Chapter 20: Finally A Breakthrough
"Do you know how Regulus passed, Grandfather?" Sirius sat in the Black Manor's smoking room, across from his grandfather while the two shared a drink after discussing some of the family's businesses. Arcturus raised an eyebrow, turning to his eldest and only surviving grandson with a wary expression.
"No, I do not. He simply vanished, at first I thought he had gotten cold feet and absconded to the mainland, but then the Goblins informed us of his passing, and Walburga flooed about a death date being added to the tapestry for him." Arcturus set his drink aside, before leaning forward. "Why do you ask?"
Sirius slumped in his seat, the tension gone from his body but replaced with a resigned apathy, not relaxation. "I don't know either. Nobody seems to, Bellatrix even came after me, trying to find him." Arcturus frowned, before stopping to consider that. Not even Bellatrix knew? Had he died in some way that neither side of the war was aware of? It was a conundrum, and one he must solve.
Arcturus shook away the memory and focused on the groveling house elf before him. To think that Regulus had discovered something so heinous about the dark lord that he would give his life to see it destroyed, it worried him. A gnawing pit in his stomach slowly opened up as all the most foul magicks Arcturus had ever read about came to mind.
"Bring me this locket, and I will see Regulus's last wish fulfilled." He commanded of Kreacher, whose wide smile at such a promise was nearly grotesque. The elf popped away immediately, leaving the Lord Black to wait in the foyer. He quickly returned, carrying an ostentatious, ornate locket. It exuded a slimy, oily texture into the nearby magic, tendrils of black malevolence reaching out and grasping at whatever it could. Arcturus's eyebrows rose, this felt semi-sentient, like how an octopus or squid would move through the environment - clearly aware and constantly evaluating. As a tendril reached for him, his magic rebelled against it and a shiver was sent down his spine, the tendril pausing, before slowly retracting, seeming to understand it was being observed.
"Place it on the floor, and find me a lead box appropriately sized. I will need to take this to the goblins." Arcturus wasn't quite sure what this was - and normally he would study it and deal with it himself - but he suspected that its corrupting magic was the source of the change in Kreacher and Grimmauld place as a whole. Given Harry and Sirius's memories, he'd order Kreacher to maintain this level of disrepair, but hopefully removing the artifact would prevent any future degradation to the wards.
Kreacher popped back in with a suitable container, and without being asked, placed the locket within. Arcturus's eyes widened in further surprise at how the malevolence was only contained, no longer palpable but still all-too-present. He hesitated to think of what this would do to someone who put it around their neck.
"I cannot walk through the doors of Gringotts carrying that, they would execute me on the spot. So I will need to speak to Rockrage before calling you to bring the box. Do you understand?" Arcturus prepared to leave, gathering his robe from the rack and collecting his walking stick which contained a spare legacy wand. Damn Lucius for copying him.
"As Master wishes." Kreacher bowed deeply, his nose brushing the floor again.
Sirius spun through the floo, his grandfather's words ringing in his ears. He was unceremoniously dumped out of the Headmaster's fireplace, too distracted by what he had learned of his brother to step out of the grate properly. He gathered himself, standing and taking stock of the room. He had apparently interrupted the Headmaster with a set of parents and a quite sullen third or fourth year hufflepuff. Professor Sprout stood to the side, looking quite disappointed in whatever the boy had done.
"Ah! Phineas! You're early, I'm still talking with the Brushcombs. If you could wait outside for a moment while we wrap up?" Dumbledore's eyes were asking far too many questions for him to answer nonverbally, but given the strangers present he simply gave a curt nod before exiting to stand at the top of the spiral staircase. The brief moment gave him some time to think back on what he had learned - his brother had turned traitor at the end, and had been killed for it. It was a bittersweet feeling, to know that Regulus was gone - and how he died - but it was nice to know he had come around in the end. It was a few moments before he heard the floo and Professor Sprout opened the door, herding the sullen boy through and down the stairs. She met his eyes for a moment, asking a question, but he gave a small shake of his head in answer. Harry and Dora weren't needed right now.
"Sirius! To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?" Dumbledore's eyes were curious as he spread his hands wide and smiled. The grim animagus sat heavily in one of Dumbledore's chintzy armchairs he kept for parents, before explaining. He watched as the smile on Dumbledore's face slipped, before being replaced with a frown.
"Well, I'm sorry for your brother, Sirius. I liked Regulus, despite the company he held. I hope that even without proper closure, this does provide some small comfort regarding his passing." Dumbledore sat forward, bridging his fingers together before his nose.
"Your uncle's idea to involve the Goblins is a good one, if expensive. I probably wouldn't have thought to do so myself, but they might be able to salvage the locket, and saving an artifact of Slytherin is worth the expense." Dumbledore paused in thought, his eyes staring into the carpet to the left of Sirius.
"They might have some idea on how to find the rest? They have a longer cursebreaking tradition than any other society."
"It's possible." Dumbledore continued to stare at the floor, seemingly doubtful of that. "We should ask Harry to come with. He'll want to see it, and going through Goldfist will probably be easier than you or Acturus with Rockrage." Sirius nodded at that, before casting a patronus, his grim bounding out through the wall.
Spectre strode through the halls of the DoM, watching as other unspeakables shot her small glances and avoided her path. It was a subtle thing, but after years of working around the perpetually cloaked, you learned the body language. She made her way to Croaker's office, opening the door and taking a seat as he looked up at her.
"I need to find someone." She set a photo on the desk before the director, one notably not of the man with grey eyes, but instead of a random muggle she had seen in Soho. Croaker slowly reached forward and picked up the photo, considering it.
"Is he a muggle?" He asked, noting the style of dress.
"Potentially. I was looking for signatures of time magic outside the Leaky Cauldron. I had hypothesized that because we had not seen any ripples in the wizarding world, the travelers have instead been operating within the muggle." Spectre spoke robotically, as they had in the past. She now realized it had been due to the removal of their identity. She still didn't know who she was, but the more time she spent thinking about it, the more holes she found. She found that she didn't have a single memory of before 1980, and even that was very spotty, and while she knew she had gone to Hogwarts, she didn't know her name, class, or house. Hell, she didn't know her age, beyond guessing early thirties.
"It's a solid hypothesis, seemingly backed up by this. Is that why you have been out of contact?" Croaker asked, simply curious.
"It is. I do not know much about this man, other than that he frequents a chippy in Soho. I have not yet seen him use magic, but he has slipped away from me in crowds before." All of this was completely made up, beyond there having been a chippy near where she took the photo. She just needed access to records.
"Well I can ask MI5 about him, our liaison should be able to get you details." Croaker set the photo back down and looked back to the black void in Spectre's hood.
"I would like to access records." Spectre was on a limb here, she needed to look for the man with grey eyes, not this muggle in Soho. it was a bit of a stretch, but… "This man is either a muggle, and as such is of no use to us, or he is a wizard, and there should be a record of him. I'll be looking for a muggleborn or half-blood who is from a time recent enough to function in modern London." Croaker considered it for a moment - he wasn't supposed to give people access to the personnel records, other than their healers. Those outside the DoM - and most of the DoM - didn't know this, but their files covered every magical born or residing in the UK. Some records were simply birth, death, and bond dates, but others were much more involved. Harry Potter's was over an inch thick, despite the boy not even having reached Hogwarts. Most of it was research into how he might have survived the killing curse.
"Fine. Take a look through records, I hope you find him, we need to make some progress on this." Croaker sat back, a small niggle at the back of his brain telling him something was off, but he couldn't put his finger on what. Spectre stood silently, before leaving the office in such a silence it perturbed even Croaker.
Harry sat before Goldfist, the others, including Sirius, Arcturus, and Dumbledore arrayed next to and behind him. Arcturus sat immediately to his left, and Rockrage was grumbling from a place behind Goldfist's desk. They hadn't managed to avoid the irate goblin once Arcturus had entered the bank. Harry had been briefed by Dumbledore and Sirius beforehand, but was leading the discussion today because he had the most amicable relationship with the Goblins out of them all.
"To get to business -" Harry began as Amelia sat beside Sirius in the row behind him "- We have found an artifact belonging to Tom Riddle, acquired at great personal risk and sacrifice by the Black family, and wish to see it cleansed - and if that's not possible, destroyed." The pair of goblins shared a glance before looking back to Harry, intrigued.
"And just where is this artifact?" Rockrage growled out, looking at the teen suspiciously. Goldfist's gaze was as curious but less accusatory.
"We didn't wish to bring such an artifact into the bank without authorization." Harry replied, Goldfist's eyes widening just as Rockrage's narrowed further.
"It exudes malevolence, and I didn't fancy getting executed for it as I walked into the bank." Arcturus said snidely.
"Do you wish for us to come to the artifact's location, or for authorization to bring it into the bank?" Goldfist warily asked.
"I have my elf waiting with it in a lead-lined enclosure. The magical aura is still tangible through the box, however I have not felt any further attempts to manipulate myself or my elf after placing it into the box." Arcturus explained. Rockrage's shock overcame his suspicion, and his eyes were soon the size of Goldfist's, as they shared another glance.
"You speak of manipulation - do you believe it passive or actively targeting? Is it sentient?" Goldfist asked as if he feared the answer.
" We aren't sure." Dumbledore butted in. "We haven't studied it extensively, it was discovered by Lord Black only this morning." Goldfist nodded, rubbing his chin as Rockrage went to the door and called for a cursebreaking team. It took a few moments, but soon a middle aged, unassuming-looking wizard arrived, followed by a freshly graduated William Weasley, wrapping up his first year as a trainee cursebreaker and a couple goblin soldiers.
"Head Cursebreaker Stinton, Hello everyone. Nice to see you again Amelia, it's been a while." He shook everyone's hands, cordially greeting Madam Bones. Sirius introduced himself as Phineas Black and sat a little closer to Amelia, only for her to roll her eyes at him.
"This is my trainee, Bill. He's shown some promise and while he's seen a fair few crypts, I need to show him more about cursed artifacts." Stinton gestured to Bill who nodded to Dumbledore with a smile, a confused look in his eyes to see the Lord Black and the Chief Warlock working together.
"Mr. Weasley!" Dumbledore's smile widened. "It is always an educator's greatest wish to see their pupils go on to bigger and better things, it's great to see you're doing well here at Gringotts.
"I'm doing well, yeah. I enjoy the work." Bill replied with a small smile. Dumbledore turned to Stinton.
"We have an artifact that needs cleansing, and failing that destroying. Before I can go further, I need to ask that not only the nature of the curse, but also the current owner, past owners, and even any added contextual information given or derived be part of the confidentiality clause." Dumbledore's smile shrank as he locked eyes with Stinton, impressing upon the man how serious this was. He got a sharp nod in return and the grandfatherly demeanor returned. "Well then, Lord Black if you would please call for the artifact to be delivered?" Stinton put on a pair of dragonhide gloves and withdrew his wand, one of the few people for whom it would not be an immediate death sentence to do so while within the bank, and prepared a containment field in the middle of the office. Everyone else backed away, but their complete focus was on the proceedings. Harry did idly wonder if the office had an auto sizing charm to accommodate the now fifteen or so beings within the room.
"Kreacher!" Arcturus sharply called, before backing into the circle. The elf popped in, carrying the lead box. Immediately everyone felt the malevolence, Stinton's left eyebrow rising in surprise. Bill was less controlled, shock clear on his face. It was a dive into the deep end of artifact cursebreaking, if there ever was one. Usually a lead box would completely contain the magic of an object like this. "Place it in the center of the containment field, and then return to Grimmauld Place." Arcturus ordered, and Kreacher complied before popping away with a bow.
Stinton slowly approached, before slowly opening the box. Immediately the sense of a violent, evil presence was amplified, nearly oppressively. The tendrils of black magic began to creep out of the box, but were stopped by the containment field. Upon touching the ward, they immediately withdrew and it was as if the Locket within had become inert, and the presence nearly disappeared, receding to a level even lower than before the lead lid had been opened.
"It's sentient all right." Stinton commented. "Did you feel how it responded to the containment ward? It knows that we're looking at it, and it's hoping that by hiding, we won't discover it for what it is." Bill nodded, his wand also out, not that he was quite sure what to do here. "A passive or active aura would not have picked up on that, it simply would have acted within the containment ward." Stinton continued lecturing as he went. He withdrew the locket from the box, and looked it over, looking for any exposed runes. Seeing none, he began casting diagnostics upon it, listing the various protective enchantments as a running commentary.
"...And an anti-bludgeoning enchantment." Stinton's eyes were narrowed as the locket confounded him. It was bizarre - enchanted to high hell to protect the locket itself, and to encourage people to wear it, but nothing seemed to activate upon wearing it, and nothing explained the entity within. He placed it back within the box, closed the lid, and turned to Dumbledore and Arcturus. "I believe we can destroy it, but I need more information, if you have any, if I am to cleanse it. Right now I'm inclined to simply use some fiendfyre and be done with it. It has some nefarious purpose and the less obvious it is, the more it worries me."
"We believe it to be a Horcrux of Tom Riddle's, and we were hoping you could find others using it." Harry spoke before anyone else could. He never would have expected the shitstorm that would kick off. Goldfist and Rockrage immediately and loudly began swearing in their language, while Stinton let out a fairly comical string of curse words as he leapt away from the box.
"Fuck! Black, what the hell were you doing with this thing!?" Stinton exclaimed, backing away further.
"Mr Potter!" Goldfist, in his surprise, forgot the ruse. "You never told me Riddle had Horcruxes!" Stinton and Bill's heads whipped around to focus on Harry, who sagged in his chair as Dumbledore pinched the bridge of his nose and Sirius put his face in his hands.
"I told you he came back!" Harry replied, as Goldfist paced behind his desk.
"Yes but you didn't say how!" Goldfist sat back down, fingers drumming on the desk as he warily eyed the box, realizing he had one of the blasted things in his office.
"I don't know what all the fuss is, anyways, I destroyed one last time already." Harry had given up on secrecy at this point. "Some Basilisk venom did the trick." Stinton, in the meantime, got over his surprise and sent off a sea turtle patronus, swimming quite fast through the walls of the office. That brought everyone else's attention to the man, who suddenly realized how many eyes were on him.
"I am oath-bound by the treaty of 1391 between Ragnok the 3rd and the Wizengamot of the same year to report all such phylacteries to the Department of Mysteries." Stinton explained. "I need to bring Croaker in on this, it's his department's job to deal with this." This statement only set off yet another round of yelling, and Harry sank further into his chair. This had gone royally wrong, all too quickly.
Croaker was sat at his desk when Stinton's sea turtle patronus swam through his wall, and simply said - 'Horcrux at Gringotts, come to Goldfist's office'. Any thoughts of departmental administration or even the hunt for the time travelers went out the window, this was priority one. He quickly sent his own patronus down to records, summoning Spectre back to his office. He was glad that they were in when this had come up. Croaker hadn't had a phylactery discovered under his watch, and records indicated that there hadn't been one discovered in the british isles since the 1700s, and that one was from the 1300s, left by the dark lord who had triggered the inclusion of phylacteries into the treaty with the goblins at the time.
He wondered if this was somehow related to the time travelers, considering that this was such a rare occurrence, and they had already had an extraordinary event not too long ago. He'd consider that as they investigated this horcrux. The door opened silently and Spectre ghosted into the room, seemingly nervous about something.
"The time travelers must wait, we need to go to Gringotts to deal with a soul jar." He quickly briefed them as he stood and made for the door they had just entered through. He received a nod in return, and a slight relaxation of their shoulders as tension left them. He wondered why they were nervous about the time travel investigation, but brushed it aside. It could be dealt with later. The two moved to the DoM's apparition point, so that they could head to the steps of the bank.
There was silence within the office. Everyone watched the lead box warily, and occasionally shot glances at others in the room. It had all been hashed out, the full - if condensed - story explained. Bill looked at Harry with a small sense of wonder, and Stinton at Sirius with a small sense of unease. If Amelia vouched for him, though, he'd believe her. They had been decent friends in Hufflepuff together and he trusted her judgment.
The door opened and two unspeakables entered the room, followed by an additional two goblin soldiers. This time Harry actually saw the room expand to fit the additional occupants. The two grey cloaks approached, the one in front lowering their hood to reveal a man in his mid sixties with a kind face and a salt-and-pepper goatee. The other unspeakable, however, froze as they entered the room, staring at Sirius. His heart sank, realizing that they had been found and Andromeda's fears were to be realized.
Spectre entered the room and reflexively scanned her surroundings to judge who was a threat and who wasn't. The goblins were a known entity, so she didn't pay too much attention, instead focusing on the humans. Dumbledore was pretty straightforward, though certainly a threat if it came to that, Lord Black would be too, the boy probably wouldn't be, and the man her age -
It was him again! She froze, as she instinctively tried to wrack her brain for any shred of memory, no matter how small, of just who this was and why he was so familiar. It was a lost cause, and as she realized that all she had was an echo of an emotion about this person, a few tears came to her eye, the first she could ever remember crying.
"Spectre?" Croaker asked, concern visible in his eyes. He was thoroughly confused by his agent, their reactions recently had been bizarre. They snapped out of it and walked fully into the room, acting as if she hadn't frozen in the doorway, staring at Phineas Black. Introductions were made, keeping up the ruse, only introducing Harry as Sirius's son and Sirius as Phineas. Soon, everyone's attention was back on the horcrux before them.
"Could you track this to more, Algernon?" Dumbledore asked Croaker. The unspeakable's head whipped around to face the chief warlock, who stared back.
"More? Merlin's bloody balls Dumbledore, what are you involved in here?" Croaker was completely out of his element, and he didn't like it.
"We believe Tom Riddle, Voldemort, has split his soul up to six times, for seven pieces." Dumbledore continued to hold the man's gaze as he froze, ceasing his pacing, and took a moment to reboot his mind. Seven soul shards floating around? That madman had descended to a level of depravity that Croaker had never seen a historical precedent for - even the ancient egyptians who pioneered the use of phylacteries to possess their children and keep a single Pharaoh in power through multiple bodies hadn't ever gone past a single soul jar. Surprises were being thrown his direction from every which way, and all he could be grateful for was the absence of any connection of the horcrux to the time travelers, as far as he could tell. He collected himself quickly, before opening the lead box, taking a reading of the magical signature, before gesturing Spectre forward.
"We can't track with them, sorry Albus. This is the first I've ever heard of multiple." Croaker spoke as he stepped to the side. Spectre withdrew their wand, which caused multiple goblin guards to draw their weapons - only pausing in their defense due to a gesture from Goldfist. Spectre walked up to the box, silently cast fiendfyre, and a thin jet of the cursed flames spat from their wand, irretrievably melting the locket and lead box into a puddle. A scream echoed from the destroyed horcrux, and everyone relaxed a bit where they stood or into their chairs.
As people began to filter out, starting with Arcturus and Rockrage, Spectre backed up to a wall and thought. She now had a name - Phineas Black - and that meant she could find him again. But she still didn't know who had taken her memories, so she would need to move forward carefully. If she could get Phineas alone, she would risk revealing her face, in hopes that he would be able to tell her her name. She had utterly forgotten about his potential role as a suspect in the time traveling investigation, now the only purpose he served to her was to maybe help fill in the identity that had been stolen from her.
A/N:
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