Content warnings can be found at the end of this chapter.

"So, lemme get this straight," Mad-Eye started slowly, his eyes narrowing. "The wizard Shazam is actually a seventeen-year-old kid who can turn into a fully-grown adult at will."

"Yep."

"And the bloke who came to pick him up? Also a kid?"

"Freddy? Yeah, he's Billy's age."

"And he took him to…what did you call it…?"

"The Rock of Eternity."

"Right, right, an' it's apparently where all magic comes from."

"Yep."

Mad-Eye pushed his chair back and stood up, slamming his hands down on the kitchen table. "This is bullshit. You're joking."

Tim shook his head and sighed. Everyone else had accepted Billy's identity without much protest, but, of course, it had to be Mad-Eye Moody who was still ever the skeptic.

"Why would I lie? What do I possibly have to gain?"

"You lied about not being a child soldier," Mad-Eye growled back, his fake eye looking Tim up and down. "You gonna explain that one to us?"

"Once Dumbledore gets here," Tim assured him, knowing they'd have to wait at least a day for the accomplished wizard to be able to show his face at headquarters. "And, to be fair, I never said I wasn't a child soldier."

"So, it's true, then," Remus said, looking concerned. "You are one."

Tim let out a long, pained sigh. "Yeah, technically." Were they really doing this right now? The whole 'oh my god Batman trained children to fight, that's horrible' thing?

Mad-Eye's eyes both focused on Tim. "Always knew there was somethin' wrong with ya. Yer a soldier for the Muggles."

"We actually prefer the term vigilante," Tim corrected him.

"We?" Tonks echoed back.

Tim smirked. Oh, this was fun, seeing them all confused like this. Since diving headfirst into the wizarding world, it had been a while since Tim hadn't been the one floundering for an ounce of understanding of what was going on around him. He liked being in the know. It was far less anxiety-inducing than being in the dark.

"Yeah, me and my family. We're vigilantes. Ever heard of Batman and Robin?"

Tonks frowned, shaking her head, and Remus looked no better, but Sirius and Mad-Eye seemed to vaguely recognize the names.

"He's a member of the Justice League. Operates outta Gotham," Sirius recalled. At his fellow members' confused expressions, he explained, "I subscribed to a bunch of Muggle newspapers in America and Britain a couple months ago." He added in a low grumble, "Not like I had anything better to do…" Obviously, he was still salty about not being allowed to fight at the Lazarus Pit.

"Is that why you wear that crazy get-up?" Bill snorted, eyeing Tim's equipment.

"When you're surrounded by Muggles, you learn other ways to fight than magically," Tim said cryptically. Was he telling them that he was Red Robin, trained vigilante taught by Batman himself? Yeah, the secret was going to come out eventually the longer he worked with the Order. Was he letting them know that he wasn't actually a natural-born wizard? Hell no. That would put him at an insane disadvantage. No way was he going to let that one go so quickly. They'd have to pry his amulet from his cold, dead body.

He shuddered, the image of Billy's pale body still fresh in his mind.

"His presence is muted. I think he's in some kind of magical coma," Freddy had told Tim when he'd arrived. "He'll heal faster at the Rock of Eternity."

Coma. He was in a coma because of Tim.

There was a thumping as someone descended the staircase into the kitchen. "Are you sure you don't need any healing, Tim?"

"Nah, I'm good," Tim told Molly. Sure, he was sore all over, but that was normal after a fight. It wasn't anything drastic. Or so he thought, before he had stood up from his chair and attempted to go refill his water, only to collapse to the ground, nearly hitting his chin on the tile and shattering his jaw because he refused to drop the glass.

"Tim!" Molly gasped, rushing over to him and grabbing him by the shoulders. "What happened?"

"It's nothing, really," Tim assured her hurriedly, not enjoying the pitying glances everyone was shooting his way. "Must have just stepped on my leg funny."

"Let me see it," Molly insisted, grabbing Tim's boot as if ready to pull it off at once.

"That's okay, I—"

"Let. Me. See. It," she ordered, and Tim cracked under the pressure, allowing Molly to take off his shoe and roll up his suit leg to reveal a large gash in his leg, covered in blood.

Tim's eyes widened marginally. "When did I…?" How had he gotten an injury like that without damaging the outside of his suit? Unless…

"Holy shit, Tim!" Bill exclaimed. "Why didn't you tell us you splinched?"

"Uh…" Tim peered down at his injury. "Because I, ah, didn't really know I did?"

"How could you not know, that thing is huge!" Tonks protested.

Mad-Eye cleared his throat. "Is this related to the whole 'child soldier' thing?"

"Ex-cuse me?" Molly gasped, staring Tim down like he was a particularly naughty house-pet. "Alastor, would you care to explain to me—?"

"That's really not necessary," Tim butted in, trying and failing to stand up, as Molly just pushed him right back down into a sitting position.

"Tim's a child soldier," Mad-Eye said simply and left it at that. The number of times the term had been thrown around the kitchen in the past half-hour made Tim wonder if anyone actually knew what they were talking about anymore.

Tim gritted his teeth and tensed up, waiting for the inevitable shock and disbelief and protests, but none of that came. Instead, Molly offered Tim a hand.

"Come now," she said softly, "let me heal this up in another room."

"Now, dear, I'm going to need you to take off the rest of your gear so I can check for any more splinching-related injuries," Molly told him.

Tim held his breath. Taking off his clothes meant revealing the myriad scars he'd accumulated over the years, and the last thing he wanted to do was make Molly worry for him when he was perfectly capable of caring for himself.

Molly took Tim's silence differently. "Oh, well, ah, if you're uncomfortable with me being here, I can go fetch someone like Remus to come heal you up, he's quite an accomplished healer himself."

Tim could see nothing but love and concern in her face as she looked him over, and he let out a sigh. Someone was going to end up seeing the scars either way…

"No, no, it's all right," he finally decided. "That's not the problem, it's just…don't, like, freak out or anything."

"And why would I feel the need to do that, Tim?" Molly asked him sternly.

"I, um…I have scars. Like, a lot of scars. I just don't want you getting upset over them."

"Oh Tim," Molly said, grabbing Tim's hand, "you know I'm going to worry. You're one of my children, of course I'll be upset if someone hurt you. But I'll keep a brave face for you. We can talk about all of that later."

Tim finally let out that breath he'd been holding. How did she know exactly what I needed to hear?

With practiced ease, Tim systematically peeled off his armor piece by piece until he was in nothing but a tank top and boxers. But even that was enough for Molly to catch sight of his arms and legs, which were both littered with scars. He was practically a Pollock painting of scars at this point. They were all faded to various degrees save for the large chunk of flesh missing from his elbow which could only have been another instance of splinching. Maybe Tim wasn't as good at Apparating as he thought. Through all of this, Molly nodded, and Tim was surprised at how calmly she took all of it.

When she opened her mouth, Tim waited for the lecture, but she instead held up a bottle filled with a green potion and said, "All right. Now let's look at that elbow, shall we?" and Tim had never felt more gratitude towards a mother-figure in his life.

Tim was determined to head back to Hogwarts as soon as possible, but somehow, he ended up staying the night at Grimmauld Place, which was exactly what he needed—that is, up until the nightmare.

He really should have seen it coming. This had been an extremely stressful day and something of an emotional rollercoaster. Tim had outed himself as a vigilante to more people than he'd ever told at one time before, and that sort of thing left its mark. He'd watched his friend die and then get semi-resurrected, only to be whisked away, not to be seen again for quite some time. And then there was the whole splinching debacle, during which Molly discovered injury upon injury that Tim hadn't noticed at all, probably due to a prolonged shock that hadn't quite left him when he went to bed.

These were reasons enough for a nightmare. The problem is that nightmares in Grimmauld Place did not go as unnoticed as they did in, say, the Manor. Tim made the mistake of letting out a harsh scream as he awoke, which in turn awoke the wrath of Mrs. Black, who started screaming bloody murder about the 'foulness in the gentle house of Black,' which in turn woke up the rest of the house. Sirius was the first to Tim's room, bursting through the locked door brandishing his wand in front of him.

"Tim, are you—Tim?" He turned his head enough to catch sight of Tim sitting up in bed, the gas lamp beside his bed illuminating his sweat-drenched torso which Tim would later realize in horror was bare, showing off the worst of his scars to this near-stranger.

"What happened, Tim?" Sirius asked, hurrying up to Tim's bed and sitting down on the side.

"Ah, it's n-nothing," Tim choked out with a weak smile that he couldn't even convince himself was real. "Just a bad dream."

"A nightmare, eh?" Sirius nodded solemnly. "This wouldn't be the first, would it?"

Tim let out a very shaky chuckle. "N-no, no it wouldn't. It was probably because of the fight yesterday."

"Yeah, that would do it for me, too," Sirius agreed. "You, er, wanna talk about it?"

Tim shrugged, pulling his sheets closer to his chest. "Not, uh…not really. But I probably should. It usually helps."

"Whatever's best for you," Sirius told him quietly. For a few minutes, Tim sat there, fiddling with his blankets in between his fingers.

"It—you really wouldn't understand the context behind it, but…" He fidgeted in place. "Basically, I was forced to watch a really terrible person kill a lot of people. It—it's similar to something that actually happened to me a few years ago, so it was pretty vivid." Lights everywhere, the Joker laughing so hard tears were streaming down his face, Tim struggling against his seatbelt…

"Hm," hummed Sirius. "Doesn't sound pleasant."

Tim laughed hoarsely. "Not particularly, no."

Sirius hummed again and nodded his head slowly. "Do you want a drink or something? That's what usually calms me down from a nightmare." Tim winced. He knew he wasn't one to judge, but that didn't seem like the healthiest coping mechanism.

"Okay, then," Sirius muttered, clearly having seen Tim's hesitance all over his face. "What do you usually do?"

"Read," Tim admitted. "I read a lot."

"You into old, racist books about blood supremacy?"

Tim stared at him blankly, unsure if the man was joking or not.

"Yeah, didn't think so. But the library also has a bunch of diaries of old wizards from the 17th century, if that's your cup o' tea."

"You have a library?" Tim croaked. Face slightly flushed, he cleared his throat and repeated the question.

"Yep. Just down the hallway," he told Tim. "It's dusty as hell 'cuz no one uses it, but I could light the fireplace or something."

"That sounds…great, thank you."

"Ah, it's no problem."

The library, as it turned out, was already occupied, despite Sirius's claims of its unpopularity. When they opened the door, it was to an already-lit fireplace and a man curled up in an armchair smoking a cigarette.

"Er, sorry," Sirius grunted, squinting to see if he could recognize the figure in such dim lighting, which was funny, because Tim only knew of one person in this house right now who smoked. "Didn't know this place was taken."

"Ah, 's no problem," Constantine murmured, removing his cigarette and blowing out a puff of smoke. "There's 'nuff room in 'ere for more." He took one long look at Tim (who'd hastily thrown on a sweater as soon as he'd gotten himself out of bed) and nodded, like Tim's existence made sense to him.

"Sounds like I'm not the only one havin' trouble sleepin'," remarked Constantine.

"Bad dream," Tim told him, making a beeline for the first shelf in the corner of the room.

"Got plenty o' those to go 'round, I guess," he shot back, and he sank a little further into his chair. Tim glanced over and got a brief glimpse into the man's eyes, and Tim wasn't sure he'd ever seen someone so clearly haunted by something on their mind. Tim supposed that, when one dealt with demons and fiends as a career, they'd probably seen things more horrible and disturbing than the human brain could conceive.

"Amen to that," Sirius agreed, holding up a bottle of wine that Tim was certain hadn't been in his hands before. Had Sirius woken up because of Tim's nightmare, or had the man been having trouble sleeping before then?

It was an interesting scene, the three of them seated in armchairs coping with their nightmares in their own ways. At some point, Molly showed up with three mugs of hot cider, but she didn't stay for long, merely gave Tim a kiss on the head and urged the three of them not to stay up late if they could. The gesture was appreciated, even though it was an unspoken certainty that none of them were getting back to bed any time soon.

The next day, Dumbledore showed up at headquarters, and Tim was finally pressured into telling everyone the abridged story of his life as a vigilante over breakfast.

"I had my suspicions," Dumbledore said after Tim had finished. "Never would I have guessed that you were trained at such a young age, though."

"Kids grow up fast in Gotham," was Tim's reply, curt and to-the-point. As much as possible, he wanted to avoid the 'why-did-Batman-train-someone-so-young' talk as long as possible because Tim absolutely hated the way people blamed Bruce for training children in combat when two of those children were born and raised by literal assassins, one of them had grown up brawling on the streets to survive, and one of them had been actively trying to hunt down their parents' killer. And then there was Tim and Steph and Duke and Barbara, who had chosen this life, who had pestered Bruce until he was forced to train them. Bruce wasn't creating child soldiers, he was keeping them alive.

Okay, but, like, he was also creating child-soldiers, Tim's subconscious told him, remembering Jason's memorial case.

Besides the point, Tim told himself firmly. We're not getting into that argument right now.

"It's true," Constantine agreed, and Tim was glad to know that there was someone on his side here, someone in the Order in every way but officially. "Gotham's ruthless, it tears you 'part 'f you ain't careful."

"Oh, I don't doubt that," Dumbledore agreed. "And thank you for telling us about this, Timothy. I understand why you would keep it a secret from others, so I am grateful you feel comfortable enough to reveal another side of yourself to us all."

Tim shrugged. Again, it was going to come out anyways. Might as well let it come out on his own terms.

"Unfortunately, we don't have the time to discuss what is, frankly, an astounding life story," Dumbledore sighed, like this was a real bummer. "What must be decided is where to go from here." Everyone nodded, the clattering of silverware slowly dying down.

"For starters, I would like an update as to the whereabouts of one Ra's al Ghul."

Tim winced. "No clue. He escaped into the woods while we were caring for Billy, and by the time I'd gotten there, he'd disappeared. He's probably back at Nanda Parbat by now."

"Nanda Parbat?"

"His base right now, in the Himalayas."

"Ah. I see. And what of this child, 'Billy?'"

"He's recovering," Tim explained. "He's gonna be out of commission for a while."

"Then please inform me when he is better," said Dumbledore. "I should very much like to speak with him and thank him for his invaluable help."

"I'll be sure to let him know."

"John," Dumbledore announced out-of-the-blue, "how has your and Mundungus's research been faring?"

Constantine nodded, flicking his lighter on and off. "'S 'bout as good as you can expect. No word on the Death Eaters who were at the Lazarus Pit when the thing blew up, so we still have no clue where they are or how many survived." He gave Tim a funny look, one the boy recognized as saying 'I have more information, but it's just for you.' Tim nodded discreetly to acknowledge this.

"Jones killed one before she—" Mad-Eye cut himself off. "Gibbon is dead."

"Ra's killed at least two of them," Tim added, "and I think someone was critically injured by the collapsing cave."

"Then we have dealt a great blow to Voldemort and his cause," Dumbledore decided, and everyone nodded and dug into their breakfasts. For a while, the only sounds were the clanging of utensils against plates as people ate Molly's cooking, a lovely full breakfast complete with some beautiful poached eggs and fried tomatoes that somehow had Tim's mouth watering while he was eating it.

From there, Tim quietly excused himself to his bedroom and waited, reciting the digits of pi in his head to pass the time. He had just gotten past 'five, four, five, nine, four, zero, five, one,' when there came a knock at his door.

"It's open," Tim called, sitting up on his bed.

"You jus' let any old bloke into yer room, eh?" Constantine grunted, closing the door behind him.

"I made an educated guess," said Tim. Upon receiving a blank stare, he added, "I smelled cigarette smoke, and there's only two people in this house who've been smoking this morning. Didn't think Mundungus was paying me a visit."

He was pretty sure Constantine mumbled something about 'bloody detectives,' but the man puffed on his cigarette and blew out a train of smoke like this was just a normal house call.

"I got your letter," Constantine started, but Tim shushed him quietly.

"Immotus," he whispered, pointing at his door with his wand, and then he turned back to Constantine, who looked mildly put-out at being cut off like that. "All right, continue. Just wanted to make sure we had some privacy."

Constantine nodded. "Ah, I see." He took another drag on his cigarette before continuing. "Anyways, I got your letter, the one about immortality."

"And…?" Tim didn't want to get his hopes up, but if Constantine had the information Tim was looking for…

"And I'm almost certain that the Dark Lord's usin' a horcrux."

Tim nodded. "Cool. Awesome." After a couple seconds, he clapped his hands together and looked to Constantine. "So, what's a horcrux?"

Constantine walked over to the other side of the room, grabbed a chair from the desk, and dragged it over so that he was sitting a couple feet away from Tim, chair facing backwards.

"Basically, horcruxes 're objects that people put a piece o' their souls into."

"And what makes you think that this is what Voldemort's using?" Not that Tim doubted Constantine or assumed him to be lying, but Tim always wanted to know the sources from which people were drawing their conclusions. Call him nitpicky, but Tim liked to be thorough.

Constantine, however, did not seem offended in the slightest by Tim's skepticism. "Right. Well, it's mainly because there ain't really any other ways o' getting' yourself immortality known to this particular breed of magic-wielders. Other than a Philosopher's Stone, which is stupid hard to make and even harder to find, there really isn't another way. Sure, there are Lazarus Pits, but that's not the kind of immortality we're talkin' 'bout. We're talkin' 'bout the kind that lets you reincarnate into a new body. That's textbook horcrux territory."

"I assume they're created with some kind of dark magic, or else everyone'd have one," Tim concluded.

"Yeah, you need to off someone to make one," he told Tim with a puff of smoke.

"That certainly falls into my definition of dark magic," Tim agreed solemnly. "So, is there any solid evidence that supports this, or is it still a theory at this point?"

"Oh, I've got solid evidence all right," Constantine said. "There's a piece of Voldemort's soul in this very house."

Tim blinked once. Then he blinked again. He then blinked a third time for good measure.

"I'm sorry, what?" he hissed, barely suppressing the urge to shriek. There was a piece of Voldemort in this house? And Constantine was just now telling Tim about it?

Shocked, Constantine held up both of his hands in mock surrender. "Oi, don't go getting' mad at me, I just figured out las' week."

Tim nodded stiffly, trying to steady his breathing. He was not panicking, he was not.

Calm down. Voldemort's in this house, but just chill. It's no biggie. Just an incredibly powerful evil wizard within walking distance…

"And how," Tim started with a trembling tone that he tried to subdue, "did you come to that particular conclusion?"

"There's a simple incantation I can do to sense people's auras," Constantine explained. "'S nothing fancy, 't only senses people in close physical proximity t' me. But I used it a lot when I was in that git Malfoy's dungeons, wanted to keep track of who was comin' in 'n' outta the manor so that I could identify 'em later. The Dark Lord showed up twice while I was 'mprisoned there. Never came to see me 'imself, pro'lly wasn't 'mportant 'nough for the ol' bastard, but I knew 't was him right away. No one in their original body'd 'ave an aura like 'is. 'T wasn't complete. First, I just thought he'd sold a part 'f it to a demon and it'd already come to collect, tha's usually how people end up with partial souls." Constantine winced, like he'd remembered something particularly nasty. "Anyways, point is, I know 'is aura."

"And you sensed it in here?" said Tim.

Constantine nodded. "Completely by accident, too. Was tryin' t' see if any o' my captors left a trace o' their auras on my ol' clothes, hopin' to try an' track them with the residual energies, but then I stumbled across old Voldy's soul again. Tha's when I started thinkin' 't might be a horcrux." He turned away from Tim for a moment, fiddling with his cigarette.

"But…" Tim started, sensing that there was more to the story.

"But the bloody 'ouse-elf won' let me look 't it!" Constantine complained.

"Kreacher?"

Constantine grunted. "Been keepin' the thing in 'is livin' quarters. Ev'ry time I've tried t' search the bloody thing, th' ol' codger won't let me near it, always raisin' a fit 'n' makin' a scene."

"In other words," Tim said, "if we can get Sirius to order Kreacher to let us search his room, then he'll have to obey."

"More 'f a cupboard, really, but that's the long 'n' short 'f it."

Tim cupped his chin in his hand, weighing the options before him. He didn't really see much of a problem with telling the order what Constantine had found out (though he was grateful for the man's discretion nonetheless), especially since Tim had a strong sense that Dumbledore would know more about the situation than they themselves did. On the other hand, the Order would certainly question Constantine's immense knowledge on the topic of horcruxes and might hold it against the man. Knowledge of the Dark Arts was highly frowned-upon in this circle of wizards, and Tim didn't want to put Constantine's reputation in jeopardy if he didn't have to.

Tim made sure everyone was gathered during lunch so that he could make his announcement. As usual, Molly's meal made for a perfect opportunity to force everyone into the same room, and, as soon as he'd served himself a grilled cheese sandwich and seated himself, he got right into things. He shot Constantine a look and slowly nodded his head, signaling to the other man. Constantine set down his sandwich with a sigh—he'd only had a couple bites, and anyone would be a little grumpy if they were being held back from partaking in Molly's cooking.

Constantine cleared his throat, commanding the attention of the rest of the table. "Er…" His hand dropped to his coat pocket. "I'm not quite sure how to say this, but…there's a piece o' Voldemort's soul in this house."

The reaction to this information was as Tim expected. One by one, people slowly looked up from their lunch at Constantine and gave him the most incredulous look they could muster.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sirius asked, narrowing his eyes and pointing at Constantine with his sandwich.

"It means that there's a horcrux in this house," Tim explained patiently.

There was a sudden, sharp noise as something shattered on the tile, and everyone's heads whipped around to locate the source.

Dumbledore stood ramrod-straight, towering over the rest of the table's inhabitants, his wrinkled hand spasming as though it couldn't register the fact that it had dropped his glass of pumpkin juice.

"Oh dear!" Molly waved her wand and quickly cleaned up the mess. "Are you quite all right, Albus?"

The old wizard stared at Tim, who was beginning to feel nervous under the man's intense gaze.

"Where is it?" Dumbledore finally asked, his voice hoarse and quiet.

"'Ouse-elf 'as it," Constantine grumbled.

A couple seconds later, Dumbledore was out of his stupor, and he slowly sat back down, easing himself back into his chair.

"Apologies, I lost myself for a moment." He turned to Constantine, who fidgeted in his seat. "Could you perhaps walk this old man through your thought process, John?"

Constantine nodded, briefly explaining his aura-sensing incantation and how he'd used it back at Malfoy Manor.

"And so you think Voldemort's in this house?" Remus repeated skeptically.

"A piece of him is," Constantine countered. "He's been using a horcrux to keep himself alive."

"Right, and this so-called 'horcrux' is just an object that holds part of someone's soul," Sirius added. "Are you sure that's even possible?"

"Oh, I'm positive it's possible," said Tim, staring intently at Dumbledore, who seemed to be only half-following the conversation. "Isn't that right, Professor Dumbledore?" Dumbledore may have been good at masking him emotions on a regular basis, but ever since the word 'horcrux' had come up, the man had completely lost his composure from Tim's point of view.

Dumbledore glared back at Tim with a startling intensity and said, slowly and carefully, "That kind of magic is impossible."

It was a lie. It was obviously a lie, but the rest of the Order seemed satisfied with this answer, clearly more inclined to trust Dumbledore's word than the new guy.

He knows about the horcrux, Tim deduced. But he doesn't want anyone else to know about it. Why not? Wouldn't it be better for more people to understand Voldemort's immortality and how to counter it?

"So, if it's not one of these 'whore-cracks,' what else could you have been sensing?" Tonks asked.

"I'm telling you, it's a horcrux! I know what I sensed. Jus' let me show you!" Constantine argued, slamming his fist down on the table and making Mundungus beside him flinch and recede into his chair.

"KREACHER!" Sirius shouted, tilting his head back, and with a crack, the house-elf appeared, looking, as always, like he hadn't slept in weeks and knew exactly whom to blame. He stared defiantly at Sirius, waiting for orders, and Tim, as always, felt a slight lump form in his throat like it always did when he saw a house-elf.

Sirius barely even acknowledged the house-elf's presence. "Oi, ya little shit," he started, "is there a horcrux in this house?"

Tim could practically feel the weight with which Kreacher rolled his eyes. "Kreacher does not know what a 'horcrux' is, Master," he croaked.

Grinning, Sirius folded his hands like he'd just won an argument. "Well, that's that. Little git doesn't even know what they are!" He said this in an almost mocking tone, which Tim thought was rich, seeing as the man hadn't himself learned about the existence of horcruxes until seemingly five minutes ago.

Constantine threw his hands into the air and stood up from the table. "Well, if the ol' wanker is 'ere, that means 'e can't stop me from—" As Constantine rounded the table and moved towards the kitchen, Kreacher Apparated with a crack and was suddenly standing in front of the cupboard, hands outstretched. Molly, who was cleaning dishes, let out a small scream and fumbled with her wand, dropping the pan and the sponge back into the sink with a loud clang!

"Kreacher would rather die than allow a Mudblood to get his filthy hands on the precious heirlooms of the noble family of—!"

"Kreacher, I order you to let Constantine look through your stuff and take whatever he wants," Sirius snapped, sounding oddly satisfied. Tim wondered if Sirius hated Kreacher specifically or if he was like this to all house-elves.

Kreacher made a whimpering noise, his feet dragging on the ground, and he reluctantly grabbed the handle of the cupboard and swung it open, looking very pale and sickly, like he'd just done something unforgiveable.

"Y-yes, Master," Kreacher hissed through clenched teeth, his entire body trembling.

Constantine had renewed the aura incantation while he was in Tim's room, a ten-minute ritual which had involved a string of Latin phrases and a drop of Constantine's own blood.

"Had plenty o' blood 'n me mouth while I was in captivity," Constantine had told Tim, laughing harshly at his own dark humor.

Tim watched, fascinated, as Constantine squatted down and rummaged around the cupboard before emerging with an ancient locket in his hands and a lump on his head from where he'd unceremoniously banged it on the edge of the cabinet on his way out.

"'Ere it is!" he announced, dropping it onto the table with a clank and slumping back down into his seat. Tim reached across the table and snatched it before anyone else could get their hands on it, and he took a moment to look it over.

It was old and tarnished, featuring a curly 'S' on the front inlaid with a variety of tiny, verdant stones and surrounded by ornate engravings. If Tim had to date it, he'd place its design somewhere in the late nineteenth century, but it was always harder to place wizard items, since they always seemed to defy the boundaries of time. Take Hogwarts Castle, for example, a building apparently built in the late tenth century despite having the architectural elements of Norman and Gothic-style buildings that came centuries later.

"Looks like an ol' necklace to me," Mundungus grunted. "Don' see why someone'd put their soul innit."

"Hate to say it, but I agree with Dung," said Tonks. "If Dumbledore doesn't think it's possible, I don't see how it'd be."

Tim decided to call the old wizard's bluff. He swung the locket carelessly around, watching Dumbledore's eyes widen at the movement.

"Yeah, guess you have a point. Then, I guess there's nothing wrong with me bringing it back to Hogwarts and giving it to my friend, he's totally into old jewelry—"

"The locket will be kept here at Grimmauld Place," Dumbledore cut in sharply, glaring at Tim like he'd forced the man's hand early. Tim stopped swinging the chain and shot Dumbledore a feral grin.

Don't think you can get away with being coy about this, Tim thought to himself. You're going to tell us everything you know about horcruxes, old man.

"An' why's that?" Constantine asked, raising an eyebrow at the headmaster.

Dumbledore froze before letting his shoulders drop and letting out a long sigh. "I suppose I can't sneak anything past you, Timothy, can I?"

"Nope," Tim said, popping his lips. "Tell us, Dumbledore, what do you know about horcruxes?

You ever get too tired to write end notes? No? Just me? Ah, okay...

CW: minor injuries, nightmares, alcohol abuse