Chapter 21

Severus leaned against the counter in the comic book store not to far from his home at Spinner's End. The man behind the sales counter was filling him all in on Nightshade. The more he heard the more he was ready to throttle those two little urchins.

Nightshade was apparently the twin brother of a female who was a werewolf. Like he would ever be around anyone that would have Lycanthropy, much less be a twin of them. And then to be from the Neitherworld at that. And the son of a Neithergod. The only thing that remotely sounded fun was wielding the sword Excalibur. There was no way he was telling any of this to Lucius. Lucius wouldn't let him live it down. He would come up with some other reason for being Nightshade, because all the other ones were apparently female. That didn't bode well for him either.

Tuesday, July 1st

Kayden sat at the table along with Phoenix eating cereal. They had gotten home only an hour before Robert had showed up and they didn't have time to call Gisly. So for the remainder of the day that had started writing everything out after they made dinner and had eaten the night before. They had at least hoped Harry knew how to put in the contacts.

"So should we call her?" Kayden asked.

"I don't see why not. Robert is gone." Phoenix said.

Robert said he liked the highlights they had added to their hair, but that was all he apparently seemed to notice. Which only helped, he seemed to be taking in their appearance in stride. Although this morning he called each of them by the wrong name before he had left for work. Kayden had agreed with Phoenix that they would just answer whatever he called them at the moment and not worry with it. They didn't want to have to keep correcting him.

"Gisly," Kayden called.

A loud pop was heard in the open living quarters and both of them turned to look. Kayden's eyes widened at seeing the little creature come from out of nowhere but then to see what it looked like was interesting. She was short, even smaller than they were. Kayden saw her large bat-like ears and huge amber colored eyes. She was wearing a ghastly maroon colored pillowcase that had some sort of crest upon it.

"Little new masters to be called for Gisly." Her voice was squeaky high pitched.

"What are you wearing?" Phoenix asked.

"Tis the Potter house-elf enslavement." Gisly said.

Kayden looked sharply at his brother who looked just as horrified as he did over this garment.

"Is there a different type of whatever it is you could wear other than that?" Kayden asked.

"Once young masters bond with Gisly, it will become what masters choose." Gisly squeaked.

"How do we do this bonding thing anyway?" Phoenix asked.

Gisly rocked from side to side and then said. "Little Masters has to place their hand upon Gisly's head and Gisly will ask for the bond with her magic and then be bonded."

"What does a house-elf actually do?" Kayden asked as he started eating again once he finally had gotten over the shock of seeing one for the first time. To think this was some type of elf. Not at all like he was hoping. The Tolkien elves were by far more superior in his way of reasoning, granted they knew not everything was the same, but still they had hoped.

Gisly had explained everything about the bond and how it was as good for her as it was for them. And for some reason knowing that she would be gaining two little master made her ecstatically happy. By the time she had finished explaining all of this they had finished eating. Before either one of them could even get up from the table and take care of the dishes Gisly had them already in the sink and washing with magic.

Kayden and Phoenix put their heads together and finally decided on what she would wear. At least something more proper than a garishly maroon pillow case. Her clothing would be the same color as their trunks. They understood it couldn't be an actual clothes item, only three items were allowed: a towel, a tea cozy, or a pillow case. The towel and the pillow case was totally out. The tea cozy they reasoned it would have to be.

They each now stood and had a hand placed on her head. Magic swirled around and the new tea cozy looked way better than the old pillowcase. They noticed the crest upon the cozy had a moon which showed brilliantly behind the night sky that was on it.

"Much better," Phoenix said.

"Agreed." Kayden added.

"Is there something little masters would like Gisly to do for them?"

"Yes," Kayden said. "Harry needs the eye glasses, and contact lenses solutions, and the cases for it, and a make-up kit. I'll show you where it all is."

"Can you make copies of books?" Phoenix asked.

"Gisly can do that Master Phoenix." Gisly answered.

"Right, then Harry is going to need a lot of stuff taken to him." Kayden said.

The boys raced to their bedroom and Gisly followed. They got Gisly to copy everything they thought Harry would need. Even stuff out of the quest chest. Just because Harry wasn't with them, didn't mean they were going to let him miss out on anything for the summer. They would have to figure things out and even make different plans if it came down to it.

Once Gisly left with a copy of all their books that Aunt Petunia had gotten them to read as well as everything else from the chest and things they knew Harry would need they got to business on their wergild trunks. They needed to find out what all it held. The letter that morning had been just to keep working on what they had been given so far. Going through the chest was a must.

Kayden had went to his chest after he resized it, it was about the size of a deck of playing cards when it was shrunk and the only rune that showed was the resizing rune on top. He and Phoenix figured out how it worked really well after they played with it awhile, it required some part of their hand in order to work. They had tried out every finger and their thumbs as well as the palm of their hands, it all seemed to work. He went inside the wardrobe section first and remembering what Master Balin had said how these trunks worked he had also taken, ink, quill, and a parchment. Once he was inside. He started playing around to see if the trunk would actually write on its own what was inside this one compartment. After closing his eyes, he wished for a list and he heard exactly that. The quill actually scratching out a reply on the parchment that had been placed inside it. Phoenix was standing outside his trunk waiting to hear the outcome of this. He opened his eyes and the trunk was cataloging the armor in the room.

"It worked." Kayden said as he looked at his brother.

"Okay, I'm going to try the library section and see if we can make it work for putting all the books in sections and see if it will do it as well. Like at the library at school." Phoenix said.

"Go for it." Kayden said as he turned back to the parchment that was now floating before him and he took it out of the air as soon as it was finished. He started reading it. Goblin armor it seemed could be made out of metals as well as dragon hide. It held a brief description of what each set would protect from as well as what it wouldn't. The dragon hide armors seemed to have the most protection value from what he was reading. He would have to compare the lists to see what Phoenix would have. Then they could at least have some protection while they were inside the shadow realm. He only hoped they worked. He took the parchment, the ink, and the quill back out with him. Once outside his trunk he went over to his brothers and looked down without touching it.

"Well?" He asked.

"It's working. It has to rearrange them first, and now it is writing out each section." Phoenix told him.

"Good deal. I love these trunks. Absolutely bloody amazing."

"To right." Phoenix told him.

Kayden went over to his trunk to start the library section himself. The better of an idea of what they actually had the more planning they could get done. They had twenty four names left to discover of those Death Eaters after all and figure out a way to rescue them if they could. They would have to plan strategically at least for one trip to do some scouting and see what the world actually looked like.

Severus sat at the small dining table that inside his kitchen reading the morning Prophet and sipping his dark black tea. Lucius had given Severus a button that would glow Slytherin green once the wizengamot had started. The button sat beside his tea cup as he turned the page of the Prophet. He was reading the Prophet because he knew he wouldn't have enough time today to start on reading the books that Tolkien created. Any minute he was waiting for that button to change and then he would use his floo to go to his quarters at the school. The floos connected to the heads of houses were always open to them and they could come and go when they had need of them. Their destinations of arrivals and departures were always given to the headmaster though. The headmaster always kept tabs on everyone, sometimes Severus didn't even know if the headmaster really trusted anyone himself.

Once he got the green glow from the button Severus laid the paper down and picked up the button. It would stay this color till Lucius turned it back off. The headmaster was now busy and he wouldn't be disturbed. He took the floo to his quarters at Hogwarts that was down in the dungeons, his quarters were built into his office as well as a private lab he used while school was in session.

He headed for the trophy room on the third floor having not found anyone on his way other than the portraits wanting to chat because it was lonely without the children right now. He never really understood how they could consider themselves lonely when they had hundreds of other portraits to go into and chat amongst themselves. The trophy room was located adjacent to one of the armor galleries the castle held. This gallery held medieval knight armor, sometimes they would have to grab a suit and replaces pieces for any of the other knights that had lost a piece during the year between the battles of Peeves and the students. More often than not it was Peeves who ended up being the one who caused a piece to go missing. Severus wasn't sure where those missing pieces were, but every now and then Argus, the caretaker of the school would find one or two.

After he turned into the trophy room, he started heading for the year he was after. He was at least glad that the school kept this room by year, if it hadn't been he wouldn't even know where to even start looking otherwise. Once he reached that year he started looking over the trophies. And there he found one: AWARDED TO, TOM RIDDLE for SPECIAL SERVICES TO THE SCHOOL. He noted this was found in the 1942-1943 year of the school. He didn't see any other awards other than the ones that listed the top of class one. His name was there as well for Slytherin. He looked at the year before this one and saw the Prefect badge awards. 1941-1942, this would have been his fifth year and he would be fifteen. They know knew how old Riddle was. He went back to the first year and started looking. He wanted to see what awards Riddle had achieved in his Hogwarts career. Severus noted from the first year he entered he was top of class. That remained throughout all of his years. He also noted his name in several clubs, one being on the Slug Club Trophy. All the way till he ended up being Head Boy. He had quite a few awards for his years in school.

Severus left the trophy room and headed for the fourth floor. He needed the library. Severus reasoned once Lucius, Narcissa, and himself knew exactly what that dairy actually was maybe there was a spell for testing other things. One being all those trophies with the names of Tom Riddle on them.

After entering the library he went into the restricted section. What he was after would only be found among these books. He started in the most darkest magic sections knowing that the Dark Lord boasted about how far he had gone down that magical path than any other. That was the best section to be in. He checked the button in his pocket, it was still green and headed down the first Dark Magic isle. There were at least thirty in this section that he knew and he had never heard of any potion that would make something like that happen. So all of those isles he could not have to journey down having been down them several times himself.

He raised his wand. It was one of the few spells that would actually work for bringing books forward. After he said it, he added his subject at the end. "Soul Magic."

Several books from this section of the library landed at his feet. He flicked his wand and hovered the books to a nearby table. He started going through them. Pausing over a passage every now and then, which led to another book. Out of four they all repeated the same book title. He was down to three books left when he removed the one from the stack and saw the title of the book. He pulled over the 'Secrets of the Darkest Art' to him. This was probably one of the darkest books he had ever picked up before. He skimmed each section quickly picking out words that he knew would give him a quick understanding what each section was about. He found the one that he needed and turned to it. As he skimmed through this section, he knew once he got through it, that he had a name for what the item was. It was a Horcrux. Severus shut the book and placed it inside his robes and waved his wand over the other. He would borrow this book at least for awhile until they read more on this topic. He checked the button, it was flickering. He needed to return to his quarters post haste, the session was winding down quickly.

He had made it to his quarters by the time the button he was watching in his hand had gone back to solid brown. Severus took the floo to his home at Spinner's End. He had agreed with Malfoy's he would meet them at the manor to discuss what he had found. Once outside he went out his back door and Apparated away to Malfoy Manor.

Author Note: There is a poll on my profile page. To pick which house the twins and Harry go into. I will stop the Poll once they board the train for Hogwarts. Please go vote.