Summary: Kreacher was tasked to destroy it, and he must honor his Master's last dying breath's orders.
Rated: T
Genre: Hurt/Comfort; Tragedy
Warning Tag: Obsession to Follow Orders; Descending into Madness; Referenced Abuse; Servant Role; Use of Canon Slurs
Always Obey
"Master Regulus said to destroy the locket and to leave him behind to die in that dark and evil lake," Kreacher muttered to himself shortly after appearing in the cellar of 12 Grimmauld Place. "He said to not return…"
The elf gripped at his ears while he fought against the need to rescue Regulus before it was too late. Those creatures had only begun crawling from the lake waters, he could still…
'Cannot disobey.'
Kreacher shook his head and pulled the locket from his toga's pocket. There wasn't much time before Mistress Walburga knew he had returned. Questions would be asked as to where her beloved son would be, and he would have to deflect them and claim he had to escort Master Regulus to an undisclosed and warded location for his duties.
He tossed every piece of elfish and wixen-type magic he knew that could maim, damage, and destroy most things at the locket to no avail. The jewelry was protected by a very powerful and dark magic. Kreacher had never felt such strong enchantments like it before. He would have to think of something else.
"Kreacher!"
The metal was cold in his hand, but the fire that roared in the furnace nearby him would certainly do some damage to the piece of jewelry if it was left in there for long enough. He grabbed the poker and pulled open the cast iron door, exposing the flames and hot embers within. Wrapping the chain around the end of the pointed tip of the iron rod, he shoved it deep into the belly of the furnace and shook the chain free from the tool before pushing a white-hot log over the locket's new grave. He muttered to himself as he went to grab a couple fresh logs to toss in for good measure. It was supposed to be a cold night, he knew, and Mistress Walburga does not like the cold.
Closing up the freshly stoked fire, Kreacher let out a heavy breath. The deed was done, Master Regulus would be so proud. He should return and give the good news… but those creatures…
'I left my master to die…'
He gave another yank on his ears. "Master said to never return," he whispered to the cellar walls, "Not even the Mistress can know."
A faint voice above yelled out his name, and the pull of the command had Kreacher come at Walburga's call almost immediately. Being punctual was appealing to her, and he must always please all of his masters and mistresses, even when they command him to not come to their rescue or demand his silence on their whereabouts.
Walburga wished for tea and biscuits with the evening Prophet.
Cleaning the ashes from the furnace in the morning revealed the undamaged locket to Kreacher. The fear he felt inside the lake-filled cave came crashing back to him. Horrified, he removed the locket from the ash with a shaky hand, the feeling of failure washed over him as he eyed the piece of jewelry in his trembling fingers.
'Failure! Failure! Failure!'
Kreacher grabbed at an ear with his free hand and tugged at it, eyes locked onto the glistening face of the locket looking back. The fire did nothing to it.
"Master Regulus would be so disappointed," he muttered, "Must try harder to destroy the locket. Mistress Walburga suspects something is wrong. Master Regulus has not returned, but she cannot know his fate, no. Not from Kreacher."
He placed the locket on the ground and snapped his fingers. An old rusted anvil groaned from the depth of its resting place, knocking off the tools from it as it hovered from the corner over to who summoned it. "Magic did not work, not even the strongest I know. Fire did not melt it. This locket is cursed, it is the reason my master is gone."
Kreacher stepped back and moved the anvil to linger over the locket laying on the floor. With precise magic, he slammed the anvil down onto it with great force that he almost forgot to silence the space to contain the sound that emitted from it seconds prior. Lifting it up again, Kreacher peered down at the shimmering necklace and shuddered at the sight. The face of it was undamaged, not even a crack or scuff. It had popped it open just so, however, and Kreacher reached out to open it, hoping that a second attempt with it open would do the trick.
What he wasn't expecting was it to playout his worst nightmares once again before his very eyes.
It was Madam Bellatrix who came to deliver the terrible news about Master Regulus several weeks later. Mistress Walburga couldn't stand staying in the dark any longer and stirred up the Pureblood community about her missing son. Kreacher watched from the shadows, staining the new frame her portrait would be placed in any second now, muttering away while peering over his shoulder when the darkness nearby seemed to wisp in the air like the smoke that seeped from the locket. The touch ups were being made that very day, and Kreacher knew Mistress Walburga was not going to be in a good place soon. He closed the lid on the wood stain and discarded the cloth to slip into the kitchen to prepare tea, continuing to hear the half-whispers from the drawing room nearby.
"It appears our dear Regulus got tangled with the wrong sort, Aunt Walburga," Madam Bellatrix said. "We haven't been able to trace his whereabouts, and I'm afraid that he has either been captured or is deceased."
"If those filthy Mudbloods and Blood Traitors knew their place, my master would be here now, I would not have failed him or my mistress, who wouldn't be weeping now, and my family would be whole… no lakes or lockets to curse my masters fate. No."
Kreacher ceased his barely coherent mutterings as he entered the drawing room, offering tea and a handkerchief to his distraught mistress. The painter returned despite Walburga's dampened mood, and allowed the finishing touches to finally be made.
"Kreacher," Walburga finally said after several hours of silence since the painter departed, "Put the portrait up for me by the stairway in the foyer. I want all who enter to see and hear me first, always."
He bowed low before snapping his fingers, allowing the portrait to hover besides him. "Yes, my mistress. I will not disappoint. It shall never be removed."
"Good." She gave a single pat on his head.
The house was empty and deathly quiet. Cobwebs danced in the windless foyer, on the banisters of the stairs, and in the crevices of untouched cabinets and trinkets. The furniture was draped with white sheets where it mattered, the bedroom doors were closed and never opened. Kreacher couldn't handle wandering into the rooms of his deceased and disgraced masters, he only tended to the master bedroom where Walburga once resided during the last days of her life. She had fallen very ill, sick from grief and pneumonia. The winter was hard on her, and her mourning and search for her lost son dwindled her energy and her health.
He only had the portrait now, placed in the foyer by the stairs. She would speak kindly to Kreacher as he dusted her frame and polished the ornate carvings of its wood. Walburga didn't have to know he went into the kitchen to pull at his ears or to thump his head against the cabinet as he muttered about a crystal cave and a lake made of ink. She couldn't hear him whisper his failure of not destroying the locket that was buried in a drawer in the cellar, of how he was unable to answer his mistress' commands to search for Regulus and answer questions as to where he had to leave him behind to serve the Dark Lord.
The shadows laughed at him, wisping into that smoke that took shape of the horrors he lived through when he drank that awful potion and nearly died from drinking the water from the lake. He left Regulus to suffer the fate he narrowly avoided. He could have saved him, he should have saved him…
Why didn't he allow him to save him…
Originally Written For:
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments)
Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition
Monthly Challenges for All
Word Count: 1,381 words
Originally Written: June 2019