Sirius swaggered all evening long, ordering expensive food and drinks that made Remus alternately pale and flush. He dropped Galleons carelessly, sang carols, and eyed waitresses, pausing only when he realized that Remus didn't seem to be having nearly the same amount of fun that he was.
"What's wrong?" He poured him a glass of spiced wine and pushed it towards him. "Lighten up Remus. Things haven't been going so well, but tonight's not the night for that."
"I don't see how you can be so calm," he said, sipping at the drink, "when there's so much to worry about."
"I'm worried too, but misery won't help." He sat back and grabbed the arm of a waiter, ordering a banana's foster and a flan.
They came out of the restaurant the better part of an hour later, thoroughly stuffed with drink and dessert. Sirius clutched Remus, eyes half glazed. He laughed at first, but lapsed into pensiveness as they walked the streets of London in the chilly night.
"You know what I wish, Rem?" He finally said, wavering as he walked.
"What's that, Sirius?" He asked trying to balance Sirius.
"I wish James were here. Damn it." He sucked in the cold winter air. "James would have done this right, wouldn't have been screwing up royal like I am. James would have known how to properly raise Harry and keep his friends safe and know what decisions to make."
"I wish James was here also, but you're being too hard on yourself." He pulled his coat closer. "I thought you wanted this to be a cheerful night, though."
Sirius stopped and slumped against a wall, looking at a lamp wound with holly and light. His breath puffed in little clouds and Remus looked at him apprehensively.
"Come along, let's go home. I think you've had a little much."
Sirius pulled away for a moment.
"Remus… I want to go see Reggie, Remus."
"What?"
"My brother. I never even saw him buried. I didn't go to the funeral. I didn't really mourn him. I didn't leave flowers on his grave. I don't even know what it looks like, only where it ought to be. I though he got what he deserved, for being soft, for listening to our parents without question instead of defying them like I did." He looked at Remus and the other man could see that Sirius' eyes were rimmed red. "And it's Christmas and I want to spend it with my brother."
They found the portion of the graveyard that only wizards had access to and, though it had been many years, Sirius was still able to recall the incantation needed to access the Black family vault. He did not pause to look at any of the many graves filling the magically enlarged space, kept focused until he found the newest one.
The coffin was marble, carved with a likeness of Regulus looking as though he slept, hands closed over a wand and, as Sirius discovered, a snitch, wings protruding from his folded gesture. Sirius' fingers ran over the face, smooth and eternally youthful. He wondered if it was as his body had appeared, frozen by the Kedavra curse.
"Reggie." He leaned over it and wept. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't protect you. That I couldn't convince you or save you in time. That I didn't remember you. But we did it Reggie. Kreacher and James' son and even me… we did what you wanted. Your last wish. So you can sleep now, alright? It's okay. You did your job and you can sleep now. And when we finish him off for good, I'll let you know then too."
Rising, he looked at the length of the tomb and his eyes were caught by a patch of red at the base that he had not seen before.
"Poinsettias?" He picked up the bunch of flowers, blooming like bloody leaves. "They're fresh. But who… Kreacher." His throat closed and he couldn't speak for a moment, not until Remus set a hand on his should. "He has been coming here all along."
"He was very faithful," Remus affirmed. "And loved your brother very much."
"I know." He repositioned the flowers so that they sat atop Regulus' stone hands, made it appear as though he were holding them like a bouquet. "He's a good elf."
He stood in front of the tomb a long time, until even Remus sat down against the stony floor. It seem like ages before he finally turned to leave, face damp in a way that Remus had only rarely seen, sadness written on his face as it had been with the loss of James and Lily.
They left and once outside, the door shut behind them, Sirius paused again. "I am glad that I came here. I only… I only wish I could know he heard me. That he has forgiven me for all I did not, could not do."
"I am sure of it," Remus murmured, before they disapparated together.
OOO
The sun was slipping beneath the horizon when Draco knocked at the door of the Weasley's.
"Draco!" Mrs. Weasley beamed. "Welcome back. Come in. Everybody else is about. But you must be starved! Here, we've got plenty of leftovers; let me fix you a plate."
"I ate pretty well at Cedric's," he told her, but when her face fell he coughed. "But I could stand to eat."
"Wonderful! We've still got turkey and potatoes, more of my fudge of course, green beans, anything you'd like."
"Thanks," he grinned as a heaping plate was pushed into his hands. "Is it alright if I go find the others?"
"Of course!" She waved him off. "Draco's back kids!" She shouted for all of them to hear.
"Draco!" Mr. Weasley popped in the door behind him. "I thought I saw you come up to the house! Good to see you."
"And you too, Mr. Weasley," he nodded politely.
"When you get the chance, you'll have to see what I've been working on. I think you'll really like it."
"And I think you really need to wipe your hands off before you sit down at the table and smear m good holiday table cloth with your oily hands." Mrs. Weasley dropped a towel on top of his hands then smiled at Draco. "Run along now dear."
"Hey Draco!" The twins rounded the corner.
"Thought I heard mom shouting something 'bout you being here," George grinned.
"Got enough food?" Fred added.
"If you want to talk back, you can carry his drink for him," Mrs. Weasley said, pushing a mug of cocoa into Fred's hands.
"Who else is here?" Draco asked, carefully balancing while they walked into the living room.
"Theo of course. Harry. That's all for now I think."
He walked in to see Theodore and Ginny looking down at a book. "Hi guys!"
"Oh, hey Draco." Ginny stood up and took the plate, setting it on the coffee table so that he could situate himself. "How did things at Cedric's go?"
"It was alright. Cedric was friendly and we talked through some stuff." He crammed his face with turkey and Theo frowned in displeasure when he continued to talk as he chewed. "Says that he doesn't know what the bow's about but that he could try and look into it." After puffing on the cocoa, he took a long slurp. "Also wants me to meet my cousin."
"Cousin? What cousin?"
"Turns out I'm not the only family member in Hufflepuff. My mum's got an estranged sister. She had a kid and as it turns out, Cedric knows her. Sent him a get well card asking to meet up and he thinks I should go with him."
"Are you going to?" Theo inquired.
"Of course! She's family, isn't she? I'd like to get to know her." He grimaced. "Although you guys probably shouldn't say anything about this to my dad or mom."
"Our lips are sealed," Harry promised.
"Yeah, even ours," George agreed.
"So what have you guys been up to?" Draco peered at the book, still sitting open further down the table. "Looks like you've been busy."
"George and I had to spend the whole day cleaning up toilets," Fred groaned.
"Well it was your prank. What did you expect?" Ginny's tone was faux-cross and George gave her a teasing punch to the shoulder.
"Now that we're done though, we should get back," Fred twitched his head towards the door. "We don't want a repeat of last time when we left stuff to boil for too long."
"Oh yeah." George jumped up. "Come on Fred."
"What are you working on?" Ginny asked as they dashed off.
"Stuff!" Was George's reply as they vanished up the stairs and the door slammed moments later.
"Ginny and I, we've been working on the journal." Theo sighed. "But I feel like were at the end of the line."
"We're trying to figure out whatever else… you know… that might have been made." Ginny cast a look at the door and lowered her voice, afraid her parents might appear. "But we can't think of anything right off that would fit the description."
"I mean, the sword does," Harry said in the same soft tone. "But I'm pretty sure that's not it. We touched it without any bad effects and if the Hat had it, I don't think Riddle could have put it there."
"Probably not," Draco agreed. "Can I see what you've got so far?"
They handed him the book, but before he read very far a loud voice broke into his thoughts with cheerful caroling.
"But Christmas is most fantastic in the afternooooon!"
"Luna!" he dropped the book and jumped up, nearly upsetting his plate in the process.
"Draco!" She turned to him with a smile bright as the lights that were strung in her hair, winking in different colors. Her dress looked as though it was made of nothing but tinsel woven with holly and of the stockings poking out from beneath it, one was striped like a candy cane and the other was a deep green with golden bows. Red trainers with glittery laces, covered with a hint of quickly melting snow, finished the off-kilter ensemble. She twinkled all over and smelled like peppermint when she ran over and hugged him.
"Merry Christmas!" He laughed and twirled her for half a turn.
"Merry Christmas!"
"Come on, everybody's here." He dragged her into the next room. "Luna's here!"
"We heard!" Ginny laughed. "How was your Christmas?"
"Wonderful! Father gave me all sorts of potion supplies and interesting books and promised to take me on a trip in the summer." She paused to take a piece of fudge off of Draco's plate. "But it's even better now that I'm here with everybody."
"That's sweet of you, Luna dear," said Mrs. Weasley from the doorway. "Here, I brought you your own plate."
"Thank you!" She took it gratefully. "I'm sure your turkey is even more delicious than broiled snorkacks."
The moment Mrs. Weasley was gone, Draco opened the book in front of Luna.
"Look at this," he whispered. "Everybody, let her in on what we've been working on."
"We didn't get the chance to tell you yet," Ginny said quietly, "but two nights ago we used the sword to destroy another of those objects, one that Kreacher knew about."
"Sirius' brother had gotten it away," Draco went on. "We put the venom in the sword and Sirius ended up using it to destroy it."
"What as it?"
"A locket owned by, we're assuming, Slytherin. It had an S on it, opened with parselmouth commands, don't know who else would have owned it," Harry explained.
"So we're thinking that maybe there might be other similar objects," Theo went on. "Significant items connected to Hogwarts that would have meant a lot to Riddle, given all the stock that he put into items like that and how deeply he felt about the school."
"I think it makes sense," Draco agreed. "We just need to figure out what else he might have used or who else he might have to killed to make those… to make what you said."
"A Slytherin locket?" Luna looked down at the pages that Theo and Ginny had scribbled, arrows wandering all over the page and various words underscored. There was a quill sticking out of the back that Luna calmly drew out. She flipped to a new page and scrawled a couple of words then handed it back to Draco.
"Ravenclaw's diadem?" He looked at her. "What's that?"
"I heard some of the older members of our house talking about it once. They said that Ravenclaw was always drawn with a beautiful tiara."
"That's how she looks on the chocolate frog cards," Harry concurred.
"It was right before a test. They said that the diadem was supposed to make the wearer smarter and that they wished they knew where it had gone."
"It disappeared?" Harry frowned. "That's suspicious. Maybe that's one of them."
"Yes, it vanished many, many years ago. There were whispers that her daughter had taken it but nobody knew where she had taken it to or what she had done with it."
"All the way back then? But if it disappeared so long ago, Riddle couldn't have been the one to steal it." Ginny said. "Do we know for sure there was one and that it wasn't just a rumor?"
"Does it sound like the kind of thing a Ravenclaw would make?" Draco asked.
"Well… yes. And come to think of it, I'm almost sure I've heard that rumor too. But the point still stands, if it disappeared that long ago, we can't blame Riddle for that."
"Unless he found it again and used it," Theo observed. "Nobody seemed to know about Slytherin's locket either, or at least it wasn't common knowledge. Yet he still managed to track it down and use it to make one. If there was anybody determined and intelligent enough to find a long gone artifact, it would be him."
"Well then how did he find it?" Ginny frowned. "If we could follow his steps maybe we could find it too."
"Or at least confirm whether it is or isn't one and whether he got his hands on it," Harry added.
"That I don't know." Theo shook his head. "But you said that you heard about it from some of the older Ravenclaws?"
"Yes," Luna confirmed. "Though I do not believe they were very sincere about their attempts to try and retrieve it."
"It was probably just talk, but sometimes that can reveal more than people know. Ask around you two, especially people whose families have been in Ravenclaw for a long while. They might know more details about it that could give us a clue."
"It's not a lot," Ginny sighed, "but we can try."
"Not a lot but it's the best we've got right now," Harry said in a serious tone. "So if we took out the Slytherin object, and we're pretty sure he didn't get the sword, and this crown is something he might have taken from Ravenclaw, then what about Hufflepuff?"
"First off, don't assume that just because the sword wasn't used, he didn't find some other Gryffindor artifact to use," Theo said. "But as for Hufflepuff, I'm not sure. The bow wasn't it, was it Draco?"
"Definitely not. Don't know what else could be, but I'll wait and see if I hear anything back from Cedric," he said in between finishing the last few bites of stuffing. "We'll probably see each other later this week. I'll know when he gets his owl back from my cousin."
"Alright, so we have a plan." Ginny took the book and closed it. "Now that we know what we're going to do, I think we can all relax for a bit, right? So how about some games or something?"
"No team chess, though," Draco stipulated. "That was a big mess the last time."
"Just because you're not good at it doesn't mean the rest of us wouldn't…"
"Or we could watch a movie!" Ginny interrupted. "My dad got us a TV as Christmas surprise. I'll get you could help him hook it up Draco and then we could watch something."
"Sure! Shouldn't be too hard."
"Okay, I'll go get dad."
Within half an hour, they were wrapped in blankets with more cocoa and cookies than they knew what to do with, settled down to a televised version of A Christmas Carol. Just as Alastair Sim was visited by Michael Horndern, Theo gave a little gasp, then whispered into Ginny's ear, prompting her to nod.
"What was that about?" Draco mouthed to him.
Theo shook his head and nodded at the screen. Draco went back to watching the movie and soon the incident slipped from his mind.
OOO
"It's late," Narcissa murmured.
"I'm sure they're with friends." Lucius joined his wife at the window.
"Do you know?" Her cheek twitched but he planted a kiss on it.
"Dobby just informed me. He went to double check on Draco."
"Oh."
"So don't worry." He stroked her hair and passed her a goblet. "Have some of the cider. It's still warm."
She sipped it and watched the snow swirl across the manor's massive lawn. Lucius slipped away for a moment. Then she heard the sound of a needle being set to a record and her hair stood on end as the first few notes drifted towards her.
I really can't stay…
"But baby, it's cold outside," Lucius sang along with the record.
I've got to go 'way…
Narcissa felt herself flush. "Lucius!" She gasped.
"I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice," he joined back in, taking the cup out of her hands and tugging her to the empty space. Gently, they twirled around the room, feet muted against the thick carpet.
"I remember the first time we danced to this," she murmured. "The year Draco gave this to us."
"And I remember what we did after." Lucius smirked.
"Stop that," she said, laughing as she did.
"Your eyes are like starlight now…" He crooned.
She laughed and they waltzed slowly, until the last few notes drifted away. Lucius moved swiftly to take the record off before it scratched, only to feel Narcissa pull at his sleeve.
"One more present," she whispered, and he followed eagerly where she led.