Now that it was free of any and all dark curses, the Resurrection Stone was like a magnet to Alduin's thoughts.
He tried resisting, he really did, day after day, but when even after a fortnight of having it at home the temptation didn't get any less, he finally gave up and went to Alexandra.
"I have something to give you for safekeeping," he said, "somewhere where I won't be able to find it."
She looked up at him. "I thought you said this was no longer a problem?" She asked.
It took his a moment to realize she thought he was talking about alcohol. When he did, he laughed. "It's not that," he said. "It's something rather more serious. Come with me."
He led her down to the lab and opened the safe, showing her the ring.
"Is that…?" She began.
"It is," he confirmed. "I'm sure you can imagine what kind of temptation it presents to me. I think that if I use it once, it would create a much worse addiction than alcohol ever had. I trust the Tale of Three Brothers in this."
She nodded mutely, and took the ring out. "I will hide it," she said, "but what are your long-term plans with it? If it is this much temptation for you, why not give it away entirely?"
"If there's someone it belong to, it's Harry," Alduin replied. "I want to offer it to him."
Alexandra frowned. "If this is a temptation for you, do you not think it will be as much of a temptation to him?"
Alduin shook his head. "Oh no, I didn't mean I'd simply give it to him to make free use of. But I do believe he should have the right to decide what to do with it, within limits, after I give him all the warnings."
Alexandra nodded. "Very well then," she said. "Go watch the boys, I will take care of this."
Alduin, obediently, did.
Edric was getting to the stage when his progress would be very rapid, and so every day they watched him for another new skill, be it more articulate baby babbling or more successful attempt at sitting up on his own.
Wynn, on the other hand, had now entered the legendary 'terrible twos', and Alduin had a profound understanding of why they were called that. He had thought Wynn had tantrums even before, so he knew what to expect, but boy had he been wrong. They were so much more frequent now, and so much harder to handle and calm. As Wynn got smarter, he was harder to distract from his grievances, and it was roughly every other day that they had to deal with a seemingly unending screaming, Wynn rolling on the ground included.
Patritia Ollivander was a life-saver in this, as she was the one who kept assuring them that this was perfectly normal, that they didn't make any terrible mistake in the way they raised Wynn and that he would grow out of it in time.
"Not all that soon, though," Theodore had muttered when he heard this reassurance once, making Alexandra and Alduin exchange a mildly desperate look.
Now, as Alduin was checking on the boys, he noticed that Edric was salivating and chewing his hands in a way that was dreadfully familiar.
Teething. Edric was about to start teething, while Wynn was in the throes of his worst temper tantrums.
Well, this was going to be an interesting summer.
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The exams, the terrible, exhausting exams, were finally over.
Harry had to reluctantly admit that Professor Lupin really did show his qualities as a teacher in that one. Even though he was already gone from school, it was more than obvious the exam had been prepared by him. There was a sort of maze for them with different kinds of Dark creatures, and they were supposed to show their skills by fighting them all of. Certainly much more inventive than last years' exams, as much as Mrs. Leartes and Mr. Titus were decent teachers.
It was a good break in the exhausting monotony of the exams, but now it was all over, Defence included, and it was time to relax and look forward to Hogsmeade.
Given that it was the last trip, Harry wanted to spend a bit of time with all his groups of friends, ideally, and enjoy the nice weather as well. He needed to squeeze Cho in in some way, too, but figured this could work if he set out with her and they spent an hour or so together before he joined his friends.
They hadn't really seen each other much during the exams, so now as they walked down the drive from the castle to Hogsmeade, hand in hand, they talked about that, and Cho warned him about what to look out for next year. Then, as they reached the village and headed to Madam Puddifoot's again, they discussed their plans for the holidays. Harry talked about his little cousins and about spending time with them.
"It's World Cup this year, and it's actually in Britain," Cho said. "Are you going?"
"Yeah, I hope I can convince my cousin to go, and we talked about it with the other Gryffindors, that we should all go together...and I'm sure Draco will be there, too…what about you, will you go?"
"I guess," Cho replied, sounding inexplicably rather gloomy.
The conversation rather panned out after that, and so Harry found it easier than he'd expected to say that he wanted to go and rejoin his friends after the hour had passed.
Cho gave him a look he couldn't quite decipher. "Okay, then," she said, and after a quick kiss, he was gone.
The rest of the day was great, spent with his various groups of friends and mostly out in the sun as they talked about the approaching summer. It was especially significant for the Ancient family children, who were all, or would soon be, fourteen, and so would be expected to take part in an entirely new kind of social engagements.
"I'm looking forward to the formal dinners," Draco said.
"I guess I feel pretty indifferent," Harry replied, "but I know Neville is really stressed out."
"Do you think his grandmother is going to allow him to go?" Daphne asked.
"Well, that's the thing: if she wants to go herself, she pretty much has to," Draco replied.
"I wouldn't put it past her to stop going just to prevent him," Harry muttered, and there were sympathetic murmurs all around. Theo, especially, looked like he felt for Neville, which was perhaps understandable given the hints Harry had caught about his home life.
Merlin, he was so grateful Alduin had taken him away from the Dursleys.
Harry didn't spend much time with his Gryffindor friends on this day, but he did notice, and he tool a rambling walk with the Slytherin group, Ron and Lavender sitting together on a grass hill close by to the village. Clearly, this date was going better than the one with Parvati had.
He ran across Roger and Horatio in the village square later in the afternoon. "No dates?" He asked them with a grin. He knew Horatio and Clement were no longer together, but there might have been someone else.
"Not at the moment," Horatio replied, "but what about you? What did you do to your esteemed Ravenclaw girlfriend?"
"We were together earlier," Harry replied, shrugging, "but then I wanted to spend some time with my friends."
Roger raised his eyebrows at him. "Well, if you think it's wise..."
Harry wondered what he meant, then shrugged it off and hurried to find Hermione.
As it turned out, he was destined to find out soon.
Just a day later, Cho caught up with him as he was leaving the Great Hall after breakfast. "Harry," she said. "We need to talk."
"Eh, okay. Do you want to go for a walk?" Harry was caught a little off guard. They just saw each other the day before, and he had planned to hang out with Abdulaziz for a while today, since he could hardly spend time with him in Hogsmeade.
"I suppose we can go sit by the lake," Cho replied, and they walked there in silence.
"Harry," she said once they sat down. "I've been thinking, and this isn't working."
"What isn't working?" Harry asked, completely confused.
"Our relationship." Cho explained patiently. "You're...you're just not ready for the kind of relationship I'm looking for."
Harry still didn't get it. "What do you mean?"
"This is clearly just a...I don't know, a fun way to pass the time for you? And there's nothing wrong with that, really," she hastened to reassure him, "but I realized that I'm looking for something else."
"Like what?" Harry asked with a frown.
"An actual connection, emotional, personal, ..." Cho shook her head. "Even physical."
Harry blushed scarlet.
"That's not necessarily what I mean," Cho said, seeing his expression, "but even there, it is plainly obvious that I want to go further than you're comfortable going. We'd just be wasting time and torturing ourselves."
There was a silence. "So...is this a breakup, then?" Harry asked when no more was forthcoming.
Cho smiled a little sadly. "Yes, Harry, this is a breakup." She got up and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Goodbye."
Harry, in that moment, understood perfectly how Seamus had felt. He, too, was completely bewildered, vaguely hurt, and didn't really understand what was going on.
He watched Cho leave, heading towards the castle, and thought about what had happened. He'd meant to spend more time with her now, to make up for all the time he hadn't had for her before...maybe he should have told her that? But then again, it didn't really sound like not having enough time for her was the main reason she broke up with him, did it?
An actual connection? What did that even mean?
Beside the obvious, that was, and that, at least, was one thing where Harry understood what she had been saying. He was uncomfortable even with kissing with tongue, so if Cho wanted something more, well, he had to admit she was quite right that he wasn't ready for that.
But the rest? An emotional connection? What even was that?
Harry plopped down into the grass behind him, staring at the sky as he thought about it over and over again. After some time, he realized he needed to talk to someone, someone who knew something about relationships, because he wasn't going to figure it out on his own.
Who, though? Clearly this required someone older, but he'd probably sink to the ground if he had to discuss it with Horatio, so...Kiara? She always acted like she knew everything there was to know about relationships, and she was Cho's age, so maybe she would be helpful...but Harry still felt a bit awkward talking about something like this to a girl.
But who else was there?
Well, Alduin, obviously.
Harry felt a bit awkward talking to him about that, too, but he had to admit until now his cousin had been giving him mostly good advice about Cho – even though it was ultimately for nothing, but he didn't think that was Alduin's fault. And, he realized, consulting Alduin now would have the big advantage of making it possible to do it via a letter, reducing the awkwardness significantly. Yes, he decided getting up, this was a good idea.
Abdulaziz would have to wait for a while, he had a letter to write.
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It wasn't too long after the destruction of the diadem Horcrux that Dumbledore contacted Alduin again. Apparently, Sirius – or, from the way it sounded, more likely some of Dumbledore's people – had located a Horcrux in Grimmauld Place.
It had actually been there, just sitting there all this time, and it was the Slytherin's locket.
"I had originally intended to destroy in with Fiendfyre," Dumbledore said candidly, "but Sturgis Podmore, who found it, convinced me that it was worth preserving as an ancient artefact, even though we do not know of any extraordinary properties it might have, and if there are any, I honestly doubt they would be benign."
Alduin could only sigh, and be silently thankful that Podmore, while one of Dumbledore's cohort, had still enough pride as an Ancient family member left in him to stop intentional destruction of prized artefacts.
As it was, another trip to the Department was organized, and Dumbledore gained another piece for his collection.
"Do you mean to keep this at Hogwarts, too?" Alduin asked him.
"I do. I would have been nice if I could have had all founder artefacts, you know."
Alduin could only smirk. "Well, you can talk it over with the Smiths," he said. "But certainly don't tell them you have the locket, or they will demand that from you, as well."
"Where did you find the locket, anyway?" Muhammad, who was uninformed about the proceedings, asked.
"Sirius' house-elf had it," Dumbledore replied. "We had to stun him to even get at it."
Alduin frowned. "Could he have been possessed?"
Before Dumbledore could reply, Daniel Goldstein scoffed. "House-elves can't be possessed by human spirits," he said.
"So they are completely immune?" Muhammad asked with interest.
"To possession of this kind? Yes, effectively."
"What about the more indirect influences the Horcrux would have had?" Theodore asked, fascinated.
"What are they, exactly?" Daniel asked curiously.
"Prolonged proximity to a Horcrux increases one's dark moods, makes mood swings worse, makes one more aggressive..." Theodore listed.
Daniel's eyes were shining. "Truly? That is most fascinating, I will have to research that. No, house-elves would not be immune to that, to my knowledge, though they might have a bit more of a resistance than an average wizard or witch would have. Do you have any books I could borrow about this topic?"
Theodore sent a meaningful glance towards Dumbledore. "I'll see if I can find anything," he said, and Daniel, immediately understanding, did not press him. The current laws on Dark Arts books were much to Dumbledore's liking, and not exactly friendly to anyone of Theodore's interests.
Alduin turned his mind to the more practical aspects of this. "If Sirius' elf spent the last thirteen years in proximity to that…" He trailed off.
Daniel immediately caught the direction of his thoughts. "Yes, he will need help," he said. "Are there more elves in that house?"
Dumbledore shook his head. "From what I understand, Walburga killed them all in the last years of her life, after she lost her sons and most of her mind with them."
Alduin winced.
Daniel turned to him. "Then ask your elves to recommend a clan that is strong in mind-healing. The elf cannot be simply left in this state – if nothing else, he could potentially be a danger to Black and others who come into that house. With such a long exposure, the effects must be...extreme."
Alduin thought of Harry planning to visit the house in the future and decided to arrange that first thing after he returned home.
His mind stayed on Harry as they were leaving the Ministry, and on the letter he had received just that morning. He was honoured that Harry trusted him enough to ask about his relationship problems, but he was also a bit daunted by the task. He really wasn't the best person to offer relationship advice. He could tell Harry what an emotional connection meant, yes, but when it came to explaining how to avoid similar mistakes in a future relationship...well, this was where he came up short. He had absolutely no idea.
He'd have to talk about it to Harry in person, and hopefully with more information he'd be able to say something that wouldn't be completely useless.