Everyone was gone again. It was an opportunity. Sirius was still too ill to do much, but he could use his wand (mostly), drag himself out of a chair, and hobble about completely unassisted now. So he decided it was time to snoop around the family drawing room, find the supposed secret space Narcissa had mentioned so many weeks ago, and figure out what Abraxas might be hiding on the Dark Lord's behalf. He waited until the elf had taken his breakfast dishes and set out more tea and a large book Sirius had requested from the library before getting up. He should have at least an hour undisturbed before Dobby felt the need to check on him again. He started by checking the room for listening spells, then placed his own silencing charms. Then he started searching methodically for secrecy and alarm spells. He took his time edging around the room, both to keep from stumbling or dropping his wand and to avoid missing anything.

It was easier than anticipated to find what he was looking for. His searching spells turned up little, but the Malfoy arrogance would always be their downfall. There was a Hand of Glory resting on the mantlepiece that simply did not fit the pleasant, vaguely feminine décor of the rest of the room. Closer inspection revealed the enchantments on this particular Hand of Glory had been modified in some way. He cautiously picked it up, and when nothing happened he turned to look around the room again. He grinned in satisfaction. The skeletal Hand showed a number of hidden things, including a spy-hole in the wall and a host of secret lines, names, and annotations on the large mural of the Malfoy family tree. Closer inspection revealed these to be the names of squib lines and illicit affairs, even one instance of switching cousins' identities two centuries ago in order to preserve the main male line; the Lord Malfoy at that time must have been impotent.

More importantly for Sirius' purposes, the Hand also drew his attention to a sunken tile on the hearth. It was covered in Elder Furthak runes, which were easy enough to translate. Turns out, the secret chamber was opened mechanically. That would actually have been a clever defense against wizarding foes if they hadn't left the Hand of Glory key out in plain sight or maybe picked a different runic script that wasn't taught in third year at Hogwarts. Or just left out the runic instructions entirely and kept the place an oral secret. Sirius replaced the Hand of Glory on the mantle. He carefully knelt down on the hearth and reached inside the fireplace, running his fingers along the base of the chimney. He found the lever easily enough and slid it home. Then he eased back, dusted his hands, used the wall and his cane to stand back up, and shuffled across the room. He pulled aside the garish peacock tapestry and stepped through the new opening in the wall behind it. Here he paused again and lifted his wand, probing the defenses as Bella had taught him. There was surprisingly little. All the alarm and containment spells were trained only against intruders breaching the walls unconventionally. Since Sirius had used the lever correctly, most of them had deactivated. There wasn't even a blood ward to worry about. Such arrogance. A guest would never be able to penetrate the secrets of the Black house so easily.

Sirius carefully descended the shallow, gently curving steps into the secret space below the drawing room. This chamber was as large as the room above it, which led Sirius to believe it was created with an undetectable extension charm. There was no way a room this size would fit in the floor between the downstairs dining room and the upstairs drawing room without one. It was probably constructed originally as just a tiny cubby behind the concealed door and enchanted later. He stopped at the edge of the room and surveyed the interior. Most of it was filled with a huge, glossy black work table with absolutely nothing on it. The walls were lined with shelves and cabinets. A few of them held books, and Sirius wondered what could be in them that was so terrible even the Malfoys wouldn't want to keep them in the main library. Most of them held Dark artifacts, however. It would take a long time to sort through, and he had no idea what he was looking for, assuming there was something of the Dark Lord's here.

He walked further into the room, and the ceiling brightened automatically. He took out his watch and opened it. There was the tiny Moody, fishing in the stream. "I'm underneath the drawing room," he murmured at it. Moody immediately got up and turned to face him. Sirius flipped the watch so Moody could see the room as well. Silently, they perused the shelves. The contents were, unsurprisingly, horrible. The nearest shelf seemed to contain exclusively human remains, including several skulls and shrunken heads, but also jars of eyeballs, ears, and what looked like aborted fetuses. He wondered grimly if any of them would have been firstborn Malfoy girls. Grimacing in disgust, Sirius moved on. There was a shelf of knives, drills, mortars, cauldrons, and other implements. There was a case of cursed jewelry and other odds and ends. There was a glass cabinet of various poisons, each neatly labeled. There was a collection of artifacts from Africa and the Near-East that radiated powerful magic, not all of it Dark. There was a rack of old robes and cloaks that were all either poisoned or cursed. When they came to the first bookshelf, Sirius recognized several titles including Magic Moste Evil and Secrets of the Darkest Arts, but they were older editions whose covers glistened with blood. There were other books he had never seen before, such as Golgatha Renewed, Naturan Demanto, Altare Maleficarum, Complete Works of Ekrizdis, and Schicksals von Gellert Grindelwald. There were titles in scripts he could not read. Some of the books were secured with silver chains. Some of them were bound in human skin. There were also, oddly, several muggle books. These titles he tried to memorize, since Abraxas must have collected and stored them here for a pretty sinister reason: The Albigensian Victory, A Study of Caste, The Black Death, Chemical and Biological Warfare, On Genocide, Mein Kampf, Holodomor: Reflections on the Great Famine of 1932–1933 in Soviet Ukraine, and one simply called Pogrom.

"There," Moody suddenly whispered, just as Sirius was about to move on.

"What?"

"Second to top shelf, all the way to the right."

Sirius looked up. There was a slim, black, unassuming, leather-bound book. The only marking on the spine was T. M. Riddle in plain yellow script. He pointed to it. "That one?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Riddle was you-know-who's birth name." Sirius shuddered. He had never heard that before, which meant it was a secret at least the younger Death Eaters weren't supposed to have. Another thing to hide. He scanned the book for tactile and other obvious curses and found none. Holding his breath, he used a handkerchief over his hand to gingerly pull the thing off the shelf. They both sighed in relief when nothing happened. He quickly turned around to place the book on the table. He had no desire to remain in contact with it until he knew what it was. He set the watch down next to it, propped in such a way Moody could still see. He checked the time as well. Half an hour gone. Still enough time to investigate.

The front cover was unmarked. Sirius flipped the book over curiously with a wandless levitation charm. It looked like an ordinary journal. He didn't recognize the maker's mark and thought it looked distinctly muggle in origin. Certainly, the pages looked more like muggle paper than proper parchment. With trepidation, he opened the book. There was nothing written inside.

Odd.

And very suspicious. There was no reason to keep an unmarked muggle-produced journal in a room like this unless it was much more than it first appeared. Sirius pursed his lips and returned to the bookshelf. He made his decision and pulled down Secrets of the Darkest Arts. The book had extensive coverage of cursed items and detailed powerful detection methods that he only vaguely recalled.

The object remained stubbornly resistant to the first five diagnostic spells he cast on it from the book. It looked for all the world like a perfectly normal journal, which to Sirius' mind made it all the more disturbing. He flipped through his reference chapter some more to find the section on items that could actively resist magical methods of investigation. There weren't that many, and they were all rather dangerous. It took rather a lot of power to hide Dark magic. This thing was either absorbing, analyzing, and re-emitting his spells with negative results, or it ate magic, or it had some Legilimentic nature and was deceiving his mind rather than his spells. Or it really was entirely mundane. He cast Incendio on the corner of the book. The flame appeared only briefly and was quickly doused, leaving the book unscathed, and cold. Nope, definitely magical.

He reread the last section again. He transfigured the handkerchief in his pocket into a stick of chalk and slowly drew out the runic circle and enclosed pentagram he would need. It took awhile, and he had to erase and redraw several lines when his hand jerked or the chalk slipped in his fingers. He placed the book in the center of the pentagram and touched his wand to its center. "Hwæt-Cȳþ-Diern!" Magic poured out of him and lit up the ritual circle. Nothing happened to the journal. More and more power flowed out, and his fingers began to cramp and legs to shake. The journal sat quiescent. "Hwæt!" he commanded again. Four of the five runes at the pentagram's vertices flared and went out, leaving one to smolder as the spell died.

Sirius stared at the little blank book with its soft black cover.

"What was that, boy?" Moody hissed.

Sirius did not answer him. He slowly turned the pages of Secrets of the Darkest Arts to the final chapter. His hand shook when he touched the tip of his finger to the journal. "Oὖλε ὁλόψυχος," he whispered. His Greek diction was usually poor, but the magic of his intent overtook his tongue and lips such that he would have been perfectly understood in ancient Athens. The pages of the journal glowed with unholy light and flipped open. There was no pain, but still he lifted his hand away as if burned.

Words appeared in a fine, slanting hand: Greetings, Dark Adept. What is your name?

"Finite Incantatem," Sirius hissed. The evil aura he had awoken around the book faded. After a moment, so did the words. "Shit." He breathed deeply for a moment before picking up the watch again.

"Kid?"

"It's a horcrux," he said hoarsely.

Moody cocked his head to the side. "I think you know more Dark Arts than I do at this point. Explain."

"The Dark Lord used a ritual murder to rip off a piece of his soul and store it in this journal. So long as it is intact, he will not die. And unless Abraxas happens to have a vial of basilisk venom in that poison cupboard, the only other ways the book mentions to destroy this is Fiendfyre or a scary ritual involving a dementor."

"Well. Troll shit."

Sirius nodded and numbly closed the watch. There was nothing more to be said at present. Portrait Moody had to tell Real Moody and Dumbledore. And Sirius was coming up on his one-hour time limit.

Not knowing what else to do, Sirius picked up Secrets of the Darkest Arts and gently replaced it on the shelf. It left a bloody smear on the table that he cleaned with a silent Scourgify. Then he replaced the horcrux on the shelf as well. He did not know what else to do with it. Yes, Bella had shown him how to use Fiendfyre, but he would probably destroy half the house and/or kill himself if he tried something like that in his present state. Not to mention, if he did survive, the Dark Lord would come calling quick-smart.

He slowly made his way back across the room and up the stairs. He pushed aside the tapestry... to find Dobby standing by the tea service with its little arms folded across its chest. The elf was clearly waiting for him, staring right at the tapestry.

Fuck.

Now what? He could maybe, maybe kill or obliviate the elf if he acted fast enough, but house elves were perfectly capable of defending themselves against wizards they weren't bonded to. Sirius was anything but quick at the moment. As if to reinforce that conclusion, his wand hand jerked, releasing his grip on the tapestry. He stepped sideways out from under it.

"Dobby is not being allowed in that room," the elf said in an odd tone. Sirius said nothing at all. He was just trying to figure out what the hell the weird little creature was thinking. Suddenly, Dobby smiled. It wasn't the typical polite, professional house elf smile. It wasn't the beaming of an elf happily going about its work or the elf that had received praise from its master. It wasn't the reassuring smile of an elf taking care of the household children. Instead, it was a smile of intelligence and shared secrets. A smirk. Sirius had never seen a smirking house elf in his life, and the sight was unnatural and unsettling to say the least. Frightening, particularly in these circumstances. He tried to surreptitiously fumble for his wand, but his fear and his recent nerve damage made that difficult. Dobby blinked and looked at Sirius with wide, innocent eyes. "Master is not telling Dobby his guest isn't allowed in that room."

Sirius froze again. What the actual fuck? Humming to himself, Dobby turned around and ambled over to the hearth. It reached one long-fingered hand inside and easily found the hidden lever. The secret door behind Sirius closed softly.

Dobby then picked up the iron poker and clocked itself over the head with it with a loud shout of "BAD DOBBY!" Sirius jumped and stumbled against the nearest chair. Right. Seems the Blacks weren't the only ones with an insane house elf. He'd seen Kreacher punish himself before, but not... not like that.

The elf replaced the poker on the rack. It was cross-eyed and wobbling on its feet a little as it shuffled back over to fuss with the tea tray. "Are you alright?" Sirius asked despite himself.

Dobby looked up at him and beamed. It was that batty, contented look of an elf receiving approval from its master, complete with unshed tears of joy. It was just as unnatural and unsettling as the smirk had been, because Sirius wasn't Dobby's master. Nor had Sirius given it any praise, now or ever. He mostly tried to ignore other peoples' house elves, just accepted their service and disregarded their eccentricities. This little chap was shaping up to be freakier than usual with its apparent willingness to ignore Sirius' trespassing in the Malfoy's inner sanctum. Not only willingness but desire, if the self-punishment was anything to go by.

Perhaps the Malfoys were one of those families that liked to abuse their house elves when they were bored? He hadn't seen that directly since he'd been here, but then he mostly hadn't seen Dobby until his return from the hospital. Lucretia had shot a stinging hex at it last week, and Abraxas had kicked it out of his way at some point, but both times the elf had made a real mistake. He didn't think Narcissa or Lucretia would torment the elf for fun or assign it particularly harsh punishments. He supposed Abraxas and Lucius could. Abraxas' father Clovis Malfoy too had been a right terror from what he had heard. House elves lived longer than wizards, and they could definitely go mad if they weren't treated well or absorbed bad magics from their family or house over time. Like Kreacher, mad as his owners.

Sirius didn't know what to do with it. He probably should try to obliviate it, but if it was already insane that could go very badly. A botched obliviation would point to Sirius' guilt just as surely as a dead elf would.

And so he did nothing. Dobby collected the neglected tea, bowed deeply, and disapparated to the kitchen.

Sirius laughed shakily. Well. He would know by dinner time whether the jig was up. If it was, maybe he'd just burn down the house with Fiendfyre the moment Abraxas looked at him crosswise.

Author's note: horcruxes were invented by Herpo the Foul of Ancient Greece, which is why the spell to positively identify them is in Greek. Please excuse me if it's terrible, as I do not speak/read Greek even a little bit. It's supposed to mean basically "Hail, Thing consisting entirely of soul!" The other spell was Old English, basically "listen and reveal your secrets."

I'm going for Dobby was always a little mad from being enslaved to people like Abraxas and Lucius Malfoy. And Sirius is, naturally, completely clueless when it comes to understanding house elves beyond how the bond is supposed to work.

Thanks for the reviews, will continue to update on Saturdays.