A/N: So, it was a while before in managed to get this chapter posted... In my defence, I did give you an outtake on my birthday and I've spent a week in Ireland for my annual vacation :D Anyway, I hope you like this chapter - I personally loved to write it, though there were at least 3 pages of scrapped material... *sigh* Maybe one of these days I'll have it recycled.

He hadn't stepped foot into that room for more than twenty years. Seemed like a lifetime ago but, still, his brother's old bedroom looked almost exactly the same as it had back before Sirius had ran away from home and gotten disinherited.

How everything else had changed since then, apparently…

His mind was still trying to process it, figuring it out… Regulus had stolen a Horcrux. He'd stood up to Voldemort and that had more than likely been what had gotten him killed.

Merlin, Sirius thought as he remained sat on the bed that had once belonged to his brother. He'd needed to leave, to get some time on his own, away from the kids' shock and their incessant questions that were only summed with his own. It was just too much… Too many thoughts, too many doubts, too many… possibilities that branched into yet some more, making an unbelievable mess of feelings that only served to trash his head. He wasn't quite sure why he'd come to his brother's room for escape but he'd certainly ended up there… maybe he was looking for answers even though, so far, all he'd done was sitting in that bed, as motionless as a statue while the words of that note he'd left downstairs replayed in his mind like a broken record.

Sirius could honestly say he wasn't one to remember things word by word – no photographic memory for him. Mostly, he just understood the notions of things and remembered the heart of the matter. Yet, that bloody note seemed to be the exception to his nature, having been branded in his head like nothing had ever been before. Especially the last part of it.

"…I have stolen the real horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal once more. R.A.B."

"Merlin, Reg, what the hell did you do?" he muttered under his breath, letting his back fall down against the old bed, a cloud of dust releasing itself to the air from the covers.

He just lay there, silent and with his eyes closed for what seemed to be hours when, in fact, it was just a few minutes. He simply wasn't really keeping track of time at the moment. Maybe he was waiting, maybe he was… hanging in there. He just didn't really feel like doing anything other than lying there, despite the shocking amount of dust covering the surface he lay on.

More minutes passed and, at some point, he felt the bed moving before the feeling of something, or rather someone, passing a hand through his hair had him opening his eyes again. Mia, he thought as soon as he saw her face over his.

"What happened?" she asked in a very soft tone even though Harry and Izzy had already filled her in with what they knew – she supposed Sirius giving her his own account of facts would be a good way to start a conversation.

He didn't speak, though – just lay there, observing her for a few seconds. Mia had honestly expected him to look worse, shocked, angry or something… instead, he simply looked thoughtful. She wasn't sure if she should be relieved or concerned about that. In any case, her hand remained on his hair, caressing it in a soothing manner.

"Sirius?" she asked again, seconds later.

He didn't respond. Instead, he just sat up, shifting to a position that put him side-by-side with her. Then, he leaned forward, his lips capturing hers into a kiss. A rather sweet, innocent one that reminded him of their first, by the lake at Hogwarts. Such a long time before, he thought. About as long as the time when he'd lost his brother. Not to death – no, that had been years later – but to the prejudice and dark ideas that had turned them into strangers.

He sighed when their lips broke away from each other and buried his face against the crook of her neck, wrapping his arms around Mia's form. She held him back tightly, silently rubbing his back, feeling he might need it at the moment.

Her hair smelled wonderfully, as always, Sirius noted, like chamomile with a little bit of baby powder too – so Mia; so warm; so his. She knew him better than anyone else did… and he was confident he knew her better than anyone too… How he wished at the moment he could say the same about his late brother…

A few moments later, Mia was the one to pull away, kissing his lips softly one more time before cupping his face and looking him in the eyes. "Tell me," she requested. "Please tell me what you're thinking."

"I was thinking that I love you," he told her.

She gave him a little smile, though she was aware he wasn't telling her everything. "I love you too. Now tell me the rest."

He took a deep breath and looked her in the eyes too, raising an eyebrow after a few seconds. "You already know the rest – I can tell by your face. You'd look more concerned if you didn't."

She smiled. "You know me too well… But, as talented as they are, I don't think Izzy or Harry can read your mind and fill me in what you're feeling, which is really what I want to know. So, tell me, Sirius."

He sighed. "I didn't know him at all."

"By him I assume you mean your brother," Mia said, softly.

Sirius nodded. "All this time, ever since Reg became a Death Eater, I've thought of him as some… idiotic kid who'd gotten himself killed in the end because he'd tried to bite way more than he could chew. As far as I knew, he'd died just as another one of the many bad guys and traitors the oh-so-noble Black family had created. But today, nearly two bloody decades later…"

"…you found out he actually died a hero," Mia finished for him.

He huffed, looking away at the heavy-curtain-covered window. "What sort of hero, though? He spends years religiously following the steps of his little Death Eater pals and, for all I know, he was right there in the front line, murdering all sorts of innocent people… and then he goes around and steals a Horcrux. Just what the hell was going on that kid's head? Part of me really, really feels like I should wonder if stealing a Horcrux – and doing Merlin-knows-what with it, mind you – was really some unselfish action for the sake of humanity in general, bearing in mind precedent. It would be the logical thing to do, you know? Being sceptical. Because I really feel that by letting my guard down and believing that he'd suddenly become a good person, I'm putting myself on the line for being let down – and, dumbly enough, that's exactly what I'm doing." It had taken him years to accept, painfully, that his little brother was not to be trusted anymore and only seconds for him to let himself believe blindly in that note… he was setting himself for heartbreak all over again. He really thought he was.

"He was your brother, Sirius – you have a right to give him the benefit of the doubt – you shouldn't feel guilty or stupid about that," Mia let him know.

"Shouldn't I? Because right now, it's starting to feel like he died all over again." Which would probably not be the case if he'd remained sceptical. Which he couldn't, no matter how he wanted to. Stupidly so.

His wife soothingly rested her hand on his shoulder. "It's only natural you feel that way, Sirius. You've never allowed yourself to grieve him before. I remember when you got the news that he was gone… or rather read if it on the Prophet's obituary. It was like, in your head, you were just learning that some stranger had died, not your brother. It worried me at the time."

"It was a stranger who'd died… or at least I thought so, at the time," he said – that was another reason why he should have remained sceptical... "Because there was no way I could let myself believe that the lanky, painfully shy kid who used to chase me around when we were little could have become some cold-blooded murderer. I couldn't let myself believe that I'd let him."

"You didn't," Mia said, determined. "Even if, in the end, he hadn't done the right thing – and nothing in that note, which Harry has just showed me, by the way, inclined me to believe he had any ulterior motives – it would have never been your fault that Regulus became a Death Eater. Time after time you tried to make him see reason and it crushed you whenever he'd reject it."

Sirius shook his head. And there it was again… the guilt. "I gave up," he countered. "At some point, I'm not sure when, I just gave up… I just ran away from home and left him alone there to be poisoned more and more by my parent's ridiculous beliefs."

"Only after you tried everything. Only when you simply couldn't put yourself through it yet another time. There was nothing else you could do. I saw how much it cost you, Sirius – no one in their right minds would blame you – not even Regulus himself if he was anything like you."

Sighing again, Sirius refrained himself from replying, simply looking around the room. "He was always the good son out of the two of us. He always obeyed, always respected our parents without a word in return. I didn't – the more trouble I caused, the more grief I gave, the best. I guess that's what saved me in the end."

Mia frowned. "What do you mean?"

He took a long, deep breath before turning to his wife. "Why do you think I started defying my family about the whole blood-purity thing in the beginning, Mia?" he asked. "By the time they started preaching it to me, I was five and the only thing I knew about prejudice was that it was a big, fancy word. No right or wrong about it. The thing was, I was smart enough to gather it was vital to my parents that I agreed with them and accepted 'mudbloods' were the devil… so, the only logical thing to do in my rebellious five-year-old brain was exactly the opposite."

"So you decided to side with muggle-borns just for the sake of irking your parents," Mia said, just a little amused. It sounded just like something Sirius would have done.

"I sure did," Sirius confirmed. "I didn't like them back then. Not one bit. If you asked me why I didn't, so early on, I probably wouldn't be able to tell you – they might be cold and brisk but I just didn't have anyone else better to compare them to, did I? Still, I just could tell something wasn't right with them. It's that gut feeling you get sometimes, you know?"

Mia nodded. "I understand."

"So, at first I just disagreed for the sake of giving them grief. But over the years, especially with Andromeda around (seeing as she appeared to be the only other person with a non-twisted sense of morals in my family), I started to realize that maybe I'd made the right choice for more than one reason… And then I got into Hogwarts, was sorted into Gryffindor, met you and the guys… more and more I saw I was on the right side. And, in the meanwhile, for that first year I was at school Reg stayed at home being a good son and getting educated from dawn to dusk in a proper Black manner, starting with the classic 'having Muggle blood is bad' matter and ending with the 'Voldemort is the answer to all out preys' theme – this time, without me there to try and shield him from it." Mia was about to say something then, but he stopped her, touching her lips with his index finger. "I'm not saying he didn't have any fault at becoming a Death Eater – he made the choice, after all. No one was threatening to join – he knew he had me out there if he wanted to make a run for it too… But, Merlin, had we been born in any other family, he could have been a bloody great kid."

"We can't pick the families we're born into, Sirius. You know that," Mia told him.

"Yeah. I know that. And that just sucks, you know?" he agreed before going silent again for several seconds, looking around the room once more, reminiscent. The only glaring difference he could spot in that room from what he remembered before leaving was what seemed to be a patchwork of newspaper clippings on one of the walls – the one right opposite the bed.

He stood up and approached the wall while Mia remained sitting on the bed, understanding he might need some space. Sirius felt sick for a moment, seeing all those clippings concerned Voldemort's attacks and every mention of the number of victims was circled with green ink.

What the hell was that? He thought, disgusted. A hit list? A score of how many lives Regulus and his pals had ended? No, he thought. That didn't make any sense. Keeping a score was something so twisted that, out every Death Eater he knew, he could only picture Bellatrix, Greyback and a small handful of other blood-thirsty creeps keeping one in their bedroom. Regulus simply couldn't have been that far gone, not when he'd ended up stealing a Horcrux to try and block his master's path to victory. Could it be the opposite, then? Sirius wondered. Could it be that, in the end, his brother had regretted his actions so badly that he'd forced himself to wake up every day to face the number of lives he'd helped taking?

"Sirius," he heard his wife saying somewhere behind him.

He turned around to see his wife holding a piece of crumpled parchment as she crunched down by what seemed to be a paper basket near Regulus's old desk.

"I think there's something you should see in here," she said, standing further up and bringing the basket with her to place it on top of the desk.

Confused, Sirius approached her only to be handed the crumpled piece of parchment she'd been holding. Once again, he recognized his brother's handwriting.

Dear Sirius,

We haven't been in contact for many years over your feud with our fam…

He was unable to read the rest of it as several words were repeatedly crossed out throughout the short three lines Regulus had managed to write, leaving it unfinished and clearly scrapped… His brother had been trying to contact him, Sirius thought. Yet, he'd never received any letters.

"There's more in there," Mia said, nodding the paper basket.

There was more indeed, Sirius noted, looking into it himself. "How can these have lasted this long in a waste basket without being thrown out?"

"When we moved into this house, Kreacher told us that your mother gave orders for no one to touch anything in this room after your brother… after he was gone," Mia explained in a low tone. "It seems that, for her, this was sort of like… a shrine to his memory. Kreacher was never allowed to clean it afterwards and I never came in here myself out of respect, I guess. Your brother must have written this very shortly before he passed."

Sirius nodded, accepting the answer and, taking a deep breath, he removed another ball of crumpled parchment from the basket, spreading it open carefully. First came one, than another, some with more frustrated handwriting, others with a calmer sort.

Dear Sirius,

I am sure you will consider this letter unwelcome after…

Dear Sirius,

You must find it odd that I'm writing to you after all these years. I need your help…

Dear Sirius,

You were right…

Dear Sirius,

I'm sorry…

He read draft after draft, trying to piece the words together into a reasonable reason for his brother to be trying to contact him. He had his suspicions, though, and was almost certain it concerned the Horcrux Regulus had stolen. Finally, when he reached the last piece of parchment, he found something that sounded coherent at the least – the closest thing to an actual letter, although the fact that it was crossed off too showed Regulus hadn't been satisfied with it either.

Dear Sirius,

I feel you are the only person in the world I can trust enough to discuss this with.

For a long time, I've been feeling I have made a mistake by joining the Dark Lord and now I have found an upsetting truth about his plans, which are much darker than any of us could suspect.

I cannot tell you of it on this letter as the risk that it could be intercepted is too great, so I beg you to use any leftover faith you have in me and meet me at…

The message was left unfinished there, to his frustration. Questions filled his mind, then. Why hadn't he finished it? Why hadn't he sent it? The most troubling of all, though, was the one that came next. Would he have gone in the first place? Would he have trusted his brother enough to accept meeting him? He honestly couldn't answer that without a doubt in his mind. He just couldn't.

"You would have helped him," Mia answered for him seconds later. He looked at her sharply, disbelieving and wondering how on earth she knew what he was thinking. She rolled her eyes for a second, easily spotting his puzzlement and showing him the letter she'd taken from him at some point, during his thoughts. It wasn't a big leap from there into guessing what was going on in his mind.

"I'm not sure of that myself – how can you possibly be?" he asked in return.

"Because sometimes only an outsider can give you answers about yourself," Mia told him. "I'm not saying you'd have leaped into it. You'd probably not accept meeting him right away. But eventually… You wouldn't have just rejected your brother – you're not that sort of person."

He looked at her for several seconds, taking her words in. "Sometimes I wonder if you know me better than myself."

"Maybe I do," she replied, smiling a little. "I'm starting to wish I'd met him, you know? Regulus."

"You did," Sirius replied. "You went to school with him."

Mia shook her head. "Not this Regulus," she told him, giving him back the letter, now neatly folded, and then a kiss on the cheek. "You said it yourself."

"I did, didn't I?" he mumbled, huffing and shaking his head. "That bloody idiot went and stole a Horcrux on his own. It's starting to make a whole lot of sense – why Voldemort had him killed. I always wondered what he'd done to get that…"

"He took a stand," Mia said. "And you realize what that means, don't you?"

"He wasn't a complete prick in the end of it, I know…"

Mia shook her head. "No, not that," she told him. "Sirius, your brother stole a Horcrux. He stole a Horcrux and he lived in this house. It could be here. That Horcrux could be right here, even in this room."

Sirius frowned. "You're saying…" he looked around, trying to spot anything glaringly suspicious. "It's possible we've been living with that thing for years?"

"Well, if it were you, wouldn't you want to put it somewhere you knew, somewhere you felt safe in? This might have not been your home back then but, from what you've told me, it certainly was his," Mia stated.

Sirius huffed. "Not a very creative place, though… I suppose I'll give it a try." He reached for his wand, removing it from his pocket, and raised it. "Accio Horcrux," he said, pointing his wand around the room. He waited a second… then another. Nothing happened. Huffing, he lowered it in frustration. "Well, that would have been too easy, wouldn't it?"

"Defenitely," Mia agreed.

"This is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack. This room, not to mention the house, house has about a year's worth of searching and that's assuming Voldemort didn't take it back when he killed Reg… or that the real locket wasn't thrown away when you moved into the house. It's painfully clear you've done a lot of cleaning here…"

"No, if it was in this house, it couldn't have been thrown away," Mia said, though she couldn't be completely sure. "We allowed Kreacher to take everything he felt attached to and put it in the attic – jewelry, clothing… even your mother's portrait."

"Wait, my mother's portrait is still in this house?" Sirius asked in disbelief.

Mia nodded – she supposed she'd forgotten to mention that detail… "We found this large crate to put it in… it has a heavy silent charm on it so it won't bother people down here. Kreacher takes care of it, as far as I know – goes in there, soothes the old mistress… I don't know, he just wanted to keep it. It was hard enough to get him to take it off the wall… eventually, we convinced him that having strangers around would just upset the portrait. And, well, the fact that it kept calling rather unflattering names in the lines of 'bastard' to Izzy, whom he'd gotten rather fond of, helped convincing him it was the best for everyone if his old mistress retired to the attic…"

"It would have been even better if she'd retired to the lit fireplace," Sirius mumbled under his breath.

"Nice try… the portrait was indestructible and permanently stuck to the wall. Just be thankful we had Kreacher to work around it and that you don't have to greet her every day at the entrance hall. But, back to the locket Horcrux, Kreacher adored Regulus, didn't he? He would have never thrown something so important to your brother away. If anything, he…" She paused, her face illuminating itself. "Kreacher would have kept it close. You know what, if anyone here knows where to find that Horcrux, it's…"

Sirius was out the door, stalking his way down the stairs before she could finish her sentence – apparently, her husband hadn't even thought of just summoning the house-elf, heading downstairs to meet him instead.

He reached the living room in a matter of seconds, where the kids had apparently settled in by them. Alex was nowhere to be seen, which lead Sirius to momentarily assume either Mia or one of the kids had taken the boy upstairs to his bed while he'd been hiding in his brother's room.

"Sirius," Harry said, standing up – Regulus's locket in his hand before he dropped it into his pocket – as soon as he saw his godfather at the door. "Are you okay?" he asked, just as his friends joined in with a ton of other questions, some concerning his well-being, others about the Horcrux.

Either way, Sirius ignored them all. "Where's Kreacher?" he simply asked

"Kreacher?" Ginny asked, confused.

"Yes, where is him?"

Harry shrugged. "He left a few minutes ago."

"Something about having to polish the silverware…" Izzy absently provided, her mind rather lost in her earlier… epiphany. Later she'd feel a bit guilty at having drifter through such an important conversation because she'd been so lost with her own stupid issues.

Dining room, Sirius easily guessed from his daughter's remark, already motioning towards the door before Mia grabbed his arm, stopping him. "What?" he asked her.

"What? Merlin's beard, Sirius. Stop running frantically all over the house after Kreacher – at the rate you're going, you'll just fall down the stairs and break your neck! Isn't it much easier to just summon him here, where every person of interest in this matter is?" she remarked, raising before her husband had a chance to respond. "Kreacher?" she called. "Can you come here?"

The house-elf materialized right opposite the sofa that Harry and Ginny happened to be sharing, a silver platter in one hand and cleaning rag in the other. "Mistress called for Kreacher?"

"Yes, Kreacher, I did," she replied, giving Sirius a look that clearly said 'see how much simpler it can be?'. He shrugged in return, sitting on the arm of the sofa Harry and Ginny shared.

"We need to ask you something," Sirius informed him as the kids remained silent, watching the scene. "About my brother, Regulus."

Kreacher's thin lips pursed, showing a series of wrinkles around them. "Young Master Regulus be gone for a long time," he stated in an almost protective matter, sprinkled with genuine grief. "Young Master's memory should be left alone."

Sirius gave him an angry look. "Don't even think of getting started with the accusations. No one here's planning to trash his memory!"

"Sirius, he's just being protective," Mia told her husband, touching his arm softly, sitting by Harry's side after her godson had made room for her. "I think we should establish, first of all, that we're not trying to accuse anyone of anything here. We just need your help at finding something of his – it's very important, Kreacher."

Kreacher looked at her for a long moment before saying anything. "Kreacher try and help mistress as much as he can."

"Thank you. Now, we're looking for…" she paused and turned to Harry. "Maybe you should describe it yourself – you're the only one of us who's actually seen it before."

Harry nodded, turning to the house-elf. "It's a locket. A heirloom, made of heavy gold with an 'S' branded on it. The 'S' is actually a serpent, by the way. And it's shaped more or less like…" he said, reaching for his pocket and removing the fake locket "… this one."

Kreacher's eyes, already wide-open during the description, managed to open even wider at the sight of the locket. It was about a couple of seconds after he'd first seen it that fat tears started to fall down from those huge eyes and the elf started sobbing uncontrollably.

"Kreacher?" Hermione asked, concerned.

"Kreacher failed his orders!" he yelled, his voice much louder than anyone would find possible, bearing in mind his size. And suddenly, before anyone could try to comfort him, Kreacher lifted the silver platter he was still holding and, to everyone's disbelief hit himself on the head with it, very nearly knowing himself out.

"Kreacher!" Hermione yelled.

The whole commotion with Kreacher hitting himself seemed to be enough to make Izzy drift back from her thoughts. "What the hell?" she mumbled. "Kreacher, stop that!" she ordered, narrowly beating her parents and her brother to it. The house-elf froze mid-movement while he tried to strike himself with the silver platter once again.

"Merlin's pants, he's lost it!" Ron yelled in disbelief at what he'd just seen.

"What did we tell you about hitting yourself, Kreacher?" Mia demanded, her face covered with shock as she took the silver patter away from him, absently passing to Harry, who passed it to Ginny, who passed it to Hermione and then to Ron – the latter just sat awkwardly, not sure of what to do with the piece of dinnerware on his lap, ending up shoving it into a basket that sat by the sofa full of old newspapers. "For Merlin's sake, never do that again!" Mia warned the house-elf.

"But Kreacher failed…"

"Failed what?" Sirius demanded. "What orders did you fail? Whose?"

"Young Master Regulus's!" Kreacher said, sobbing. "He… he ask Kreacher to keep the locket safe but… but… it be gone. Slimy thief take it! Kreacher know he did!"

Mia leaned forward, slightly closer to the house-elf. "Kreacher calm down. Tell us: what thief are you talking about? Who took the locket?"

Kreacher sniffed and sobbed some more. "M… Mundungus Fletcher."

"Mundungus Fletcher?" Harry asked, confused. "How did he ever get in here?"

Sirius shook his head… "No idea. I can't rem…" He paused, then, as the memory of it hit him. "The order meeting. We held a meeting here at home. Moody went upstairs to the attic to reset the wards for us – he didn't want to let Fletcher out of his sight so he took him along…"

The house elf made some sort of choking sound like he was repressing an urge to sob some more. "Slimy thief steal Master Regulus's locket and old Mistress's jewellery and the Order of Merlin, first class…" This time, he didn't even try to hide another sniff.

"Are you sure it was him?" Mia asked softly. "That you didn't just put those away somewhere else?"

Kreacher shook his head. "Kreacher never move old masters' precious things – he think they be safe in the attic. But then Mundungus Fletcher came and… they be gone! All gone! Stollen!"

"Merlin, but that was weeks ago!" Sirius said. "Why didn't you say something? No one gets away with stealing stuff from this house – not even your stuff!"

Kreacher looked at him with wide eyes. "Kreacher's?"

Sirius looked away, trying not to make it seem like a big deal "Do I look like I want anything to do with my mother's jewellery? Or some Order of Merlin first class my grandfather won by bribing the ministry with buckets of gold? Anyway, as far I care, that stuff's yours. Still doesn't make it right that some petty thief would come around a steal it!"

"Why didn't you tell us, Kreacher?" Mia repeated the question.

"Kreacher be ashamed!" the house-elf said, sobbing yet another time afterwards. "Kreacher try to find thief but he be gone too. Kreacher can't find him!" He sniffed again. "Kreacher lose forever locket Young Master Regulus die to get! Kreacher fail Young Master!"

There was a moment of silence after that. The air became suddenly heavy.

"Died to get?" Sirius asked, breaking the silence. "I thought Voldemort had him killed afterwards…"

Kreacher shook his head several times. "No. No, Young Master never make it out of cave… he… he… he sacrifice himself to get locket. He save Kreacher." He paused and sniffed, then. "A very brave boy, Young Master… Very kind to Kreacher."

Harry cleared his throat and turned to his godparents. "Maybe it would help if he… told us the whole story how Re…" he hesitated, turning to Sirius. "How everything happened… every detail is important."

Sirius nodded, turning to Kreacher. "Tell me what happened to me brother." He paused for a second, then, and spoke again. "Please."

Kreacher eyed his current master strangely – 'please' rarely was in the vocabulary either used around each other. Yet, after a moment he did as requested: he told the story and praised his old master like one would praise a hero… Told them how Voldemort had requested a house-elf to help him hiding the Horcrux, how he'd suffered through the potion and nearly died to assist the dark lord, only having made it home thanks to Regulus's orders. Then, the house elf continued, telling them how worried Regulus had become after having been told of what had happened in the cave and later requested that Kreacher took him back there only to sacrifice himself by taking the potion so Kreacher could switch the Horcrux with the other locket and escape. In the end, the only thing Kreacher had been unable to do was destroying the Horcrux.

"So, the inferi in the lake…" Sirius mumbled, his own depiction of the horrifying scene that had led to his brother's death playing impossibly clearly in his mind. No matter how much he tried to keep his thoughts away from it, it would always come… a dark lake, a cold cave, the dead dragging Regulus into the water…

Kreacher looked down. "Kreacher try to escape with Young Master but wards be too strong… They not allow humans to pass, even with House Elves helping. Kreacher's sorry…"

"It wasn't your fault," Mia jumped in his defence. "You did what you could – no one can blame you." She turned to Sirius pointedly, hoping he would agree.

"He knew what he was signing up for," Sirius mumbled – now, he understood why his brother had ended up not asking for his help. He probably wouldn't have managed to get away from the cave – between the inability to apparate past the Inferi and the certain unwillingness to leave his brother behind, Sirius was nearly certain he would have met his death at that cave… And just as certain his brother had known it too. Kreacher had been the safest bet, the only bet, taking into account that there was nearly no limit for what a house-elf could do through the binding to its master's will. All of a sudden, he wished Regulus had cowered in the end… at least he would have been alive. Merlin, he missed the guy…

"We're going to make sure he didn't die in vain," Harry announced confidently, making Kreacher's eyes fill with hope. "It's my mission now, Kreacher – having that locket destroyed. We just need to get it back now."

Kreacher narrowed his eyes. "Kreacher will help! He won't rest until he find slimy thief for Young Master Harry and get evil locket back!" He climbed onto the coffee table as if to emphasise his point. "Kreacher will help!" Seconds later, the old house-elf blushed (either that was physically possible or not), climbed down from the table and looked down, embarrassed by his own outburst.

Most of the kids chuckled at that while Mia just leaned her head her husband's side as he sat by her side on the arm of her sofa. She looked up at Sirius and saw him looking absently out the window, very thoughtful. She reached for his hand and entwined their fingers, hoping it would comfort even it only a little. Seconds later, he looked down at her and tried to offer a little brave smile. He was going to be alright – she was sure of it…

"You're all so nice to Kreacher," Hermione whispered to Harry as she leaned forward from her own seat, her house-elves-defender's heart genuinely touched. "I just don't understand… why don't you allow him to be a free elf? I'm sure he'd still st…"

"Free Kreacher?" the house elf said, quickly recomposed and looking absolutely terrified by what he's just over heard. "No! Mistress… Master… Kreacher be good. Kreacher will not sleep until he find thief! Please…" he begged, turning to Sirius and Mia in complete terror.

"Calm down – no one's going to free you," Sirius told him, rolling his eyes, trying not to sound too concerned. "You're already part of the house's foundations – it would probably just turn into rubble without you haunting it every day…"

Mia nodded. "We need you around this house, Kreacher. You don't have to worry about being sent away and you most certainly won't get yourself sleep deprived to find Mundungus Fletcher – that's an order, by the way. Now, could you do me a favour and go check keep an eye on Mary? She should be waking up soon…" It soothed him, Mia knew, looking after the children. He positively adored them, especially the youngest ones, with whom she knew he played shamelessly when he thought nobody was around.

Kreacher looked at Mia – and, for a fraction of a second, even at Sirius – with relieved, thankful eyes before nodding obediently. "Kreacher watch little Miss Mary." And, with that, he disappeared with a soft 'pop'.

"I… I don't understand…" Hermione mumbled.

"Sounds pretty clear to me," Ron replied. "He'd go completely mental if they freed him."

"Ron is right, Hermione. He's been here for too long,– his whole life," Mia told her. "The thought of being freed… it's too much for him, even though he could still live with us. I did propose freeing him when we moved in and his reaction… well, it wasn't this bad, but it was still… disconcerting. This is his home as much as it is ours. And I like to believe he sees us as family too… We treat him as a friend…" she turned to Sirius and gave him a disapproving look "…mostly."

Sirius huffed. "Oh, don't look at me like that – you know even he would feel like something was missing if the mutual bickering ceased. We'll never be nice to each other just as the sun will never shine at night – it would be unnatural. I'm pretty sure he feels the same."

Ginny looked at him uncertainly. "Hum, so basically you're just fulfilling the role of each other's adversaries, but you actually… care for each other," she concluded. "I'm tempted to channel Lavender Brown and go 'aw'."

"Low blow," Ron mumbled, swallowing hard at the mention of his ex-girlfriend.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sirius assured Ginny, trying to seem clueless as he turned to Harry. "Kid, your girlfriend has the wildest imagination."

"I'm sure she does," Harry mumbled, half grinning at his godfather's denial.

Hermione cleared her throat. "So, I think we should address the main issue here, which is, now that we know he stole the real Horcrux from Kreacher, finding Mundungus Fletcher."

"Kreacher seems eager enough to get his hands on him," Ron observed. "Likely choke himmto death with them too…"

"I'm sure he is and I'd be inclined to encourage him if we didn't need answers, but finding the little rascal is bound to be hard," Sirius stated. "I'm not sure if you've heard the news but Fletcher has been under the grid for weeks – apparently, he decided to pull some sort of complex heist and then double-crossed his crew just to run away with everything they stole… He's not only running from the crew itself but also from the aurors."

"Well, at least we're not the only ones looking for him," Izzy mumbled, only half-paying attention. "That's a plus."

"A plus? If the aurors are the first to get their hands on him, he won't be of much use locked up in Azkaban," Harry countered.

"And he'll be of even less use of his crew beats them to him and wipes, well, the life out of him. Literally," Sirius pointed out as his daughter distractedly shrugged, still definitely lost in her thoughts of the earlier events of her afternoon.

Mia nodded. "Yes, but I'm sure that if you ever want to find out where the Horcrux is, the Auror department is always a better bet than an angry crew who got double-crossed… We'll go on investigating on our own and so will Kreacher but I'd say the crew and especially the aurors have better resources and better odds at being successful. And that's not particularly terrible – we can't forget that we have a few friendly connections inside the auror department, who can give us a warning it they get a wind of Mundungus Fletcher's whereabouts…"

"Yes, that's probably a good idea," Sirius agreed. "Maybe Kingsley will go along with it if, you know, you reach him through the right connections," he said, hinting at Mia to talk Elizabeth into convincing (maybe even seduce) her fiancé into helping them. "Tonks will definitely go along. I'll actually bring it up when I see her nex…" Suddenly, thinking of Tonks and, by extension, her significant other reminded him of something. "Crap. How long 'till sunset?"

"Hum?" Ron mumbled, looking confused.

"It's full moon, Ron," Ginny quickly filled him in.

"Oh," he mumbled.

"I'm not sure – not long, I'd say," Harry pointed out, standing up to look out the window. "Yeah, it's nearly dusk."

His godfather nodded. "Alright. So, I need to go. Hold whatever thoughts you has and we'll finish this conversation some other time," he agreed, standing up too and proceeding to say his goodbyes before heading downstairs to the hall, intending to step out of the house and apparate away.

Before reaching the door, though, he stopped at the entrance hall waiting for Mia to reach him as she clearly had something to say.

She gave her husband a concerned look. "Sirius, this was a difficult day for you… finding all this about your brother, learning how he died… If you don't feel up to go, I'm sure Remus will understand… Tonks has been brewing Wolfsbane for him, after all. He can handle the transformation better that way…"

Sirius shook his head, softly wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her just a little closer. "It's alright, love. Actually, going to assist Moony may be exactly what I need – it will give me plenty of time to… process everything on my own." He reached to press a kiss to her forehead and then forced a smile, trying to convince her he was fine. "Moony says I get rather philosophical in my dog form."

"Don't you play strong with me," Mia warned him. "Just promise me you won't blame yourself again."

He huffed. "I'll try," he offered before capturing her lips softly into a tender 'see you later' kiss. Feeling she didn't really stand a chance at changing his mind, Mia let herself fall into the kiss without hesitation, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling his lips even closer.

Seconds passed before they broke apart and Sirius placed a last kiss on her forehead. "I'll see you in the morning. Try not to miss me too much."

She gave him a little smile. "Always do. And you – try not to over-think things too much," she advised.

He had to chuckle as he headed to the door. "Says the kettle to the pot, my lovely queen of all over-thinkers."

She frowned a little as he closed the door – he might have a point there and, Merlin, did that annoy her…

Turning around, she looked up the stairs and raised an eyebrow when she saw Izzy standing there looking down like she'd just been closely scrutinizing her parents' display of affection. Usually, at being clearly caught watching them, Izzy would have made some sort of mocking remark about public displays of affection, yet, that time, she just stood there and sighed. That had Mia furrowing her brows as she made her way up the stairs, sensing something was going on.

"And what's with you this afternoon?" Mia asked her daughter, approaching her. "You look troubled."

Izzy blushed a little but tried to hide it with a shrug. "I'm just feeling a little distracted today," she lied because she really, really didn't want anyone else obsessing with her over her newfound… fancying situation with George. Stupid George and his stupid charms, she thought for the hundredth time that afternoon. Stupid me! "Distracted and dim, apparently," she mumbled.

Mia gave her a suspicious look. "Alright, what happened, sweetheart?"

That wasn't good – Mum knew she was up to something. Odds were she wouldn't leave her alone until she knew what it was… "Somehow, I let Fleur make me one of her bridesmaids." It's wasn't a lie, was it? Just a half-truth to shift her mother's attention from the real issue at hand.

Her mother's face softened immediately. "Honey, that's not a bad thing. Fleur's a bit… enthusiastic, yes… but I'm sure you'll look lovely as a bridesmaid…"

Izzy groaned. "Yeah, so I've been told," she mumbled under her breath before walking away without another word, leaving her mother in the middle of the hallway, looking at her with raised eyebrows.

Something was definitely going on with that girl, Mia concluded… Before she could try to investigate further, though, something – or rather someone – else required her attention.

"Aunt Mia?" she heard Harry calling as he exited the living room, making his way to her. "Do you figure Sirius wants to keep this for himself?" he inquired, showing her the locket.

She gave him a doubtful look. "I don't think so – Sirius was never one for heirlooms. Maybe you should just ask him when he comes back," she told him. "Why, do you need it?"

He shook his head. "I was thinking that maybe we could give it to Kreacher… Regulus would have wanted him to have it as a token to thank him for, well, everything he did."

Mia smiled at him. "I think that's a lovely idea," she agreed. "He deserves it, doesn't he?"

Harry nodded. "He helped a lot today – if it wasn't for everything he told us, we'd have no idea where to even start looking for that Horcrux…"

Yes, they'd taken a step further that day thanks to Sirius's discovery and Kreacher's testimony. Sure, it wasn't a leap – they still had no idea where Mundungus Fletcher was… but a step was a step and, that point, any step forward was welcome.

She simply had to hope the next one would be a larger one or else it would be a long time before they reached the finish line.

A/N: Well, not much more to say! I hope you have a great Easter full of joy (and chocolate too). If you're wondering about the Izzy/George situation, check the outtake I posted last week. Feedback is welcome! Review!

P.S: I finally got my driver's license (third time is the charm!)