Standard Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this story; they all belong to JK Rowlings. This is a work of fan fiction, produced solely for enjoyment. No infringement of rights is intended.

– CHAPTER TWENTY ONE –

Chivalrous Acts and Rewards

'Harry, wake up! I think I've found something!'

Harry's eyes flew open, and he straightened himself quickly in his chair, wiping his eyes hurriedly.

'What is it Hermione?' He looked up at her, and noticed that she was bouncing on the balls of her feet in excitement. 'Whatever it is, I hope it's more important than last time.'

They'd been in the Library for hours, sifting through old records of old pure-blood families, looking for any hint of an artefact belonging to Ravenclaw or Gryffindor. Every time Harry drifted off to sleep, or so it seemed, Hermione would find some new possibility, only to realise that it had been lost or damaged long before Voldemort's lifetime.

Hermione didn't seem deterred by his impatient tone, and ploughed into a long history of Ravenclaw's dressing habits, showing him designs for dresses that she's apparently worn to this ball or that wedding. 'How in Merlin's name could this possibly be relevant?' Harry thought sleepily, not taking in a word she said. All he wanted to do was curl up in a ball and go back to sleep, which Hermione had been denying him for weeks; apparently she didn't need sleep or a break from research. This was a constant source of irritation for Harry, as she still managed to keep ahead of their ever increasing load of homework and complete all her Head Girl duties, while he had almost given up trying to keep up with the workload.

'Hermione, can we stop for the night?' Harry pleaded. 'I still need to write that essay for Tonks on the Animatus Conjuring Spell.' Hermione looked positively affronted by his interruption.

'Harry, have you listened to anything I just said?' Harry felt his cheeks heat up, and shook his head. Hermione turned away from him for a moment, and clenched her hand a few times, muttering something under her breath. All Harry heard was '… ingrate … just … down … two … five … seven …', but he wisely chose not to open his mouth, and a few moments later, she turned back to him.

'Harry, I think I've found an object that looks very promising.' She said calmly, sitting down before him and placing a heavy volume in his lap. Harry looked down; disbelief etched in his every feature. The book was titled, 'In and out of Fashion for a Millennium'.

'Hermione, wha -'

'At least give me a chance to explain.' She cut in curtly. 'If you'd listened the first time, you'd understand.' Harry shut his mouth, and sat back in his chair, waiting for an explanation to something which seemed totally outlandish; well to him at least. Hermione took a deep breath, before launching into her explanation.

'Did you know that Rowena Ravenclaw was well known for her intelligence and creativity?' Harry nodded uncertainly, not knowing where she was going. 'Well, she was also famous for her beauty, and was constantly being invited to balls as the guest of honour. In March 1026, she was invited by Sebastian of Besançon to a ball in Burgundy to celebrate his capture of a Griffin, which he wanted to train to guard his treasury. At some point during the ball, Ravenclaw decided to go outside, probably to cool down, and while wandering the grounds with her escort, she was attacked by a Graphorn. Her escort managed to draw it away from her, and eventually killed it, although he was gravely wounded in the process.' Hermione had a dreamy look on her face, as if she hoped that someone would do the same for her.

Harry still couldn't guess where the history lesson was going, but refrained from interrupting, as Hermione now had a triumphant look on her face. He was sure she was about to reveal a huge secret, and he wasn't disappointed, when a few seconds later, she almost squealed in excitement.

'And in gratitude guess what she did?' Not waiting for an answer she pressed on. 'She gave him her brooch which she'd been wearing to the ball. It was her favourite ornament, and had her family crest engraved on the back; and you won't believe what he did with it! He gave it to his wife, and ever since, his family has kept it as a family heirloom for every eldest son to give to their wife!'

Harry sat there stunned for a few moments, unable to comprehend the significance of the discovery. 'This could be it,' he thought in wonder, after all, they'd combed through most of the Library and this was the first even remotely possible relic. Everything else they'd found had disappeared centuries ago. Suddenly, Harry jumped up and threw his arms around Hermione.

'You did it! You did it!' He cried in excitement, while she blushed crimson in his arms and laughed happily. Madam Pince hissed at them to keep quiet, but it didn't prevent Harry from whispering excitedly, 'We have to tell Ron!' before realising his mistake.

Hermione was still taking Ron's estrangement very badly, and whenever his name was mentioned in her presence, or she saw him, she would either burst into tears or run off.

In response to his outburst, Hermione stopped laughing and pushed Harry away, picking up her bag and rushing out of the Library. Ignoring Madam Pince's cries of indignation, Harry ran after Hermione, leaving the books spread out on one of the tables. Catching up with her in front of the bathrooms, he spun her around and was momentarily struck silent by her red, swollen eyes.

'Hermione, I'm so sorry. I don't know what made me bring him up; I guess I just got caught up in the moment.' He said, dropping his arms uselessly to his sides. Hermione sniffed and made for the bathroom door again, but Harry stopped her again. 'Before you go in, I just wanted to thank you. I wouldn't have ever found that out on my own. You do know you're brilliant don't you?' Hermione hiccupped and nodded sadly. 'Sometimes I just don't know what I'd do without you, so – thank you.' He pulled her into another hug, but she barely responded, and when he let go, hurried into the bathroom. Just as he was about to turn towards the Common Room, Hermione opened the door again and called after him.

'By the way Harry, I almost forgot. Can you see if you can find the descendants of Ravenclaw's escort? He was called Hengist Meadowes.' Harry nodded, and she closed the door again. He looked at the door for a few minutes, and then headed back towards the Library, where Madam Pince made him put away all the books they had taken out.

By the time he'd finished though, it was almost nine o'clock, and Madam Pince ushered him out despite his protests. He headed back towards the Common Room in a foul mood, but as he was turning onto the seventh floor corridor, he ran into Tonks.

'Wotcher, Harry. How are you doing?'

'I'm alright,' he grumbled.

'Really? You could have fooled me; you look like you've just received a detention. You haven't run into Filch have you?' Harry grinned despite his bad temper.

'No, it's nothing like that. I was trying to do some research and Madam Pince threw me out before I could finish.'

'Ah, I can see how that might be irritating, she did that to me a fair few times when I was here.' Tonks stared into space, a look of recollection on her face. Harry stood there, waiting for her to return to the present, shifting from foot to foot. 'Speaking of research, have you written the essay I set you?' she looked at him piercingly.

'Err, no yet, I've been a bit busy recently. I was going to write it over the weekend.' He replied, his ears heating up a bit.

'Well make sure you get it done Harry, I'd hate to have to give you a detention, although it could be fun. I haven't had to make up a chore in quite a while -' she trailed off, pretending to be in deep thought. Harry grinned.

'Don't worry Professor; I'll have it done by Tuesday.' Tonks laughed merrily at his teasing and walked with him back to the Common Room.

'So what was this crucial research that Madam Pince interrupted? Are you trying to find a cure for scrofungulus?' She joked. Harry hesitated.

He was loath to lie to Tonks, who he liked a lot, but he wasn't sure how much he could risk telling her. After all, Dumbledore had insisted on absolute secrecy, apart from Hermione and Ron of course.

'No, nothing that revolutionary. Hermione was looking into the history of Hogwarts and the founders, you know how she is. Anyway, she came across a pretty amazing story where Rowena Ravenclaw was saved from a Graphorn, and Hermione was completely star struck by the chivalrous saviour.' He chuckled in recollection of her expression. 'So she tried to find out his name, and recognised the family name, but couldn't remember where she'd seen it before. So she asked me to help her find it.' He finished a bit lamely.

He knew he couldn't tell her the whole truth, and so settled for a half truth. 'Anyway, maybe Tonks has heard of the descendants' he thought hopefully. He wasn't looking forward to spending any more time in the Library, and was prepared to risk almost anything to avoid spending another few weeks looking for a descendant who may not even exist.

'So what's the name?' Tonks asked after a long pause.

'Meadowes, I think.'

'Umm, she's right. That name does sound rather familiar. I wonder where I've heard it before.' She mused. They walked in silence as they thought about the elusive surname.

A few moments later, they arrived before the Fat Lady's portrait.

'Well thanks for escorting me Tonks; though I'm sure I could have made it to the end of the corridor by myself without ending up in the Hospital Wing.' Harry joked.

'That's Professor to you, Mr. Potter,' she retorted, 'and we needn't take any risks with you. After all, how many people take the Hogwarts Express and end up stuck on it, bound and with a broken nose?' Harry grimaced.

'You just had to bring that up didn't you?'

'Yes, now get in there before the trolls come and decide to use you for clubbing practise.'

Harry laughed, but didn't bother replying. Climbing through the portrait hole, he waved back to her.

The following Tuesday at the end of his Transfiguration lesson, Harry hung back to talk to Tonks. He and Hermione had had little luck with their research since finding out about the brooch. There weren't many records that mentioned the Meadowes, and the family seemed to have vanished during the Black Plague; but Harry had insisted that they hadn't died out.

Hermione persistently asked him why he thought the family still existed, but he couldn't answer. It was just an irritating thought at the back of his mind that kept telling him that he'd heard of them; and although he hadn't told Hermione about his conversation with Tonks, if she had heard of them too, then it couldn't just be a figment of his imagination.

He wasn't sure why he hadn't told Hermione about his conversation with Tonks, but he felt that she'd say that if he could trust Tonks enough to tell her, he should tell Ginny. But Harry knew that if he told Ginny part of it, he'd end up telling her everything, and he knew with absolute certainty that she'd want to go with them, and that was something he couldn't allow.

Waiting until the room had emptied, he walked over to Tonks, who was tidying the pile of essays that the class had handed in.

'Tonks, I was wondering if you'd remembered where you heard of the Meadowes', because Hermione and I haven't found anything yet.' Tonks looked up and frowned for a moment before her face broke into a grin.

'No, but I asked Remus when I saw him over the weekend.' She blushed a bit at this, but Harry chose to ignore the insinuation; if Remus knew a Meadowes, Harry didn't care what he did at the weekend. 'Anyway,' she pushed on, 'apparently there was a Dorcas Meadowes in the Original Order, but she never married and didn't have any children, so she was the last one.' Harry had a vague memory of a conversation with Moody at Headquarters, but couldn't really remember what it was about.

'Did he know what happened to her?' Harry asked hesitantly. Something about the way Tonks had said that she was in the Order struck Harry as unusual, and he doubted that he truly wanted to find out. Tonks grimaced.

'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named killed her personally, poor thing. She never stood a chance. Apparently he showed up at her home, murdered her, and then apparated to Hogsmeade with a large group of Death Eaters and proceeded to kill anyone that didn't Apparate away. That was one of the worst massacres of the First War.' She shivered. 'I was really young when that happened, but I still vaguely remember my mum talking about it. It was all over the Prophet for weeks afterwards, about the Ministry trying to fix the damage, heal the wounded, find the dead. It was horrible.'

Harry barely took in what she was saying though. Dorcas had been the last Meadowes, and Voldemort had killed her personally just before one of the worst massacres of the war. All the evidence pointed towards the possibility that the brooch still existed and had been used as a Horcrux. Hadn't Dumbledore said that Voldemort reserved the process of making Horcruxes for particularly important deaths? Surely that massacre would count? The only problem was that Hermione had said that it was handed down to the eldest son for their wife, but surely, Harry reasoned with himself, if she had been her parents' only child she would have inherited it. Well, he thought so anyway.

All of a sudden, a voice penetrated his thoughts.

'Harry, are you alright?' Snapping out of his musings, he focused on Tonks, who was watching him suspiciously.

'Yeah, I'm fine thanks; I just switched off for a second there.' He mumbled, blushing a bit. Tonks laughed.

'It was a bit more than a second Harry; you were phased out for almost a minute. Speaking of which,' she said, frowning and looking at her watch, 'shouldn't you be at dinner? You're teaching the larger group today aren't you?' Harry nodded, the DA classes had been going well, the group had improved in leaps and bounds, and Harry had already sent a few of the better students to the advanced group. 'Well you'll be needing your food then, they're a difficult group to teach. Now, off you go!' Harry grinned, and hurried out the room, Tonks never believed him when he told her that he enjoyed teaching the DA.

She didn't particularly like teaching, preferring to be out on active duty, and had only agreed to teach because she'd been ordered to. The main reason was to help protect Hogwarts, although the fact that McGonagall needed someone to teach Transfiguration instead of her helped convince the Aurors too.

Harry found Hermione and Ginny talking quietly over their dinner, and rushed over to join them. Hermione asked him where he'd gone as soon as he sat down, but he just told her that he'd tell her later, not wanting to divulge anything in such a public space.

After dinner, Harry literally dragged Hermione up to his dormitory, and sealing the door behind him, recounted the story Tonks had told him. Hermione sat back on his bed, and bit her lip anxiously.

'I'm not sure about this Harry; it does seem like a strong possibility, but surely if the Meadowes' didn't have a son that generation, it would have been kept in a vault or something to be given to the next eldest son. They wouldn't have broken tradition just because they didn't have a son that generation, we're talking about an ancient wizarding family after all -' she mused. Harry paced impatiently before her.

'But surely all the evidence points towards it Hermione, Voldemort went to her home and murdered her, and then goes off and massacres half of Hogsmeade. Why would he bother going to kill her first if it wasn't to get Ravenclaw's brooch?'

'Well, he could have thought the same thing as us and gone to find it -'

Harry sat down on the bed next to her, looking at her pleadingly. 'Come on Hermione, we've been looking for weeks, and nothing has come anywhere near as close to being as promising. What else could Ravenclaw have left behind? Unless of course, if she made a habit of being saved by chivalrous wizards.' He added, grinning suggestively.

Hermione smiled softly and shook her head.

'No Harry, I think you're right. This has to be the Horcrux. After all, there's only one known relic of Gryffindor's, how many of Ravenclaw's possessions could possibly still exist?' She asked rhetorically. Harry smiled, and stood up.

'Well if that's settled, all we have to do is find where he would have put it, but right now, I'm late for my DA class. See you later Hermione.' He unsealed the door, and was about to open it, when Hermione called after him.

'Harry, where did you find out about Meadowes' story? I don't remember it being in any of the records we looked through, did you have a look through the school records without me?' Harry turned back to her and looked at his feet, mumbling something incoherently. 'Sorry, I didn't hear you,' she said, leaning forward, 'what was that?' Suddenly, a flash of inspiration passed through Harry, and he looked up.

'I thought I'd heard of the name before, but I couldn't place it until yesterday. I remember Moody showing me a picture of the Original Order a few years ago, and he mentioned a Meadowes' being a member, so I owled him, and I got the reply today.'

Hermione frowned, 'I don't remember Hedwig arriving this morning -' Harry panicked for a second.

'Oh yeah, she arrived after breakfast while you were in Herbology.' He replied quickly. Hermione eyed him suspiciously for a moment, but relaxed, and picking up her bag, made for the door.

'Come on Harry, you should be in your class, and I need to go speak to Professor McGonagall about the prefect patrols. They're all complaining that the patrols are too long and time consuming, and they are right, really. I'm barely keeping up with all the homework we're getting.'

They continued discussing the unfair lengths of time which prefect duties took up while they made their way down to the Common Room, but quickly parted ways outside the Fat Lady. Harry watched as Hermione hurried off towards McGonagall's office, waiting until she was out of sight before running down the corridor to the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, where his students were waiting for him impatiently.