Here is the next chapter of my story. Please read and review love Sag x
Waking up in the morning Harry took out his potions book he'd bought yesterday for medical potions determined to read and attempt to make some of the things in the book. He had bought the first year potions book and this one he was using now for medicines. He wondered if he could do as Severus had done with his own potions book and write better things in the margins of it. Maybe crushing something instead of cutting it would be easier and he would have the time to learn and study this now. As potion making did not require any wand waving it meant he could do it all he wanted to without being detected. He opened the book thumbing through the different recipes in there until he found some which would be handy to have. He found a headache potion, bruise salve and cut solution all of which were more advanced and at the back of the book. He would start with the headache potion and Tilly told him she would know as an elf if it was made correctly or not.
His first time trying to make it had been an epic fail but he kind of guessed it would have been. At least it was a mess now when Snape wasn't there and couldn't criticise him. The second time he still got it wrong but it was getting better and that was the main point. By the end of the day after using nearly all of his ingredients he had a perfect batch of headache potion. In fact he had twenty bottles worth of headache potion which he stored in a small chest he'd gotten for storing each potion type he made. He had thirty five of these small chests which could hold twenty bottles of each potion and he decided to label each chest with the name of the potion inside it. The beauty of getting it wrong with Tilly around is that she wouldn't shriek at him like a harpy as Snape always did in his lessons. He was able to perfect the recipe for this reason alone. As all house elves knew how to brew most potions they made excellent potion tutors not that many people ever utilised this skill as the wizarding world wasn't always that smart when it came to house elves and how to properly use them. At least using Tilly this way helped Harry and she wasn't always cleaning either which she loved as she got to work closely with her sir.
As he ate his dinner he read the first year potions book editing as he went. He could see some of the instructions were written in a way which really wouldn't be easy to implement. For example one ingredient was better crushed then sliced and it did make your potion better in the long run. This was the kind of thing Severus would never tell them about as he wouldn't wish to make it any easier for his students. Harry figured studying ahead would be great. He planned actually to buy all seven years of potions book just to have them to read before he went to Hogwarts. He wouldn't be making potions from them all the time either but it was worth it for him to know which types of potions they would be expected to make as the years went on.
He read the safety protocols in the front of the book and studied them also knowing Severus would never teach them about this because he was reckless. He giggled in joy as Tilly gave him a large slice of treacle tart. Since she knew he loved it she always insured he could have some each week. "Tilly please visit the potions store and pick up a vial of basilisk venom and a vial phoenix tears. Please make sure the vial of phoenix tears is quite large in size!" he ordered as she agreed and left at once. She returned minutes later with both potions putting the basilisk venom away as instructed. Harry took a small vial and filled it with some of the phoenix tears. He put the large one away handing the small vial to Tilly. She looked at it not sure what he wanted her to do with it entirely stunned when he asked her to drink it. She would be most healthy now. She loved her sir so much and it warmed her heart to think of him loving her back in such a fierce way. She had no idea what would happen but drank it none the less. She felt her magical capacity suddenly grow tenfold and felt like every injury she'd ever had left her body. She asked if she could give some to her cousin Dobby.
Harry said she could and was very happy to let her do this. She popped over to Dobby asking him to drink it. He was very wary but did as his cousin asked having the same affects she'd had when she had drunk it earlier. He would now be the strongest for his master when Draco needed him. He felt every injury he'd ever had healing and he generally looked better than ever. Draco gasped when he saw how much better Dobby was now looking. It was wonderful. There was a tiny bit of the phoenix tears left which was given to Draco who took it the rest of him properly healing fully. When that was done he felt better than he ever had and felt relieved he didn't have those awful scars his father had given him anymore. He could be free at last and boy did that feel good! Narcissa had no idea what had happened to either Draco or Dobby but was very relieved indeed.
Whilst cleaning out Lucius' office to make it her own personal office she had found a black diary with the name of Tom Marvolo Riddle on the front engraved with a year from the forties. She didn't know who that was but as the diary made her feel bad she elected to visit Hogwarts to give it to Dumbledore as it was highly likely he would know who that was giving that he'd been around a lot in the forties. She was stunned that as she handed him the book he gasped and dropped it on his desk in horror. He would know a horcrux anywhere having made one for himself in the form of a ring which he always wore. He had only done it because Gellert had managed to convince him it wasn't evil if he used the body parts of a death eater. Now obviously he regretted it as he had come to learn how truly vile they were. He did have a way to destroy it and asked her to stand back and cast a shield with him. He dropped some basilisk venom which he'd summoned from somewhere she didn't see on the inner pages as black gunk spilled from the insides and screamed dying out.
"That bastard! I loved Lucius so much and I still do but to have this evil in the house where it is likely Draco or a silly house elf could have found it is so reckless. Thank you for helping me with this Albus. I just didn't know what to do and wouldn't want someone fraudulent at the Ministry to get their hands on this as that would be disastrous and well I think you know that too!" she said with a smile and a pointed look. How very insightful she was.
"Yes Narcissa my dear you are of course right and you were right to bring it here to me. Best not to mention this to anyone eh! We wouldn't want people assuming you are dark. To be honest we don't know why Lucius died but I would sooner he be remembered for being under the imperious curse and that's all. How is young Draco handling things?" he asked offering her a lemon drop which suddenly made her feel like she was once more a student and made her feel very shy and awkward.
"No thank you sir. Draco is doing as well as can be expected. Dobby has bonded personally with him and let's just say it has healed them both. We discovered after Lucius had passed away from the Dragon Pox that he wanted Draco to believe in certain things he didn't tell me about and essentially tortured the poor boy when he didn't want to comply. I don't understand much you see but I am relieved my dear baby boy is ok now. I loved Lucius so much and I still very much do but as you can see I am failing to come to grips with what he could do to his own son!" she said suddenly bursting into gut wrenching sobs as he looked mildly alarmed and summoned her a silk handkerchief to use. How could someone you married and adored so much abuse his own son? How could he say he loved her as much as she loved him if not more yet abuse their shared son behind her back? She was feeling so very betrayed and useless at the moment.
At least Sirius had gotten justice and would be home in a few weeks once he was done at Saint Mungos. The whole of their world felt super guilty for believing him guilty this whole time when he'd been innocent. She'd always loved Sirius dearly and this might be a moment to reconnect with her dear cousin again. She hated his mother with a passion something he shared with her but she could see he wasn't his mother. In fact his mother had died of a heart attack due to self-inflicted stress when she learned that her late husband Orion had never really disinherited Sirius from the family. He'd only told her he'd done it to get her off his back. He had put protocols in place making Sirius the new Lord Black and made it so she could never disinherit him. When she learned of this she stressed herself out trying to come up with ways to usurp him and become the head of the Black family herself without ending up in jail. Everything she had even contemplated doing would have ended in a jail sentence and after a plot to kill him anonymously was thwarted by Sirius himself being foolish in her rage her heart had quite literally exploded inside her killing her at once. Kreacher had been beside himself with agony over her death and even more agony in knowing that she'd caused her own death something he could understand.
Tilly who was Kreachers niece had told him of her loving family only because Harry had said she could. When he had remembered the locket he had sent her there to put some basilisk venom carefully on the locket while Kreacher wasn't looking. It had been extremely difficult for her to do as he was always watching the thing but she'd caused a distraction by breaking some plates in the kitchen to get him to leave it alone. When he'd gone to clean them up she'd dropped some basilisk venom on the locket making sure to get out of there as fast as she could afterwards after Harry had told her it would likely explode with evil something she didn't need to see. He loved and cared for her so much. Just as she was leaving she'd seen a black explosion beginning but was gone before she could witness all of it. Kreacher ran back to where he kept the locket shocked it had exploded. He didn't know why it had done so but was so relieved he slumped to the ground crying huge tears of relief. With one last order to help Kreacher out Tilly popped in again an hour later and gave him some phoenix tears to drink and he did so looking and feeling better than he ever had.
Harry had figured he could help out this way. She had told him Sirius would be getting out of hospital in a few weeks and Harry asked her to help Kreacher clean number 12 Grimmauld Place getting rid of everything dark in the home so it was more welcoming for Sirius when he returned there. As Kreacher was feeling so much better and delighted to see his young niece again he didn't much convincing to do the work. The house was crawling with dirt and Tilly was delighted with all of the work she needed to do. She jumped when Walburga shouted slurs at her from her portrait.
"You are a bad painting oh yes you are! You will go away now as you are very dark and this is not a dark home!" Tilly shouted taking the painting and throwing it in the fire. In fact she'd assumed it was dark because it had spent one and a half hours shouting at her the most hurtful things. She didn't realise it was Kreachers old master. She had wrongly assumed it was a dark and evil portrait designed to shout slurs at anyone who came to the house and she knew Sirius wouldn't want to see that when he came home. Kreacher was scandalised by what she'd done but when she told him why he did eventually get over it. The wall now had a hole in it with the force she'd needed to use to rip it out. It would need to be fixed for sure. Grimmauld Place was not as small as it looked and actually had six floors in it although it did look like it had only three floors from the outside. They would do each floor thoroughly over three days each. The amount of dark items they were finding was no joke. Walburga really had been crazy. She'd only died when she'd discovered how innocent Sirius was so it was no surprise that neither he nor Narcissa knew about it yet. They would know soon though.
As Tilly helped Kreacher she would go to Harry to feed him three times a day. As his core was now unblocked he was in fact healing faster than she had initially thought he should. Now instead of three months to heal he was only taking two months and was nearly the right height and weight for his age. Harry knew Sirius had always hated Grimmauld Place because of how dark it was and because of all the dark memories of his childhood it brought up. He wrote to Sirius explaining his situation about Tilly and asking him to tell no one about it. He was swear a vow on his life and magic that he would tell no one about it in front of Tilly for the sake of Harry which the stunned man did in seconds. He loved his godson so much that he did everything Harry had asked him to. He wrote to him using Tilly daily and was really feeling he was getting to know his godson properly. He understood about the Dursleys and that meeting him there would not be possible but as Harry explained in one of his letters they didn't care what he did so long as he was out of the house so he could come and see him via the Tilly express an expression which Sirius had found hilarious at the time. He was so happy he was getting to know Sirius like this and knew he'd love the surprise waiting for him when he got home. Life was great right now.