to the fire rapidly spreading throughout the entire room, Rowan's eyes were tearing up from the smoke. Unable to breathe anymore in from the thick smog, she is forced to uncover one of her ears with a painful wince. Struggling to ignore the screaming, she covers her mouth and nose with her robe sleeve and counties to squint through watery eyes to ensure that the black diary is destroyed as it is being burned alive.

However, the destruction of the leather black diary is rather slow despite the efforts of the flaming Thestral. And as such, the small fires rapidly spread throughout the room causing her to loudly begin to cough and retreat backwards until she is basically pressed up against the door.

The situation only worsened with each passing second as the heat and smoke trapped inside the room only grew. The smoke inhalation is already causing her to feel faint, but even worse the heat of the fire is growing hotter and hotter around her as she begins to sweat from the sweltering heat. But she dared not open the door, because the minute she did the flames would immediately spread due to the flames being fed due to the sudden access of oxygen now flowing into the room.

Still, the situation grew worse as the temperature of the room grew hotter and hotter as the flames were now surrounding Rowan. Forced to step away from the now flaming door at her back, she can only stand in the middle of the burning room. Thankfully her school robes are enchanted to be impervious to flames. Her school robes protect her from being burned, but any flesh exposed to the heat was starting to turn red as her flesh began to lightly burn.

All Rowan could do at this point was to hide her face and hands in her sleeves. It was ironic really, but Aunt Georgine's expensive taste in clothing is what was saving her today. Why even the dragonhide boots on her feet were preventing the flames from burning the soles of her feet! And the enchanted apprenticeship silver badge on her chest was protecting her from the worst of the heat or she'd have succumbed long ago to the flames.

The Thestral lets out a triumphant neigh as at long last the black leather diary turned into nothing but smoldering ashes. The sudden silence sounds rather loud in Rowan's ears as the screaming has finally come to an end. The Thestral let out an impatient snort before it vanished away, and Rowan most gratefully teleports out of the flaming bedroom chamber.

It was just in time too as Voldemort and the rest of the Death Eaters arrived at the burning hideout. Voldemort let out a scream as a blast of water emerged out of his wand and put out the flames in a single giant wave. Part of the old home simply collapsed from the weight of the water and the damage done by the fire. The old home was still smoldering when he stepped inside the smoldering ruins.

Most of the front hallway had collapsed, while the rest of the back of the home was simply smoldering ashes with the stone framework still standing as well as the sturdier wooden framework. Voldemort rushed to a halt before the remains of his inner sanctuary were nothing but ashes. Rushing forward he began to dig into the ashes to find nothing but ashes. His diary was either gone or burned to the ground.

Voldemort let out such an angry cry as he said, "Find her and kill her!" And he truly didn't care anymore that the girl needed to be kept alive. Nothing less than a merciless death would satisfy him.

The Death Eaters immediately spread out again as Voldemort also rushes into the search. If his diary was still intact the girl would have it. And if not, it'd be far better if he did not get to her first. She would wish she was dead when he was done with her.