After receiving news of Hufflepuff's Cup, Dumbledore left Hogwarts.
Without a doubt, he intended to find Bellatrix and open the Lestrange Family's vault.
For a Legendary Wizard proficient in memory magic, there were plenty of ways to make Bellatrix obey his every command, even if Old Dumbledore was deeply averse to using Unforgivable Curses.
Dumbledore did not ask for the Locket. He and Vaughn once again reached an unspoken understanding, neither of them bringing up the destruction of the Horcruxes.
Voldemort had already returned and realized that everything that had happened before was part of their deliberate scheme, so there was no longer any question of tipping him off.
But destroying the Horcruxes now would accomplish nothing. They could not kill Harry, and at present, they had no way to extract Voldemort's soul fragment from him.
Doing so would only make Voldemort more cautious. Even if he did not go into hiding, he might create more Horcruxes.
Vaughn was not sure how many pieces Voldemort's soul could be split into, but no matter how powerful a person's soul was, it could not be divided indefinitely.
Otherwise, couldn't Voldemort simply make hundreds or thousands of Horcruxes and become practically immortal?
In the original story, Voldemort had made only seven Horcruxes, but Vaughn did not know whether that was his limit. If he could make an eighth, that additional, unknown Horcrux would make matters far more troublesome.
Vaughn went straight to the Great Hall. He needed to resolve the house-elves' strike. If this continued, the young witches and wizards at Hogwarts would probably go hungry.
The kitchen beneath the Great Hall was a basement with walls covered in oil paintings of food.
The kitchen was in an uproar. All the house-elves were there, but they had split into two clearly defined groups.