Chapter 1
The Burning of the House of Black
Inside the house, it was an ironically calm night, except for the quiet stirring and cursing of the house elf, and the slow, muted footsteps of the man inside, who impatiently glared at the wall clock. The jinxes had failed; they were cast as if by a first-year Hogwarts student and he had entered without difficulty.
"Lumos," he muttered, illuminating the tip of his wand to make sure that his eyes were not playing a trick on him at such an indecent hour. Midnight. "Damn," he said, under his breath. He walked slowly to the window beside the door, which revealed the world outside, naïve to the existence of the house which had stood for so long, and the moon, which, tonight, was full and glimmered inside, illuminating the drawing room.. There was a small rap on the door, and then a series of clicks and the clatter of a chain. In the doorway stood a small, nervous-looking man, who stared in and looked around nervously, trying desperately to collapse his umbrella. His dark brown hair blew disobediently in the wind yielded from the thunderstorm outside.
"Come in, come in," said Severus Snape, lowering his wand. He pointed it at the fireplace, which exploded suddenly with a deep amber fire, heating up the room. The man in the doorway shivered with warmness and walked inside, his rain-soaked boots leaving wet footprints in the wood floor. "You're quite late."
"I'm sorry, I was detained for a few moments by Lucius. He had some business to discuss."
"What of Rabastan?"
"I'm not sure," began Rodolphus Lestrange nervously, his snakelike voice almost at a whisper, "but I think he's escaped. I've not seen him."
"How many of you have escaped?"
"Most of us. We've taken care to ensure that people like Stan Shunpike have remained. Filthy blood traitor - Did the Malfoy boy fulfill his task?"
"He surpassed his duty to me, I'm afraid," said Snape conversationally, as if reciting a recipe.
"I would be honored," said Rodolphus with a chuckle. "You've found the locket?"
"No," said Snape, "the elf refuses to divulge its whereabouts."
"We shall see about that." Rodolphus turned towards the old staircase, which was laden with cobwebs. "Kreacher!"
Kreacher, the former house elf of the family Black, crept haltingly down the stairs, which creaked and sighed as he bounded over them. The house-elf appeared at the foot of the stairs.
"Kreacher has told you that he is allegiant to only Harry P-"
"Shut up, Kreacher," said Rodolphus harshly. "Don't you remember who I am?" Kreacher glowered at Rodolphus, his black, beady eyes, examining every inch of him. Rodolphus stirred impatiently. "Well?" Kreacher sprinted towards Rodolphus and collapsed at his feet, moaning and shrieking in horror or astonishment.
"Master Rodolphus! Kreacher has not seen Master Rodolphus or his beautiful wife Bella in so many long years!" shrieked Kreacher, momentarily forgetting the allegiance to his new master. Rodolphus glanced at Snape smugly.
"Good. Now, Kreacher... the locket?" Kreacher's face suddenly drained of all expression. "M-Master Rodolphus, Kreacher -"
"Tell me," he hissed, removing his wand from inside his old, tattered robes and pointing it at the defenseless house-elf.
"Master Regulus f-forbid Kreacher from t-telling -"
"You will tell me," said Rodolphus, his voice trembling with malice, "or I will kill you and destroy the house of your beloved Blacks."
"But Kreacher does not -"
"CRUCIO!" boomed Lestrange. Snape winced; Kreacher's small body rose into the air and he made a piercing sound like a cupboard of goblets hurtling to the ground.
"KREACHER DESTROYED MASTER REGULUS'S LOCKET! KREACHER DES-"
"Lies! Tell the truth, you filthy hobgoblin!"
"U-upstairs," said Kreacher, his bullfrog voice quavering, "Kreacher gave it to Master Sirius and-and-" Kreacher closed his eyes and tears rolled down his small cheeks- "Master Sirius's school trunk-" Kreacher again dropped to the ground, sobbing hysterically.
"Thank you, Kreacher," said Snape brightly. Kreacher remained prone on the floor, and Snape and Rodolphus left him there to strangle himself.
As the two men ascended the staircase, they looked curiously at the portraits on either side of it, which were neatly placed, women relatives on one side and men on the opposite. All of them sat cozily in their frames, wearing dignified, proud looks.
"Walburga...Orion...Lucretia...Ignatius...Andromeda...that filthy Muggle-lover-" He stopped abruptly as the stairs gave a great lurch.
"Severus - ?" said Rodolphus, all traces of excitement vacating his lined face. The stairs began to shake more violently than they had, threatening to toss them. They shouted several spells to avert the shaking that caused the entire house to tremor, but none of them seemed to work, and after completely removing their ability to climb any higher, the stairs gave away completely. Rodolphus, cursing loudly, threw himself suddenly at the next landing, which too creaked, but did not rumble and shake."I'm fine!" he called down to Snape, who had hit the ground and slid into a group of chairs, which remained in place, undisturbed.
"A jinx!" shouted Snape angrily from below.
Upstairs, Rodolphus revolved riotously, trying carefully to decide which of the two opposite doors to go in. He squinted at the one on the left, and saw the dusty nameplate that read "Sirius."
"Brilliant!" he said triumphantly, taking out his wand, which he had barely saved from the pile of rubble that was formerly the staircase. "Anticrines Maximo!" The doorknob detached itself and flitted around in the air, broken, with a life of its own. There was a gaping hole in the door, and Rodolphus put his hands in it, the door ready to swing open obligingly -
"Severus Snape," a pained voice whispered, "Traitor of the Order, servant of Voldemort, murderer, spy – What is your duty here? Have you come here to kill me, Severus? I trusted you. We all trusted you, and you betrayed us, Severus." A great pair of hands reached through the hole in the door and seized Rodolphus's wrists. The hands were cold, numbingly cold, and the entire house began to tremble. He gasped, clouds of ceiling raining down on him. The portraits in the staircase began to shoot off the walls, the screams of the people in the portraits commingling with the high-pitched, sibilant scream of Kreacher downstairs.
"NO!" cried Rodolphus, struggling to break free from the hands that would not let go. They gripped him even tighter, his hands becoming dangerously numb.
"Severus Snape," the mouthless voice began again, "Traitor of the Order, servant of Vol-"
"I – AM – NOT – SEVERUS – SNAPE!" Everything abruptly became normal, and his hands were free. The hands that had taken his, apparently disembodied, vanished into thin air. The door was now ajar, and he peered in nervously, waiting for something else to materialize from the pitch blackness and assail him. "Lumos Maxima."
Sirius's room reflected his personality: it was highly unkempt, posters obscuring the colour of the walls and many scraps of paper littering the floor. There was a huge Gryffindor banner over his bed, and to the right of it was a picture of three boys, apparently teenagers: Remus Lupin on the far left, waving and laughing; James Potter in the middle, who wore a haughty, arrogant look; on the far right, Sirius, who looked slightly troubled, as if James had just gotten finished telling a joke at his expense. Scoffing, Rodolphus raised his wand and shot the picture down from the wall. Behind the picture was another picture of Sirius, James, Remus, and Peter Pettigrew all roaring with laughter, a Snitch buzzing around them, which shone golden even in the crippling darkness of the house. There was a note tacked onto its frame.
Dear James,
Hello, friend, it's been too long since we've seen each other last! How is Lily? How is Harry? In any case, I thought that you might like this picture. I found it while rummaging through the things from my school days. Your friend and bodyguard, Padfoot.
There was another note underneath it written in different handwriting, apparently a response to the first.
Dear Padfoot,
I've put your picture on the wall in our living room. Another day at Hogsmeade after a Quidditch match, perhaps? Lily is very well, but I fear that-
The letter stopped abruptly there, but underneath it was a picture of Lily holding a baby with dark brown hair, her belly still fat from the pregnancy. The baby laughed and cooed, holding a Golden Snitch in his hand, which amused him as it buzzed around and landed back in his small hands.
Rodolphus continued to penetrate through the objects scattered about the room, but there was no sign of the trunk; then again, it had been many long years ago that they had all attended Hogwarts. He looked up at a bookcase in the corner of the room, which only had a few dusty, broken books on it, and on the top of it was a small trunk.
"Accio trunk!" The trunk began to wobble and slide toward the end of the bookcase, and then reached the end and plummeted downward, hitting the floor with a great din. He walked over slowly and put it right-side up. It was apparently not guarded by any jinxes, but to avoid another mishap, he pointed his wand at it and cried, "Disimpigrus!" The thing was coated with a very thick layer of dust, the aftereffects of many years of inutility. It was untidily adorned with various Quidditch related stickers. Slowly, he dissected its contents – some old school books, missing covers, a very old Daily Prophet, an empty potion bottle, and several other random objects that represented Sirius's eccentricities – but there was no locket. He charged around the room, looking under the bed and checking all around every surface, but no locket was to be found. He began to gather the scraps of paper on the floor, which appeared to be letters, the picture, and several other objects on the floor and under the unmade bed and shoved it all in the trunk, running out of the room. Staring down at the crevasse that was the staircase, he jumped, yelling "DULCIO!" as he descended through the space. The floor under him cushioned accordingly.
"Where is the elf?" Rodolphus asked, his voice cracking. Snape, peering indifferently out the window, gestured to Kreacher, who had taken to launching himself against a wall that was neatly decorated with plates bearing more Black family members. "You liar," he said quietly upon approaching Kreacher, whose eyes seemed to show the most miniscule trace of emotion. "There was no locket in the trunk." Kreacher rose, his brutish old body shaking with fear.
"But Kreacher put it in M-Master Sirius's Hogwarts trunk!" Rodolphus opened the trunk and magically removed its contents, which fell into a line on the floor.
"NO – HE – DIDN'T!" he cried, beside himself with rage. "YOU DISOBEYED YOUR MASTER AND YOU DISOBEYED HIS FAMILY!" Kreacher was suddenly in a frenzy of self-punishment.
"Kreacher does not deserve to live! Kreacher has betrayed his family, his true Masters! Kreacher does not deserve to live!"
"You have one final chance to tell us where the locket is, you grubby -"
"Kreacher does not know! Kreacher put it in Master Sirius's trunk! Kreacher does not deserve to live! Kreacher does not -"
"Avada Kedav-"
"No, don't kill him! He is our last hope of finding the locket, if he indeed is lying. Spare him!" protested Snape, who now charged Rodolhpus with his wand held in front of him.
"If it is lying, the elf deserves its comeuppance!"
"DO NOT KILL HIM! EXPELLI-"
"Impedimenta!" yelled Rodolphus, turning back to Kreacher. Snape froze in place, his wand falling to the floor.
"Avada Kedavra!" The jet of pure green light that shot from Rodolphus's wand tossed Kreacher across the room and drowned out the diminishing traces of moonlight on the floor.
"Kreacher knows!" he moaned with his last gasp of breath. The old elf fell against the grandfather clock opposite where Snape and Rodolphus stood. In the aurora of light, the nameplate on the clock that read "Black" glinted. Rodolphus walked over to survey Kreacher, whose small body looked torn and broken as a result of the impact.
"Idiot!" cried Snape, again enabled to move, but freezing in horror when discovering that Rodolphus now had his wand pointing directly at Snape. "No," he said calmly, "Do not kill me. It is your fault that, due to your impulsive wanton nature, we will never truly know where Slytherin's locket is - What are you doing?"
"Ignio Arcesso," uttered Rodolphus, redirecting his wand at the fireplace. Fire smoothly flowed from the raging fire in a stream and twisted around his wand, gripping it. The fire traced every piece of furniture and every portrait in the room, and then beastly figures of all kingdoms began to form in its wake, some trotting around the room and some flying gracefully around the gaudy chandelier, all materialized from the inferno.
"What the hell are you-"
"Come, Snape," said Rodolphus, his voice absent of expression. Snape obeyed confusedly. He grabbed Sirius's trunk and replaced its contents, snapping the lock which held itself between the "Gryffindor rules" and "Chudley Cannons forever" stickers. "We are going." He opened the door, giving one last contemptuous glare to the house.
Broomsticks in hand, the two men ascended into the rainy, unfriendly night, leaving the most noble house of Black to burn away.