I woke up bright and early the next day. We had all decided to sleep in the living room, all too frightened by the idea of sleeping alone, even though no one said anything. I was snuggled into George's arms, I had moved next to him in the middle of the night. I'd had another terrible nightmare, so I decided to throw decency to the wind and went to lie beside George. Besides, what did I care what anyone thought? It wasn't like we'd do anything intimate in a room full of people.

Now though, I needed to leave the comfort of George's immensely warm arms and get started on figuring out just what it was we would be doing. I wiggled out of his tight grasp and sat up, pulling my blankets around my shoulders. I ran my eyes around the room, doing a quick head count. Fred, Angelina, George, Ron….

Where was Harry?

I stood up, walking around the room to check the bathroom, it was empty. Oh my god, what had happened? Where was he? Had more Death Eaters attacked without us knowing it? Had they kidnapped him? Had he tried to run off again?

I ran to the living room, panic flaring in my chest and making me feel shaky. I shot down beside George and frantically shook him awake. He opened his eyes and smiled sleepily, before a look of the utmost concern washed over his face. He bolted up, grabbing my arms and searching my face before his wide, panicked eyes scanned the room.

"Harry," I said, my voice shaky and quiet. "Harry's missing!" I looked around the room wildly, telling myself that now was not the time to panic. "Help everyone up, we've got to find him."

George got up, already moving towards Fred and shaking him awake. Fred groaned and rolled over, trying to go back to sleep. "Fred!" George snapped, shaking him even harder. I was by Ron, pulling his blanket off and pulling him up. He blinked blearily at me trying to lie back down.

"Harry's missing!" I said, making both him and Fred sit up at attention.

"What?" Ron questioned. Fred turned in his seat and gently shook Angelina awake.

"Mmm?" she mumbled, turning over and snuggling into Fred's chest. He smiled softly at her before worry filled his eyes again. He gave her another shake and whispered something to her. George and I were already heading out of the room.

"I'll take the kitchen." He said, heading down the hall.

"I'll take the back rooms." Ron called, disappearing around a corner.

"I'll take the top floor. Fred, Angelina, you can take the second floor." I called, racing up the stairs worriedly. My heart was thudding painfully in my chest and my breath was coming in nervous gasps. I couldn't even think I was panicking so badly. What if something had happened to Harry? No, I wouldn't think like that. I'd search all the rooms and find him, I'd search to the ends of the earth. I would find Harry. He was my best friend in the world, and I'd stop at nothing to help and find him. That's why I was here, why I was in this blasted house. For Harry, to help him, to let him know I'd do anything for him.

I finally reached the top floor an d raced for the first room, throwing open the door and gasping in shock. The room had been completely ransacked. Papers were thrown everywhere; drawers were dumped out, laying on their sides; the curtains were torn; the mattress had been flipped off the bed; and the wallpaper had been ripped off the wall in long sheets.

My eyes scanned the room quickly, shocked by what I saw, but I backed out quickly just the same. Harry wasn't here, we could check out why the room was ransacked later. I moved to the next door, but it was opened. In the middle of the room stood a tall, raven haired boy clutching a rumbled letter in his hands. My heart stopped and I almost screamed. I stormed into the room and grabbed Harry's arm, trembling slightly as I clutched him.

"Harry?" I gasped, feeling a flood of relief. I turned my head and called over my shoulder "I've found him guys!" An answering call came from downstairs saying something about Harry being a git. "What are you doing here?" I asked, staring at him with wide eyes. "We woke up and you weren't there, don't do that again! I thought something, we thought something had happened to you." Harry was looking at me in utter surprise.

"Really? I'm sorry, I'd no idea." He smiled, looking completely excited about something. "Look what I found, it's a letter from my mum to Sirius."

"What?" I questioned, feeling disoriented. We'd thought he had been kidnapped and he was reading a letter? He thrust the letter into my hand and I scanned over it, feeling even more confused. How had he not heard our shouts? Why was he reading this letter…

Oh.

"And there's this too!" He said, thrusting half a photo into my hand and grabbing the letter back. I looked at the photo and couldn't help the smile that lifted my lips at the sight of the baby Harry zooming around on his little toy broom. He was an adorable little child, and the grin that lit his face then was incredibly similar to the one he now wore.

"I looked around for the rest of the letter but I couldn't find it anywhere." He said, grabbing the photo back. I looked around what must have been Sirius's room and gasped, it was ransacked to.

"Was this room like this when you got here?" I asked, looking around at the mess.

"Yeah, it was ransacked." Harry said, looking around slightly interested.

"Shall we find something to eat? Go down stairs to the kitchen?" I asked, pulling him towards the door. He nodded his head, turning and following me out the door. We reached the stairs before I realized he was no longer following me. I turned around, thoroughly exasperated, and saw Harry standing in front of a door with his mouth hanging open. I sighed in a longsuffering manner and walked up to him. What was he doing?

"Hermione." Harry said, his voice incredibly calm and measured.

"What?" I asked, coming up behind him.

"RAB, I think I've found him." Harry said simply. I froze, RAB? He'd found RAB? My eyes shot to the door, and the simple message hanging on it.

Do Not Enter Without the Express Permission of, Regulus Arcturus Black.

Regulus, oh my god, it was RAB!

"Ron!" I screamed, running to the stairs and sticking my head down it. "George, Fred, Angelina, come here quick!" I ran back to Harry, grinning madly as I grabbed his arm.

"Regulus was a death eater, it fits perfectly. Harry, you found him!" My voice was squeaky I was so excited, but I didn't care. A thunder of feet sounded on the stairs, and a second later I saw George emerge at the top, followed quickly by Fred, Angelina, and Ron.

"What?" He asked, grabbing me in protective arms and looking extremely pale and worried. "What is it?" I pushed back and beamed up at him, pulling all of them towards the door.

"Look!" I squealed in delight.

"RAB," Harry said, pointing at the door. "I think we've finally found him." George relaxed slightly at Harry's words, and then he looked at the door. His eyes widened and his mouth opened in a surprised 'O.'

"Bloody hell." Ron said, gaping at the door. Fred's response was rather more practical, he pushed the door open.

"After you, Harry." He said. Harry grinned and stepped forward into the dark room. We all moved in right after him, looking around the room in surprise. It was smaller than Sirius's room had been, but had the same feeling of stateliness his had had. Slytherin emerald and silver were everywhere, emphasizing the fact that Regulus was a member of the same house as his family. The Black family crest was painted over the bed, faded now through the years, still, the words TOUJOURS PUR were painted out loud and clear. I now knew it to mean 'Always Pure', the motto of the entire Black family. Beneath the crest were a bunch of newspaper clippings, all stuck together in a ragged collage. I walked across the room to look at them, shivering slightly when I saw who they were all about.

"They're all about him. Regulus seems to have been a fan for quite a few years before he actually joined."

I sat down on the dusty bed to read the clippings as everyone else moved throughout the room. Harry picked up a photo, a distant look on his face.

"He played Seeker." He said, studying the picture.

"Hmm?" I asked, lifting my head slightly. George had walked over beside me and was sitting next to me to help me look through all the ghastly clippings.

"He's sitting in the middle of the front row, that's where the Seeker sits…" Harry said, trailing off in the end.

"Remember that, it tells us some about what he was like." Fred said, going through a drawer and tossing out clothes.

"How?" Harry asked, sounding curious as he walked over to a desk.

"Well, you have to be quick and agile to be a Seeker." Fred explained, still tossing clothes. "You have to be an excellent flier, as well as not mind focusing on one thing, even if it means missing what's going on in the actual game." He looked up and smiled over at Harry. "You have to be able to obsess."

"Oh," Harry said, sounding surprised and a little uncomfortable.

"Anyone every tried summoning a Horcrux?" Angelina asked, rummaging through a trunk with Ron. She looked up and before anyone could answer she held out her wand. "Accio Locket!" Nothing happened. Was it not here then? Or worse, was it under counter-enchantments?

"Is that it then? Is it not here?" Ron asked, dropping a box of quills onto the floor in disappointment.

"No," George and Fred said together.

"It could be under counter-enchantments," Fred said.

"Charms to prevent summoning." George continued, explaining.

"Like Voldemort put on the stone basin in the cave," Harry said, his green eyes growing distant as he remembered that night.

"Then how do we find it?" Ron asked, sounding as though the world had just ended.

I smiled and picked the clippings back up. "The muggle way, we look."

We searched for at least another hour, but we never found anything. By the time we conclude that the locket was not there, we were hungry and grumpy.

"It could still be here." I said, trying to sound positive as we all headed downstairs towards the kitchen. "It could be somewhere else in the house. Whether he'd manage to destroy it or not he'd want it hidden from him wouldn't he?" I smiled in spite of myself as I took the last step. "Remember all those awful things we had to get rid of last time we were here? That clock that shot bolts at everyone and those old robes that tried to strangle Ron; Regulus might have put them there to protect the locket's hiding place, even though we didn't realize it at … at … "

Oh my god. We had seen the Horcrux, we had actually held it! We'd had a bit of his soul and… We threw it away! We threw it away!

"What is it?" George asked, coming up behind me and laying a hand on my shoulder. I shook my head and realized I was still standing on the steps, frozen in shock.

"Is something wrong?" Ron asked.

"There was a locket." I said, my voice hardly more than a whisper.

"What?" Everyone asked together. I stepped forward, off the last step and turned around so that I was facing everyone.

"In the cabinet in the drawing room. Nobody could open it. And we … we … " We'd thrown it away! Oh my god, Merlin save us, we'd tossed a Horcrux! How could that have happened? How could we have actually found one and tossed it away? By the equal looks of horror on everyone's faces, I could tell they were feeling the same as me.

"Kreacher nicked loads of things back from us," Harry said, a slight hint of desperation in his voice. "He had a whole stash of stuff in his cupboard in the kitchen. C'mon."

He ran down the stairs last few steps and then thundered down the hall to the kitchen, all of us following in his wake. We were extremely noisy, and not at all caring, so much so that we actually woke Mrs. Black.

"Filth! Mudbloods! Scum!" she screamed after them as we dashed down into the basement kitchen and slammed the door behind us. Harry ran the length of the room, skidded to a halt at the door of Kreacher's cupboard, and wrenched it open. There was the nest of dirty old blankets in which the house-elf had once slept, but they were not longer glittering with the trinkets Kreacher had salvaged. The only thing there was an old copy of Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy. Harry snatched up the blankets and shook them, a look of utter desperation on his face. A dead mouse was all that fell out, I closed my eyes in utter defeat. George stepped up beside me and wrapped and arm around me, I heard Ron sink into a chair.

"It's not over yet," Harry said, a new determination in his voice. He then raised his voice and called out in a loud, commanding voice; "Kreacher!" A loud crack issued and then, the dejected house elf appeared. How had Harry done that? How had he summoned him.

"Master," croaked Kreacher in his bullfrog's voice, and he bowed low; muttering to his knees, "back in my Mistress's old house with the blood-traitor Weasley's and the Mudblood –"

"I forbid you to call anyone 'blood traitor' or 'Mudblood,'" Harry growled, looking disgusted and annoyed. "I've got a question for you," He continued, "and I order you to answer it truthfully. Understand?"

"Yes, Master," Kreacher said, bowing again, but his lips kept moving.

"Two years ago," Harry started, my heart started to pound and I gripped George's hand, "there was a big gold locket in the drawing room upstairs. We threw it out. Did you steal it back?"

Kreacher straightened back up to glare at Harry in the face. "Yes," he muttered hatefully.

"Where is it now?" Harry asked giddily. I was smiling like an idiot and couldn't help the excited squeak that escaped my lips.

Kreacher, however, was not smiling. "'Gone," he whispered, clenching his eyes and looking pained.

"Gone?" Harry repeated, his voice going flat. "What do you mean, it's gone?" Kreacher said nothing. "Kreacher," Harry said bitingly, "I order you –"

"Mundungus Fletcher," the elf croaked, his eyes still clenched. "Mundungus Fletcher stole it all; Miss Bella's and Miss Cissy's pictures, my Mistress's gloves, the Order of Merlin, First Class, the goblets with the family crest, and – and – " He was near sobbing now, his hands clenched and his chest rapidly falling and rising. He opened his eyes out and screamed. "And the locket!. Kreacher did wrong, Kreacher failed in his orders!"

Harry lunged at Kreacher, grabbing him around the waist and dragging him away from the floor he'd thrown himself at. He swallowed, taking in a breath before bellowing: "Kreacher, I order you to stay still!"

"Harry, let him up!" I said, horrified by the scene.

"So he can beat himself up with the poker?" Harry snapped, kneeling beside the elf. "I don't think so. Right. Kreacher, I want the truth: How do you know Mundungus Fletcher stole the locket?"

"Kreacher saw him! Kreacher saw him coming out of Kreacher's cupboard with his hands full of Kreacher's treasures. Kreacher told the sneak thief to stop, but Mundungus Fletcher laughed and r-ran … "

"Great," Angelina muttered, rolling her eyes. I agreed. That was not good news. How would we find him? The man was practically invisible and extremely good at hiding.

"You called the locket 'Master Regulus's, Why? Where did it come from? What did Regulus have to do with it? Kreacher, sit up and tell me everything you know about that locket, and everything Regulus had to do with it!"

"Master Sirius ran away, good riddance, for he was a bad boy and broke my Mistress's heart with his lawless ways. But Master Regulus had proper order; he knew what was due to the name of Black and the dignity of his pure blood. For years he talked of the Dark Lord, who was going to bring the wizards out of hiding to rule the Muggles and the Muggle-borns … and when he was sixteen years old, Master Regulus joined the Dark Lord. So proud, so proud, so happy to serve…

And one day, a year after he joined, Master Regulus came down to the kitchen to see Kreacher. Master Regulus always liked Kreacher. And Master Regulus said … he said …"

He was on the ground, rocking back and forth, tears streaming down his giant eyes. George, Fred, Ron, Angelina, myself, and even Harry, were watching him in silence, spell bound by his explanation and obvious heart ache.

"… he said that the Dark Lord required an elf."

"He needed an elf?" Harry repeated, finally moving. I blinked my eyes in surprise, what had he intended to do to the poor elf?

"Oh yes, and Master Regulus had volunteered Kreacher. It was an honor, said Master Regulus, an honor for him and for Kreacher, who must be sure to do whatever the Dark Lord ordered him to do … and then to c-come home.

"So Kreacher went to the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord did not tell Kreacher what they were to do, but took Kreacher with him to a cave beside the sea. And beyond the cave was a cavern, and in the cavern was a great black lake … "

A black lake, no, it couldn't be that. Surely not…

"… There was a boat …"here was a b-basin full of potion on the island. The D-Dark Lord made
Kreacher drink it …"

Of course, what perfect sense. Voldemort wouldn't care about the elf, he was disposable. He'd use him to test his defenses, and then he'd leave him there to die.

"Kreacher drank, and as he drank he saw terrible thing … Kreacher's insides burned … Kreacher cried for Master Regulus to save him, he cried for his Mistress Black, but the Dark Lord only laughed … He made Kreacher drink all the potion … He dropped a locket into the empty basin … He filled it with more potion.

"And then the Dark Lord sailed away, leaving Kreacher on the island … "

My hands flew to my mouth in horror, I heard Angelina gasp in shock behind me and felt George gently pull me to him.

"Kreacher needed water, he crawled to the island's edge and he drank from the
black lake … and hands, dead hands, came out of the water and dragged Kreacher under
the surface … "

"How did you get away?" Harry asked in a whisper, unwilling to break the heavy silence Kreacher's words had brought on us.

"Master Regulus told Kreacher to come back," was the simple answer.

"I know – but how did you escape the Inferi?"

"Master Regulus told Kreacher to come back," he repeated.

"I know, but – "

"Well, it's obvious, isn't it, Harry?" Ron said, sounding exasperated. "He Disapparated!"

"But … you couldn't Apparate in and out of that cave," Harry said, sounding lost and confused, "otherwise Dumbledore – "

"Elf magic isn't like wizard's magic, is it?" Ron explained, his voice becoming softer, "I mean, they can Apparate and Disapparate in and out of Hogwarts when we can't."

"They don't need wands to do magic either, remember?" George said, "Dobby did all sorts of stuff, really powerful magic."

"Of course, Voldemort would have considered the ways of house-elves far beneath his notice … It would never have occurred to him that they might have magic that he didn't." I said, my voice hard and bitter. George rubbed my back gently, comfortingly and I found myself relaxing a slight bit

"Regulus called him so he had to come." Fred explained to Harry. "It's their highest law, they have to come when called."

"Well, then, you did what you were told, didn't you?" I said, smiling at the house elf and attempting to sound nice. "You didn't disobey orders at all!"

Kreacher shook his head, and rocked even faster.

"So what happened when you got back?" Harry asked. "What did Regulus say when you told him what happened?"

"Master Regulus was very worried, very worried, Master Regulus told Kreacher to stay hidden and not to leave the house. And then … it was a little while later … Master Regulus came to find Kreacher in his cupboard one night, and Master Regulus was strange, not as he usually was, disturbed in his mind, Kreacher could tell … and he asked Kreacher to take him to the cave, the cave where Kreacher had gone with the Dark Lord … "

"That bloody git." Fred whispered under his breath, to quiet for anyone but Angelina and me to hear.

"And he made you drink the poison?" Harry asked, disgusted. He was wrong, that wasn't what had happened at all. We were wrong, so very wrong, poor, poor Kreacher, and poor Regulus! We'd been so very wrong about him!

"M-Master Regulus took from his pocket a locket like the one the Dark Lord had, and he told
Kreacher to take it and, when the basin was empty, to switch the lockets …" He was sobbing now, harder than ever.

"Merlin's beard!" Angelina gasped, grabbing Fred's hand in horror.

"And he order – Kreacher to leave – without him. And he told Kreacher – to go home – and never to tell my Mistress – what he had done – but to destroy – the first locket. And he drank – all the potion – and Kreacher swapped the lockets – and watched … as Master Regulus … was dragged beneath the water … and … "

"Oh, Kreacher!" I wailed, weeping as I dropped to my knees beside him. I forgot that he hated me in my sorrow, wanting only to comfort him. He froze at my touch before jumping away from me in repulsion.

"The Mudblood touched Kreacher, he will not allow it, what would his Mistress say?"

"Shut up!" George snarled, stepping beside me and helping me up.

"I told you not to call her 'Mudblood'!" Harry snapped, the, elf was already punishing himself. He'd dropped to the floor and started banging his head on the floor. He was hurting himself because of me, it was my fault!

"Stop him – stop him!" I cried, stepping towards him. "Oh, don't you see now how sick it is, the way they've got to obey?"

"Kreacher – stop, stop!" Harry shouted, pulling him off the floor.

"So you brought the locket home." Harry said, picking his questioning up where he had stopped. "And you tried to destroy it?"
"Nothing Kreacher did made any mark upon it. Kreacher tried everything, everything he knew, but nothing, nothing would work … So many powerful spells upon the casing, Kreacher was sure the way to destroy it was to get inside it, but it would not open … Kreacher punished himself, he tried again, he punished himself, he tried again. Kreacher failed to obey orders, Kreacher could not destroy the locket! And his mistress was mad with grief, because Master Regulus had disappeared and Kreacher could not tell her what had happened, no, because Master Regulus had f-f-forbidden him to tell any of the f-f-family what happened in the c-cave …"

"I don't understand you, Kreacher," Harry finally said after a long, sob filled silence. "Voldemort tried to kill you, Regulus died to bring Voldemort down, but you were still happy to betray Sirius to Voldemort? You were happy to go to Narcissa and Bellatrix, and pass information to Voldemort through them … "

"Harry, Kreacher doesn't think like that," I said, wiping my eyes. "He's a slave; house-elves are used to bad, even brutal treatment; what Voldemort did to Kreacher wasn't that far out of the common way. What do wizard wars mean to an elf like Kreacher? He's loyal to people who are kind to him, and Mrs. Black must have been, and Regulus certainly was, so he served them willingly and parroted their beliefs. I know what you're going to say, that Regulus changed his mind … but he doesn't seem to have explained that to Kreacher, does he? And I think I know why. Kreacher and Regulus's family were all safest if they kept to the old pure-blood line. Regulus was trying to protect them all."

"Sirius – "

"Sirius was horrible to Kreacher, Harry, and it's no good looking like that, you know it's true. Kreacher had been alone for such a long time when Sirius came to live here, and he was probably starving for a bit of affection. I'm sure 'Miss Cissy' and 'Miss Bella' were perfectly lovely to Kreacher when he turned up, so he did them a favor and told them everything they wanted to know. I've said all along that wizards would pay for how they treat house-elves. Well, Voldemort did … and so did Sirius." It was awful, terrible even, but so painfully true.

"Kreacher,, when you feel up to it, er … please sit up."

"Kreacher, I am going to ask you to do something," Harry said, once the elf had set up. "Kreacher, I want you, please, to go and find Mundungus Fletcher. We need to find out where the locket – where Master Regulus's locket it. It's really important. We want to finish the work Master Regulus started, we want to – er – ensure that he didn't die in vain."

"Find Mundungus Fletcher?" he croaked.

"And bring him here, to Grimmauld Place," Harry said, "Do you think you could do that for us?"

"Kreacher, I'd, err, like you to have this," Harry said as the elf stood, he grabbed the fake locket from his pocket and pressed it into the elf's hand. "This belonged to Regulus and I'm sure he'd want you to have it as a token of gratitude for what you—"

It took us an hour to calm him down after he burst out crying over the locket.