Chapter 69.5- Doom Days

The draugr, reanimated from a corpse that had not been long gone still had a good portion of its magic left in it. That meant the wards that were to keep whoever was locked within still within would recognise him as being keyed to them. And since he was pulling me through, then I should be able to pass easily with no problems. And it worked exactly as planned. The body pulled me through and then I was on the other side.

“What’s the way out?” I asked Gellert, turning to him and knowing full well that trusting him was far from the wisest thing to do in normal circumstances. In this one, he was the only way out. The reanimated draugr wouldn’t be able to offer information. Just some part of the spell that made it useless for interrogation. The mind was gone the second the body died. It left with the soul, and while the soul’s information remained, that was not the soul. A better way to describe the soul’s information would be to call it the pins that kind of stapled the soul to the body.

Once the soul left, the pins began to detach themselves as well. But if you were quick enough, you could access enough of them to allow you bring the body back to some semblance of life. Some facsimile of it.

“Left.” He said, and I nodded, directing the draugr to bring up the rear as we began walking through the building. Gellert led me through turn after turn until we reached a door. In doing so, we passed no windows of any sort, and any attempt I made to apparate came up against the unyielding wards.

“Okay, time to confess some dishonesty.” He said.

I turned to him snapping my wand in his direction.

“You know what I am” he said more than accused. I did not confirm or deny.

“You don’t need to pretend otherwise. The second I saw you perfectly animate a false draugr, I knew you would know. And that is because you and I are alive. Just like I did not allow Durmstrang tell me what I could or could not do, the magic I could or could not learn, you did the same with Hogwarts. Because if even Durmstrang would hesitate to teach the theory around creating draugrs then there’s no chance you learned it at Hogwarts. My Aunt Bathilda went to Hogwarts, you know? If she learned anything even close to this interesting, then I would know.

“What do you want, horcrux?” I spat.

“I want you to retrieve my physical receptacle. Do so, and I will guide you out of here. I’ will guide you for the rest of your life if you let me”

“It’s so simple, is it?” I asked.

“Yes. Yes it is”

“And what is it? What is the physical receptacle?” I asked.

“My necklace. It’s made of silver and has the symbol of the three brothers on it” He said.

“And it’s behind this door?” Because of course he led me straight towards the thing he wanted.