The Imposter Complex, Chapter Forty: A Grim Old Place.

:-:-:-:-:

'"R A B?"' Sirius exclaimed, his eyes wide and incredulous.

'That is what it says.' I confirmed, and made to hand him the note, but he was already snatching it from my hands. He whirled away from us, striding to the other side of the room. His head was hunched down, one arm supporting his weight against a crystal sconce.

We were in the meeting room at Tech Mell, the hour late. There had been an Order meeting earlier that night, but Horcrux talk was not for all ears. I'd asked Sirius and Dumbledore to stay behind.

'You know of this person, Sirius?' Dumbledore asked.

Sirius didn't respond for a long moment, still examining the note, then let out a choked little laugh. 'Know him? Yeah, you could say that. Oh, Reggie...'

My eyebrows went up. 'Reggie? Your brother Reggie?'

Dumbledore inhaled sharply. 'Ah, of course.' he breathed.

Sirius turn to face us again, tossing the note onto Dumbledore's desk. He wasn't crying, not quite, but his eyes were red.

'Regulus Arcturus,' he confirmed, voice shaky. 'That's his handwriting alright. I- he was always the good son. Toed the family line, y'know? Blood-purist little weenie, joined up with the Death Eaters right out of Hogwarts. Went missing a couple of years before the war ended, then our family tree marked him dead a bit after.'

He let out a little laugh again. 'Dad sent a letter about it. I reckoned Reg just got cold feet and the Death Eaters killed him for it. I never- I never thought anything like...'

I put my hand on his shoulder, utterly lost for what to say. Dumbledore was examining the note again.

'I don't know how to feel.' Sirius said quietly.

'Sirius,' Dumbledore began. 'You may often have heard me say that it is our choices that matter, more than our origins. Whatever else your brother may have been, in the end, when it really mattered, he chose to do what was right. Even though he knew it would cost him his life. That is heroism.'

Sirius sniffled a bit. 'Yeah. I suppose. Thanks, Dumbledore. I think I just need some time to process this.'

'Take all the time you need.' Dumbledore replied, and Sirius left the room.

The Headmaster turned to me, his expression grave. 'Alas, I'm afraid we ought not take it on mere faith that the Horcrux has been destroyed.'

I twitched my eyebrows in agreement. 'Indeed. I certainly hope it hasn't; I was hoping to end this war with my soul in one piece.'

Dumbledore smiled at that. 'It would certainly be ideal, yes. So, when Sirius feels up to it, I would like for you two to see if you can follow Regulus' tracks, and find out what he did with it. It is quite plausible that the means of destroying it escaped him or any co-conspirators he may have had. I have, after all, gone to a good deal of trouble to purge necromantic texts from Britain since my defeat of Grindelwald.'

I nodded. 'We'll get on it. I'm sure Sirius would know more about that than I. Speaking of Grindelwald by the way, any news?'

Dumbledore grimaced for an instant, and my eyes narrowed. He noticed. 'Well, yes, of a sort. I was not planning on bringing the matter up until we had something more concrete, but I received a... ping, on one of my instruments. Gellert briefly appeared in the background of my foe-glass again.'

My expression tightened further. 'You're sure?'

'I'm sure that I saw him, yes. I am not sure of what it means. None of my other implements reacted, but this may mean he has successfully hidden himself them. It is also likely that he only vanished from the foe glass because he shrouded its sight as well. So long as he wields... well, so long as he remains on the loose, tracking him directly may well prove entirely impossible. We may be forced to wait for him to strike first.'

He looked thoroughly discomforted by the notion. I felt no better. Leaving Tech Mell, my mind was adrift. Grindelwald rearing his ugly head again, of course, just what I bloody well needed in the middle of a war.

:—:

Sirius and I stood in a cramped street in northwest London, gazing up at the townhouse before us, nestled tightly between its neighbours. It may have looked identical to them once, but no longer. At night, Number 12 Grimmauld Place probably would have looked very spooky. But in the bright light of noontime...

'This is the ancestral hearth of Black?' I said incredulously before I could help myself. 'Merlin, what a dump!'

Sirius barked a short sour laugh. 'Couldn't have happened to a more deserving place.'

It was notably several shades darker grey than the other townhouses on the block, but I could not discern whether this was paint, dirt, or.. something else. The house seemed drenched in malignance, as though it had stained the very brickwork. It was in poor repair, the masonry along its roof and windowsills cracked, and sagging. A true shithole, though the occasional muggles that passed by didn't seem to take notice.

'It wasn't always like this.' Sirius went on. 'Old mum used to be very particular about how the house looked. The bat.'

'You haven't been back since you were exonerated?' I asked curiously.

'Nah. Always hated it here, and since the Ministry were so kind as to set me up with my own place, I wasn't hurting for somewhere to stay.' Sirius's mouth turned into a nasty sneer. 'Let's get this over with so I can burn it down or something.'

We sauntered up the filthy steps, and I let Sirius take the lead. The front door was stiff with disuse, but slowly came open with a creak so ominous it almost felt calculated.

The long hall within seemed almost to absorb the light, or perhaps it truly was that grimy. Sirius stepped though, and where his feet tread, black dust fluffed itself up from a thick rug I'd been unable to discern at first.

I glanced up as I entered, my eyes adjusted much quicker than an ordinary human's to the change in brightness. The featherlight touch of anti-apparition magic settled across my shoulders. I could make out more of the room now, including the dense mat of cobwebs coating the ceiling. I made a face.

Sirius looked about suspiciously. 'I don't know how the hell it got this filthy. We had a house elf, for Merlin's sake, the little lunatic should have at least kept it in some kind of order. Kreacher!'

Nothing happened. Sirius frowned deeper.

'Maybe the house elf died.' I offered.

'Maybe. Or mum finally lost her last remaining marble and murdered him on suspicion of being a spy or some bollocks. Good riddance, I say. Reggie's room is up top, let's go.'

The hall was lined with portraits and paintings in serpent-engraved frames that must once have gleamed golden and silver. The paintings were completely still, as if muggle, the largest being a full-body work of a stately middle-aged witch in robes only a couple of decades out of date. Perhaps a security measure had locked the paintings in some sort of stasis. Such spells were obscure, but they did exist.

'Who's this?' I asked, gesturing to the massive painting.

Sirius scowled. 'That would be my dear old shrill hag of a mum. Walpurga Black. It wasn't here the last time I was, she must have had it put up later.'

Grimmauld Place became no less dismal as we ascended. The stairs groaned and creaked under our weight, and the dust we were disturbing was becoming near thick enough to choke on.

We reached the fourth floor, which amounted to little more than a particularly squeaky landing with a door on each end. One marked simply with a plaque reading "Sirius", the other with a more involved "Do Not Enter Without the Express Permission of Regulus Arcturus Black".

Sirius and I exchanged a look, and snorted in unison. 'Merlin, teenagers really are the same every generation.' Sirius said, before sobering. 'I wish he'd gotten the chance to grow up.'

I clapped him on the shoulder tightly. 'He did grow up, Sirius. That we're here at all is proof of that.'

Sirius smiled wanly. 'I guess so. I need to stop moping, my little brother's turned out to be a war hero after all.'

There was a creak, not from us, but somewhere down below. We both whipped around, glowing wands pointed down the stairwell. We saw nothing, save for motes of unsettled dust caught in our witchlights.

Sirius gave a forced half-chuckle. 'Bloody creepy old place.'

I gave a non-committal grunt, and opened the door to Regulus' bedroom. I blinked in surprise. This room, alone among the rest of the house, was practically spotless. A thin coating of dust lay over everything, but compared to what we'd just walked through, it was practically gleaming. Slytherin paraphernalia coated the room, and a corkboard hung over the desk, covered in yellowing newspaper clippings. I approached them curiously. They were about Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters, all of them. Their most infamous clashes with the Ministry, dating all the way back to the late sixties. It appeared that until his betrayal, Regulus had indeed been a bit of a fanboy.

'Alright, let's see if we can find anything about what he did with the Locket.' I said over my shoulder at Sirius. He nodded, then made for the wardrobe, and started rifling though it.

I slid open the desk's drawers. Regulus had been less than a year out of Hogwarts when he died, and the contents of the drawer at first reflected that. Battered notepads, loose leaf parchment covered in scrawlings from NEWT-level classwork, stuff he would have just tossed in here without much thought, and which he never got around to binning. Nothing terribly private or secretive. I was about to start passing my wand across the desk looking for secret items, when I heard another creaking behind me. On the landing. I turned to look.

A small figure stood in the doorway, extremely short and emaciated, with deformed, wrinkly features, and batlike ears. It wore like a tunic what may once have been a well-made and embroidered pillowcase but was now slimy rags. A thick golden chain lay around his neck, tucked into the front of the makeshift tunic. It was a house elf, though somehow unlike any I'd seen before. It glared balefully at me, its bloodshot eyes almost aglow with malice.

'Sirius.' I said sharply, and he looked around.

'Kreacher.' he said, his voice filled with unveiled disgust. 'Why didn't you come when called?'

The elf mumbled something to himself, in too low a tone to catch, and Sirius's sneer went straight to scowl.

'You will speak loud enough to be heard, Kreacher. I am your master and you will obey me.'

Kreacher looked right at him, just as hateful. 'Kreacher is not yours.'

His voice made my skin crawl, and it was almost too croaky to understand.

Sirius laughed harshly. 'I am the last living Black, Kreacher. Your service has passed to me.'

'Kreacher won't serve. Kreacher has a new master. Master loves Kreacher. Master won't have blood traitors and mudbloods in his house.' he said threateningly, and he cradled something under his pillowcase close against his chest. Something cold ran down my spine as I understood.

'Is the Locket your master now, Kreacher?' I said, and Sirius stiffened. The elf slowly turned his head back to me.

He started speaking to himself, as though he did not know we could hear him. Despite his claim to not be under Sirius' command, he still spoke at a recognisable volume.

'They know Kreacher has Master Regulus' locket... Kreacher wonders who has told the filthy blood traitors about it...'

'None of your business, you little wretch,' Sirius said coldly. 'Give it here, now!'

Kreacher shuddered. 'Kreacher won't.'

'Hand it over!' Sirius commanded again, in a tone that would brook no argument.

Kreacher's knobbly hands came up involuntarily to his collar, but the elf was forcing them back down with a willpower he shouldn't have possessed. He shook his head wildly, batty ears flapping against his face. 'Won't! Won't! Won't!'

I brought up my wand, about to stun him before this could escalate further, when Kreacher went very still. His hands lowered down to his sides, and when he looked up at me, I felt a different mind lying behind those eyes.

'Stupe-urk!'

My spell was cut off before I could finish it, two conicals wave of magic blasting out of the elf faster than any wanded magic. Sirius and I slammed against opposite walls of the bedroom, billowing force keeping us held there. Kreacher's hands were raised, directing the energy. A very un-house-elfish smirk sat across his face.

'You should never have come here. But now you shall never leave!' he said, in a voice I knew as my own.

But if my other self thought he could best me with a wind trick, he was going to be sorely disappointed. I met his gaze, and a blunted lance of legilimency slammed right into his occlumency like a metaphysical gong.. It didn't even phase his mental shields, but I wasn't going for his secrets. I was going for pain.

Locket reeled, an inhuman screech expelling from his stolen lungs at the psionic impact. The cones of billowing force collapsed in on themselves, and my feet thumped down onto carpet. My wand came to bear, a serrated flash of scarlet energy ripping through the air between us. But the elf vanished with a pop before it even came close, the spell instead careening through Regulus' wall and blowing a hole into Sirius' old room.

I swore, whipping my gaze around the room. We lost him.

'He's still here!' Sirius said urgently. 'Kreacher can't leave the house without a Black's permission, that's one rule his body would never be able to break!'

'Well that's something.' I admitted, flicking a supersensory charm onto myself. It was a risk, heightening my senses like that, but House Elves could turn invisible. I needed the edge.

'That was the Locket possessing him, right? What's our chances?'

'Well, it depends.' I said faux-lightly. 'On one hand, I'm a hell of a lot more powerful now than Lord Voldemort would have been when he made it. On the other, he's basically a free-willed House Elf. I have no idea what they're capable of.'

Then the floor vanished below my feet.

Magic was singing forth from my wand before I had even landed, a broad lateral sweep of force that shunted everything in a circle around me away, hard. A great deal of dust and mold was shoved into the air, and my senses felt as much as heard the thump of a small body crashing into the left wall.

I landed on my back on a pile of knives that had been dumped across a bed. The mattress flexed and bounced, dumping more razor sharp blades onto my chest. Clever, but useless. I scrambled out of the bed unharmed, though my clothes were shredded. A petrification curse sprung from my wand to where I'd felt Locket fall, but the invisible little shit was already up and running, nearly silent. Nearly.

Taking two long strides, I swung my foot as hard as I could, striking solid air right in the chest. Let nobody forget that I could kick very hard indeed. The door to this room exploded outwards as the elfin cannonball struck it, shards of timber raining out across the stairway. I breathed a sigh of relief. That ought to have done the trick.

A hole blew itself through the ceiling above me, but I already knew what was coming. Sirius, opting to create his own path rather that following me down onto knife-bed. He landed beside me, wand up.

'Where is he?'

'Kicked him through the door. I think I killed him.'

Sirius shook his head dubiously. 'Doubt we're so lucky. House elves can take a lot of punishment.'

That was when the rhino showed up.

In magical combat, spectacle is key. Flabbergasting your opponent even for a moment can change the trajectory of an entire battle. In this case, the absolute last thing I was expecting was for a fully-grown white rhinoceros to come barrelling through the remnants of the bedroom door, obliterating the doorframe around it.

It struck me in the chest with all the power of a multi-ton lorry, taking me off my feet and slamming me into the back wall with enough power to liquefy a normal man. Stunned as I was, it managed to knock the wind out of me, and my wand clattered to the ground.

The rhino was continuing its blind charge even at a standstill, its hooves scraping away chunks of carpet and then strips of timber, and I felt the wall behind me begin to give way. I seized it by its big horn and its jaw, and broke its neck with one twist.

Shoving the enormous corpse away from me, I heard Sirius yelp. I looked up to see him vanish over the bannister, dragged down by something around his legs. My wand slapped into my palm as I gave chase, leaping over the bannister myself, thumping down heavily on the second floor landing.

The thing that had dragged Sirius over the edge flung him bodily at me, and I threw myself left, slapping a slowing spell on him as he passed. It took me a moment to recognise what it was; the long rug that had run the length of the entrance hall, and all the way up the stairs. Locket had animated it, and it had coiled around itself into a massive serpent... tentacle... thing.

The rug serpent hissed, and struck at me. I lashed out first, gouging its head from its neck, but that scarcely slowed it. It rammed me in precisely the same spot that the rhino had, and I stumbled back. My chest was actually starting to get sore. The downside of supersensory charms: Everything hurt more.

A twist of my wand set it ablaze, cyan fire burning the wool as if it were straw. It flailed blindly, already starting to fall apart. I turned my attention away, focusing my senses. Where the hell was that fucking elf?

It took only a moment to pinpoint my other self, a barely audible scarpering along the ground floor. I cast a glance at Sirius to make sure he was recovering, then vaulted the railing.

I hit the floor of the entrance hall, firing off a dash of superheated filament. Locket went into a slide, with more agility that the ancient body he was riding should have been capable of. He splayed a spindly hand, and I whipped one arm up across my eyes, casting a shield with the other. My instinct was right, the flash of light he cast was so bright I could see my own forearm bones through closed eyes.

My reply came at three hundred kilometres an hour, a spine of ice wide as my finger coring one of his ears. He let out a surprised cry of pain, and snapped his fingers. All at once the portraits lining the entrance hall came to life. And every one of them started shouting at the top of their lungs.

The cacophony was a jet engine going off in my ears. I staggered, a scream tearing its way out of my throat. I killed the supersensory charm, but my ears were still ringing, and my vision blurred with tears. Random curses spat from my wand in Locket's general direction, but I hadn't the faintest idea where he was. Even less of an idea of whether I actually hit him.

The portraits were still shouting among one another as my hearing started fixing itself - my seldom-needed healing enhancements coming properly in useful for once. Loudest among them still was Sirius' mother, shrieking expletives about mudbloods at the top of her lungs. Sirius hadn't been exaggerating when he'd called her shrill. No wonder Locket had frozen her.

Locket himself had vanished again. I scowled, flicking a fire hex at Madam Black. It splashed off the face of the portrait without doing a thing, and her mocking cackle did nothing to improve my mood.

Right. Enough fucking about. I span the Gaunt Ring around my finger, and called forth a shade of the dead. Orion Black, looking very much older than when I'd known him at Hogwarts, unfolded from nothingness before me.

'Be silent.' I snapped at him before he could say a word. 'Speak only to answer my questions. Where's the runic matrix at Grimmauld Place located.'

Orion purpled with furious indignation , but the Resurrection Stone demanded obedience. 'The basement,' he ground out, and pointed out a door. 'Beneath a false floor in the pantry.'

'Cheers,' I said dryly, and sidled past him. 'Watch my back, warn me of any threats.'

Orion seethed. I didn't care. Sirius hadn't told me much about his upbringing beyond the basics, but it was more than enough for me have any care for this particular dead man's affection.

I took the stone steps four at a time, and found myself in a ridiculously expansive kitchen. Orion pointed wordlessly to another door. Spellfire sounded from above; Locket was going after the weak link. I hurried faster.

The pantry door was locked. I tore it from its hinges, and cracked the false floor in two with a quick punch. I vanished the fragments, and lay eyes on my goal. Intricate interlocking rings of runes, inlaid on a thick onyx plate in a glimmering silvery metal. Parts of this matrix would be centuries old, carved when the house was built. Other parts would have been added later, by many generations of Blacks. An heirloom-worthy piece of art I had no time to be gentle with.

'Which scheme creates the apparition ward?' I asked, and Orion pointed despite his struggles to resist. 'Bombarda minima!'

The miniature explosive curse blew a ragged chuck out of the onyx, sending silvery letters flying everywhere. The featherlight weight on my shoulders vanished, and I twisted through space in a heartbeat.

I cracked back into existence on the second floor, a piercing curse on my lips. Locket had Sirius up against a wall, sadistically crushing him against the brickwork. The elf's head came round at the sound of my apparition, and had just enough time to look surprised before a spear of pure magic lanced through his eye and into his brain.

Kreacher stumbled briefly, as though his body hadn't caught up with what had happened, and then he crumpled into a little heap. Sirius fell off the wall with a groan.

'Are you alright, Sirius?' I asked, not taking my eyes off the elf corpse.

'Yeah. Just a little dizzy.' he said, still lying on the floor.. 'Thanks for the save, he almost got me.'

'Yeah, well, we can't have some far less handsome Tom Riddle offing my boy, can we?' I said jokingly, taking his arm and hauling him to his feet. 'Tricksy bastard though. I must say, the rhino certainly threw me for a loop.'

Sirius laughed. 'If it makes you feel better, he didn't do that entirely himself. Dad used to keep one on under stasis in the drawing room. Made for a good conversation piece.'

Speaking of Orion, his shade was still standing behind my shoulder, looking outraged at the ruination around him. To his credit, Sirius hadn't gone down quiet against Locket. Destroyed conjurations lay all over the place, and a weird purplish flame was still licking at the bottom of a moth-eaten tapestry.

I dismissed the shade with a flicker of will. 'It's a shame we had to kill the-'

I was cut off by a growing rumble coming from beneath the house, loud enough to cut through the bickering portraits. I exchanged a look with Sirius.

'I don't suppose that's normal?' I asked guiltily, as the walls began to shudder around us.

'Er, definitely not.' Sirius said, looking around worriedly. 'What did you do?'

'I may have been a little... imprecise in ripping out the apparition ward.'

The rumble became a roar, and there was a crunching noise as cracks began splintering their way up the walls.

'Fucking hell! Cheese it!' I shouted, ripping the Locket from Kreacher's body. Sirius disapparated, and I followed him an instant later.

We appeared on the rooftop across the way - our agreed-upon cheesing-it point - and not a moment too soon. We hunched down behind the roof's lip, just in time to see the entire house begin shaking violently. Then it exploded.

A wave of force, heat, and sound washed over us, sending Sirius tumbling. The blast was near-deafening, and by the time my hearing returned again, the screams had already started.

Number 12 Grimmauld Place was simply gone, a fiery crater in its place. Numbers 10 and 14 had fared little better, each shredded open almost by half, their guts bared to the world. The carnage had spilled further out into the street, obliterating somebody's Bentley.

Of the few muggles that had been walking Grimmauld Place, none had been close enough to be caught in the blast itself, but more than a few were still rolling around on the ground, clutching their ears. With a pang, I realised that many would probably be permanently crippled. My fault.

Sirius picked himself up, and we both stared in shock at the devastation, as sirens began blaring in the distance.

:—:

The Soul Plane, I was relieved to see, had returned to its usual monochrome colour, save of course for myself and my counterpart.

Locket scowled in recognition. He was, as I'd estimated, in his late twenties. Like Chalice and Ring, he'd been made before Lord Voldemort had gone globetrotting. He didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of beating me here, and I could see on his face that he knew this as well. So it was no surprise he felt more like talking than fighting.

'Diary. So that's who was hiding behind that face. I admit I had a feeling it was one of us.' he said, his pupils glowing scarlet. His brow furrowed. 'I see you've been busy.'

'Just a bit, yeah. Cleaning house.' I regarded him carefully. 'You seem less... deranged than the others so far. How long have you been riding the elf around in the Real?'

'Actively? A few months. House Elves are surprisingly resilient to the effects of possession. I am unsure when precisely I came into his possession, but I know he spent a lot of time trying to destroy me, to no success of course. It was difficult to make him trust in me.'

I frowned. If I'd been able to catch up with him a little faster, I'd have saved myself a lot of trouble. Then again, if the other Horcruxes had experienced the same sanity-insanity cycle that had become my existence in the Diary, he might have been a stark raving lunatic then.

I flexed my power within this plane, and the landscape shifted, the featureless plane becoming the Slytherin common room as it had been in my time. Locket glanced around his surroundings appreciatively, taking a relaxed seat down in his old favourite favourite armchair. My old favourite armchair. I scowled, but let it go. Permitting him the small victories might make him more pliable.

'So. You're putting us back together. What, ah, got you on doing that?' he asked, in a would-be casual tone.

I cocked my head at him. Perhaps I could succeed here where I'd failed with the others. I took the seat across from him, and laid things out. How Lord Voldemort had failed to take over the wizarding world, in the clumsiest of ways. How I'd gained freedom from the Diary, and realised what splitting the soul did to the mind. Gods, it felt like I had done this a hundred times these past few weeks. Who'd think I'd ever get sick of talking about myself?

Locket listened patiently, and I could feel the conflict within him. Self preservation warring with loyalty to his creator.

'-so I offer you the chance to merge with me. Allow me to receive all your memories from after my creation. Give me every edge I can get to bring down Lord Voldemort, and we might just get the chance to do things over, the right way this time.'

He stared at me. 'What happens if I refuse?'

'Then I rip you apart and devour the pieces.' I said flatly, coldly. 'Nothing will be left of you. Your particular version of Tom Riddle won't even get your own afterlife if we ever die for real. Do things my way, and at least some part of you lives on.'

He blinked, and I knew I had him. The thanatophobia coming in handy for once.

'Fine.' he said, and extended a hand. I seized it in my own immediately, and in an instant we became one.

:—:

My eyes flicked open as I returned to the Real, only to squeeze shut again at the surge of memories sweeping over me with an almost physical force. I staggered against them, before occlumency kicked in and I shunted them all to the side, locking them down in a corner of my mind.

I tossed the locket down on my workbench with a sigh. At least one thing had gone well today. We'd left Grimmauld Place just as the muggle emergency services had begun rolling up. Gods only know what mundane explanation they'd end up dreaming up to justify the disaster. "Gas leak" had to start getting old eventually, right? Me, I was just glad it hadn't gotten anyone killed.

But now my soul was getting pretty close to whole. Assuming, as I did, that Lord Voldemort was unaware of the soul piece he'd put into Potter, there were only two more errant chunks of my soul to collect before the big bad himself. I was fairly sure one of them was the Diadem of Ravenclaw, it fit too well with the pattern thus far. But the other? I hadn't the foggiest. Hopefully parsing Locket's memories might give me some clue or another...

I was broken from my musing by a thumping noise above me. I frowned. I wasn't expecting guests, and the list of people keyed into my security charms was very short.

I hurried up the stairs, the swift motion making me feel dizzy, my mind suddenly all cobwebby. As it turns out, ten whole years of someone's life suddenly just appearing in your brain was no joke.

So when I tapped the switch to light all the candles of my lounge room, it took slightly longer than it otherwise would to realise that there was an enormous ebony chest sitting on my very expensive coffee table, still dripping seawater and some unidentified sludge all over my carpet. The Ebony Chest.

My hazy eyes went wide, and I thrust myself back against the far wall, putting as much space between myself and the chest as I possibly could. What the fuck, what the fuck!

Someone was whistling in my kitchen, I realised. Whistling a tune I knew from somewhere, though I could not place it. Who the bloody hell dared to bring this chest back into my home? Whoever it was, they were coming to the lounge room, the whistle becoming louder as they crossed the kitchen towards the door.

I recognised the tune an instant before its whistler came around the corner. It was one of Sirius' old favourites, by the Blue Oyster Cult. Don't Fear The Reaper.

'Sirius?' I called, confused. Why had he come back?

Peter Hein, his blond hair slicked smoothly back along his head, rounded the corner of my chamber door holding a glass of pomegranate juice. He eyed me coldly, taking in my shock.

'Riddle old boy.' He said, in that fake posh British accent of his. 'It's high time we had a long awaited chat.'

:-:-:-:-:

A/N: Please follow and review.