Chapter 23: Krait gets bossy
Krait was very thoughtful when David reported to those of the Kindred as were holidaying at school and told the story of Lissi; she seemed more interested in that than the non appearance of Helga Hufflepuff's cup.
"Any elf in the bloodgroup should have picked up enough about transfiguration to take a second form then, that's bigger" she said, looking thoughtfully at Sirri "If they so wanted."
Sirri flushed.
"Looking human you mean?" she spoke up.
"Not necessarily; anyone who was fond of you would love your sweet face the way it is. But you might just want a bigger body."
Severus was looking startled.
"Krait…." His mind voice was faintly protesting.
"Have we any right to deny her some happiness? We love her dearly. It may not be the same as what you and I have, but I think any one of us loves any member of the Blood Group more than happens in most marriages" Krait replied. Severus was struck by this.
"I suppose so; though I have to say there are those I feel closer to than others. Sirri I could love enough to live with but the thought of being effectively married to Hermione is frankly terrifing! Ron is a brave man! And of course some are in the position of being more our children than anything else…"
"We'll all pair off according to our personalities and still feel love that has no sexual component for the rest; but she is sweet, and she loves our children dearly, and Mimi needs a daddy; I'm prepared to share you because I know I have more of you than any other woman could. I already share you with Lily in a way; go ahead. She needs love and she needs an equal. Where would she find that amongst house elves? Only Dobby comes close and he's not interested in settling down. And Beloc is her brother."
Severus nodded; and smiled kindly at Sirri, who was watching anxiously, aware instinctively that they were communicating about her.
"The question is, while we were farting about in Albania we wasted time; and I'm wondering what the hell he did with the cup" Sirius interrupted. "I'm off with Harry to Godric's Hollow in the morning, and I'm hoping that won't be another hollow mission, no pun intended."
"Lemme think a minute here" said Krait cracking her knuckles thoughtfully. "He left the ring in the house of his mother. He placed the locket in a place he visited when he was a child. He put the book in the care of a trusted subordinate – and since he was furious about how Lucius let him down over that, if he'd done the same with anything else, I swear he'd get it back pretty quick. I am certain he'd leave the watch – because it would amuse him that Harry would guard his own downfall from sentiment. Where else was significant to him as a child and in his background?"
"The Riddle House; and Hogwarts" said Severus softly.
"Well we can't search the Riddle House; despite Aurors poking around the neighbourhood he's hung tight there because we wanted him where we know where he is" said Krait "And to all intents and purposes he's a wealthy and respectable muggle anyhow. Thanks to the machinations of yours truly. He thinks himself safe there. But I wonder if his visit to Dumbledore to ask for a job was an excuse to enter Hogwarts and hide something?"
"Search all of Hogwarts?" Severus was horrified "I wager he knew more of its secrets than me, the Marauders, Harry and co and the New Marauders all put together!"
"Accio Horcrux is too simple I suppose?" said Harry.
"If he hid it, he'd have hidden it well" said Beloc "There's plenty of hidey holes around this castle that can be closed behind doors and some rooms you come across entirely by surprise behind mirrors and down blind passageways."
"What about the room of requirements?" asked Harry "You get whatever you require there you know…I've used it to hide stuff in, and we hid there with the extended MSHG when Umbridge was there…."
"He may not be academic but he has his moments" said Severus. "Harry, that is a thought of genius."
"Don't forget I also have a bit of him in my head" said Harry. "I guess sometimes if I concentrate I can think a bit like him…. I just prefer not to. It's not very nice."
"Then think like him to bring up the room as required to hide a horcrux" said Severus softly "And see what you may find."
They pelted up the stairs – or rather, the younger ones pelted, the adults followed a little more sedately – to the corridor where the room of requirements was situated.
"I need somewhere where I can find what was hidden by Tom Riddle to keep safe" said Harry distinctly.
"It works on thoughts as much as words I think" said Neville "I've used it a few times to practise magic in; and excluded people I don't want to find me, like Crabbe and Goyle. I think you need to imagine hard exactly what you're looking for."
Harry nodded and thought about a younger Tom Riddle such as he had seen in the Pensieve, already changing but still approximately human looking.
He turned the handle and went in.
The cathedral sized room was lined with shelves full of items hidden by generations of Hogwarts students.
"I guess it's the same any time anyone wants to hide something!" said Harry "Now…let's split up and look."
It was a long job.
Grace gasped as she looked up at a blistered old cupboard.
"D-dad!" she called Severus "Look – up there! It's the lost diadem of Ravenclaw!"
Severus came over.
"You are certain?"
"I've seen it hundreds of times when I was a Ravenclaw, carved on the statue of the founder!" said Grace. "I can read on it Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure'"
"You mean he used that, not the cup? Or as well? Or someone else hid it?" Severus was shocked.
"I'll tell you what, Scales" said Sirius, coming up behind him "I just laid wand to that with revellaspell from behind you and it's been in Albania at some point in the last few decades; and had been there some time."
"Is that why he went to Albania? To retrieve it then?" asked Harry, coming over.
"No… I fancy that this has been here longer than that" said Sirius "It's too dusty to have only been here a few years even supposing he had a way of getting it here. It was this he put here when he came."
"Not the cup at all?" Harry was disappointed.
"Maybe the cup is here too" said Severus "I think it would please him to place Hogwarts treasures in Hogwarts under the noses of the faithful of the houses but unavailable to them. He'd have stolen the sword of Gryffindor too if he could when he came to see Albus."
"Not eight but nine? That's back to an arithmantically favourable number" frowned Krait. "Damn. But surely he wouldn't want…..if he didn't realise Harry was….."
"Sometimes a harmonica is just a harmonica" blurted Harry "Suppose he found the Diadem and left it in here as a spare horcrux in case he needed another? IS it a horcrux?"
"One way to find out" said Severus. "Accio Horcrux!" he raised his wand and cast the spell. The diadem did not flinch. Severus went down with a grunt as he was hit on the back of the head by a solid looking chalice.
Harry cried out in joy; then again in horror at Severus' prone form. Krait knelt by her husband's side.
Severus groaned.
"I appear to have found AN horcrux" he said, feeling the back of his head tenderly as he struggled into a sitting position.
"The hard way" said Krait, kissing him in relief. "The diadem was only ever a diadem. Grace, why don't you take the thing to Professor Flitwick and ask him if he thinks it is what we think it is? He'll be very pleased and then we'll not have to worry about it because Riddle won't know where it's gone. It's not a horcrux is it, Padfoot? You examined it."
"It doesn't seem to be" said Sirius "But let's one of us handle it before we let a young thing like Grace carry it…."
"I'm as old as David" Grace muttered resentfully.
Severus picked up the diadem.
"It is just a diadem" he said "Full of magic and only ever as much malice as may be expected from a Ravenclaw confronted with one they think to be an intellectual inferior."
"It's supposed to enhance the intelligence of anyone who wears it who is worthy." Said Grace.
"And we want artificially enhanced brains why?" said Krait. "Ours are good enough to out-think Fishface; other than Luna Lovegood, who's a dubious asset, we don't have much in the way of Ravenclaws in the MSHG. Too far beneath their academic whinings – er, leanings."
"Your prejudices are hanging out" said Severus. "But the sentiment is just. Artificially enhanced intellect has to be suspect on grounds that it has no grounding in natural ability nor striving towards attainment. It is at best an illusion. And besides, I have often noticed that those of supposedly enhanced intellect are entirely at a loss when it comes to the application of that uncommon feature, common sense."
"So I appear to share my prejudices with more wordily hung out ones from you dear" said Krait, equably. "Run along with it to Professor Flitwick, Gracie; and don't feel tempted to put the damn thing on. Your brains are just fine, we don't need them addled by diadems any more than by potions."
Grace grinned.
"No, I remember that feeling only too well!" she said with feeling; and ran off.
-/-
The cup they took to Dumbledore's office. It almost seemed to squirm and writhe in Harry's hands, and he could almost hear echoes of defamatory words in its depths.
"Ignore it" said Severus.
"I am" said Harry as the cup called Severus 'Snivellus'.
-/-
Dumbledore stared.
"I thought you came back empty handed?" he said.
"We did" said Sirius "Wretched thing was in the castle all the time. Can we use Gryffindor's sword on it please? It seems the best thing in this case…."
Dumbledore reached into the cabinet to draw the sword out and passed it to Harry; who took a deep breath and plunged it into the cup. It tried to bite him; and it started screaming.
It was soon over.
"You'd better keep the sword to take to Godric's Hollow" said Dumbledore. "You are doing well… I hardly dared hope you'd find so many so quickly."
"It's the group" said Harry "Sharing knowledge gives so much more brainpower to sort out puzzles."
"You mean I have been wrong to only tell people what I thought they needed to know?" said Dumbledore "I didn't want to place too much fear on anyone, especially you young people…"
"Meh" said Krait "If you work on a need-to-know basis, soon you get to feel that you are the only person that needs to know the whole; it's a bit of a power trip Albus, and I'm afraid you're a control freak. Knowledge is, and always has been, power. We don't love you any less, but as one control freak to another, I'm glad you've lightened up recently."
Her last sentence made Dumbledore laugh ruefully.
"Well, your habit of letting all the people you trust know everything seems to work" he said "And we're further along than I ever dared hope."
"One more object, one snake and bits of Harry's head to go" said Krait. "Harry mate, are you getting a greater proportion of him in your head as the other parts of him are diminished by us destroying them?"
Harry shook his head.
"I can see more because he is more powerful; but it's no worse really than when I dreamed of being the snake biting Arthur. And thanks to Severus I can block too."
Krait nodded.
"I guess each split was irretrievable and complete; though you represent a higher proportion of the remains of Tom Riddle's soul such as it is, that's not apparent from his side. And of course if it were, he'd be aware of you destroying horcruces."
"Quite so" said Dumbledore. "Now, early to bed I think, Harry, for an early start tomorrow."
-/-
Professor Flitwick was amazed at Grace's find.
"My dear!" he squeaked, after casting his own revelaspell on it "Where did you find it? It's been lost for centuries!"
Grace shrugged.
"It was in the Room of Requirements, Professor Flitwick" she told him honestly "There's a room that's part of it where you hide stuff you want to keep from people….I was looking for something else and I recognised it. Dad said I should bring it to you."
"Did you feel tempted to try it on?" asked Flitwick.
"Meh" Grace borrowed Krait's favourite expression of contempt "I prefer common sense to overblown artificially enhanced intellect."
Flitwick sighed.
"One cannot fault Severus' compassion in adopting you" he said "But I do wish he would not infect his wards with sarcastic disapproval of those things held sacred by others."
Grace grinned.
"I'd also rather be happy than clever" she said "And if the agonies the academic types go through over OWLs are anything to measure it by, you can't have both. And that's entirely my opinion and not one coloured by anything Dad or Krait have said. That's why I'm Gryffindor now I guess; I was only ever a Ravenclaw because it was a family tradition. No disrespect meant, sir."
Flitwick sighed.
"Oh none taken" he said "If people weren't all different we'd not have four different houses after all."