Chapter 14: Regulus' Secret
Beth was exhausted by the time she managed to reach Diagon Alley. It had been a four day journey but Beth had flown as many hours out of those four days as she could manage. As far as she could tell she had slept perhaps one or two hours each day.
She was barely coherent enough to tell Old Tom, the innkeeper at the Leaky Cauldron that she wanted a room for the night and to wake her when the Knight Bus left for King's Cross Station the next morning.
It was difficult to wake up the next morning but Beth staggered out of bed and managed to retrieve her trunk from her vault at Gringotts and get to the Knight Bus, and from there to King's Cross Station. Finally she staggered up the steps of the Hogwarts Express, hauling her trunk behind her as she searched for an empty compartment.
Luckily Hestia located her partway through her search through the train and helped her drag her trunk into the compartment.
"Geez, Beth, it's called a holiday for a reason! You look wasted!" She remarked as they finally managed to stow Beth's trunk away.
Beth flopped down on the seat. "I did a lot of traveling." She said trying not to yawn. "It takes a lot out of you. I had to rush around this morning, I almost missed the bus!"
Hestia nodded as if she just remembered something. "I always forget that your parents are muggles and don't Apparate or port key anywhere."
"I don't Apparate yet and neither do you." Beth mumbled, scratching Balboa behind the ears.
Hestia looked embarrassed. "My dad's been teaching me." She mumbled. "I got to try a bit over the summer."
"You got to Apparate?" Beth sat up and stared at Hestia, instantly jealous. "You lucky little…"
Hestia was blushing. "I mean I didn't splinch and it's really easy…I mean as soon as we start taking the classes you'll pick up on it really quick!" She said in one breath.
"Beth will pick up on what really quickly?" Jonquil had appeared and was hauling her trunk into the compartment.
"Apparating." Beth said glaring at Hestia who was attempting to get Jonquil engaged in a conversation about their upcoming classes.
"Oh yeah, I suspect you will." Jonquil said trying to carry on two conversations at once.
Hestia shot Beth an imploring look and so Beth swallowed the rest of the planned conversation and with a sigh settled into a discussion about the summer in which Hestia avoided any mention of being able to already Apparate.
"Must be nice living in a Pureblood family." She told Balboa in a whisper. "Get to practice their magic all they want! I wonder what other spells Hestia knows that we don't."
Balboa opened one eye, yawned and then curled up in her lap and went back to sleep.
It was all that Beth could do not to fall asleep during the sorting. She woke up a bit when dinner was served but found herself almost falling asleep again once desert rolled around. She did manage not to doze off in her pudding and as soon as the feast was over she rushed towards the head table.
"Headmaster!" She called, "Can I meet with you? I have some important news!"
Dumbledore had been talking with Professor Flitwick and he turned to Beth after a few moments. "Ahh, Miss Burke." He was smiling as usual. "Yes, I believe I have some time. Shall we say, in my office fifteen minutes from now?"
Beth wanted to tell him that it couldn't wait but she nodded and turned to hurry back and join some straggling Ravenclaws. She turned to look around the Great Hall and noticed that Draco was giving her an odd stare. She swallowed hard but did her best to ignore it and made her way towards Dumbledore's office.
She half expected Draco to follow her but as she waited in the hallway he didn't seem to be anywhere in sight. She breathed a sigh of relief as Dumbledore walked up the hallway towards her and with a smile he stopped in front of the ugly gargoyle.
"Almond Fudge." He said and the gargoyle bounced down off its pedestal allowing the door to swing open.
"Now, my dear," Dumbledore said as he led the way up the stairs and into his office. "What is so important? Something interesting in your research I hope."
Beth waited until they were inside his office and the door was safely closed. She reached into her robe and pulled out the locket that had been thrumming against her breast for the entire train ride and most of dinner. It had managed to keep her awake, at least mostly, but every time she closed her eyes strange visions would dance in front of them. She had to admit she felt better now that it was sitting on Dumbledore's desk and not in her breast pocket.
"I found it." She stated simply watching the shocked expression on Dumbledore's face turn into a more serious one as he took the locket from her and examined it closely.
He shook his head and gave her a gentle smile. "I suspected that this is what led you all over England this summer." He sighed. "It always seems that the more you tell someone to stand still the more they will do their best to move around." He put the locket down on his desk and reached for his wand. "Although you put yourself in grave danger by searching for this." He tapped it gently with the tip of his wand. "We do not even know if this is the real one."
Beth had been holding her breath and she slowly let it out. "But Headmaster, the power…"
"That could easily be a concealing enchantment. We shall see if this is in fact Salizar's locket or not." He tapped the locket with his wand again and it floated into the air and hovered over Dumbledore's desk. He said a few strange words that Beth didn't recognize and suddenly the locket began to glow.
Beth had to shade her eyes as the light went from green to dazzling white. She could hear the portraits complaining and a few loud hisses and pops told her that this strange magical energy had also affected a few other things in the room.
Beth wanted to cry out, it felt like her skin was crawling with bugs and she heard Balboa give a plaintive and annoyed yowl. She was about to call out to Dumbledore when the light began to fade and the locket clattered to the desk.
Dumbledore looked rather surprised. "Where did you find this?" He asked sitting down slowly.
Beth took up the other chair and related the story of her summer. She glossed over several details but managed to maintain a fairly accurate retelling.
"Do you still have the Locating Compass?" Dumbledore asked when she had finished.
Beth fished through the pockets of her robes and pulled out the compass. A few of its hands spun around to point towards the desk as Dumbledore took it from her.
"A marvelous piece of magic." Dumbledore said after a few moments. "Although I wonder if the things you discovered were stolen. Could you tell me exactly where you found it?"
"Stolen?" Beth thought for a moment. "I'm pretty sure I could show you." She said slowly. "Stolen, Headmaster? What do you mean?"
"I mean we had a theft from Grimmauld Drive. One Mr. Munndungus stole several items that had belonged to the late Sirius Black and his brother Regulus." He said thoughtfully. "I don't suppose you saw any strange wizards lurking around?"
Beth shook her head. "No, the alley was empty when I found it."
Dumbledore nodded slowly "I suppose you didn't see anything in that flash of light?"
"It was a bit green at the beginning." She admitted. She hadn't really bothered to pay attention to the flash of bright light.
"Yes, and I imagine that the locket did not look like this when you found it. If I read the spell correctly it had been transfigured to hide its magical properties and give it a different form." He looked down at it. "It also had a few other interesting Dark Magic spells protecting it and a signature appeared in the light."
"Signature?"
"Yes," Dumbledore was staring at the locket. "Sometimes if a spell is particularly good or if a witch or wizard wants to leave their mark they can sign their spell. The letters R.A.B. were visible for a few moments. There are many to be sure but I suspect that it stood for the late Regulus Black." He paused and looked hard at Beth. "This locket has indeed been used to create a Horcrux and it's a wonder, Miss Burke, that your finding it did not attract Death Eaters."
Beth stared at the locket for a few moments. "You mean Regulus didn't destroy the Horcrux?"
"We don't know if it was indeed Regulus Black but yes, the Horcrux is still very much intact." Dumbledore was now eyeing the locket as if it were an unfriendly dog about to bite him. "We will have to destroy it ourselves before we can attempt to enact any spells of protection."
Beth felt slightly ill now that she knew she had been carrying around a piece of You-Know-Who for several days. "Wasn't Regulus Black a Death Eater?" She shook herself and stopped staring at the locket that was sitting serenely on Dumbledore's desk.
"Yes, he was. He joined the Death Eaters when Voldemort was just beginning to rise to power." Dumbledore also seemed glad for the slight change of topic. "He however chose to leave the Death Eaters after he had been given the Dark Mark." He shook his head. "He only survived three weeks I believe."
"Do you suppose that he had been told to hide the locket by You-Know-Who and when he defected he took it with him?"
"Perhaps." Dumbledore admitted. "Perhaps that is the case and if it is, he did not die in vain."
"Is there a way we could find out if it was Regulus who hid the locket?" She asked after a few moments.
Dumbledore looked thoughtful. "I will have to discuss this with the current owner of Grimmauld Place." He said after a few moments thought. "Then perhaps we can search through what is left of his belongings although I don't know what we'll find." Dumbledore stood up and picked up the locket. "In the meantime, Beth, I ask that you do your best to stay out of trouble."
Beth didn't find it very hard to stay out of trouble since she had so much research to do. She spent a lot of time trying to find out information about the Black family. She managed to uncover one book that had been written only about ten years ago that detailed the rise and supposed fall of You-Know-Who. It listed the known Death Eaters and how many of them had been imprisoned in Azkaban and the few who had avoided imprisonment by claiming that they had been put under the Imperious Curse.
It only had a short paragraph on Regulus Black detailing how he joined the Death Eaters early on but then for reasons unknown defected and was killed shortly thereafter. Beth shut the book and returned it to the pile that sat next to her.
"That wasn't all that helpful." She told Balboa in a whisper, looking around to see who else had come into the library. There was a bushy haired Gryffindor who buried in her own pile of books and sitting next to her was a red haired boy that Beth recognized as one of the Weasley family. He looked rather bored.
She looked over her other shoulder. There were several younger Ravenclaws clustered around a table fretting over three or four Potions books. There were no Slytherins in sight and more importantly there was no Draco Malfoy. She pulled another book out of her stack and flipped through it scanning for references to the Death Eaters or to the Black family.
She had gathered perhaps a handful of clues about Regulus Black. She had what she had gleaned from the recent history book and a few from articles in old Daily Prophets that she found stashed away in the back of the library. It wasn't much to go on and it didn't seem likely to her at least that Regulus Black had seen the light when he had defected from You-Know-Who.
It appeared that he had gone to Hogwarts and been sorted into Slytherin, "like most of his family," the article had noted. It seemed that sometime after his seventh year he joined the Death Eaters. Apparently he was from a family of Dark Wizards who supported wholeheartedly the rhetoric that You-Know-Who was spouting at the time. As far as Beth could tell, it didn't make any sense that he should suddenly decide to leave.
"We'll have to wait for Dumbledore." She told Balboa as they left the library and caught up with Hestia and Jonquil who were on their way to dinner.
Beth was surprised at the short time that Dumbledore took to get back to her. Just two days later Dumbledore called her to his office yet again.
"I've gotten permission from the owner of Grimmauld Place for you to go through Regulus' things." He told her as she sat down in the cushy chair opposite his desk. "Some Ministry Aurors are already there making sure that everything is safe."
Beth frowned, she would've liked the chance to go through Regulus' things before a bunch of Aurors had taken away everything that they considered "dangerous." "When can I go?" She asked.
"It's safer if we investigate things here." Dumbledore said. "I'm going to have several boxes brought here and you'll be free to examine them in this office."
Beth wanted to argue but she suspected it would be fruitless to try. "Wouldn't it be easier for me just to go there rather than have everything brought here?"
"The owner of Grimmauld Place also wishes to go through a few of Sirius Black's belongings. It's safer for both of you to do so here." Dumbledore said with a smile. "There is also the small matter of the Order of the Phoenix using it as a headquarters. You must understand that security is very tight."
"They don't want kids snooping around." Beth thought to herself.
"So you understand it would be better for all concerned if the searching is done here." Dumbledore said and rose from his chair. "If you have nothing else to add I'm afraid I shall have to leave you. I have some pressing business that needs attending to." He gave her a short bow and swept through the office and out the door.
Within the next day Beth received a note from Dumbledore. "The boxes have arrived and are waiting for you in my office. I'm afraid I shall have to leave the searching to you, please let me know if you discover anything interesting."
Beth wondered why Dumbledore had decided not to be there when she sorted through the boxes. He had seemed rather intent on it being safe and she wondered if there would be a team of Aurors waiting for her once she got there.
She arrived to find that only Fawkes was waiting for her. The phoenix was sitting on his perch and ruffled its feathers in greeting when she and Balboa walked through the door. There were several dozen boxes stacked in each corner. Beth went over to the first set and found them all to be labeled "Sirius Black."
She left those and went to the other side and found the boxes labeled, "Regulus Black" were considerably fewer. She moved one to the floor, opened it and started to search.
She found that it was mostly clothing with the odd strange artifact here and there. There were a few boxes of what looked to be real diamond cufflinks and another with several rings, all set with different gems and bearing the Black family crest on one side.
The first few boxes went by fairly quickly and Beth was starting to wonder exactly what it was that she was looking for when she opened a box and found it full of letters. She started to sift through them carefully, scanning their contents for clues about why Regulus had left the Death Eaters.
Many were letters that Regulus had received from his parents congratulating him on one thing or another, some asked him to take care of his cousin Bellatrix who was in the same house as he at Hogwarts. In short many of the letters told her very little other than the fact that Regulus himself was rather sly and crafty when it came to getting what he wanted.
"Typical Slytherin." She noted but then she came across an interesting letter. It looked to be one that Regulus had written but never sent. It was addressed to his brother Sirius. She flipped it open and began to read.
It seemed that it was a letter to his brother concerning You-Know-Who and made careful note of how lucky his brother was to be in Gryffindor, away from the people who were taking up the banner of this new leader. It went out for at least a page about how he felt himself drawn to this leader but terrified at the same time. Regulus feared that You-Know-Who was heading this group of wizards merely to act out his own vendetta.
There was one other unsent letter from Regulus where he stated that he had been entrusted with something and he was sure it was a test but he feared for his own life. The letter went on to list apologies to his family and to his brother. "I know that by doing this I have killed myself but I don't believe that I have any other choice. He would make himself immortal and I cannot imagine the lengths he will go to reach his ends."
She carefully laid the letters aside and sorted through the rest of the boxes. There was nothing else except for one more unsent letter that she found buried beneath old O.W.L and N.E.W.T scores. The letter seemed to have been addressed to Sirius but his name had been crossed out and no other name substituted. The rest of the page seemed to be blank but Beth ran her wand over it and muttered a spell.
Slowly writing began to appear, filling the old parchment. This letter detailed how Regulus planned to hide the locket in an old case of jewelry. He intended to transfigure it into another shape and then disguise the aura around it since he wasn't sure exactly what You-Know-Who had done to it but it was more than just a Relic of Salizar Slytherin and that much he knew.
Beth bundled her three letters together and put the boxes back in order. "Come on, Balboa." She called to the cat who had sat himself at the base of Fawkes' perch. As usual the phoenix seemed unperturbed by the intent stare. "Let's go, we have to check these out."
The cat reluctantly got to his feet and as Beth pushed the last boxes back into place the door to the office opened and in walked a boy Beth knew she would recognize just about anywhere.
It was Harry Potter.