She doesn’t respond with words, but a wave of warmth, love, and strength sweeps over him and gives him the confidence and steady hand that he needs. He starts with the combusti and breaks that curse in half an hour. The reverse bombarda takes about the same amount of time, but the pox hex is tricky. After an hour, he feels like he has at least lowered the probability that the diadem will infect him with some medieval disease, but he still doesn’t think it’s safe to touch it, even with his wand. He examines it again, very closely this time, and finds another deeply imbedded curse that attracts infection. That’s a new one to him, and it takes him a while to figure it out, but when he finally disables it, the pox hex disappears also. At that point, although the Horcrux darkness is still seeping out of the diadem, he feels that it’s safe to transport it. He wraps it in the charmed scarf he brought with him and puts it in the disillusioned backpack which already contains the three Basilisk fangs and the Hufflepuff Cup. When he puts the backpack on, he can feel a bit of the dark magic, but it’s not more than he can deal with. He casts one long last look over the Room of Hidden Things and then leaves it behind, walking briskly down the hall as if he has every right to be there.