author's note: Ugh. This chapter. Just...don't talk to me about this chapter. I had to write it—from scratch, from a certain point on, because my word processor kept erasing what I'd typed...over the course of a week... three times. And it shows. You can probably even tell where that point is, reading it.
Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Two: The Ultimate Fate of Regulus Black
Back in Grimmauld Place for an extended period of time, Sirius could not help dwelling upon events long past. Grimmauld Place had the nasty tendency to make him feel sixteen again—in the worst possible way. He often found himself humouring the tacit assumption that he'd round the corner and there would be his mother, or father, or Reggie. And this, despite the house in disrepair, tattered, mouldering upholstery and all. His eyes saw it, the disarray, the rot, the decay. His mind did not. Visitors helped, but even they could do little to allay the consequences of his decade-long stay in Azkaban.
When the others were busy with work for the Order, and it was not his turn for a shift at the Department of Mysteries, he sat in the library, and thought. Sometimes, he questioned what Harry might have been researching here, but mostly he thought back to what Harry had said, and the tapestry….
The tapestry. He thought of the tale that Ron and Harry had told him, only last year. Had he not been told, he never would have guessed. And Loki had lived first in Grimmauld Place, and then hidden at the Potters' modest two-storey house. There'd been less room to hide there, but he'd still, somehow, managed to stay hidden from James's parents, which was no mean feat. Then again, he could turn invisible, or something.
Still, the fact remained: if Sirius hadn't been able to put together the truth on his own (and that tale itself was a study in secrets!), what else might he have wrongly assumed?
There was only one person he knew of who might know what had become of Regulus—one whose actions would not have made their knowledge evident, that was. His mother would have burnt his name off the tapestry had there been proof that Regulus had abandoned the Death Eaters and Voldemort. She had stayed her hand not out of love for her heir (for Sirius had already long gone, by then), but because the report was rumour only.
Bellatrix Lestrange, and the other now-escapees, had made no mention of Regulus, one way or another. But, no more had he ever come up in an Order meeting. His fate, his motivations, his tale, remained untold, unheard, unknown.
One only remained who might be able to give Sirius more details (he told himself, lest he be forced to seek answers from the Death Eaters, the next down on the list of those-who-might-know-the-truth). He would leave groveling before Death Eaters (or Voldemort) as a last resort. There was another who might yet know the truth. And, as the last Black, the heir reinstated, only Sirius had the authority to demand answers from him. If he could bring himself to spend five minutes in that wretched house-elf's presence without strangling him, that was.
You should be kinder to him, Dumbledore would tell him. Easy for him to say! Here, it was bad enough for Sirius to even visit this house, brimming over as it was with many of his worst memories, which had been preserved, as if freeze-dried, by his experiences with dementors in Azkaban.
Sirius Black sat at the self-same desk at which Harry had studied…whatever, back over break—in the very same seat, as if it would lend him perspective, or something. He gazed off at a stack of books that he had never bothered to reshelve, and considered trying to figure out what Harry had been researching. Probably a cure for lycanthropy, or something. Hadn't he said something about that, last year?
"Sure, Dumbledore," he muttered, burying his head in his hands. He was alone in the house, for the moment, save for Kreacher. For once, this was by his own design. But, he'd been staying here for the past few days, trying to work himself up to the prospect of—
"Let me be nice to him, be the better man and just smile and nod as he talks about how much he loved watching my parents with their stinging hexes and their Unforgivable Curses. I should never have left Reggie to them—"
He shook his head, and, with that thought suffusing him with purpose, he stood, and strode from the room. He knew where Kreacher's hidey-hole was. But, he'd do the polite thing, and not invade Kreacher's personal quarters. (Hermione would be so proud; she didn't know that Kreacher was a low-life, didn't seem to realise that you had bad apples in any group, including house-elves.)
Kreacher had hated Sirius—had made no secret of this fact—and his opinions on Sirius's mum and dad were uncertain. But Sirius knew that Kreacher had adored Regulus. Perhaps…for Regulus…?
He would ask today. He would ask now. The need to know, for better or for worse, whether Kreacher even had any of the answers for which Sirius sought, was eating away at him. Azkaban had taken so much of what Sirius was from him. He didn't need this strange sense of limbo nibbling on what remained. What did Kreacher know? Sirius was alone in the house. It was an optimal time for asking questions.
"Kreacher!" he shouted, as he left the room. "Kreacher, meet me in the kitchen! Please," he tacked on the last word, thinking that if he were going to humour Dumbledore at all, he'd best start his attempts by being a bit more polite. And see the derision that inevitably would result.
He made his way into the kitchen, arriving first, and then had to wait for Kreacher. He sat there, at the kitchen table, and thought about what to say. But, he was unprepared for Kreacher's arrival. He braced himself, thinking back to what Dumbledore said.
Kreacher, if anyone, would know what had become of Regulus. He would try to be kind to him, for Regulus's sake. He owed that to him.
"Sit down, Kreacher," he said, turning to face the doorway as Kreacher finally entered. He did his best to ignore the urge to assume his usual bored, dispassionate affect that he usually used when reminded of his childhood. He owed it to Regulus.
He took a deep breath in, and then out, trying to calm himself down before he continued. "Relax," he said, somehow managing to suppress any sense of irony at the situation, despite how tense he was, thinking of the oncoming confrontation. He kept his voice as mild as he could make it. He had some practice, speaking with Harry. "I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to ask you some questions."
Kreacher may have hated him, but Sirius was the last remaining heir of the House of Black (although Sirius had written Harry into his will). He had no choice but to obey. He glared at Sirius, making his displeasure as plain as he could, despite the limitations imposed on him by a house-elf's servitude.
"Kreacher lives to obey master's orders. Master is not worthy to live in the house of his forebears, oh, if only his mother knew, her heart would—"
"Kreacher!" Sirius said, cutting across the house-elf in his loudest voice, drowning out whatever insults he was hoping to use to goad Sirius into abandoning his plan. He took a deep breath, as Kreacher quietened, in and out. "I have a favour to ask of you. And a confession to make. You were closer to Regulus than anyone else alive. You know my parents didn't care about him. They'd have disowned him, if there'd been any real proof that Reggie had changed his mind. He didn't want to join the Death Eaters, I don't think."
He shook his head. "I should have been there for him. Maybe, I could have saved him from whatever ended up happening to him. I don't know.
"But, you do. You must. I wasn't there for him—although I should have been—for the last few years of his life. I abandoned him. I left him to his fate. But, you were there. You must know something about how he died. Please, Kreacher, I'm begging you: please tell me what happened."
That "please" made the request a request, and not an order. Kreacher was free to ignore it. Such a plan could easily backfire. He thought again of what Dumbledore said, thought again of what Harry said, and swallowed his pride. He was not above begging.
Kreacher began muttering furiously to himself. "Oh, see how Master talks, as if he understands what poor Master Regulus endured. What should Kreacher say? Should he speak? No! But how else would he fulfil Master Regulus's last request? Perhaps, he should say something…."
"Please, Kreacher," Sirius said, again. "You must know. Tell me how he died!"
For a moment, he forgot it all, his resolution to try to win Kreacher over by treating him as he would any other old house-elf. With patience. With kindness. Gently, gently.
Kreacher sent him a mulish glare. "Kreacher doesn't know how Master Regulus died. Kreacher wasn't there," he admitted, at last. Sirius blinked, stunned. That wasn't the reaction he'd expected.
But Kreacher looked so utterly forlorn and forsaken at this admission, as if he'd been set one task in his life, and he'd utterly failed at it, that Sirius did forget, for a moment, that Kreacher wasn't just any house-elf. For the first time, he was stirred to pity at Kreacher's plight.
"You…weren't there?" But, he must know something. He'd said something about Regulus's "last request". Perhaps, he hadn't been there when Regulus had died (the geas the House of Black laid upon its elves was a powerful thing, preventing Kreacher from lying to him), but he'd been there shortly before, had been certain that Regulus was about to die.
Sirius remembered to be gentle, to be kind. Kreacher was clearly as devastated as Sirius was, himself. He stood from his chair, and knelt on the floor next to Kreacher.
"Kreacher won't tell. Kreacher keeps masters' secrets—"
"Kreacher, tell me what happened—whatever you know of what became of Regulus. What was his last request?" Sirius realised that he'd violated his own rules for how he was going to go about this, yet again. It was easy to forget, with Kreacher.
Kreacher gave him a sullen glare, but launched into a horrifying story of torture, and a potion that made you relive your worst memories, hidden at the end of a cave riddled with traps, across a lake of stagnant water. He seemed to relish in Sirius's horror, until he came to his description of how Regulus had made him keep force-feeding him the potion, until it was gone, and Regulus could retrieve it. And then, the horrifying account of Regulus crawling to the water, and the inferi swarming up….
Sirius was impulsive, and rash, and quick to anger. Azkaban had done nothing to teach him impulse control—if anything, it had made him more reckless, more irresponsible, eager to live again, after such a long time behind bars. He could feel his heart hollowing itself out, to make room for the anger that would shortly flood him. Hysteria bubbled up, again, the most natural response to such a horror story. But, he forced himself to listen, instead. He owed it to Regulus.
He listened to Kreacher's tale of horror and woe, and felt something new stir. He opened his seventh sense, suspecting he knew the answer to the question for which he sought. Kreacher had not been able to keep his promise to Regulus to destroy the locket, and—
There was something else, too. Regulus had made him promise not to tell the tale of what had become of him. Kreacher had failed Regulus thrice, now, on account of Sirius. Sirius had forced him to break his promise to Regulus. Kreacher had wanted to stay there to the end. But, Regulus had saved him by forcing him to leave. A poor way to repay Regulus's sacrifice.
A twinge of conscience—Kreacher had borne this knowledge, this burden, alone for over a decade. And…what effect might that dark artefact have had on him?
With his seventh sense open, and his own limited training in interpreting the highly symbolic and confusing data it provided, he could see the locket (or what he thought was the locket) hidden under Kreacher's shift, stretching out dark tendrils of malice. How would it be, to live with that affecting you, night and day, for over a decade? Perhaps, not all of Kreacher's malice was his own.
"Kreacher—" he began, and then cut himself off. For the first time, he thought he understood Kreacher. He swallowed his pride, and forced down a heavy lump, through his throat, and into his stomach, as far as he could tell. He had to say it. "I'm sorry. I should have been there. I should have helped. You've suffered for a long time, alone. Regulus would be proud of you. But, you haven't destroyed that locket, have you?"
Kreacher bowed his head, and looked away. There was an entire world between truth and lies, as Harry would be inclined to point out, and while a house-elf serving the House of Black couldn't lie to his masters, nothing prevented Kreacher from keeping silent. Sirius had given no orders.
He waited, instead. He might be impulsive and rash, more than before Azkaban, but that had also been tempered, somewhat, by Azkaban. He'd learnt patience, endurance, fortitude, there. He swallowed another hysterical laugh, running his hands through his hair.
He waited. He could wait for quite a while, now—longer than the ever-impatient Ron, if not as long as Harry, whose patience seemed boundless. He would not push Kreacher.
"I want to help you to fulfil Regulus's last request," Sirius said. "It's all that I can do for him, now. Kreacher, please, let me help you. May I see the locket?"
Regulus wasn't a Death Eater, had died fighting back against Voldemort. Sirius knew that, now. And he was determined that Regulus not die in vain.
There was a long pause, here, but then Kreacher reached under his shirt, slowly, and Sirius winced as tendrils of badness and malice broke off from where they were embedded in Kreacher's flesh.
Kreacher held out a locket of tarnished silver, that gleamed with a vitreous, and not metallic, lustre. There was a dimness around its gleam.
Sirius noticed the engraved letter 's', taking a moment to wonder if this could be Slytherin's locket, a fabled artefact of the Founders. Dark magic seeped from between the crack where the two helves joined together. He sensed that it resided in that hole where a picture or portrait was meant to be kept. He frowned down at it, but he couldn't make enough sense of it.
"Perhaps, we should ask Dumbledore—" he began, and that was enough for Kreacher to snatch the locket from his grasp. Sirius held out his hands in a placatory gesture.
"Okay, okay, we'll leave Dumbledore out of this, for now, at least. How about my godson, Harry? In some ways, he's a better choice—knows more about magic than anyone I've ever met. He might be able to make better sense of what that thing's made of."
Kreacher's eyes widened. "The boy who is the heir of the Potter House? There is something very strange about him—"
Sirius's fists clenched. To be fair, Harry wasn't entirely human. His behaviour was pretty odd.
"Would you be willing to let Harry look at it?" he asked, in a voice of strained politeness. Who knew that Molly would prove useful practice for dealing with Kreacher?
Kreacher turned his snout up, and then paused, perhaps remembering something about Harry that made him hesitant to dismiss him out of hand, or perhaps attributing to Sirius superior skills at boxing the house-elf in with instructions than Sirius indeed possessed.
"He will not tell?" asked Kreacher, with watery eyes narrowed. In a way, Sirius could understand Kreacher's paranoid determination to keep this secret—it was the last will of Regulus, tainted by the poisonous influence of that curst locket. And perhaps, too, Regulus's request had been influenced by the locket. It was in the nature of dark rituals to try to keep their own natures secret, to bend the universe to their own wills.
"The Potter brat would know how to destroy the locket?" Kreacher asked, with a sort of heavy, smothered hope. It was the sort of hope that results when you become accustomed to building up your hopes, only to see them dashed, time and again. Sirius knew the sensation well, and was, for that reason amongst others, more willing to overlook Kreacher's overt disrespect of Harry.
"Harry is the next heir to the House of Black, and, as you must tell no one, a being quite beyond your understanding. You will treat him with the respect that he deserves." The bite in Sirius's voice was less than it might have been in other circumstances, but it was still sharp as the crack of a whip. Nothing could be heard of Kreacher's murmurs but the resentful tone of ill-use to them, showcasing once and for all that he did know just when his voice could and couldn't be heard.
Sirius made a mental note to contact Harry first, and explain the full story of Regulus Black to him. He already felt the need to brace himself for the inevitable stream of reproachful "I-told-you-so"s that would ensue.
"No one, Kreacher. I mean it. And, both on account of his status in this family, and…other things, treat him with the utmost respect. None of this nonsense you pull on me."
He knew that Kreacher had no choice but to obey. But, he'd also find loopholes in Sirius's terms. He'd need Harry to close them off when he arrived, to point out the holes in his oathbindings. Harry was good at that. Or, at least—
"Thank you, Kreacher. You may return to whatever you had been doing," he said, hesitating before reaching into his pocket for the mirror that he kept on him at all times.
Getting Harry to Grimmauld Place for a Hogsmeade weekend had been difficult to manage, but absolutely necessary. The Hogsmeade weekend had been situated sometime around Easter, as if to give everyone plentiful opportunity to stock up on Easter candy.
Harry informed him, upon arrival (or was that reminded him upon arrival?) that he had been banned from all Hogsmeade visits. He seemed quite pleased with this fact, and perhaps equally that he'd managed to flout it twice, without being caught.
But, his moment of triumph was short-lived. He had scarcely had the time to throw off Sirius's crushing hug, and to finish his explanation of his escape by saying, "…and besides that, Grimmauld Place is hardly Hogsmeade, now is it?" with an all-encompassing unimpressed look, before Kreacher, who seemed almost to have a sixth sense for when he was needed—as all house-elves had—trundled into the kitchen, as if by accident.
"What? Kreacher?" asked Harry, with the sort of casual scorn that few people pulled off as well. He stuck his hands in his pockets in a move that he must have stolen from Sirius, turning his gaze to Kreacher.
"Ah. I think I ought to have noticed that before," Harry said, staring at Kreacher. "But, this house is so full of malicious intent and spells that overtly avoid analysis that I suppose I was too busy trying to track them down to notice a migrating point of malice, and—is it hiding from me?"
His gaze snapped to Sirius, accusation that was almost hurt fading into a sort of distant authority that had Sirius wincing
"Explain," he said, and Sirius kicked himself for only telling Harry the bare basics, even despite the necessity, when anyone might be listening in. Who knew where Harry might be when Sirius contacted him, or who might be able to listen in? Umbridge was well-entrenched, by all accounts. All that he knew of her suggested that she was a monster, and that he didn't want her on the same continent as Harry.
"He needs to know the story, Kreacher," Sirius said, looking to Kreacher, as Harry stood by, impassive, although clearly trying to hide his bemusement at the strange alliance that had sprung up in his absence.
Harry stared at Kreacher, but gave no orders, made no requests. Kreacher squirmed under his scrutiny, and fixed his gaze upon Sirius, as if it would make it easier to speak. Nor could Sirius blame him. Harry could be quite alarming, sometimes.
Again, Kreacher relived the events of a horrific night, one that clearly had been preserved, somehow, in his memories, still fresh as if it were yesterday. Perhaps, that was the ordinary power of negative memories, or perhaps not. Sirius didn't know what special powers that locket might have.
Harry's expression darkened into a glower as he listened. Sirius had the strong suspicion that he was only half paying attention, but then, Harry was one of those rare people who could get away with it. But, it struck Sirius as likely that Harry was using much of his focus on analysing the locket with his seventh sense. Or in trying to hunt it down?
"A locket, 'the key to immortality'," he mused, as Kreacher's tale began to draw to a close. His gaze was fixed upon the location of the locket, despite not having been told that Kreacher had even brought it. "'You, more than any others, know how far I walked along the road to immortality'. I suppose he meant this. Dumbledore must be informed."
Kreacher took a step back. Sirius held out his arms in a placatory gesture, again.
"Here, now, I promised him that Dumbledore wouldn't be told." Kreacher ceased from his retreat. "You're the greatest magic-user of us all, Your Grace."
Harry turned his gaze to Sirius, but it passed right over him. Sirius felt as if he'd just been dismissed. "Flattery will get you nowhere, Sirius."
Harry held out an expectant hand. "Hand over the locket, Kreacher," he said, and there was something to his voice, a glimmer of expectance, as if the thought that Kreacher would not do as he was ordered was unthinkable.
Kreacher reached under his shirt and drew out the locket, and thrust it into Harry's hands. Harry glanced at the locket itself, and then closed his eyes, one hand clenched over it. They waited, as he hunted down the knowledge of what that thing was, the darkness Sirius had sensed.
At last, he sighed, opened his eyes, and unclenched his fist. "You must find a way to inform Dumbledore of the existence of this artefact—of that darkness. I recognise the magic, I believe. I have encountered it once before. Indeed, I once told you of it. Do you remember when I told you of the diary of T. M. Riddle?"
Kreacher reached for the locket, to snatch it back, but Harry had a grip of steel. His grip only looked loose.
Sirius inhaled sharply, but then calmed himself. The last time Harry had spoken thus, they'd ended up abandoning an explanation of the inner working of the Marauder's Map in favour of an extended heart-baring secret-sharing session.
"I see you have not been able to forget that tale any more than I who lived it," Harry said, with a bitter smile. "I well know how foolish this particular wizard is with his dark magic. But, the magic of it—it's just the same. Never elsewhere have I encountered a spell with such sentience as to attempt to hide from me. There is mind to it—or rather, soul, and malice. Whatever it is, it is of the same stuff as the diary. Dumbledore has been researching just that. If there are two of these, there may well be others. Perhaps, Dumbledore will know better what to make of them."
He paused, cocked his head, and turned to face Kreacher with shocking abruptness. "Here, now, Kreacher. I am not one much given to making promises, but those I do are those I mean to keep. Would you relinquish the locket into my care, were I to give you my spoken word that I would see it destroyed? I understand that you have been forced under a great burden—Ginny suffered as you have, and you have both displayed great strength. Allow me to relieve you of your burden."
He sounded so incredibly kind and well-meaning that Sirius found himself hanging on his words, or even wishing that anyone had ever shown him such easy kindness. It hurt to watch. Only an act, he thought to himself, but there was that about Harry: how much of any of this was an act, and how much sincere, could not be known.
"Come, now, Kreacher, you must agree that it is far more important to Regulus that his cause succeed than that you keep the promise you made to him. And, wearing this locket has taken its toll on you. He would not wish you to suffer. He would never have given you this locket had he known the difficulty you would have in destroying it."
Sirius watched Kreacher drink in Harry's words, rearrange his thoughts and Harry's words so that they meshed. Sirius was almost alarmed, and certainly in awe. "Now, you have allies. Regulus would be proud of you. And, if you wish, you may come with me to speak with Dumbledore. In this way, I can ensure that you see the locket destroyed with your own eyes."
A thought occurred to Harry here, and Sirius saw it occur to him. He was even fairly sure that he knew what it was. Don't do it! he silently begged. Harry, unfortunately, couldn't read minds. Last Sirius had checked.
For whatever reason, Harry abandoned that particular strategy. It was most likely the sheer intractability of the locket—the fact that its effects were obvious and difficult to isolate. Kreacher would know that the locket wasn't destroyed. Harry shrugged.
"Well, Kreacher? Shall we go to see Dumbledore together? I shall give you a bit of insurance, even. You must have noticed that I am not an ordinary wizard."
There was that awful, sharp-toothed grin that Sirius hated. It was full of bitterness and hurt, feral and wild, one of Pavlov's dogs. Sirius knew he had his own version, but Harry's looked particularly alarming. It usually silenced Hermione.
"My lord?" asked Sirius, uncertain, and realising that he was only digging them in deeper. He'd ruined the thing, setting them on this course by showcasing Harry as the ultimate expert on magic—which perhaps he even was. But, not Wizarding magic. Harry just grinned at him, but his grin was a hollow thing, too, devoid of any sincerity. Sirius kicked himself.
"We shall swear you to secrecy, Sirius and I, in every direction, and I shall tell you a secret that few know."
But, he cast an amused glance, aside, at Sirius. Sirius realised that Harry was not about to let Kreacher in on the whole secret, and was somehow reassured. It was somehow easy to forget that Harry knew what he was doing.
"Well, Kreacher?" Harry asked, and Sirius could tell that, somehow, they'd won.
