London, mid September 1996
"Here you go ma'am" The server placed a large glass of red wine in front of Ellen. Her companion had a similar glass of white wine in front of her. The server left the table. The two women locked eyes before they took their first sips as they sat outside of the sidewalk cafe on a all too rare beautiful Saturday afternoon in the early fall. They sipped their drinks slowly, savoring the moment before Ellen placed her three quarters full wine glass on the table and began to dig into her new purse.
"Ah ha… here it is…" With that she smiled as she pulled out a small device that was only slightly larger than the Queen's head on a five pound note. The device was strange looking; it was thin, metallic and round with a cylinder on one edge and one side. Ellen flipped it over. It now looked like a button to a suit that would soon need to be repaired. She left it on the table as she reached into her purse again. Soon there were a half dozen smaller disks with a dozen black squares next to the first device.
"So what is that Ellen?" Her companion leaned in closer to her with a curious look on her face.
"Why Dora, it is how we're going to communicate… it is a microdot camera with a dozen film disks. Each exposure can take six pages of notes. Once the picture is taken, it can be developed and transferred as a dot that is just slightly larger than a mistaken drop of ink on a parchment or a period on a printed letter. Do you understand?" Ellen relaxed and took another drink from her glass of wine. Anyone who was more than a few yards from them would have seen and heard almost nothing as she waited for a reply from the witch.
"I think so… you mean it transforms pages to dots, and then there is a way to extract the information later on?" The auror's mind was working quickly. This was a new threat and a new opportunity. The standard detection spells only searched for magical concealment. There might be one or two spells that could detect deception but those intent based spells were finicky and expensive to use. No one would use them unless they already knew that messages were being passed by mundane means. And they took time. Moody might be able to check one hundred pages a day if that was all that he was doing. Tonks was confident that she could perhaps check half.
Tonks started to laugh as she realized what she had in her hand. The Ministry produced thousands of pages of documents a day. The students at Hogwarts mailed hundreds of letters home per week. The Daily Prophet and the Quibbler each printed ten thousand or more pages for each issue. There was no way that these messages would ever be detected unless the entire weight of the Ministry was focused on only one or two people.
"So you're saying that we should start writing more letters to each other?"
"Yes, I believe you're right. Grandmothers would greatly appreciate hearing from their grandchildren more often and I think that the new catalogs for the Spring fashion season should be sent to everyone." Ellen smiled. She liked Tonks. The younger woman was smart. At times she was naive and ignorant of the mundane world but she did not stay that way for long. As soon as she was confused, she asked a question as soon as there was a hint of privacy. And then she listened and tried to make connections. The two women had met half a dozen times since the summer, and each time Ellen enjoyed herself. They enjoyed their wine and chatted about a few less serious things before Ellen rose and left the cafe. As she walked to the nearby Tube station, she picked up a newspaper and checked the personal ads. Her husband had been successful. The all-clear ad was printed on the second to last column of the section.
Just four miles from her was her daughter. She was holding the hands of her two friends and looked at the unrumpled headmaster. The Floo trip was less disorientating each time she used that particular mode of transportation. Harry had stumbled out, but he was quickly back on his feet as if he was merely chasing a Snitch and had to do a sloth barrel roll and had meant to be splayed and sprawled out on the floor. Ron stepped out of the fireplace as if it was a water closet where he had to merely check his belt and tuck in his shirt.
"Kreacher, I command you to come to the main salon." Harry called out. The four wizards waited several heart beats until a bedraggled, hunched over house elf clambered down the stairs.
"Filthy muggle loving half bred master has ordered me to arrive and to serve him and his Mudblood and Mudblood loving companions." Kreacher started to mutter a string of obscenities that would make a sergeant observing a safety violation at a grenade training range take notes for creativity and flexibility of the English language.
"Kreacher, please, be silent for a moment." Harry kneeled down so that his eyes were level with the bulbous sockets of the house elf. The elf paused his muttered diatribe. He shrank back as Harry's hands reached out and rested on his shoulder.
"Kreacher, I command you to listen and to not respond until Hermione and the Headmaster finish speaking. Do you understand?" Harry's voice was quiet, and firm. Their eyes locked. Kreacher nodded.
"Yes master, Kreacher will be silent and listen to the Mudblood and the Mudblood loving Headmaster per your commands." The dirty, tired house elf shrank upon himself as he was forced by the magic of his bond to give his attention to those he thought beneath him against his will. Hermione felt her stomach flip as the power of the bond would be working in her favor over the next few minutes, but she felt ugly and violated for her reliance on assistance unwillingly given. Harry stood up and took a step back to be next to Ron and the Headmaster.
She cleared her throat, and took a deep breath. She too went to a deep squat her her arse almost touching her heels. She looked into Kreacher's eyes and saw his pain for the first time before she started to speak.
"Kreacher, we are looking for a silver locket. It has an "S" on it, and we believe it was once an artifact of Salazar Slytherin that the Dark Lord acquired in the 1950s or 1960s. I remember seeing it two summers ago when we were cleaning out part of the townhouse. Do you know where it is?" She was shocked by the reaction.
"YOU SEEK GOOD MASTER LOCKET… YOU SEEK GOOD MASTER'S FINAL ORDERS" The house elf keened. The house elf's body went spastic as his arms flailed and his legs collapsed as if he had been shot. His words became less and less comprehensible as words of failure and disobedience came out of his mouth. The elf tried to punish himself by running into a wall. Ron barely managed to hit him with an impeding jinx while the Headmaster had managed to transfigure the wall into a rubber air bag.
Hermione could not process the reaction. She took a breath and did what naturally came to her. She asked another question.
"Can you tell us about Master Regulus' final orders?"
"Mudblood wants to hear about the good master and how I failed him."
"I want to hear about the good master and how you have still tried to serve him." She barely whispered the last few words.
Harry stepped forward and squatted next to Hermione. One hand rested between her shoulder blades and the other hand reached out to Kreacher. His hand was open with his fingers gently resting on the house elf's arm. There was no force, there was no violence, there was no coercion in his touch. Just understanding and patience.
The elf collected himself for a moment.
"Kreacher, I will not command you to speak as it is obvious that this causes you great pain. I will request and hope that you speak, but I will not command you to speak. Do you understand, you can speak or not speak on your own free will."
The elf took a breath. "Halfblood master will not punish Kreacher for not speaking?"
"No, I will not punish you. You seem to have punished yourself enough. I will also not give you clothes unless that is explicitly what you want. This is your choice."
"Halfblood master does not understand the old ways… but Kreacher will speak." The elf pulled his arm back from Harry and took a deep breath. He looked at the four wizards in the room and then he started to tell a story.
"Many years ago, the Good Master Regulus needed me. He needed me to go to a cave. In the cave, the dead tried to kill Good Master. We defeated the evil. Everything in that cave was soaked with death. When we arrived at the center of the cave, the Good Master rowed us across a lake and landed on an island, smaller than this room. He gave me two orders. The first was to make sure that he drank the entire contents of a stone bowl no matter what. The second was to destroy the silver locket that was at the bottom of the bowl. Master Regulus was in agony as he drank. Kreacher had been Crucio-ed before by the Mistress Black. The pain was less than what the good master experienced. I kept on pouring the pain potion down his throat even as begged for the pain to cease. Once the bowl was empty he gave me a silver locket. It felt heavy and even more vile. Master Regulus put in a duplicate silver locket. He commanded me to leave without him and to destroy the vile locket. As he was dying, I left. And I have failed the good master's order. The locket still exists."
Hermione could feel tears forming in her eyes. Kreacher had shown his loyalty in the only way that he knew to the one wizard who had treated him with respect. And his failure had haunted him for her entire life time.
"Kreacher, do you know where the locket is? We may have a way to help you fulfill your Master's last orders. Would you want us to help you?" Professor Dumbledore's voice was full of steel and authority like it had been when he had battle the Dark Lord in the Ministry Atrium but there was no volume nor threat in it.
"Can you do that? Can you help Kreacher be a good elf?"
"Yes we can. As your current Master, I promise you on my blood that we will attempt to destroy the locket if we can locate it. Do you accept this promise?" Harry's voice was firm and strong. He had removed his hand from Hermione's back and both of his palms were outstretched and extended outwards in supplication.
"Halfblood master giving me, a blood promise? Yes, yes yes. Kreacher will get the locket. Kreacher has hidden locket. Kreacher smart elf. Kreacher hid elf for tricksy dirty man rummaging through the house. Kreacher will return." The elf ambled out of the room. If Hermione was able to see straight through the sheen of tears that she had held back in her eyes, she would have sworn that she saw the bitter old elf sway and swagger as he disappeared down a stair case.
"Harry, Hermione, Ron, we may have a great victory against Voldemort today. I could not have done this without your help. Ron, do you have the basilisk venom and dragon hide gloves?" The headmaster looked sharply at her friend as he had been slightly resistant to taking all of the horcrux destroying supplies with them to the safe house that morning.
Ron had already started to rummage through the back pack and a pair of Welsh Green hide gloves were in his hands when he nodded to the headmaster. He pulled out a cauldron and a set of vise grips that he then attached to the edges of the lead cauldron so that they could hold the locket securely. Finally, with more care than he had ever shown to a potion ingredient he removed a three-milliliter vial of venom the color of virgin olive oil mixed with week old milk. He placed the vial into a test tube rack and waited.
Hermione did not know where Kreacher was. However a sense of dread and defeat wafted into the room. It got stronger over the course of a minute. A dementor's presence was the only thing that she could compare the dread to except that the strength was so much more than the pervasive feel of emptiness and pre-dawn coldness of a January morning that a Dementor produced as it drifted by her on the way to Hogsmeade three years ago. The Headmaster could feel it to. He clutched his shrivelled arm tight to his chest and gripped his wand tightly.
Kreacher entered the room. He held out a silver locket with emerald inlays that formed an S in the center. The jewelry reeked of desperation.
"Half blood master, this is the failure of Kreacher. Good master ordered me to destroy it. Kreacher has not been able to destroy it. New Master promises to try to destroy it. " His eyes were wide and his face relaxed as he implored Harry to fix a problem that had vexed him for the last seventeen years.
"Kreacher, you will fulfill Regulus's last command with us today. Give the locket to Ron." Kreacher shuffled across the room. Ron carefully reached out to Kreacher with his gloved hands holding a pair of steel pincers. He carefully grasped the locket and squeezed it tight between the metal arms and brought it to the cauldron where he locked it between the vises. As he made sure it was secured, he hurriedly backed away.
"Harry, that is some evil shite."
"Yes, yes it is Ron, as you put it evil shite." The headmaster was still a teacher at heart and this was a teaching moment. "It is some of the darkest magic that can be performed and it is magic that will try to defend itself. We must be ready. Harry, do you think you can open it with your gifts? If not, I will try with my considerable but likely mismatched skills."
Hermione braced herself as Harry walked to the cauldron, kneeled and looked intensely at the locket. He then turned to Kreacher.
"Kreacher, do you want to destroy the locket?"
The elf almost fainted and then almost knocked himself unconscious as his head nodded so rapidly that Hermione worried about a concussion.
"Yes new master. How?"
"Hermione, Ron and the Headmaster will cast Patronuses in a moment. I will use Parseltongue to open the locket. And you will pour the basilisk venom on the evil inside. Can you do that?"
"Yes master." Kreacher bounded to Ron's side and took the vial of venom from its holder. Ron quickly cast a spell that removed the wax around the stopper. Even as he was doing this, Hermione closed her eyes for a second and searched for the memory that she would use. She smiled in surprise at the memory. She could see her dad and Mr. Weasley laughing at something in the next room while Mum listened to Tonks describe the lack of a love life due to a pursued prey that did not realize how attractive he was even as the both finished a bottle of Beaujolais. She was reading a novel by John Irving resting her head on Harry's chest and her ankles rested on Ron's thighs. Her boys were arguing about the new tactical system that the Cannons had just trialed the previous week. Her worlds were together.
"Ready?"
"Aye", "Yes." "Of Course." The three Patronus casters assented to Harry's query.
"Go"
Hermione could feel the love. She could feel the joy. She could feel the acceptance of that moment in August. Even before she spoke the incantation, her magic was responding to her need to make joy visible.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM"
Ollie erupted from the end of her wand. He was brighter, stronger, more substantial than he ever had been before. She could feel Ollie's need to push back against the darkness. She felt as if she was being comfortably squished between her mother and father in their bed on a rainy Saturday morning with the promise of pancakes and a trip to the library. As she opened her eyes, Ron's terrier was yapping while the Professor's Phoenix glided around the room waiting for prey to reveal itself.
She poured herself and her magic into Ollie. She barely saw Harry lean over and hiss something. She could feel the inherent wrongess expand and escape as the locket opened. A black cloud twisted itself into everyone in the room and screehced…
"You are only wanted for your brains not your own self… you see your friends laugh at you… you know what you did…. No one will ever love you…"
The black shade twisted itself as the three Patronii battered it backwards. It fought, oh it fought for its existence but an ear splitting noise soon broke her concentration as Kreacher emptied the venom onto the black pulsating core of the locket.
The elf maniacally cackled as the shade shattered into a billion pieces of nothingness. The three casters held their spells for another few moments until their exhaustion led to silence. Ollie meandered down a hallway and out a door while Ron's terrier laid down in a corner and faded into nothingness while the Phoenix soared up a fireplace.
"Kreacher, did we help you?"
"Yes, good but strange master… Master Regulus's order has been fulfilled." The elf started to cry as he looked at the beautifully made but now inert locket stuck above the cauldron.
Harry put a hand on the elf's back and sat down next to him. The two of them sat in silence as the elf sobbed. Hermione gingerly stepped towards both her friend and the transformed elf. She sat on the ground next to the elf. A moment later, Ron and then the Headmaster joined them on the floor. They sat in silence knowing that they had survived, knowing that today was a victory, knowing that the end was one step closer.
Harry broke the long but gentle silence.
"Kreacher, you may keep the locket if you want it, or we can remove it. This is your choice."
"Master will let Kreacher keep Master Regulus's locket… yes, you are a good master… and I am finally a good elf again."
