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Part Five

Sirius smiled at the flask of potion Narcissa had sent him. He couldn't stop smiling at it. He ran his fingers around the silver wire that she had used to seal the top of it, and laughed aloud.

She is a fool. She took the bait.

She took the bait, Sirius agreed, twirling the chain of the locket around his fingers, but she isn't a fool. She never would have done this if not for the necklace that we sent her.

There was a long moment of silence, although Sirius couldn't fathom why. He was gazing at the flask, and he had done what he wanted. He had done what the locket wanted. They were going to get into Malfoy Manor, and wait, and turn Henry Malfoy back into Harry Potter.

What are you going to do when you appear before her? Do you think it would disrupt the possession?

Possession. The word pulsed in Sirius's mind like an ugly wound. He didn't like to think that Narcissa was possessed because of the necklace they'd sent her. She'd only seen sense. And soon she would be willing, grateful even, to give her son to Sirius.

I won't need to do anything different. She's seeing sense.

A moment ago, you agreed that she never would have acted like this if not for the necklace of pearls.

Sirius dropped his hand from the locket's chain and strode away, calling for Kreacher so that the elf could pack the trunks of clothes and Potions ingredients that he would need. Ritual ingredients, too. There were times that he thought the locket was the only useful legacy his ancestors had left him, and others when he knew that it was pushing him towards things he didn't want to do.

Well, he didn't have to argue with it. He was still in charge here, and if the locket shook around his neck as if it were laughing, that didn't matter. Sirius was the one who wore it. The one who would walk into Malfoy Manor, and kiss Narcissa on the cheek, and get his godson back.

"Regulus? What are you doing here?"

Regulus slowed as he came down the stairs, and then stopped halfway up. Narcissa was standing at the bottom of the steps, staring at him with her brow wrinkled. Her hand rested on the pearls around her throat, as it always seemed to these days.

"The trip to the Ministry the other day was only a short one," he said. "Did you think that I was moving elsewhere?"

"No. I thought—I thought you were dead."

Regulus hated the panic that fluttered to life inside him with wings as fast as a hummingbird's. He managed to stretch his mouth in a smile, though, and say, "Well, no. I'm alive, and you've been good enough to shelter me."

"Oh." Narcissa's mouth twisted, her eyebrows went up, and she convulsively stroked the necklace again. "Why didn't I remember that?" she whispered.

Regulus came the rest of the way down, slowly. He hadn't seen her since the day he and Lucius had visited the Ministry, the day she'd received the pearls, and he didn't know for sure what would happen next.

As he came to a halt beside her, it happened. A sharp twinge shot through his Dark Mark.

Regulus clenched his teeth on a hiss. He didn't know what would happen if Narcissa knew that her pearls inspired that kind of reaction from his Mark, but he couldn't imagine it would be good.

It was something he needed to inform Lucius of at once, however.

"If you ask Lucius, he can probably explain it to you," Regulus said, keeping his expression and his shrug careless. "But I have a dueling lesson with him right now, so I'm afraid I have to leave."

"I'm glad that you're back, Regulus."

Regulus smiled at his cousin and turned down the nearest corridor that would take him out of her sight, although it meant he would have to double back to get near the dueling hall. Then he paused and shuddered, leaning his head on the wall for a moment.

It seems that it's up to me to save everyone. Kreacher, Henry, Narcissa…I only hope that Lucius and Draco don't require it.

"What's that, mate?"

Harry frowned at the pin in his hand. Mother had sent it along with a letter that said only, I was thinking of you, dearest. Maybe it was the surprise that she was supposedly preparing for him and Draco, but then he thought the letter would have said something about it.

"I don't know. Just a gift from Mother."

The spare language and bubbly tone of the letter made Harry uneasy. The feel of the pin in his hand made it worse. It was as if part of him wanted to wear it, but another part didn't, and that one felt larger and more sensible.

Besides, I just got done wearing something I shouldn't.

"What are you going to do with it?"

Harry shook his head and tucked the pin away. Maybe Draco would have more of an idea than he did. Even though Draco hadn't studied Dark Arts extensively before Harry got added to the family—he'd been too young—he seemed to know more about spells and the effects of curses in general. Harry would have to ask him later.

"No answer?"

Harry shrugged and asked a question he knew would distract Hermione. "Did you hear Angelina talking about how hard the NEWT was when Lupin was teaching Defense? How easy do you think we'll find it with Uncle Ted teaching us?"

Hermione went off immediately into a long tangent, while Ron shot Harry a disappointed look. Harry didn't know for sure if the disappointment was because Ron had really wanted an answer to the question about the pin, or because he didn't want to listen to Hermione lecturing him as he tried to eat breakfast.

It didn't matter. At the moment, Harry had to admit that he would trust his brother more with an artifact like this than he would trust his two best friends.

It's fine, Mother's voice murmured in the back of his head. Having some secrets from them need not damage your friendship.

It still might, but it had been damaged, in some ways, already, and Harry felt like having an argument this morning even less than Ron felt like listening to a lecture.

"It's enchanted somehow."

"Yeah, I thought that, but I performed a few detection spells on it, and I really can't tell how."

Draco walked in a slow circle around the table that Henry had put the pin on. They were in a space that some of the Slytherin seventh-years used as a study room, deep in the dungeons. At the moment, all of those seventh-years were elsewhere, and they had privacy so that Draco could study the pin.

And they had distance from other sources of enchantment, too. Draco thought that might be important.

"She didn't say anything in the letter about how she wanted you to react to or wear it?" Draco twitched his wand over the pin, and muttered the words of a spell Mother had taught him but he had never successfully cast before this. He was starting to think that all he'd needed was motivation, though.

"No. You saw the letter. She just said she was thinking—"

Henry cut off as the jangling sound of insidious bells filled the air. Draco smiled, despite feeling as though magical strength had drained out of him and his forehead going damp with sweat. He reached out and dragged his brother back.

"Hear that?" he asked over the sound of the bells.

"Yeah, but I don't know what it is!"

The sound was already fading. Draco hadn't managed to empower the spell for very long. He still felt content as he gazed at the pin, though. He had done it. He had done this much. He knew for sure that the pin was under an enchantment, and a particularly pernicious one.

"That's the Dark magic that's on the pin, translated into sound."

"How do you know that?"

"It's a spell Mother taught me to cast over the summer, after you were kidnapped."

Henry glared at him. Draco blinked. That wasn't the reaction he'd expected.

"Why are you apparently getting all these private tutoring sessions with Mother and learning all this cool magic that I didn't?" Henry demanded. "Didn't she think that I'd want to learn it, too?"

"It was time alone for just Mother and me," Draco said slowly. "And you'd been kidnapped and it took you a long time to recover."

"But after that?"

"Well, you have to be around Dark artifacts for it to work. And the spell I used on you to reveal Riddle's possession was technically Dark Arts. It digs into the mind of the victim and makes their thoughts appear like a nonconsensual use of Veritaserum. She didn't think that you would want to be around Dark objects or learn Dark magic."

Henry closed his eyes. His hands twitched restlessly at his sides.

Then he said finally, "I've been reconsidering my opinion on that."

"Really?" Draco hoped he didn't sound too eager. Henry was good with the Defense spells he knew, and Uncle Ted was an amazing teacher, but frankly, Draco thought that his brother couldn't count on Draco always being around to protect him. Look at everything that had happened to him already. But he'd also thought that Henry would never relax his moral stance against Dark magic.

"Yeah. I—I think that I wouldn't want to learn the really Dark curses, or anything. Not the ones that really hurt people. But I'd like to learn how to cast some of the spells that you did. The ones that could protect me."

Draco couldn't stop smiling. Henry was always focused on Defense, but if it was self-defense, that was fine.

"I'd be happy to teach you the one that showed me your thoughts when you were possessed. That one doesn't take very long to learn, and it's only Dark because it forces someone to expose their thoughts against their will. I could trust you not to use it on someone just for a prank."

Henry nodded seriously. Draco resisted the urge to tease his baby brother about how adorable he was, and started to hold up his wand. Then he glanced at the pin.

"But I think we should solve the mystery of this thing first."

Henry sighed. "Write to Father?"

"There's a few more detection charms I can try. And if you used that Invisibility Cloak of yours to sneak into the Restricted Section, we could find some more."

"I tried that first year. The book I took off the shelf just yelled and made Filch and Snape almost catch me."

Draco blinked. "You must have picked up one that had a particular kind of warning charm on it. I'll teach you the spells to recognize that one, and then you can choose a quieter book and sneak it out. What?" he added, as Henry smiled fondly at him.

"It just reminds me of sneaking around first year with Ron and Hermione. It's great that I can have that with you, too. We can be friends, you know, not just brothers?" Henry trailed off uneasily while Draco stared at him.

Friends. Best friends.

Draco took a deep breath. He had friends, of course he did. But he didn't talk about them in the same way that Henry did with Weasley and Granger. Henry seemed to know all that pair's secrets, and Draco only knew some of his friends'. And they were wary around each other, sparring as much as they talked, because their families were often rivals even if they weren't personally.

And now, he had Henry offering him his hand. The way that Draco had wished for back on the train in first year, when he'd thought this brother was Harry Potter.

He held out his hand. "Friends," he said, and they shook on it, and Henry smiled, and they started making plans for breaking into the Restricted Section.

Despite the looming threat of what must be wrong with their mother, Draco didn't think he'd ever been this happy.

"Aren't you going to study for your OWLS, Harry?"

"What?" Harry looked up with a blink. He'd been reading a book about the history of the Quidditch World Cup while waiting until he could plausibly pretend to go to bed and then sneak down with his Invisibility Cloak. "Er, of course, Hermione? I was doing that most of the week, remember?"

"I mean now! Aren't you worried about passing them?"

Harry hesitated, wondering if he should admit that he wasn't, really. Enough had happened to him this term alone, not to mention the first part of fifth year, that OWLS had slipped down on his priority list. And he knew that he had a family who would hire him the best tutors and make sure that he could sit the exams again if he needed to.

It should feel unfair, maybe, since not everyone had that. But it just felt freeing instead.

I spent so many years without advantages that other people took for granted. Maybe I can do my own…granted-taking for a while, now.

"Right now, I'm more worried about figuring out the artifact that possessed me."

"Oh, but you won't learn that by reading a book about Quidditch! I have a book you can borrow from me…"

Harry did agree to borrow Hermione's book, because it might be interesting, but most of his attention was on his new insight. He wasn't worried. He was so much less worried than he'd been before Riddle possessed him, even, despite the strangeness of Mother's letter and the pin she had sent, and the existence of yet more Horcruxes.

They were on the track of the Horcruxes, of destroying them, and of solving Mother's problem. Harry had no doubt that his family would support him no matter what happened.

He was friends with his brother, who was brilliant.

Harry smiled, and Hermione smiled along with him. She was at least partially responsible for the smile, too.

It's nice to have so many people who love me.

"Told you it would work."

Henry grinned at Draco as he handed over the book he'd got from the Restricted Section. Draco hefted it in his hands and grimaced, then cast the detecting charm that he had used on the pin. This time, the sound of bells was low and soft and lulling.

"This book will try to make us fall asleep while we read it," he said. "Probably so that we'll have nightmares."

Henry's eyes widened. "Is it okay to hold it with our bare hands?"

Draco nodded. "The bells would have sounded different if it was dangerous like that," he said. "But we have to be careful to never read the book alone. The person who isn't reading will have to watch and wake the reader if he becomes drowsy."

"Good." Henry sat down gingerly in the chair on the other side of the desk. They had found a forgotten corner of their own in the dungeons, since the seventh-years used their study space too often to make meeting there worthwhile. "So do you want to go first?"

"Yes. I'm more likely to recognize the charms that we're looking for, anyway."

"Prat," Henry muttered, but he was smiling. Draco smiled back before diving into the book, hoping that he could find actual answers to the problems plaguing him in here.

Or at least what the hell that pin was.

"Welcome, Sirius, welcome!"

"Good to see you, Cissy," Sirius murmured, which was only true because he planned on reclaiming his godson and this was a necessary step, but that was true enough. He bent down and kissed her on the cheek.

Narcissa smiled at him with glazed eyes. The pearls around her neck shimmered, each one of them alive with a glow that repeated the shape of a locket for those with eyes to see. Sirius smirked. In this house, he was the only one with eyes to see.

"Is my room ready?"

"Yes, of course, come right this way." Narcissa shook her head as she led him up a staircase that wound from the back sitting room where he'd arrived all the way to what looked like the top. "My apologies for doing it like this, but you'll have to stay out of sight of Lucius and our guest."

"Guest?"

"Cousin Regulus."

Sirius came to a dead stop in the middle of the staircase, his hands clenched on the banisters. Narcissa turned to him and blinked. "Is something wrong, Cousin?"

"Regulus is dead." Sirius hated the sound of his own voice, because he thought sounding too harsh might wake Narcissa from her trance, but this was something he was sure of. Admit Regulus was alive, and he might as well say that he was going mad himself.

Narcissa blinked and shook her head. "No, he isn't."

Her eyes remained glazed, and Sirius grasped the truth in a glow of relief. The pearls were twisting her mind so badly that Narcissa's memories were drifting. She must think that it was years and years ago and Regulus hadn't vanished, the same way that she had thought Sirius was a friend.

It would not have done that to her mind.

The locket sounded indignant. Sirius ignored that, though, just nodding and smiling and saying, "Of course he isn't," before he followed Narcissa up to his rooms.

They were clean and white, although not as large as the rooms Sirius should have had, given that he was Narcissa's cousin. He marked it down as another debt to claim from the Malfoys, if he could. He walked over to the window and stared through it, out at the grounds he had crossed the time before this as a dog.

I did not cause the twisting in her mind. She was speaking the truth.

Sirius rolled his eyes at the same time as he rolled the locket's chain around his fingers. It was a useful and good artifact, but only an artifact, after all. What did it know of human affection or the way that human people thought about things? "Sure you didn't."

I did not! Did you check the Black family tapestry?

"Why would I do that? I know what it says." And Sirius hadn't wanted to confront the burn mark over his own face.

You are a coward.

"I can still tear you off my neck and fling you into a corner, you know."

There was a low, quiet chuckle that made the skin of Sirius's chest feel as if it had frozen. Oh? Do you want to try it?

Sirius hesitated, his fingers wrapped around the locket. No, he didn't really want to throw it. It might damage the thing, and this was the only legacy from his family that meant anything to him. Reluctantly, he dropped his hand.

But don't call me a coward.

I will call you what I please. Do you think you are in control here? Do you think that now that you are within a few breaths of destroying my enemy, I need allow you any free will at all?

Sirius fell back a step. He felt as if the cold were spreading from the locket all down his chest, racing around in thick icicles that mantled him and covered him. He shook. "What," he began, voice as low as the locket's.

The locket rose up on its chain before him. The front of it clicked open, which it never had before, and a pair of red eyes peered at him.

I have seen your heart, and it is mine.

"Stop it!"

You have wondered what I was, although perhaps not strongly as I gained more control of your mind. You thought that my Dark Arts abilities came about because I was empowered by your family. What would you say, Sirius Black, if you knew I was a Horcrux of your godson's greatest enemy?

"No," Sirius choked. "No, you can't be—you aren't—"

You have been worthwhile, but you are growing stubborn. I am bored. A time for an end to this nonsense.

The locket's chain twisted tighter, tighter, Sirius clawed at his throat, the only thought throbbing through his head that he had to survive to make sure that Harry turned into a Potter again and so he could take care of him—

The locket twined and spun and twirled, and gold filled his mind. Sirius's hands dropped. The chain did at the same moment.

There. That is better.

Sirius watched himself cross the room with walking motions he hadn't chosen, and smile at his own face in the mirror. His eyes had turned red.

Sirius screamed, but the sound of the locket's laughter overwhelmed his voice.

Lucius stepped back and spent a moment looking down at the diadem. It was a shame to destroy a historical treasure like this, the one remaining artifact of Rowena Ravenclaw—

Yes, a shame, such a shame, this must not happen, this will not happen.

But it must be done, Lucius knew, and he walled out the Horcrux's whispers with his Occlumency. Then he turned and cast his wand at the door of the ritual room, sealing it. As it stood, no one in the house could enter it without his permission, given that they must be Malfoys by blood and Henry and Draco were still at school.

Then he turned to face the circle inscribed on the floor, made as the coils of a great carved stone snake, and knelt.

"Hear me," he whispered.

The circle ignited with blue fire. Snakes reared up from it, swaying back and forth, mouths gaping and heads tilted back, fangs tiny points of white light.

You will not overcome me with serpentine magic! I command it!

Lucius ignored that and laid his hand flat on the floor. The snakes turned and considered him, still dancing back and forth, caught in the ecstasy of their creation.

"I petition for the destruction of this sacrifice," Lucius said. "I offer it to you, this shard of soul. In return, I ask for the disembodiment of the being who, at the moment, calls himself Lord Voldemort."

The diadem screamed. The sound rang through Lucius's skull and rattled off the inside. It did not matter. It was the will of the snakes, and the greater serpentine power that Lucius had called upon, that mattered now.

There was only the dance of the fire for long moments. Then one of the snakes slithered to the edge of the flames. It bent down towards Lucius, and its mind-voice hit him like a hammer, making him sway where he knelt.

The one known as Lord Voldemort cannot be destroyed this way.

"I would not ask him for him to be. I ask only for his disembodiment, for his return to the status of a wraith."

The snake dissolved into fleeting sparks. The others danced. Lucius waited. There was no cold stone beneath his knees, no diadem screaming in his head. There were the serpents and the decision they must make.

He had never intended for the sacrifice and the circle to be his only ingredients in the ritual. This was an appeal to the nameless power that Salazar Slytherin had worshipped, which had granted him the recipe to create basilisks that were stronger than any others in the world. Lucius's ancestors had worshipped this power as well, but they had turned aside over the centuries, preferring to rely on their magic.

Lucius had always intended to petition the creature he thought of as the Great Serpent. What did pride matter, in the face of making his family safe and happy? And Narcissa needed Regulus to be safe and happy.

Lucius would have done the ritual before now, but he had needed to wait for the third day before the full moon.

We require a piece of your flesh.

Lucius nodded. He would refuse if it was his heart, but the request itself was not a surprise. "Which part?"

A piece of that which you used to create us.

Lucius smiled and held up his wand. He didn't think an incantation, but an intention. It dived at his right hand and smoothly sliced off his smallest finger.

He tossed it towards the fire, and one snake shot its neck out and eagerly gulped it down. The others, writhing like the heads of a hydra, turned to face the Horcrux within the circle.

No! I command you!

The snakes paid no attention as they poured down onto the diadem. Lucius sighed in pleasure as he listened to the screams of the Horcrux being consumed, louder than the soft plop of his own blood dripping onto the floor.

It seemed that he had been right when he guessed that an invoked power, petitioned properly, could also destroy a Horcrux.

And when the immense clash of power rang through the Manor and Lucius heard a distant, enraged scream, he smiled, too. Then he rose to his feet and waited with bowed head until the flames died and the snakes returned to sparks and ashes.

The diadem was less than ashes. Lucius methodically cleaned the remnants up and released the wards on the door, then went upstairs to tell Regulus that the Dark Lord would no longer trouble him.

Lucius intended it to be true. After all, before the Dark Lord could find someone else willing to return him to a body, they would have destroyed all the other Horcruxes.