The silence in the Headmaster's office was profound, broken only by the soft, mournful trill of Fawkes from his perch. Dumbledore sat behind his desk, his gaze fixed on the two objects before him: the cleansed locket and the contained soul-fragment. He looked from them to the calm, composed fourteen-year-old girl who had placed them there, and he felt the familiar, humbling sensation of being in the presence of a mind that operated on a different plane of existence.
"You have performed a miracle, Ariana," he said finally, his voice full of a quiet, staggering awe. "I have spent fifty years studying the magic of Tom Riddle, trying to understand and fearing the existence of Horcruxes. I have sought them, I have feared them, and I have believed that their destruction was the only path. You… you have proven me wrong. You have performed surgery where I was preparing for an amputation."
He gently picked up the obsidian sphere, holding it with extreme care. The captured soul-fragment within writhed silently, a tempest in a teacup, utterly powerless. "To have isolated it… to have created a prison for a piece of a soul… this changes everything." He looked at her, his blue eyes sharp with a thousand new questions. "Tell me your process."
Ariana, with her usual clarity and precision, detailed her methodology. She explained the theory of magical anesthesia as applied to inanimate objects, the severing of the symbiotic link between the soul-fragment and the vessel's enchantments, the runic siphon, and the design of the containment sphere. She spoke not with pride, but with the detached satisfaction of a scientist presenting a successful experiment.
Dumbledore listened, his expression shifting from awe to a deep, intellectual fascination. "You used the principles of healing and transference on an artifact of the darkest soul-magic," he mused. "You did not fight the darkness; you logically persuaded it to move. It is a philosophy of magic that is as profound as it is powerful."
He set the sphere down carefully. "This," he said, tapping the obsidian prison, "is my responsibility now. I have the means to destroy it utterly. I will take it to a place where its end can be guaranteed without risk to others." He looked at her, a silent promise passing between them. He would handle the disposal of the dark lord's soul.
He then pushed the golden locket gently back across the desk towards her.
"This, however," he said, his voice soft, "is yours."
Ariana looked at him, a questioning look in her eyes. "It is a piece of Hogwarts history, Professor. A legacy of Salazar Slytherin. Surely it belongs in the castle."
"It was a legacy of Slytherin," Dumbledore corrected gently. "Then it became a vessel for Tom Riddle's evil. Now… now it is something else. It is a symbol of your victory. A testament to a new kind of magic." He leaned forward, his expression becoming serious and strategic. "But there is a more practical reason. You are correct that it is a priceless artifact. If it were to suddenly reappear in the world, clean and whole, questions would be asked. Whispers would start. The magical historical community would be in an uproar. And those whispers would eventually reach the ears of those still loyal to Voldemort."
He met her gaze, his meaning clear. "And eventually, they would reach Voldemort himself. If he were to learn that Slytherin's locket had been found and, more terrifyingly, cleansed, he would know, with absolute certainty, that his secret has been discovered. He would know that his Horcruxes are being hunted. He would immediately take steps to secure the others, to hide them in places even I could not find. He would be alerted, and our greatest advantage—his arrogance and his belief in the absolute security of his immortality—would be lost."
Ariana immediately understood the strategic implication. To reveal the cleansed locket would be to show their hand. It would turn their quiet, methodical hunt into a frantic, desperate race against a paranoid and alerted Dark Lord.
"The locket must remain a secret," she concluded, her voice a quiet affirmation. "It must remain 'lost' to the world."
"Precisely," Dumbledore said. "And I can think of no safer place for a secret to be kept than with you. It is a trophy, yes, but it is also a burden of knowledge. One that I believe you are uniquely equipped to carry."
Ariana accepted the locket, the heavy gold now feeling warm and inert in her hand. It was no longer a source of evil, but a heavy secret. She placed it back into its shielded pouch.
"This leaves us with a new strategy," she said, her mind already moving to the next logical steps.
"We know of the diary and the locket. My research from the archives suggest other potential Horcruxes, all tied to the founders of Hogwarts: Hufflepuff's cup, Ravenclaw's diadem, and perhaps something of Gryffindor's. And then there is Nagini."
"My own conclusions align with yours," Dumbledore confirmed gravely. "The path ahead is still long and dark."
"But we now have a new method," Ariana pointed out. "We do not need to destroy these priceless artifacts. We need only to find them and perform the same 'surgery'. We can neutralize his immortality without erasing our own history."
A look of profound hope dawned on Dumbledore's face. For decades, he had believed that defeating Voldemort would require the destruction of some of the wizarding world's greatest treasures. Ariana had just handed him a way to win the war and preserve their heritage at the same time.
"You have given us a new path, Ariana," he said, his voice filled with an emotion that went beyond simple gratitude. "A better one."
He stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the dark grounds of Hogwarts. The Triwizard Tournament, the petty school rivalries, the political maneuvering of the Ministry—it all seemed so small, so insignificant, compared to the secret war being planned in this very room.
"The game remains the same," Dumbledore said, more to himself than to her. "He will try to return. He will use Harry to do it. We must allow events to unfold, to a point. But now… now we have a hidden advantage he can never anticipate."
He turned back to her, a new, fierce light in his eyes. "You will continue your work in secret. You will continue to support Harry through this tournament. And I… I will begin the hunt for the remaining pieces. We will work in parallel, two separate fronts in the same war."
Ariana nodded. The strategy was logical. The division of labor was efficient.
She left the Headmaster's office that night with a heavy secret and a renewed sense of purpose. The path ahead was dark and dangerous, but for the first time, it was also clear. She was no longer just reacting to the story as it was written. She was actively, secretly, dismantling the very foundations of the villain's power, one logical, brilliant move at a time