Chapter 6
Back in Grimmauld Place, Kreacher served tea and cakes, and stayed, twisting his fingers together.
"Spit it out, Kreacher," said Sirius, not unkindly.
"Master Harry's bad soul-leach is gone, and he is natural healer," said Kreacher. "Master Regulus tried to understand parselmagic for healing from a book, but he couldn't say the words. If... If Master Harry can..."
"Are you hurt, Kreacher?" asked Sirius. The old elf shook his head in negation, the scrawny neck twisting horribly. "A friend?" another shake.
"Master Regulus," whispered Kreacher. "Kreacher went to him to bring back his body. He... he was dying. Kreacher used stasis spell with Master's wand. He ironed his hands for it," he added.
"Kreacher! You should not have felt in need of punishment for doing what you could for Reg!" said Sirius, shocked. "You have my permission to use any Black wand to save Black life. So long as it doesn't threaten another Black," he added.
Kreacher's eyes grew even bigger.
"Master trusts Kreacher?"
"We need to mutually trust," said Sirius. "Sit down, and join us, and tell us about this parselmagic book, and how badly hurt Reg is. He's been in stasis for years; an hour will make little difference."
"He was clawed and bitten and so weak from that potion," said Kreacher. "Made from boiled dementors like as not."
"Having someone stand by with a patronus would not hurt, then," said Hermione. "My patronus isn't as good as Harry's, but it's pretty solid."
Kreacher gave her a look as close to adoration as he had used to show to Regulus.
..
Regulus, stored in a basement, incongruously lying on a silk-covered mattress with fresh flowers beside him, looked a mess. One of his arms appeared to have been half ripped off, and he was covered in bites and fingernail marks, his ribs were horribly bruised, and the skin torn off his legs and torso in shreds.
Harry had been reading the parseltongue book Kreacher had got for him, and hissing gently to himself, which had disconcerted everyone else.
"Can Master Harry do it?" asked Kreacher, anxiously.
"I... yes," said Harry. "But only with Black family magic as well as parselmagic."
"I'll inscribe the runes, my little snake-lion," said Sirius. "And I'll help you draw on it."
The whole family participated, to make a circle, repeating a particular sound of hiss, which Harry insisted was 'heal'. He coached them ruthlessly, including Dobby and Winky.
The circle was complete, and Harry was coming to terms with being filled with the void of space as a way to draw on the power of the universe. Kreacher removed the stasis, and Hermione cast her patronus, gasping to see that it was now a lioness.
Harry started hissing.
The stars inside his form seemed to Hermione to be dancing, and the horrific wounds on Regulus started to close up.
Regulus' body filled with the black void and Sirius, startled, hastily wrote more runes and took his hand. Kreacher seized the other hand and to his obvious consternation the black void filled him too. He was growing as the bright stars in Regulus flared, Hermione's glowing patronus lioness headbutting Regulus, Kreacher, Sirius and Harry, for all the world like Crookshanks writ large. Then the patronus moved to Dobby and Winky, herding them over to take Kreacher's free hand.
And Regulus was moving, twitching, agonised movements at first, and then pulling himself up and moving off the makeshift bed beside Sirius, aided by Kreacher.
Harry drew his hissing incantation to an end, and the stars faded, the blackness receding. And there was Regulus, unaged since his heroic attempt to steal the horcrux, and Kreacher... no longer a house elf, but a being as tall as Harry, plainly the same person but with proportions closer to the popular muggle view of an elf, slender, and even handsome with the exaggerated ears, eyes and nose shrunk to more normal proportions, so that his ears were now larger than human and delicately pointed, his nose aquiline and haughty, and his eyes no longer rheumy but bright and eager. Dobby and Winky had also grown and had similar proportions, their features also no longer caricatures.
Hermione was awed, tears running unbidden down her face.
"I said there was more to elves than anyone ever said," she declared.
Kreacher knelt to her.
"Miss Hermione's magic and Master Regulus' love has made Kr... made me a Black!" he said. He turned and knelt to Harry. "You have broken the curse, Master Harry, with parselmagic," he added. Dobby and Winky also knelt. Harry, exhausted, sank to his knees, submitting to their embraces.
"As the star Regulus is also known as 'Cor Leonis' the heart of the lion, you shall no longer be the demeaning 'Kreacher,' but be 'Cor'," said Sirius. "Dobby... Winky..."
"We is happy with our names," said Winky, firmly.
"Siri? What happened to James? He shrank?" Regulus' voice was rough.
"Reg, this is Harry," said Sirius. "He's a parselmouth... like Lily. Oh, my, you don't know; Lily set up a ritual, it killed her and James when Voldemort attacked, but it drove his spirit from his body. Unfortunately it made Harry a vessel for a soul fragment... that's sorted out... so is the locket... but there are probably others. And Kr... Cor... put you under stasis."
"Apparently I have a lot to catch up on... did you know my dark mark has gone?"
"It seemed worthwhile to rip it out while I was at it," said Harry.
"Severus Snape would be your friend forever if you could remove his," said Regulus.
"No he wouldn't, he hates me," said Harry. "Padfoot, you'd better find your brother some clothes."
"And he'll want his room," said Sirius.
"I will arrange Master Harry a room next to Miss Hermione," said Cor.
"Kreacher... Cor! How much I owe you!" said Regulus.
"You'll want to sleep it off," said Sirius.
"Me too," said Harry, and passed out.
"Oh, Harry!" said Hermione, fondly. "Always puts everything into anything he does, and overdoes things."
"He is a boy with a boundless heart," said her mother, softly.
.
.
Cor jealously nursed Regulus, and brought him up to speed on what had happened since 1979.
Dobby explained to Harry and Hermione what had happened to the elves.
"If you had not truly thought of us as family, as Regulus always thought of Cor, it would not have worked," he said. "There was a curse on our race, which we can now understand, now we have had our knowledge unlocked too. For the three of us you have broken the curse with love and with Parselmagic."
"Was it placed with parselmagic?" asked Harry.
"Yes, by one of the fae, and it's why a lot of western cultures see snakes and parseltongue as evil, even though people like Paracelsus, whose name was used to name it, used it to heal," said Dobby. "The Echidna,1 from the boundless swamps of the Pripet Marshes, punished a tribe of wood elves who opposed her, and cursed us to be enslaved to humans, and be dependent on their power. We became the Domovoi of the Slavic lands, but were traded further west by Slavic wizards, always doomed to seek to serve. Your family power has given us power so we are happy to remain, because we still have a love of helping. But I have more understanding that my friend Harry likes to cook sometimes; the mists of the curse that we must make humans depend on us have gone."
"And that was part of her plan, too," said Winky. "She feared the humans might drain the marshes, and the Russians did actually try, and made a right mess of the ecology in the 1950s. But she wanted the humans to become so dependent on house elves that they would be weakened. Of course the statute of secrecy meant that this would never happen, but also house elves were too much of a status symbol as well, so only the great houses were weakened."
"How ironic," said Hermione. "So, how do we break the curse for all elves?"
"That would be a mighty ritual," said Dobby. "Perhaps to consider after dealing with V... Voldemort?"
"No," said Harry. "This is the power he knows not from the prophecy. With de-cursed elves, they don't have to stay with their pure-blood masters, and they can choose to fight."
"Harry, yes!" said Dobby, bouncing up and down.
Apparently being hyperactive was just part of Dobby and no part of the curse.
"It would have to be done at the winter solstice," said Winky, her voice still rather high, if not as squeaky. "When fae power is least. And with Orion high in the sky and Mister Dogfather having ties to Orion in his name, where it can be seen the curse could be broken."
.
Much plotting would be needed, but the elves now had more power, and Regulus could also help in tracking down horcruces.
"And we have to go back to school for a year," said Hermione.
Her father could not suppress a chuckle.
"Honey, this is the first time you have ever sounded reluctant about school," said Dan.
"But I have the Black library here, and I'm learning so much from Sirius and Remus and the elves," whined Hermione.
"Mione, we could take our OWLs tomorrow, all we need to do is to keep our heads down and turn in homework, and study the things we need to take 'O' levels as well, and the extra subjects we are covering," said Harry.
"Yes, I am glad you are studying runes and arithmancy now," said Hermione.
"And Sirius wrote to McGonagall and told her that I would be joining those classes. We can just take and pass muggle studies, and I'm going to use Divination to prepare people for defeating Voldemort," said Harry.
"Harry! What are you like!" the scolding phrase was robbed of its sternness by Hermione giggling.
"A Marauder; that's what I'm like," said Harry, leaning over to kiss her.
There was a sudden swirl of stars about them.
Hermione froze briefly in shock, and then she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back.
The world stood still, or maybe an eternity passed, and the teens came up for air, a trifle thunderstruck.
"Marry me!" gasped Harry.
"Oh, yes!" squealed Hermione in a way she would later consider to be ridiculously girly.
She felt something on her finger.
"I presume that's the Potter promise ring," said Harry, laconically.
"It is," said Sirius. "And I'm not displeased – Dan, Emma, this is even better protection than the Black ring of heir secondary. Now Hermione is covered against all mind-magic and love potions."
"Regulus ought to be heir primary of Black," said Harry.
"No; he needs to be heir secondary if Hermione is happy with Lady Dagworth-Granger and future Lady Potter," said Sirius.
"I cede position of heir secondary of House Black to my most beloved uncle, Regulus Arcturus Black," said Hermione. She removed the Black ring and passed it to Regulus.
"I don't... well, I suppose duty is duty," said Regulus. "Not holding out for two wives, young Harry, one for Black and one for Potter?"
"Not to mention Slytherin, Peverell and Gaunt," said Sirius. "He should have a harem."
"Over your dead body, Padfoot," said Harry. "Not unless Hermione insists on taking Draco as her concubine for Dagworth-Granger heirs."
Hermione sniggered.
"Now that's a scary thought," she said. "Dressed in a teatowel."
The Black elves were now all in livery.
"Now I need brain bleach," laughed Harry.
1 The Echidna was a Scythian monster, half snake half woman, not an uncommon fae/demon as Lilith is often thus depicted, and there is also the Breton legend of Melusine. Echidna was chosen as a name for the Australian animal for seeming to be a bit of a mix of types of animal.