Chapter 2: Total War
They arrived with a deafening bang into the sitting room of number 12 Grimmauld Place and he immediately took Hermione's bag off of his shoulder, setting it delicately down on a chair and noticing the dust that puffed up with it.
He took a moment to look around, the dustiness of the house driving home just all he had lost.
Sirius, Dumbledore, Hermione, Ron.
All of them had died for him, because of him.
"I won't let it happen again." He whispered with as much steel in his voice as he could muster in his admittedly fragile state.
Fleur looked at him then, staring into his eyes as if trying to determine exactly how he meant to keep that promise, before nodding once more, the blue of her eyes holding an icy look of absolute conviction. "We will make them pay, Harry."
He nodded his affirmation as they both sat down on the couch. "Probably best we get to planning. I need something to do, a goal to keep my mind off of things. First, though we need to take care of the fidelius. Kreacher!"
Kreacher appeared with a muted pop and stared hatefully at them both. "Kreacher sees the bad master has also brought his half-breed bitch with him."
That broke Harry's calm countenance in an instant. "Kreacher, you will listen now or I will kill you at this very moment. You are directly responsible for Sirius's death, and it is very clear that you harbor allegiance to the Dark Lord, or at the very least you are sympathetic to his goals. We are trying to kill him and will be destroying each and every piece of his soul before we eventually kill him. You are not to talk of what we are doing here, you are not to talk to anyone who is even remotely sympathetic to the dark lord without explicit orders from one of us, you are to tell us EVERYTHING you know about the Dark Lord, and you will not insult anyone we consider an ally. Do you understand?"
Kreacher looked murderous for a moment, his commands fighting against his very nature and a lifetime of teaching before finally agreeing with a reluctant nod and a "yes master.". Kreacher took a breath before continuing. "Kreacher doesn't know much about the Dark Lord, not that master does not already know. The only thing is Master Regulus's Locket, but Kreacher has been a bad elf! He failed Master Regulus's command!." The elf seemed ready to break into hysterics at the reminder of his failure, but Harry was far too lost in thought at the mention of Regulus Black and a locket.
"Kreacher, what was Regulus's middle name?"
Fleur and Kreacher looked at him in confusion as Kreacher hesitantly answered, "Arcturus, master."
The pieces fell into place, a locket owned by R. A. B., a command from his master.
"Kreacher, tell us the whole story of this locket."
And so he did, going on to tell the story of Voldemort making Kreacher drink the potion and Regulus stealing the locket from the very same cave that he and Dumbledore had visited. It had to be Slytherin's locket, one of Voldemort's Horcruxes. Fleur's eyes widened as she began to understand exactly what it was he was getting at.
"Kreacher, where EXACTLY is the locket right now."
The elf grumbled at this, somehow managing to simultaneously look like he wanted to commit murder and break down into tears. "Sneak-thief Fletcher stole it from the house while Kreacher was away. Kreacher doesn't know where it is anymore."
Harry and Fleur both cursed, both at the circumstances and at the fact that Mundungus Fletcher had ever entered their lives. "Kreacher, could you find Mundungus for me? I have some… questions for him."
Kreacher apparently liked the violent tone of his voice as he looked up at Harry hopefully. "Kreacher can try master, may Kreacher help in the torturing?"
Harry pinched the bridge of his nose at the casual assertion of torture. "We likely won't be doing any torturing, but if Mundungus refuses to cooperate we will do what it takes to get the info out of him. A lot is at stake here. Before you go and find him, though, could you please bring me the master ward stone?"
Kreacher nodded with vigor. Apparently, all it took was the promise of violence to get the elf on his side. "Kreacher will be back in a moment master." Before popping away.
"Do you really think it will be so easy to find this Horcrux, Harry?"
"I hope so. Dumbledore and I visited that cave and found a fake planted by one R. A. B. I think it's a pretty good bet that this is one of them.
"You keep mentioning Horcruxes, Harry. Exactly how many Horcruxes has he made?" Fleur asked, a mildly horrified look on her face.
"6, we think. He figured that seven pieces of soul would be the strongest combination. Dumbledore already took care of one of them, and I destroyed another accidentally in my second year, meaning that there are four remaining. If this locket turns out to be another one then that takes the count down to three." He responded, his face set in a grim line at the task in front of them.
Fleur nodded, seemingly unphased by the pressure in front of them. "Once we get the fidelius up we need to start working on finding the others. This house has quite the library of dark magic, we should check if there's anything useful as well as try and figure out what the others might be."
Harry made a noise of agreement. "We figured that Voldemort was too vain to try and make anything that didn't have any meaning to him into a Horcrux. His hubris will at least give us a chance here."
Fleur looked to be about to respond but was interrupted when Kreacher reappeared holding the anchor stone for the property.
"Kreacher, you need to wait to leave for a moment. We're casting the fidelius and I'll have to let you in on the secret before you can find your way back.
Kreacher bobbed his head in agreement, though he looked eager to leave.
Harry didn't think he'd ever been rushed by a house-elf before.
"Alright Fleur, I have the power to cast it but I can't bind it to myself. Are you willing to be the secret keeper or would you rather I do it?"
"I will be the secret keeper. The charm is stronger that way anyways."
Harry nodded his agreement as he focused on drawing his magic. The fidelius was not a particularly difficult spell, mostly it came down to concentration, desire, and raw power.
Casting only took a few moments and a glance at Fleur as she accepted the burst of magic he sent her way before it was done, but the sheer effort had made sweat break out on his forehead and he collapsed on a chair behind him. Kreacher for his part looked disoriented. He was clearly familiar with his surroundings but couldn't remember where exactly he was.
"Kreacher, you are at Number 12 Grimmauld Place." Fleur's voice broke the silence as clarity returned to Kreacher's eyes. "Harry, do you have some parchment so I can give him a note to show Fletcher?"
Harry reached over to Hermione's bag, suppressing the tears that threatened to spring forwards at the reminder, and he opened the bag and summoned a quill and some parchment.
He cleared his throat and blinked away the encroaching tears as he placed the parchment on the coffee table in front of them.
She quickly penned a note to let Fletcher in on the secret when he was found and gave it to Kreacher.
"You're dismissed Kreacher. Bring us Mundungus Fletcher and the locket if he still has it. Let Mundungus Fletcher and nobody else in on the secret."
"Yes master" and with that, Kreacher was off disapparating without a moment wasted.
"Right. To work then." Harry said shakily.
"So, we know of three, maybe four Horcruxes. The first was Tom Riddle's - that's the Dark Lord's real name - diary. It was owned by Lucius Malfoy before he tried to plant it on Ginny Weasley." He resolutely ignored the pang that came with that name and didn't acknowledge the shudder that came from Fleur as well while he wrote Diary - Lucius Malfoy down on the parchment.
"The second was the Gaunt family ring. That was stored in the Gaunt house in Little Hangleton behind an absolute mess of protections. These curses even got Dumbledore, so we need to be incredibly careful with these things." He wrote second on the list Ring - Gaunt Shack, Little Hangleton.
"The third is Slytherin's locket. It was in a cave that Tom Riddle visited as a child with his orphanage. There was a whole slew of protections there as well, alongside a lake of inferi." Slytherin's Locket - Cave.
"The fourth is a big maybe. Based on the memories that Dumbledore showed me, it seemed that Tom at least intended to make a Horcrux out of Helga Hufflepuff's cup. He even worked at Borgin and Burke's for a time to try and attain it. Whether he succeeded in making it one is a guess.
"Two or three to find then? What is the connection between them?"
Harry grimaced. "Best I can figure it's a mixed bag. The Diary and the Ring are important to him as a person and important to his heritage. The other two are items from the Hogwarts founders. We could be looking for more objects from those four, or those could be the only two and it could be things with more sentimental value to him, it's hard to say."
Fleur furrowed her brow for a moment as the room lapsed into silence. "What relics are associated with each of the founders, Harry?"
Harry reached over to Hermione's bag once more and summoned her copy of Hogwarts, A History, trying to ignore the well-worn pages and notes in the margins.
Her handwriting.
He checked the glossary as he forced back the prickling behind his eyes, before paging to the section on the relics of the founders.
"Looks like there's only one known from each. Slytherin's Locket, Hufflepuff's Cup, Ravenclaw's Diadem, and Gryffindor's Sword."
"You killed the basilisk with the sword, non? Would the venom have destroyed the Horcrux inside?"
He raised his hands helplessly, "Probably? It's hard to say. The sword takes on the strength of whatever substances it meets so if it were a Horcrux the nature of the sword might have absorbed the venom before it could do anything to the bit of soul inside. Though Fawkes did bring it to me and I can't imagine a phoenix would be entirely comfortable holding a Horcrux."
She nodded in agreement. "So the diadem is our best answer for one of them. They are all hidden in locations or with people that sound important to him, what else would be a good location?"
"Hogwarts maybe? I know he didn't have an amazing childhood at the orphanage. If he's anything like me which - unfortunately - he is, he probably saw Hogwarts as his first proper home. Beyond that, I'm not sure. It might be good to check Wool's orphanage to see if there's anything there but I can't imagine his feelings of that place were anything less than resentment."
"And this, what was it, Borgin and Burke's, would he have cared to hide something there?"
Harry shook his head. "Probably not. We should probably check there to be safe but it feels like too public of a place and the way he just up and left makes me think it was more a means to an end than anything else."
"You said Lucius Malfoy, would he have trusted anyone else with a piece of his soul?"
"Trust might be a strong word, but there's only one death eater more devoted to him than Malfoy, and that'd be Bellatrix Lestrange. Where she'd hide one is anyone's guess though. Worst case it's locked behind the Lestrange family's wards."
"Well, we have a few leads at least. Let us go to the library. It is as you said, we need something to do."
Fleur stood and Harry immediately did the same as they began a resolute march to the second-floor library, briefly interrupted by a spiel from Walburga Black that Harry cut short by pulling the curtains closed and casting a permanent sticking charm to keep them closed. He allowed himself a grim smile at the irony of the very charm that kept her attached to the wall was also keeping her quiet.
When they finally arrived at the library Harry opted to give her a word of caution. "Before we go in, we need to be careful. The Blacks weren't the nicest of folks and a lot of stuff in there is probably dark as all hell."
Fleur laughed a little. "You forget I am a curse breaker, Harry. I don't doubt that we will have our hands full wresting information from this misérable place but we will manage."
They studied the books until night fell, and if either of them cried themselves to sleep or screamed from the nightmares, the other didn't mention it.