Chapter Fourteen

It took place in a Muggle pub in a busy section of London that did not pay attention to strangers. London was a busy city, a melting pot of cultures that was stirred by speeding cars, camera-happy tourists, and a staggering number of historians. Four unfamiliar faces sitting down for a few pints in one of its many pubs went entirely unnoticed.

Harry still had his Australian identification card that showed his age at twenty-one and well old enough to drink, but the barman barely looked at him before serving him and certainly didn't ask for proof of age. He'd offered to try to get a false ID for Hermione, but she was disinclined to drink in either case. Sirius was disinclined to do this sober and promised to drink enough to make up her share. The three of them had plenty of Muggle clothes to choose from, so they didn't stand out as they found a table and waited. Harry wasn't worried about their fourth member standing out, but he was slightly curious as to where he might obtain Muggle clothes.

When Snape walked in, Harry almost missed him. Partly it was the way the button-down and slacks took away his ability to swoop in and look imposing, and it was also partly that Voldemort's pride and attention to appearance had forced the man to look more polished and less like a greasy git. It also had a lot to do with the fact that he no longer radiated the attitude of a bitter curmudgeon and now displayed the symptoms of a haunted man on the run—sort of like Sirius when Harry had first met him. But still, there couldn't be two men walking into this pub that had that sallow face and gigantic nose, could there?

Snape sat at their table without a glance to the bar. He obviously wanted to get this over with quickly. Sirius shook his head and pushed the beer he'd given Hermione for the sake of appearances across the table.

"Don't stand out," he warned the other professor.

Snape glared down at the drink and then at Harry.

"I assume you realise how difficult it was for me to come here without suspicion, and I therefore assume that we are not here for a friendly chat over lunch."

Harry let out a deep breath and suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. "Just trying to get you killed, sir," he said flippantly. "Start drinking before people wonder what you're up to."

Snape took a very grudging drink.

"All right, Harry," Sirius said, "what's this all about?"

Harry shrugged. "I reckon we'll only get to do this once before we're caught, so we need to share as much information as possible right now."

"Why now?"

"Because we don't have time to waste, obviously," Harry said impatiently. He looked at Snape. "Are you going to be headmaster this year?"
Snape nodded. "It will be my duty to rid the school of its undeserving Muggleborns," he said dispassionately. It gave no indication how he felt about this task.

"If I stay at the school where they can find me, you'll be forced to fire Sirius?"

Snape almost smiled. "I think it would not be by force."

Harry again suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. "But I'm likely to get snatched out of my bed one night and taken to Voldemort, yeah?"

Snape nodded again.

"And if I leave the school and hide, Sirius will get taken?"

"If you are so capable of discerning the outcome on your own, why am I here?"

"Because we're planning the end of this damn war, that's why," Harry said in an almost pleasant voice. "We kind of need to cooperate on this, don't you think?"

What Snape may have thought went unanswered, since Harry didn't give him time to do so.

"It means Sirius and I will both have to leave the school, doesn't it?"

Now Snape looked surprised, as if the idea that they would both flee had not occurred to him. "To avoid either of you being captured, it is the course I would recommend."

Sirius looked angry at this idea. "Now, hold on a minute, here—"

"Sirius," Harry said quietly. "You know we have to do this. It's not like you won't have other things to occupy your time."

Sirius slugged down the rest of his drink and looked longingly at the bottom of the glass. "Remus has been worried about Simon's education, I suppose that's something I could do. And . . . other people's education might need guidance." He made a face at that.

Snape had no idea what Sirius was talking about, and obviously did not care. "And what is it that will occupy your time, Potter?"

"The task Dumbledore gave me," Harry answered. That was all he planned to say about it to Snape. "I hope that it won't take me too long, but I'll need at least a month or two."

Snape looked grave. "Be certain, Potter. Too much time, and the Dark Lord will have grasped enough power that we will no longer be able to take it back from him."

Harry nodded. "I know."

Sirius suddenly sat forward in his chair. "Oh, Severus, there's something you need to know. Minerva and I made Neville Longbottom the Head Boy this year. Try to leave him there, would you? If I can't be there to offer some protection from the standards you're going to enforce, those kids are going to need somebody they can go to."

Snape sneered at that, but seemed to be thinking about it.

"We made Veronica Vanderlay Head Girl," Sirius said almost casually. "Reckon that makes Neville less of a problem for you."

Snape gave a careful nod. "We shall see."

Harry was giving Sirius a curious look. "You didn't tell me you were going to do that," he muttered, but that was the extent of his comments and complaints on the topic. He leaned back and snaked his arm around Hermione, who'd been suspiciously quiet. "That's all from me. I'm disappearing, Sirius is disappearing, and you're headmaster. Anything we need to know from you?"

Snape gave him a cold look. He was obviously itching to say something snarky but useless and was at war with the knowledge that he couldn't waste this meeting.

"Persecution of Muggleborns is going to become far more open," he said at last. "We are already infiltrating the Ministry, and Hogwarts is the only institution that could stand up to the Ministry before now. Since I am put at its head, I will be expected to cooperate with my counterparts in the government. Things will devolve quickly. If you expect to not get captured, you cannot rush to the rescue in some foolhardy fashion when you hear reports of these things, despite your inclination for such."

Harry was puzzled. "I'm not much for foolhardy rescues."

"What on earth do you call what you did in the Department of Mysteries?" Snape asked in a silky voice.

"Tactics," Harry said without concern. "I wanted Voldemort to think I was an idiot. Seems to have worked. Of course, I was also trying to hold him there until enough people showed up to capture him or at least confirm his return, and that worked out pretty well, too. Oh, and you notice how much power Lucius Malfoy has lost since he's had to scramble to stay out of jail? I thought I did pretty good for being a fool rushing into a dangerous situation."

Snape just glared at him.

"Okay, I think we're all on the same page," Harry said brightly. "Anyone want another drink before we say goodbye?"

He received two glares, and Hermione still didn't break her strange silence to respond with her normal dismissal of his more absurd ideas. Snape stood up and departed without another word, but Harry jumped up to follow him. He gripped the man's arm, hard. Lucky he couldn't get hexed out here in front of Muggles.

"We're going to win," Harry said in a low, rough voice. "I'll make sure of it. Just stay alive, okay?"

Then he released Snape and went back to their table.

"We ready to go?"

Sirius and Hermione got up immediately, neither of them looking particularly happy.

"What was the point of all this?" Sirius growled.

Harry shrugged. "I was giving Snape time to prepare for our disappearance. I'd rather he not get found out as a spy and killed while we still need him. And I know you, Sirius. You'd never have quit if you didn't hear from Snape personally that he was going to fire you, anyway."

They walked in silence until they found a nice, deserted alley to Apparate in, and they returned to Grimmauld Place. Hermione took Harry aside when he made to follow Sirius upstairs to check on Simon.

"Why did you want me there?" Hermione asked him curiously. "I didn't want to say anything because I had no idea why I was invited."

Harry was almost as confused as she was. "Well, you needed to be part of the meeting, of course."

"You could have told me about it later."

"But you should be involved in the planning, since it's about your life as much as mine."

"It is?"

"Hermione, I'm not going to be able to stay here in London," Harry said softly, drawing her into his arms. "I thought you knew that."

She was stiff against him. "Where are you going?"

"I haven't quite figured that out yet," he admitted. "But I knew better than to think you'd let me go without you."

"Darn right," she muttered, feeling choked up and pressing her face into his shoulder.

"Since I knew you'd be coming with me, I didn't think it was fair to leave you out of the meeting."

Hermione nodded her acknowledgement. "Thank you, Harry."

He kissed the top of her head. "Are you hungry? Do you want me to cook you something?"

She shook her head. "No. Let's just finish sorting out those books."

Harry sat silently at the kitchen table, the fake locket and the mysterious note in front of him. He had one hand wrapped around a mug of coffee, but he'd quite forgotten it was there. He was Thinking.

Hermione had been looking up all the names she could find that might contain the initials "R.A.B." They had agreed it was someone that Voldemort at least had a passing acquaintance with, so she was looking at everyone he might have known in the Ministry and Hogwarts prior to his first downfall, and everyone in the Order whom they could find by name. She'd found, in essence, nothing. Granted, there were a couple of people with those initials, but the connection was so ludicrous that they were dismissed.

Someone's footsteps were in the hallway, and Harry immediately swept the objects into his lap and grabbed the mug of coffee with both hands. He lowered his head over it and tried to appear to be too distracted to look up.

"Harry?" Sirius asked in a cautious voice. "Did you just hide something from me?"

Harry looked up. "Oh. No. Well, yes, but it's only because I don't want to take a chance on Simon seeing it."

"He's in his room. Slowly going mad, I think."

Harry held the locket up by its chain. "Have I really not showed this to you, yet?"

Sirius frowned. "That's it, then? The fake?" He seemed hesitant to take it, though Harry was holding it out.

"Yeah. Thought you'd already seen it, sorry."

"I wasn't too keen to start asking you questions about anything surrounding that night, until you were ready."

Harry shrugged, and the motion looked irritated. "This is important, and I know how to compartmentalize emotion. Obviously not as well as I thought I did. Anyway, here's this, as well." He pushed the note across the table.

Sirius took it, looked at it, and blinked in a very strange, startled way. He looked at it more closely. His eyes became wide and confused.

"Harry?" he said, his voice disconcertingly small. "Why is there a note from my brother in your fake Horcrux?"

Harry shook his head. "What are you playing at, Sirius, it's from— oh. My. God!" He snatched the note back. "Are you sure? Do you recognise the handwriting? I didn't know his middle name! This can't possibly be your brother! You're absolutely sure?"

"Regulus Arcturus Black," Sirius said slowly. "I'm sure. I never knew why he was killed. I always thought of him as this useless, annoying little sycophant, and I thought Voldemort just didn't need him. I never thought he would, well, do something like this."

"He must have turned against Voldemort," Harry said in wonderment. "Voldemort can't have found out about this, or it wouldn't have still been there. He must have done something else, too, must have defied him openly."

Sirius placed his hands flat against the table and stared at them. "If I had known . . ." He looked up. "I would have— maybe I could have— I mean, I already knew how to do it, James and Lily were going into hiding!"

Harry didn't know what he could say. "You didn't know, Sirius. How could you have?"

"I could have spent less time burning bridges behind me, at least!" he growled. "If we had still been speaking—"

"Sirius," Harry said calmly. "Regulus knew whose side you were on, and he knew how well-connected you were. If he'd thought to ask anyone for help, I'm sure it would have been you. But he didn't. That's something he chose, not you."

Sirius took a few deep breaths. "Right. You're right. But I need to know why. I don't even know why he decided to do this, much less why he didn't come to me after. He should have known I would have protected him. Well, after I whalloped him first. But . . ."

"It's likely that you aren't ever going to know his reasons, Sirius. I doubt he wrote them down. Damn," Harry said in sudden disgust, "I was hoping the fellow who did this would still be alive and interested in helping me. Hey, you don't think . . ."

Sirius shook his head firmly. "No. The Death Eaters gave his body back to the family. I wasn't invited to the funeral, nor did I have an inclination to go, but I definitely would have heard about it if they buried an empty casket."

"I didn't know you missed his funeral."

Sirius frowned. "That's because we haven't talked about him in years. Not a very appropriate subject for a ten-year-old, is it?"

"Um, you do remember how much time I spent around prostitutes when I was ten? That's not the point, anyway. I just . . . I'm sad that you didn't get the chance to say goodbye. But this helps, doesn't it? Knowing about this?"

Sirius shook his head, looking bewildered. "Not yet." He picked up the locket again. "Well, you've got a problem, don't you?"

"Who, me?"

"Yeah. How are you going to figure out if he destroyed the real one or not?"

Harry frowned in concentration, then he looked up with a yelp of triumph. "You know how many times I've heard it said that you are nothing compared to your brother, and that Regulus was a hundred times the man you are, and that while you may be a stain on the name of your house, Regulus was a paragon of virtue?"

Sirius raised his eyebrow. "I can only imagine. The damn house elf rarely says anything else when we're in the same— oh. You can't possibly be saying what I think you're saying."

Harry jumped to his feet. "If anyone alive is going to be able to tell us, it's Kreacher." Then a small, seemingly unimportant moment two years past popped into his head. "I just remembered. When we were cleaning out the house, when we first moved here, Kreacher tried to keep a bunch of stuff."

"And he threw an unholy tantrum when we wouldn't let him."

"I let him keep one thing," Harry admitted. "Because he was actually sobbing with anger that I was going to take it away, and I just gave in. It was a locket."

Sirius stood up from the table almost as abruptly as Harry. "He still has it? Krea—"

"No, don't call him!" Harry said hastily. "What if he's in the middle of something? We don't want it to look like an emergency. We should just pop in and see if we can have him for a couple of hours."

Sirius nodded. "Okay."

They both nearly ran for the study's fireplace. But when they were still in the hallway, Harry heard a weird, alarming noise from upstairs. It sounded like a siren that was slowly having its volume turned up. It was a horrible high-pitched whining sound and Sirius covered his ears with a grimace of pain.

"What is that?" he shouted.

Harry, covering his ears, shook his head in response. "I don't know! It's coming from upstairs, it's— oh, no, it's a potion!" he shrieked, and tried to run up the stairs. He only made it halfway before the solid whoompf of an explosion rocked the house, taking him off his feet and throwing him into the air.

"Harry!"

Draco glared at his mother. He struggled to keep his temper in check and his mind tightly reined in, because he had gotten awfully good at a few non-verbal curses and didn't want to accidentally cast one on her. He narrowed his eyes and, once again, mimed writing something. His mother just looked back at him stonily.

"You are ill, Draco, and you will stay in bed and rest, do you understand?"

He gritted his teeth. Next time he woke up with a fever, he was going to keep his big mouth shut about it, he swore to himself furiously. He didn't know what on earth his mother had given him to cure his soaring temperature and aching throat, but it had removed his voice, for at least a few hours. And he didn't like not being able to speak. Not at all. That she had then proceeded to bind him into bed and was refusing to fetch him paper to communicate with, was almost nothing compared to the fact that she'd tricked him into drinking a potion that had taken his voice. He should have known better!

Angry and close to panic, he tried miming again, this time with a rude hand gesture thrown in. He was never anything but flawlessly respectful in his mother's presence, but he was at his wit's end with her.

"No," she said adamantly. "It is bad enough, Draco, that you have put us in this position. You are a turncoat and you have impoverished us and forced us to live in this situation. You are . . . you have become . . . you are blood traitor," she whispered as if in great pain. "And I am trying to live with that. But you are not making it easy for me, with this disgusting way you are trying to curry favour with Harry Potter. You spend as much time with him as you do here, if not more, and it sickens me. And now you are trying to go over there and slave away like a house elf while you are ill. And I won't allow it. I have had enough."

If Draco hadn't been bound to the bed, he might have slapped her, she sounded that much like an idiot. She was obviously living in a world of her own imagination, where she could afford to be arrogant and ignore the obligations they had to their hosts. Draco was either smarter than his mother or just less deluded, but he was almost shocked by the way she was blathering on like their entire life hadn't changed. And now she was calling him a turncoat and a blood traitor? He was enraged. Maybe he was a turncoat. Maybe. But he didn't see how refusing to allow Fenrir Greyback to feast on children made him a blood traitor.

Besides, this was urgent, for Merlin's sake. He didn't have time for her dramatics.

Accio parchment! he thought with desperation. Accio quill!

The objects zoomed into the room, eliciting a shriek from his mother, and he snatched them up, furiously scribbling down his note and thrusting it at her until she agreed to take it.

Stop being a hysterical bitch and let me up! There is a potion at Harry's that should have been checked an hour ago and I can't because you stuck me in this stupid bed!

She was about to respond, looking down at him very coldly, but the door to his room banged against the wall and made her shriek again. There stood Potter, looking extremely grim, with blood dripping down the side of his face and his clothes looking rather singed.

"What," he began in a quiet, and very scary, voice, "just happened?"

Draco winced. He snatched the note from his mother and held it out to Potter, who took it curiously, and immediately turned to Draco's mother with his eyebrows raised.

"He is very ill, and he needs to be in bed," she sniffed, and then glided from the room without another word.

Draco growled and strained against the invisible restraints on his body. He hadn't mastered the art of non-verbally getting free of this charm—it was specifically tailored by the mothers of sick children. Potter held out his wand, and Draco closed his eyes, expecting to be hexed into oblivion as revenge. Instead, nothing happened at all, and he opened his eyes to see Potter giving him an amused, lopsided smile.

"I can see that this wasn't exactly your fault."

Draco nodded vigorously.

"Finite Incantatum," Potter intoned, and Draco was free. He stood up cautiously. "Guilty or no, you're going to come back to the house with me and try to sort out the mess. I wasn't about to try to clean it up when I didn't even know what it was."

Draco sighed and nodded.

"Did she use a tongue-tying curse on you or something?"

Potion, Draco mouthed with exaggerated movements. He clutched his throat and winced.

Potter chuckled as he led the way out of the room. "Maybe she'll tell me what it was. I kind of like you when you can't talk."

Draco tried to swat the other teenager in the back of the head, then remembered Potter had a head injury and tried to stop himself. Not that it mattered. He had spun around and grabbed hold of his wrist to prevent the blow. Draco made a face.

Show off, he mouthed. Then a thought struck him. He exaggerated the movement Potter had just made, and gestured at himself, raising his eyebrows in question.

"You want to learn this stuff?"

Draco nodded.

Potter snorted. "Fat chance. I'm already uncertain about dueling you, see. I am not stupid enough to teach you how to fight me physically as well."

Draco wanted to argue, but the little whuffing noise he managed to make wasn't particularly eloquent. Besides, Potter had a point.

As he walked, Potter clutched at his side and groaned. "Bruised my ribs," he muttered. "Got knocked off the stairs."

Draco let out a wheezy little laugh, which he unfortunately couldn't explain. He just remembered that Potter had explained the injuries he'd arrived with (when he was still Evan) by saying he'd fallen down the stairs at home. He didn't see how Potter managed to sustain so many wounds from the perfectly traditional staircase at Grimmauld Place when the enchanted moving stairs at Hogwarts had never given him any trouble.

Of course, he shouldn't have laughed, because he got punched in the side and ended up doing some groaning and rib-prodding of his own.

They came into the Tonks' sitting room to find that Narcissa was sitting there with her nose turned up and pretending to pay no attention at all to Professor Black. Black, meanwhile, was explaining to Andromeda and Ted that he would like to take Kreacher back to help clean up from the Potions accident.

"He's your elf, Sirius," Andromeda said in exasperation. "You can have him whenever you need him."

Black frowned down at the little elf, who was glaring right back at him. He obviously was not in favour of going with the professor, rather than remaining with the only living member of the Black family who had not got her name blasted off the family tree. Draco could hardly blame him.

"He's got his own mind, hasn't he?" Black said grudgingly. Such as it is, thought Draco. "But Kreacher, we do need your help."

Kreacher puffed up with pride at that.

"You're sure Harry's all right, now?" Ted asked. "We can take a look at him. Goodness knows we've had enough experience with minor injuries after raising Dora."

"I'm fine," Potter said to announce his presence. "I've got some things at home that will fix me up— well, I hope I've things at home." He turned to Draco. "Think anything from the laboratory can be salvaged?"

Draco shrugged, as it was the best he could do without being able to speak. His mother was glaring at both boys, but Potter was so good at ignoring her that Draco tried to do the same. He made to follow Black and Potter and his mother decided to rekindle her irrational maternal fit.

"Where do you think you are going, young man?"

The hell with it, I'm of age anyway, he decided, grinding his teeth, and turned his back on her. Then he pulled up, startled, when he realised he couldn't call out his destination. But Potter saw his problem and yanked him into the fire as it began to suck him in, and they managed to squeeze together close enough that they both survived the journey.

They did jump apart as soon as they landed on the other side, of course. Black was standing there with his mouth open to say something that Draco was quite certain he did not want to hear. He was saved from hearing it by Potter's fist in the older man's gut, which apparently made him think the better of commenting. It just made Draco wish again that he knew how to do that.

It was nearly an hour before Draco and Harry were able to wade into the laboratory itself, as they had to repair the stairs and clean out a path through the heavy spattering of slightly pulsating gray gunk. It was another hour and a half before they were sure that the volatile substances were contained or removed. Luckily, Draco was a fastidious brewer. All his supplies were tightly sealed and the entire room covered by Cushioning Charms that he renewed every day, so nothing had been broken or loosed to mix with the mess that had blown out of the cauldron.

When Harry was sure that the walls were not going to melt and the house was not going to catch on fire, he decided they had earned a quick break. He had grown hot from the work and stripped his shirt off an hour ago, and he now used the shirt to wipe the gunk off the two work stools that remained usable—reflecting (with remorse, as he hated shopping) that he would have to buy some new clothes soon, since he was apt to use them this way. He sank down on one with a sigh and gave Draco a lopsided smile. After identifying the ingredients they were cleaning up, Draco hadn't been terribly helpful, since he was struggling to master cleaning charms non-verbally. At least he hadn't blown the place up for a second time.

He frowned. Draco was very sweaty and grayish-looking.

"Can you talk yet?"

"Yes, I think so. Oh. Yes." His voice was hoarse and barely there. He winced and swallowed audibly.

"So you actually are sick." Harry had wondered, just a little.

Draco rolled his eyes. "My mother might be a bit over-protective, but she's not crazy enough to make that up," he rasped.

"Says the person who called her a hysterical bitch."

Draco closed his eyes and swallowed again, wincing. "She's going to kill me when I get back. I really don't have the energy for her right now."

"So don't go back yet," Harry suggested.

"Obviously not. There's still a good hour of work left to do in here, not to mention the corridor."

"Which you are in no shape to do," Harry observed. He got up and shuffled the bottles on the shelf of finished products, hoping Draco had decided to brew some potions to treat fever.

"Here, what are you doing, Potter? Just tell me what you're looking for, I'll know where it is."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I was going to give something to you, you dolt. You know, because you're sick? Although now I'm thinking I might just pop in on your mum and see if she's got any of that voice-removing stuff left."

Draco just glared at him.

"Look, just take something and go lie down for a while," Harry ordered him. "You're just going to screw things up in here if you try to work."

Draco drew himself up haughtily and opened his mouth. Then he closed it, selected a bottle off the shelf, and retreated from the room. Harry considered the matter settled, and went to find Sirius and Kreacher.

He didn't have to look hard, since they were just finishing up cleaning the hallway and the rest of the stairs. Harry was slightly stunned to see Sirius cleaning, but he had just as much interest in making sure the house didn't melt as Harry, to be fair.

"Oh, good," he said with a slight groan. "I thought I still had hours of work to do."

"And what happened to your chipper little sidekick?"

Harry fought back his laughter. "Oh, please, call him that to his face. I want to be there to see it."

Sirius just rolled his eyes.

"I sent him to rest. He looks awful."

Sirius spoke in a very low voice. "Have we considered the possibility that he did this on purpose? To try to kill us, or you at least?"

Harry shrugged. "It did cross my mind, but . . ." He reached into his pocket for the piece of parchment he'd tucked away when Draco wasn't looking, and handed it to Sirius. "He was actually trying to get here and prevent it, I think."

Sirius frowned at the paper. "You have to be absolutely certain. He can't stay here if you aren't."

"I am."

"Okay," Sirius said slowly, handing the note back. Then a lazy grin broke across his face. "Did you, by any chance, get to see her face when she read that?"

Harry laughed. "Yes."

"I have to see it. We need to borrow that Pensieve from— oh, right. I suppose . . . well, I wonder who has it?"

Harry's smile fell. "I think Neville got most of his things. He gave me a lot of his library, but Neville got the personal effects and everything. Well, not the money, obviously, that went into the scholarship fund. But Neville's probably got it."

Sirius put an arm around Harry's shoulders. "Harry, you don't have to be upset every time Dumbledore comes up in conversation. He had a good life, and there's no reason not to remember him with happiness."

Harry nodded. "Well, except the part where he abandoned me to an abusive foster home and called it for my own good," he said dryly. "Although I was willing to accept he didn't know and work around that."

Sirius' arm had tightened up around him. "Wonder how their new life is working out for them. Do you think it's terrible?"

"You don't have to sound so eager!" Harry laughed.

"Is it too much to hope that they're miserable?"

Harry shook his head. "Me, I just don't care. I have bigger problems than annoying relatives."

Sirius sobered up at that. "True."

They both looked down at Kreacher.

"Come down to the kitchen, Kreacher," Harry said quietly. "I have to ask you a question. Well, after I get a shirt, anyway."

The three of them went down together, and Sirius and Harry cast several wards each to be sure that Draco and Simon would hear nothing. Mostly for Simon's sake. Draco knew better than to push his luck, by now.

"Have a seat, Kreacher," Harry said roughly.

Kreacher plopped down in a chair, looking distinctly displeased.

"We need to talk about Regulus."

Kreacher immediately panicked. "They cannot make Kreacher speak, no they can't—"

"Actually, I can," Harry cut him off. "I don't like to, as you may have noticed. You and I have tried to get along, and I hate ordering you to do anything. But I will. This is too important not to. Will you tell me what you know?"

Kreacher threw himself down on the floor and began screaming. "Won't, won't, won't—"

"Kreacher!" Sirius shouted, getting up and glaring down on the elf.

"No, Sirius," Harry said firmly, getting up himself. "Kreacher, stop screaming!"

The house elf was forced to comply, but he continued to pound his tiny fists and feet against the floor and there were tears streaming down his crooked old face. Harry was hopelessly at a loss for what to do. He felt cold at the idea that he could order Kreacher to do something he was so loathe to do. But he could.

"Kreacher," he said quietly. "I want to help Regulus. I know what he did. I want to finish his task. Will you help me do that?"

The wizened old creature raised up his tear-stained face and stared at Harry.

"Let's all sit back down, shall we?"

By the time the story was finished, Sirius had sunk deeply inside himself and didn't seem to notice where he was or who he was with. Kreacher had been alternately implacable and distraught, having to be coaxed along by Harry at every pause. But finally, they knew everything, and they had not forced Kreacher into it. Harry would have been perfectly happy, if not for the way Sirius sat there with his arms crossed and his eyes disconnected from what he was seeing.

Harry made Kreacher use a handkerchief to wipe his tear-streaked, snot-slimed face, then bade him to get the locket from its hiding place and bring it to him. Kreacher was willing to give him the locket, but rather more dubious abut the handkerchief.

"This is not clothes, is it?" he asked suspiciously. "Master Harry is not to be tricking Kreacher into shameful freedom because of his failure?"

Harry was exasperated. "I told you, you didn't fail, you did great. And I'm not giving it to you, I'm only loaning it."

Kreacher then complied with the request to clean himself up. "Master Harry will be destroying the locket according to the wishes of Master Regulus?" he confirmed, his voice hopeful.

"Yes, Kreacher. If you bring it to me."

Kreacher trotted off to do that, and Sirius slumped in his seat the second that the house elf was out of the room.

"Sirius? You okay?"

Sirius buried his face in his arms and dropped his head to the table. His body began to shake.

"Sirius," Harry said with alarm, coming around the table and putting his hands on the man's shoulder. "Talk to me."

"All this time— I've thought— the worst of him!" Sirius gasped. He was weeping. "Thought he was a coward. Weak. Never thought about him at all, mostly." He was sobbing in earnest, and his speech was almost too broken to understand. "All this time. But he was brave. He wanted— wanted to stop— I could have— should have— been there for him." He reached one arm around to grasp Harry's hand on his shoulder, clinging to it desperately. "You and I— you would have had a family. I'm sorry."

Harry hauled Sirius up off the table so he could look him in the eye. "You've been my family, and you've been good at it. What happened to Regulus is sad, but it wasn't your fault. Don't you get that?"

"Yeah, I do," Sirius managed to say, but then another few tears squeezed out of his eyes. "But it is my fault that I never knew my brother well enough to miss him when he was gone."

Harry just gripped his shoulder. After a moment, he held out the used handkerchief with a mischievous expression. Sirius barked out a laugh and waved the thing away.

"Ah, what would I do without you, Harry?"

"Go crazy, probably. What is taking Kreacher so . . . long . . ."

The elf was standing in the doorway with the locket in his hand. He'd been standing there quite some time. There was a new expression on his face when he looked at Sirius. Harry couldn't figure out what it was until he realised it wasn't much of anything. It was just so weird that Kreacher wasn't expressing his usual deep loathing and contempt.

Harry reached out his hand. "May I see that now?"

Kreacher passed it over wordlessly.

Harry felt it as soon as the object touched his hand. It was as if the locket weighed more than its appearance indicated, but he didn't think it was actually heavy. He felt a pulse of power, of a seriously twisted power. He almost threw the locket across the room to get it away from himself, but instead he clutched it closer to him. It made him shudder with revulsion, but he gripped it tight, now that he had it.

"I'm going to call Hermione. She should be here for this."

He held onto it while he called her. He would take no chances. If this locket got away from him, it would happen because somebody killed him and took it from his death grip.

"I have it, Hermione."

"Do you mean . . . well, the real one?"

"Yes."

"Where was it?"

"I'll tell you when you get here. You can come now, right?"

"Yes. I'll need a minute, I have to call my parents and tell them where I'm going. I've been very careful that someone knows where I should be, you see. Anyway, I'll Apparate over as soon as I talk to them."

Harry was grateful that she realised how important it was not to speak about it aloud over such a tenuous connexion, when anyone might be listening. He still kept the locket in his grasp while he waited for her. He found Sirius again, and was informed that Draco had been sent back to his mother's abundantly loving care, and that Tonks was coming to pick up Simon to visit the werewolves.

"I don't want anyone else here . . . just in case."

Harry nodded, heavily preoccupied. He was about to finally embark on this last step of the journey, and he found himself inexplicably nervous. What if it didn't work, or if he couldn't do it? What if they didn't find the other Horcruxes, after this one? Maybe there would be a wizard powerful enough to hold Voldemort down, but he would never die until these things were destroyed. His resilience was too much for any system to take down. Harry had to be able to do this, and it had to start immediately, before it was too late. He retrieved some of the basilisk venom, and thought that the best thing to do would be to completely submerge the locket in the liquid. As soon as his girlfriend arrived.

He played with the locket absently while he waited for Hermione, rubbing his thumb over its tarnished old surface. He dangled it from its chain, watched it spin. Then he hooked his fingernail under the edge and prised it open. A strange swirling of mist surrounded the locket, and he dropped it with a gasp, afraid that it was cursed, like the ring, that it would wither his hand and kill him, but it couldn't be because the mist was coalescing into figures, into people, and . . .

"Mum? Dad?"

The two faces turned toward him. Their eyes were red, and Harry bit back a cry of panic.

"Harry."

"Um, are you ghosts? Not that I'm not happy to see you, but . . ."

"You should not be. We are not happy to see you," the James-mist said.

"Oh. I see."

"Tsk tsk," the Lily figure clucked. "Sirius never told you, did he?"

"What?"

"That you were an accident, Harry. That we didn't plan on having children, and certainly not you . . ."

"No, I guess he didn't tell me that," Harry said flatly. He was fairly certain this was some kind of trick—it was a Horcrux, after all—but he was so interested in these figures. They looked so like his parents. He couldn't pass up the opportunity to talk to them, even if it wasn't real.

"He wouldn't, would he?" James said with a chuckle. "He's always been dishonest like that. After all, he's made you think he loves you, hasn't he? He wouldn't tell you that he only keeps you out of loyalty to me."

Harry bristled at that. "Now, that I know isn't true."

"Oh, Harry," Lily said, almost compassionately. "You don't think he would have much preferred to have his own life? He had plans, of course, that didn't include you. So did we. But there you were, and we couldn't just kill you. That would be . . . wrong. But we certainly didn't want you."

"We know you, Harry. We know how you are. You pretend you don't care, but you desperately crave to be loved, don't you? And yet, no one does. So sad, little Harry, so unloved . . . everyone resenting him . . ."

"Hermione loves me," Harry said firmly.

Lily laughed at that, a far more unpleasant sound than Harry would have expected. "You think so? She can tell you herself what she thinks of you."

"No," Harry said automatically, but it was too late because a Hermione figure was already rising up from the locket and forming between his parents.

"Oh, Harry."

"You're not the real Hermione," he said dismissively. "She's on her way here right now."

"I am connected to the real Hermione," the figure said. "I know her mind, as I know her body. You can hardly deny that I am like her."

As if to prove it, a swirl of that special ink-and-flowers smell wafted to him, and he was arrested by it.

"You think I love you, Harry, but it's not you I love. It's everyone else. Don't you see? You are a dangerous creature, and I have to keep you under control. I won't say that I like having this duty, but someone has to protect the world from you. You'd be a Dark Lord if it weren't for me. I don't love you, Harry, I'm afraid of you. I know what you'll become, and I'm especially afraid that you'll be too powerful for me to kill when you get out of my control . . . you know it will happen, Harry, you know how Dark you are even now."

Harry was frozen by her words. He'd tried not to listen, but it seemed so real, and so very plausible. Hadn't she just said, only days ago, much this same thing. She'd never said it this plainly before, but it was true . . .

He moaned, feeling sick.

"Do you think that, too?" he asked, looking up at his father. "Do you think that will happen?"

"We knew when you were born that you were a freak," his mother answered.

"We had hoped you'd die in the attack. You never have done what you're supposed to do, boy."

Maybe it was the way they said "boy" and "freak" the way the Dursleys had done. Maybe it was just the confirmation that Hermione was right. But Harry stopped arguing then, just wrapped his arms around himself and stared at them in horror as they listed his shortcomings.

"Never making friends . . ."

"Rebellious . . ."

"Weak . . ."

"Running away, hiding, not facing your problems . . ."

"Ordering people around like you own them . . . that poor Malfoy boy, that poor elf, even dear Sirius who's had to put up with so much from you already . . ."

"Don't even know how dangerous you are . . . how much I fear you when I'm letting you touch me . . ."

Harry choked.

Then someone slapped him so hard it made his ears ring.

He scrambled up from his seat, gasping for breath and shaking his head violently. He lost sight of the locket-people and saw the real Hermione standing right in front of him, her hands on her hips and squarely facing her constructed self from the locket.

"How dare you use my face to tell him such things?" she hissed furiously. She picked up the locket, making the forms wail in panic, and dropped it into the vial of venomm making them disappear entirely. She gave it a vigorous shake for good measure, then threw it aside and turned to Harry. Her eyes were blazing.

"You were listening to all that rot?"

Harry blinked, not knowing about the tears welled up in his eyes until the blinking made them spill out. "You said it, just a few days ago. You said that you were afraid of what I would do if you weren't there. You said I needed you."

Hermione looked furious. "I did not say that! I said I was afraid of what would happen to you, you dolt. I know how hard you push yourself and how much responsibility you give yourself, and I was afraid that you'd drive yourself right into the grave if I wasn't there to take care of you. Don't you get it? I don't think any of that nonsense from the locket. I think that you're so good at heart that you'll kill yourself for the world! You need me to help you!"

"But Hermione," he mumbled. "You know it's true, you know how easy it would be for me to turn Dark. You really don't stay close because of what I might do."

"Listen to me very closely," she said, stepping just the barest inch away from him and turning her face up with a scowl. "You don't scare me, Chosen Boy."

Then she kissed him. It was not a gentle kiss, and it was not a chaste kiss. It was not any kind of kiss that they had shared before. It was the kind of kiss that in any other circumstance would have immediately led to much more. It was deep and demanding and completely passionate. Harry was caught quite off guard, but it was only a second before he was fulfilling his end of things. When they finally broke apart, it was mostly because they were out of breath.

"You hear me? I'm not afraid of you," Hermione panted, her cheeks red with the remnants of anger and exertion.

Harry put his hands on her waist and kept her against him. "Good." He sighed deeply, a smile on his face and his hands keeping her very firmly in place.

She looked up at him with confusion, then made a disgusted face. "Men!" she huffed. "One little kiss and you've forgotten all about it."

"That was not little. You've never kissed me like that before."

"I've never kissed anyone like that before," she said.

"Well, that just proves the point, doesn't it? You do love me."

"Of course I do. Haven't I told you that about a thousand times?"

"You can't love someone you're afraid of," he said with assurance, resting his cheek on her head.

"I would imagine it would be difficult," she sniffed.

"Thank you for destroying the locket for me."

"Well, I wasn't just going to let you do the whole thing without me."

"I love you, Hermione," he said with great calm and sincerity. It took away her irritable responses. She just leaned against him more comfortably.

"I know."

"Hermione?"

"What?"

"Any chance we could do that again?"

She sighed and burrowed her head into his chest. "Later."