You are about to embark on an adventure of epic proportion. The fate of the world is in your hands. Lord Voldemort has made 7 Horcruxes that will enable him to live forever. Horcruxes are objects used by Voldemort to conceal parts of his soul and tether him to life. They can only be created after committing murder. ‘Well, you split your soul, you see, and hide part of it in an object outside the body. Then, even if one’s body is attacked or destroyed, one cannot die, for part of the soul remains earthbound and undamaged.” Horace Slughorn Your task is to find each horcrux, retrieve the clues and find Voldemort before it’s too late. Hidden in each horcrux cache, you will find a number that will help you to find the final location to destroy Voldemort for good. Time is running out! HURRY!
Horcrux 4: Helga Hufflepuff's Cup
Helga Hufflepuff's Cup was a magical item created by Helga Hufflepuff, one of the founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was a small golden cup with two finely-wrought handles with a badger engraved on the side and a few jewels. The badger is the symbol of Hufflepuff House. The cup also has the dubious distinction of being the only object known to have been stolen from a vault (specifically the vault of the Lestrange family) at Gringotts Wizarding Bank.
The cup was passed down through the Hufflepuff family, and through the centuries made its way to Hepzibah Smith, a descendant who kept the cup as a priceless heirloom. In 1946, Smith showed the cup to Tom Marvolo Riddle, who was at that time employed at Borgin and Burkes. She dazzled Riddle with the cup and fondly stated she could never part with it. Along with the cup, Smith possessed Salazar Slytherin's locket. She kept them well hidden even from her family members.
Smith was found dead two days later. Her elderly house-elf, Hokey, recalled mistakenly putting poison in Smith's cocoa, however, Riddle had embedded a false memory in Hokey as he himself had murdered Smith for the artefacts. Riddle fled with the cup and the locket. Smith's family realised the cup and the locket were missing shortly after her death, but by that time Riddle had resigned his post at Borgin and Burkes. Riddle was neither seen nor heard of for a decade. Bellatrix places the cup in her vault at Gringotts
Riddle, or Lord Voldemort as he called himself at that point, transformed the cup into his fourth Horcrux, using Smith's murder as the tool. Many years later he left it in the care of his trusted Death Eater, Bellatrix Lestrange. Although she did not know that the cup was a Horcrux, Lestrange treated the object with extreme priority, storing it in her family vault at Gringotts Wizarding Bank, considered to be impossible to plunder. In addition to the bank's extensive security measures, it was protected there by a spell which would cause any object to multiply exponentially if touched by anyone other than the vault's owners. In addition to this, a further protective curse was placed on the vault to cause the objects to glow hot as fire and burn the flesh of anyone trying to remove them without authorization.
Years later, Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter theorised that Lord Voldemort had chosen Hufflepuff's Cup as an object for one of his Horcruxes. They did not, however, know where it might be located.
During the hunt for the Horcruxes, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were captured by Snatchers and brought to Malfoy Manor, where Bellatrix Lestrange panicked at the sight of Godric Gryffindor's Sword — which she had believed to be in her vault as well — in their possession. She interrogated and tortured Hermione with the Cruciatus Curse demanding to know what else they had taken. This made Harry suspect that Hufflepuff's Cup might be the other item in her vault.
Later, Harry, Hermione and Ron infiltrated Gringotts with the assistance of the goblin Griphook and the use of Polyjuice Potion. As they searched the vault, Harry felt a jolt in his heart when his wand light passed over Helga Hufflepuff's cup, which was kept on a higher level. They managed to narrowly bypass the vault's securities before Griphook betrayed the trio and claimed Godric Gryffindor's Sword, as well as alerting the other goblins to their presence. The trio was forced to fleeing Gringotts on one of the bank's dragons.
The trio returned to Hogwarts Castle to find a possibly Ravenclaw-related Horcrux, and the Death Eaters and Voldemort launched an attack known as the Battle of Hogwarts. During the battle, Ron and Hermione ventured down into the Chamber of Secrets (with Ron doing a passable imitation of Harry's Parseltongue to enter) and retrieved several Basilisk fangs. Hermione used one of the fangs to destroy the Cup inside the Chamber, as Basilisk venom is one of the substances capable of destroying a Horcrux.