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Part Two

"I cannot find any spells on them," Lucius admitted after casting a detection charm for the fifth time. The dark pearls Narcissa had received from Black glowed briefly before settling back into their usual luster.

Narcissa smiled at him. She looked more relaxed than she had been of late, more beautiful. "Good. I didn't want to think they were a trap. I always admired them when Aunt Walburga wore them."

"Let's see how you look with them now," Lucius murmured, placing a hand on her wrist.

His wife blushed briefly, before she picked up the pearls and slid them around her neck.

They were stunning against her pale skin, Lucius had to admit. Narcissa looked positively regal with them there, and when she turned from side to side and they shone in the flames from her fireplace, Lucius wished he could kiss her throat. He started to lean nearer, but someone knocked on her bedroom door before he could.

Someone. Lucius shook his head as he retreated, ignoring Narcissa's slight pout. They only had one guest at present. "Come in, Regulus."

His cousin by marriage stepped into the room, pausing with his mouth open in mid-word when he saw the necklace Narcissa was wearing. "Good morning, cousins," he said, his voice a little strangled. "What is that?"

"The necklace your mother used to wear." Narcissa caressed the pearls. "Aren't they beautiful? Sirius sent them as a reconciliation gift."

"And you didn't test them?" Regulus's voice was a bit high-pitched.

"Of course we did," Narcissa said. "They passed through house-elf hands before they reached me, and both Lucius and I used detection charms. Lucius is even better with those spells than I am. We uncovered nothing."

Lucius nodded. He had been a bit suspicious of the gift himself, but he had used so many spells that the pearls had been blanketed in residual magic by the time he was done, and he honestly didn't think Sirius Black's traps could have stood up to that. "We've investigated them thoroughly. Is something wrong, Regulus? I was under the impression that our dueling lesson wasn't for another hour."

"There was an owl," Regulus said, and cleared his throat. He held out the arm previously hidden by the doorway, where a beautiful barn owl did indeed sit. "From the Ministry. They noticed that I'm alive, I suppose because of a records update, and they want me to come in and speak to the Aurors."

Lucius sighed. He supposed he should have anticipated this. "I'll accompany you." He glanced at his wife. "Unless you want to come?"

"No. I don't think so."

Narcissa had turned back to the mirror and was admiring the pearls again. Lucius shook his head indulgently. It was a long time since she had had something this beautiful, and of course, the history of the necklace meant that few gifts could have competed with it.

I should get her more gifts in the future, Lucius thought as he led Regulus to the Floo room. And make sure that ones from her estranged cousin do not take so high a place.

"Mr. Regulus Black. You understand that we have questions about where exactly you were that meant you survived but were listed in our records as dead, and the magic that kept you from aging."

Regulus nodded, calmer than he had been in most of his dealings with his cousins so far. Narcissa knew his childhood and all the weaknesses that accompanied it. But the Ministry official in the Records Archive, although leaning forwards over an immense desk of polished wood and frowning at him, knew almost nothing.

Regulus and Kreacher had prepared a story for this, besides.

"I'm not sure how much you knew about my circumstances at the end of the war, Ms. Ossory."

"Let us say nothing." Ms. Ossory, a tall witch with blonde hair coiled in a tight bun behind her neck, dipped her quill into her inkwell and remained still, watching him with wide eyes like an owl's.

Regulus cleared his throat and dipped his head. "My parents were followers of You-Know-Who." He was glad that he had practiced the story, to coax himself into saying "You-Know-Who" instead of "the Dark Lord." "They forced me into his service. I was unhappy for a long time, but saw no way out of it, particularly when I was so young and my parents and most of my friends supported him.

"Then my house-elf, who had also been in his service, came back and told me of a highly magical sanctuary that You-Know-Who himself had designed. My elf thought I could hide there, and You-Know-Who's own magic would keep him from detecting me."

"Where is this sanctuary?" Ms. Ossory asked, her quill scratching steadily away.

"I don't know the name. I saw the place only from the inside, so I'm afraid that I can't say what it's near, either."

"Hmmm. Continue."

"The sanctuary had an immense black lake." Regulus swallowed and closed his eyes, not needing to feign the shudder that ran through his body. "I thought the magic was strongest there, so I went down to the water to take a closer look."

"Foolish of you."

Regulus nodded fervently. Whether he was talking about reality or the story he had dreamed up with Kreacher, he could agree with that. "When I came close enough, I saw movement under the surface, and realized that the lake was swarming with Inferi. I backed up, but I had disturbed the water, and it was too late. One of the Inferi grabbed me and dragged me down." Regulus shut his eyes and swallowed again. "My house-elf told me that he searched for me, but he assumed after a time that I had died, and left the place."

The scratching of the quill made the blackness behind his eyelids at least less threatening than the blackness of the lake had been, but when Ms. Ossory stopped writing, the moments before she spoke again seemed interminable. Regulus bit his lip a few times so that he wouldn't throw up on the spot.

"And then what happened?"

"I'm not entirely sure," said Regulus, which was only the truth. "There was a long time when I suppose what I felt wasn't much different from death. There was just darkness and—silence. I drifted, and I didn't feel awake or asleep or alive. I only woke up at all because I could feel something prodding at me. I didn't know it at the time, but a few cousins of mine were performing a major ritual. They called to all members of the Black family for their magical strength, and I gave them mine."

"Then you should have died."

"Believe me, I know that, Ms. Ossory." Regulus opened his eyes and licked his lips. The witch didn't look sympathetic, just watching him. "But I didn't. I've asked a cousin of mine, and he believes that the necromantic magic of the lake and the Inferi might have kept me alive, in a sort of suspended state. But no one knows for sure."

"This cousin of yours knows necromancy?" A sharpness in her voice for the first time.

"Theoretical necromancy only, Ms. Ossory, and some of the books that came into his possession during the war were ones that You-Know-Who commanded him to take." Regulus made a soothing motion with his hand. "I am speaking of Lucius Malfoy."

Ms. Ossory relaxed in a rush. "Of course, of course, I should have known." She wrote down a few more things, while Regulus tried to watch himself inside his head and figure out if he had done well or not. Well enough to fool her, he hoped.

"Do you think you could find this sanctuary again?"

Regulus shook his head. "Not without the help of my house-elf. Of course, if you would like to interview—"

"The Records Archive has better things to do than interview house-elves," said Ms. Ossory, with a sniff that ruffled her nose hairs, and tapped the sheets of parchment she'd been writing on into a neat pile. "Good day, Mr. Black."

Regulus nodded to her and left, meeting Lucius in the corridor. Lucius gave him a faint smile. "It went well?"

"Yes," Regulus said, mindful of passerby and portraits and Listening Charms. "Of course, I couldn't explain the magic that kept me alive and unaging, but I don't know that anyone truly could."

Lucius's eyes sparkled with mirth for a moment before he got control of himself. "Yes, well. I think we have an appointment with the dueling chamber."

Regulus swallowed and nodded. He did want to get better at magic. He wanted to make sure that he could take over the wards of Grimmauld Place from Sirius and get the locket Horcrux back, so that they could destroy it.

But he was finding himself far more appalled by the Malfoys' predilection for Dark Arts than he had ever believed he could be, and he hoped he could get his stomach under control before his practice duel with Lucius this afternoon.

Draco frowned as he watched the school owl that he'd used to send a letter to Mother stoop down towards him. It was over three days since he had sent the letter—using this owl so that Henry wouldn't know Draco was writing to their parents because he was worried about his twin—and this reply had been slow.

Draco offered the owl a piece of bacon as he opened the letter, noting that Mother had sealed it with a raven's head in black wax. Sometimes she did that, when she was feeling her Black heritage more strongly.

Her writing was the same as ever, but the content of the letter wasn't at all what Draco had expected.

Dear son,

I know that you're worried about Henry, but that's only natural after the ritual we performed to save him. The effects of literally risking your soul and magic for your twin are going to linger. That doesn't mean you need to worry all the time! I promise that things will be fine if you let Henry have a little independence and some time to himself.

If you become concerned with more than just general worry, please write to me again. For now, however, I'm preparing a surprise for you and Henry, and I need to concentrate on it.

Love,
Mother.

Draco blinked, and blinked. Then he shook his head and tucked the letter into his robe pocket, reaching for a bowl of blueberries with the other hand. He would write to Father, too, and see if he thought that Mother was acting strange. Draco hadn't expected rambling about surprises and the ritual from her.

Besides, the overprotectiveness from the ritual, which Draco had definitely noticed, and worn off weeks ago. He didn't need to follow Henry everywhere and keep track of him now. But he did need to know that his brother was safe.

"Draco, I wanted to ask you something."

Draco glanced at Pansy with as polite a smile as he could muster. She was his friend, but she had become clingy and more interested in dating him than just being his friend ever since they'd come back from Christmas. Draco wasn't really interested in dating right now. "Yeah, Pansy?"

"A Hogsmeade weekend is coming up, and I was wondering…" She trailed off meaningfully, fluttering her eyelashes at him.

"Yeah?"

"Would you go with me? On a date?"

Draco shook his head. "Sorry, Pansy, it's a little distracting thinking about dating in the middle of studying for OWLS and knowing there's a Dark Lord after my brother," he said. She turned a little pale. "But I'd be happy to go with you as friends."

Pansy gulped and nodded. "All right. If you just want to be friends…that's fine. We can go as friends." She tried to give him a smile again, but there was a bit of a sickly tinge to it. "Will you excuse me? I should go to the Owlery before Potions starts."

Draco watched as she left, wondering if she was upset because she had been reminded of the Dark Lord's existence, or just in general. A scoff from the side made him look over at Daphne Greengrass.

"You're a fool," Daphne hissed, and stood up to leave the table, practically flouncing away.

Draco blinked at her back, then turned to Theo and Blaise. "What was that about?" If something had happened with Daphne or Pansy in particular, then his friends would tell him.

Blaise and Theo sighed and looked at each other, obviously deciding who should tell him. Draco waited, his hands flat on the table. They had a little bit of time before they had to leave for Potions. He might have had to put his family first for a time, but he did want to know if something had happened to one of his friends.

Blaise finally made a motion at Theo. Theo sighed again, rolled his eyes, and turned to Draco. "Pansy's father has enormous gambling debts," he said quietly. "I gather that he was trying to pay them with Galleons he had borrowed from someone else, but that didn't work. So then he borrowed Galleons from the Dark Lord."

Draco hissed. "And you think Pansy is—"

"She could be in danger. She could genuinely want you to go to the Hogsmeade weekend with her, but also be spying on you for her family. She could also be under orders to get close to her." Theo shook his head. "I don't think anyone knows except for Pansy herself. And her father's capricious and inconsistent and changes his mind like the wind changes direction. I don't think anyone knows for sure what he'll demand of Pansy next, or what's being demanded of her right now."

Draco gnawed his lip and looked after Pansy. Was she writing to her father right now? Should he go after her and tell her that he would go with her to the Hogsmeade weekend after all, if it would keep her safe?

Or would going after her and changing his mind so obviously reveal that he knew what was going on with her?

I wish I knew what the right thing to do was.

Mal?

There was a long moment of silence when Harry thought that he wouldn't get an answer, or, worse, that he might have imagined Mal speaking to him in the first place. But then Mal's voice came back swiftly. Thank you for returning, Henry. Were you able to get in touch with the necromancer you mentioned?

I wrote to him, but he hasn't written back to me yet.

Ah, yes. The speed of post owls. I often found myself frustrated by that gap in communication when I was alive.

Harry smiled a little. Yeah. Muggles have some good ideas, and the way they can talk to each other quickly is one of them.

There was a long pause, and Henry wondered whether Mal had become exhausted by speaking to him. Then Mal said, I wouldn't have expected a Malfoy to be familiar with Muggle communication.

Harry grimaced. It's complicated. I was stolen when I was a baby and partially raised by Muggles. But I'm back with my family now, and it's really only knowledge that I have from my time with them, not anything more.

So you are a pureblood?

Yeah. My mother's from the Black family. My father is Lucius Malfoy. Harry paused, but Mal didn't say anything else, so he continued. Do you know them? I don't really know when you were murdered—

It's not something I like to recall. Mal's cool voice cut Harry off, and then he continued before Harry could apologize for a question that had been pretty insensitive of him. But I did learn something since the last time you were here. My spirit is bound to a physical object. If you could retrieve it and take it out of here, then I believe I would move with it as well. It would be easier to communicate with the necromancer you mentioned.

Yeah, it would be! What is the object? How can I get to it?

It will require opening a special door. I can tell you how to open it, but you will have to follow my instructions exactly and concentrate hard. Can you do that?

Harry swallowed and nodded. Horror flooded him at the idea that Mal had been trapped here for years—decades—just waiting for someone to come and free him, and not even knowing if someone would. How many people had walked past this spot and not touched the stone in the right place? I can do it. Tell me how.

All right. You will have to step back and walk past this wall three times. At each pass, you must think strongly about finding the room where the diadem is hidden. Do you understand?

What's a diadem?

There was a sound like a long sigh. I suppose that Muggle schools and Hogwarts are both lacking in education.

I just didn't have time to spend learning random words!

I also suppose that you aren't in Ravenclaw. If you had been, you would have known the legend of her lost diadem. You're a Slytherin like all your kind.

Harry narrowed his eyes. But he didn't want Mal to make fun of him anymore, so he didn't say that he wasn't actually in Slytherin. You've wasted all this time, and you haven't actually told me what a diadem is.

No, I haven't, have I? Very well. It's a slender band that rests on the head. Rather like a tiara—if you know what that is—or a slim crown. You should see it on the head of a bust in the Room of Hidden Things.

Harry restrained the impulse to ask what the Room of Hidden Things was. Obviously, it was the one that he was opening. All right. And what will happen when I find it? Do I have to do a ritual to release you?

Malfoys all jump to rituals. Mal's mental voice was flavored with laughter this time. No. You'll be able to pick it up, and all you have to do is bring it out of the room and put it on your head, once. That will bring it into contact with your spirit, and from what I've discovered, that will confuse it, because my spirit is already bound to it. I'll go free.

And your body?

Mal's voice was solemn. If you're able to bring someone who can knock into the wall and find my bones, I would appreciate that. But I've thought about it, and I don't think I have any living relatives left. My spirit going free is the most important thing, and that's something you can do for me.

All right. Mal must not be a Malfoy after all, Harry thought. Are you sure that you don't want to tell me your full name? Maybe I could tell you if some of your family was still around.

You can do nothing for me except release my spirit. I would still prefer to keep my name private.

Harry sighed and stepped back from the wall. Mal's voice died away at once, and Harry winced a little. He hoped that he could help free Mal and give him some peace.

As much peace as he can have when his pride is still so strong that he can't admit who he is even after death.

Harry paced back and forth in front of the wall, making sure his Invisibility Cloak was tucked over him so that no one could see his feet. The last thing he wanted was Filch or Mrs. Norris coming up here and interrupting him. Or a prefect or professor, he supposed, even though he hadn't seen any so far the other times he'd been here.

I need to find the room where the diadem is hidden, the diadem is hidden, the diadem is hidden…

Harry felt kind of stupid, and he didn't think it would work, but when he completed the third pass, there was a loud click, and a door appeared in the middle of the stone wall. It was a grimy wooden door with a knob that seemed to be made of black crystal. Harry blinked a little, but reached out and twisted it.

The door opened with the same click, and Harry found himself confronting immense piles of rubbish, most of it covered with spiderwebs. He stared around at chair legs, a stuffed troll, heaps of Knuts, tattered books, a broken umbrella, a broom that looked as if it might be from the nineteenth century, a—

Then his scar pulsed, and Harry winced. Right, he wasn't here to gape at all the forgotten things people had left lying around. He was here to find the diadem and set Mal free.

Harry waded into the rubbish, following the pull in his scar as well as he could. He finally made his way to the side of a huge cabinet that looked sort of familiar. A bust sat on top of it with the diadem draped over it, the way Mal had said.

Harry reached up and clasped the diadem, hissing a little as he did. It almost burned his hand, and definitely his forehead. Yeah, this was a trophy of Voldemort's.

Could it be a Horcrux?

Harry winced at the thought. He almost hoped not. That would mean they had destroyed the other Horcruxes without releasing the spirits trapped in them. On the other hand, maybe their destruction would have done that anyway.

And the Horcrux diary, for example, had made Harry feel slimy and repulsed in a way that the diadem didn't. When he twisted it around, looking at the front, he saw a gleaming sapphire and words inscribed into the silver.

Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure.

Harry smiled. It seemed that this was probably something Voldemort had stolen and hidden so that no one else could have it, instead of a Horcrux. It was pretty enough to be something that would appeal to him.

Maybe it's even Rowena Ravenclaw's lost diadem, whatever that is. Mal had never described it.

Harry stepped out of the Room of Hidden Things and shut the door behind him. It vanished into the wall. Shaking his head, and wondering if he could come back and explore the room to find other hidden things, Harry placed the diadem on his head.

It tightened, burning, around his temples, and he gasped. For a moment, he was flooded with the sensation of a spirit so strong and overwhelming that—

He saw red eyes open in his mind, and his scar burned in response. He screamed.

Thank you, Henry Malfoy. Your body will serve me well.

That was all Harry knew before he drowned in the tide, and was swept away, and closed his eyes on an endless void.