After getting an earful, during which Harry didn't utter a word—he knew he was at fault—the young couple, more like Fleur, decided that enough was enough and that it was time to get answers out of Voldemort.
As such, Harry got up and phoenix-flashed to Africa. That's where they had hidden the pebble that was the Dark Lord.
A few moments later, he reappeared back at home, and he wasn't holding anything.
Fleur shot him an inquisitive look.
"I think it's better if we do this interrogation there instead of in our home. If worst comes to worst and Voldemort somehow escapes, it would take him some time to return to Britain—and we definitely don't want him inside our house," he said with a darkening look; he was imagining the damage that Voldemort could cause if he were let loose inside the house.
Fleur nodded in agreement and let out a shudder.
"Too right, you are," she replied, and unlike her boyfriend, she stopped herself from creating the images in her head.
Harry reached to grab Fleur, so that he could take her with him to Africa; however, Fawkes, who still had Ash on his talon, flew down on her shoulder and burst into flames.
A joyful trill echoed as the three of them disappeared.
"Everyone's getting cheeky lately," Harry grumbled and let his magic engulf him before being transported to Africa.
The couple had decided to hide the soul piece in a random, faraway desert on the continent, buried underground.
The excavation had annoyed them both, as neither was familiar with—nor particularly interested in—the charms needed for the task.
Harry had ended up using more brute force than anything else to push mountains and mountains of sand, while Fleur managed to create and stabilise a small room with magic, the room they were currently in.
There was a single torch on one of the walls, providing light to the room. Thankfully, they had remembered not to use actual fire, which would have consumed all the oxygen and forced them to use bubble-head charms.
'Actually, that might have been a better idea,' Harry thought, wondering whether a wandless Voldemort could escape to the surface before dying of asphyxiation.
That would only work thanks to the immensely powerful anti-apparition wards that were placed around the makeshift underground chamber.
Just one of the many failsafes in case the Dark Lord had somehow regained his power.
Harry waved his hand and summoned the small pebble from its containment—a tiny stone that radiated a faint, oppressive aura.
"Tom Marvolo Riddle," Harry whispered as he clutched the stone.
"You shouldn't be holding him too much," Fleur said, watching the offending pebble warily.
Harry waved her off.
"He can't do anything that can actually harm me," he said, but to Fleur's relief, he still put the stone down.
He didn't just drop it anywhere, though.
Harry set the pebble down in the middle of a complex rune circle he had etched into the floor a few weeks before.
As it touched the central glyph, the runes flared briefly with dull blue light, then settled into a low, steady glow.
It was a ward that would help him in what he was about to do next.
Normally, this ward wouldn't have been useful against Voldemort as it required a target that was conscious, and a conscious Dark Lord was a dangerous Dark Lord.
Thankfully, the Horcrux rectified most of that issue.
"Ready?" Fleur asked and took Harry's hand.
"Am I ever?" he replied with a sigh, before his face hardened. "But let's do it anyway."
He stepped into the circle and pressed the tip of his wand to the stone. "Legilimens."
At once, Harry's world tilted, and he was reminded of his latest 'battle' with Voldemort.
He was falling into a dark, swirling vortex of smoke and cold.
Harry heard whispers coming from the edges of his vision and fragments of Latin curses. There was also a screaming infant that sounded familiar, and the echo of a high, cruel laugh.
And then, silence.
When his feet touched something solid, he was in a room.
A broken throne sat crookedly in the middle, surrounded by floating shards of glass, each reflecting a younger Tom Riddle at different stages of his life.
Standing in front of the throne, dressed in black, pale as death, was Voldemort.
Or what remained of him.
"You again," the shade rasped, his voice distorted as though echoing from deep underwater. "Come to gloat?"
Harry didn't smirk. "No. I came for answers."
Voldemort's lip curled. "Have you become so deluded as to think that I will willingly help you with anything?"
"No," he replied with a smile. "But who said anything about willingness?"
The Dark Lord scowled. "You may have imprisoned me in this pathetic form, Potter, but do not think you can simply extract information from me like some mudblood. My mind remains my own."
"I was hoping you'd say that," Harry said, and his smile deepened.
The rune circle flared to life around him, bathing the underground chamber in an eerie blue glow.
"W-What are you doing?" Voldemort shouted.
He wasn't sure what was being done to him, but he felt an unfamiliar influence wrapping around his consciousness like cold, unbreakable chains.
The last fragment of soul that was Voldemort tried to resist, but found himself increasingly unable to push the dreadful attack back.
However, Harry wasn't done yet.
Back in the real world, Fleur had just transfigured the pebble into a legless rat and was feeding it a whole vial of truth potion.
If Voldemort suffered brain damage from the excessive amount of Veritaserum he'd been given, that was his problem alone.
He stood no chance.
By the time Fleur gave Harry the 'okay' to proceed, the Dark Lord looked worse for the wear.
At some point, he had fallen to the floor, and he was now visibly struggling against the combined effect of the restraining rune circle and the Veritaserum.
Voldemort's form in the mindscape wavered like smoke in a breeze, his features contorting with rage and—more satisfyingly, fear.
It was time to begin the interrogation.
Harry raised his wand.
"Legilimens," he said, the sound reverberating around the room.
He glanced at the floating shards of glass and saw different versions of Tom Riddle casting the same spell.
A moment later, he was once again off his feet and seeing things from a different perspective.
The first memory Harry stumbled upon was one at an orphanage.
He hadn't known Voldemort had grown up in an orphanage.
'Huh, that's curious,' Harry thought.
Scenes of Tom being bullied followed quickly after, and it didn't take long for the roles to reverse, with young Riddle becoming the bully instead.
Harry could feel Voldemort struggling against his mental intrusion. Waves of disdain and hatred radiated toward him as he delved deeper into his nemesis's memories.
However, Harry wasn't doing this to ridicule the Dark Lord. After testing the waters, he immediately began searching for any mentions of Horcruxes.
Of course, Voldemort couldn't allow this and redoubled his efforts to keep Harry away. Alas, his attempts bore no fruit.
Harry had seen Tom Riddle look through the restricted section, searching for any mentions of immortality, until he stumbled upon a single reference to Horcruxes.
That had lit an obsessive fire in the boy, and he had researched the topic with such persistence that Harry had to wonder just when and how such a brilliant academic had gone wrong.
The memory then showed Riddle's calculated approach, and Harry could see how, after hitting an unsurpassable wall, Riddle had gone outside his comfort zone and manipulated Slughorn into revealing the information he needed, about the creation of multiple Horcruxes.
That had all but confirmed to Harry that Voldemort had indeed created six Horcruxes, thus splitting his soul into seven pieces. That had been his original plan, at least—Harry was a mistake he never found out about.
After that, the rest came surprisingly easily.
Harry watched Tom Riddle transform into Voldemort step by step, each time severing more and more of his soul and storing the fragments in significant objects.
Having gotten all he had needed, Harry decided to exit from the memory scape.
After all, greed was a sin, and whoever was dumb enough to forget that eventually paid the price.
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Chapter 131: It's Finally Over