"Good morning, my girl. It's time."
Lyra stared at Tom's words in awe of his short greeting. She was lying in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room before dawn, soaking up the heat that continuously rolled over her as she wrote in her diary. Sleeping in wasn't an option this morning. Something stirred in her gut and it refused to let her sleep, she knew it was linked to her diary so she took a tiny sip of her regenerative potion and snuck out with her leather book clutched to her chest, desperate to know what Tom wanted.
And now she knew. He was ready to start his plan.
"Finally!" Lyra scribbled back, almost foaming at the mouth as she kicked her legs, "it's like you don't want a body, I was beginning to wonder if you had a plan at all."
"Oh if you only knew how much I yearn to be free," wrote Tom, "I would never prolong our meeting on purpose, Lyra, you should know that by now."
"Mhmm, sure," Lyra teased again, giddy from her Riddle-induced adrenaline rush.
Her mind ran wild with all the possibilities of what she was going to do, Tom gave no indication as to what the steps of his grand plan were but she knew it would be something incredible, something out of this world. Performing unfathomable feats of magic wasn't for the faint-hearted, this was her first chance to prove herself as the powerful witch Tom believed she was and she never passed on an opportunity to show off.
"What can I do for you, my good sir?"
"Where are you?" wondered Tom.
"In my common room, it's about five in the morning, no one is up yet," she informed him, fighting the urge to rub her puffy eyes.
"Perfect, good girl Black," praised Tom, inducing even more butterflies, "do make sure that you are alone, we don't want to alert anyone."
"Anyone meaning the man who trapped you?"
Her hand moved of her own accord, she tried to hesitate but, like always, her impulse control was poor at best. The pounding of her heart wasn't helping either but she rushed to add, "I only ask these questions for your sake, Tom, it would help if I knew who I should be avoiding."
This wasn't the first time she asked him for more details, she fully expected him to brush over her question but Tom's refusal never came, trusting her with this intel was his next step and Lyra held her breath as his familiar scrawls appeared on the page.
"I've warned you before, Lyra… Professor Dumbledore isn't the man he pretends to be."
Uh oh.
Lyra tried to absorb the reveal without giving into the horror. She didn't want to admit it but she wasn't shocked, her headmaster was known as one of the greatest wizards to have ever lived but that only made her feel worse. He was a powerful man with many powerful titles, he was deeply well-respected by the whole community, and by the sounds of it Lyra would have to search far and wide to find someone who disliked the man.
Or so she was told. A phrase Danielle once used popped up before her — "The winners write the history books, they are in charge of the narrative" — and she couldn't help but wonder how Dumbledore managed to gain such supremacy in the Wizarding world.
Note to self, read up on Dumbledore.
Lyra hated how quickly things clicked into place and she clutched her diary tighter, reeling from the truth splayed out in front of her. Tom knew that Hagrid was responsible for Myrtle's death, and so did Dumbledore. Hagrid held the headmaster in such high regard, but the more she reflected on their relationship the clearer the picture became.
Dumbledore covered for Hagrid, he got rid of the prime witness to his crimes and trapped an innocent boy in his own diary for fifty years... A boy with no family, an orphan whose carers didn't mind if they went missing. Tom wasn't lucky like her, he didn't have his own version of Danielle looking out for him. If Dumbledore was capable of committing this terrible crime without anyone knowing then what else was he hiding?
Tom's fear of being discovered suddenly made more sense to Lyra, and her heart physically pined for him. She knew it was her mission to protect him, she was going to defend Tom with her life. It was just who she was, it wasn't fair. Life wasn't fair.
"Jesus Christ," Lyra eventually replied, pale and a little shaken, "Tom, I'm so sorry… of all the people… that's gotta be the worst possible person."
"The last thing I wanted to do is scare you, I can feel your tremors," he told her, "I didn't want to tell you because it is a complicated situation. It's a heavy weight that you shouldn't be burdened with, and dragging you into this mess is exactly what I don't want to do. You are far too precious to me, Lyra, I can't bear the thought of him hurting you too… Albus Dumbledore is a complex man, he's an enigma that not many people have cracked because they are bewitched by his charm and his mind. He uses people like pawns, he used me as a pawn for his own games once upon a time but I cracked through his facade and saw the man he truly was. There is a reason that the dark wizard Grindelwald feared him, Black. Remember that."
"But I'm not scared," Lyra claimed, refusing to acknowledge the steady flow of dread building up inside her like a gushing faucet, "I told you, I want to help so that's what I'm going to do. I'm not afraid of Dumbledore, in fact, you're incredibly lucky that I'm one of the lucky few students here that has spoken to him one-on-one. I think he likes me." It was a bold statement and Lyra corrected herself when she re-read her stretched claim and cringed at her naivety. "What I meant was he likes me enough not to be suspicious of me, he won't find out."
"Good," even his handwriting looked more relaxed, "I can only imagine what he would do if he caught you helping me… if he caught me back in this school entirely… sometimes I can still see the rage in those striking sapphire eyes of his, the prods of Legilimency as he invaded my mind without consent… be wary of his gaze, my girl, use the Occlumency techniques I taught you."
Lyra scoffed, her eyes abruptly stinging as she came to terms with Tom's facts.
"Wait, he's reading my mind when he does that weird stare he always does?"
The image of her supreme headmaster was starting to contort in her head, each revelation melting the glorious perception she had subconsciously built in her mind of Dumbledore with a very bitter sting. The echo of the conversation she had with him at the end of her year stirred in her mind, the flash of fury always haunted her but it refused to go away this time. Oh man, what if he traps me in a book for fifty years to keep the truth hidden?!
"I believe so," confirmed Tom, "there are no boundaries of the old man's manipulations, he seems to always have the upper hand."
"But there must be a chink in his armour somewhere?" persevered Lyra, battling hard to stay somewhat positive, "are you absolutely sure that no one else knows about Hagrid and Myrtle? Surely someone was suspicious as to why Hagrid was expelled?"
"It was announced that Warren died in a tragic accident, the details of her death was never known to the public, and Rubeus was expelled for harbouring a XXXXX classed creature. It doesn't take a genius to connect the dots and I'm stunned no one else cares to investigate this coincidence," he wrote.
"You didn't tell anyone else about this?"
"No, I made the foolish mistake of confronting Rubeus by myself, I was too proud," answered Tom, his dark inky words glistening in the firelight, "he set the beast free into the forest before I could stop him, and from what you've told me it seems as though the creature is back for more blood."
Lyra scrambled to sit up straight, invigorated by their conversation, and she sat cross-legged with her diary on her lap.
"So you're the only one, besides Dumbledore, that knows the truth about all of this? Do you really think Hagrid's pet is back?"
"Either that or your friend Rubeus has been studying up on the Dark Arts, maybe it isn't his pet this time," suggested Tom, verbalising his train of thought, "how peculiar, it feels like it was only yesterday that I was writing my recount of that day in this very diary, but compared to then I feel much better now that I've finally told someone."
"Sharing your trauma always helps," agreed Lyra, "talking can help you process your pain better, you know you can count on me."
"Where were you when I was trapped in that blasted orphanage," mused Tom, drawing her in further, "life would have been so much brighter with you around, angel."
Lyra's cheeks fumed like the fire bathing her and she swooned, fantasising about having a boy like Tom around while she was at Coles. He wasn't old enough to live alone, once he emerged from their book he would have to live somewhere, right? He would be in arms reach forever, she would never be alone again! Oh my God, that would be a dream come true…
"We've gone off topic, it's a school day so I don't have as much time as I would like," encouraged Lyra, grinning like a fool as she nudged Tom back on track and she successfully diverted the topic from her terrifying, secret-harbouring headmaster. That was a thought she knew she had to return to, but now was not the time. She didn't want to face the fact that she was genuinely afraid of Dumbledore now.
"Then we shall begin, Miss Black," announced Tom, using only the centre of the blank page, "this task is difficult but I have a lot of faith in you."
"What do you need?" asked Lyra, her toes wiggling from the thrill of their plan.
"I need you to retrieve something for me," he told her, writing down his instructions in short, polite bullet points, "in order to conjure my form we will need to obtain a piece of my hereditary. A gene, so to say, a physical piece of my body, or in this case, the body of my ancestors."
Lyra arched a brow, intrigued. She never thought about Tom's relatives before, obviously he wouldn't have had any children since he's been stuck in the diary forever, but that doesn't mean that he didn't have siblings, aunts and uncles, or cousins. Tom never divulged on his own personal history, all she knew was that he was an orphan.
"Do you know if you have any living relatives?" wondered Lyra, but she pouted sadly and caressed the book when he responded with a swift answer.
"No, I believe my family passed before I was trapped."
"Ah," said Lyra, realising her first major problem, "so… how do I get your DNA?"
"The remains of my relatives will work perfectly, and I know where some of them are buried," he solved her burning question and she puffed in relief, glad that they hadn't reached a dead end already. "There is a town called Little Hangleton, and there you will find a graveyard beside the grand manor on the hill, you can't miss it."
"And your relatives are buried there?" noted Lyra, wanting to double-check as she wrote the town name on her left palm.
"Yes, they won't be hard to find," he informed her.
"Brilliant! You can count on me, Riddle!" Lyra reassured Tom, and she began to rack her brain. For a regular student this would have been an impossible task, but she had access to resources that would aid her quest and cut her time in half.
It was high time her house elf popped by for a visit, he was the only one that could use magic outside of Hogwarts.
"Kreacher!" called Lyra as she climbed to her feet, shaking out the fuzzy prickles invading her legs.
Pop!
"Mistress?" croaked Kreacher, greeting her with his usual spine-cracking bow, "do you require tea?"
"Uuuh, sure!" Lyra instructed, happily taking his suggestion before she unveiled her plan. The citrussy, steaming tea refreshed her senses and gave her a boost of energy she didn't realise she needed, and she patted his arm in thanks as she slurped it down.
"I actually called you for another reason," she told him, pacing in front of him as she quickly figured out her first step, "I need your help sneaking out of the castle."
Expecting a scowl of disapproval or even a mutter of contempt, Lyra gave Kreacher an impish smirk as his own wrinkled lips curled into a ghastly grin and he nodded along with his mistress' request. Kreacher encouraged Lyra's tendency to break the rules because he found it truly entertaining, he wanted to see what the girl was up to and he had an inkling she was more nefarius than she let on, but he kept his theories to himself. His mistress wasn't the only one with secrets.
"How does Mistress want to leave?" he asked, checking the room for eavesdroppers that would hinder their efforts, and Lyra pouted in thought.
The map that was lying in the fourth years' dorm would show her exactly how to escape the school grounds without getting caught, but she was worried about how long that would take. She only had a small time frame, she needed to be back before breakfast to evade suspicion.
"I suppose one of the secret passageways will have to do," she decided, "can you steal the Marauder's Map from the twins and meet me here in five minutes? I need to get changed."
With another bow, Kreacher did as his mistress commanded and waddled towards the boys tower, his pointy ears flapping as he went, and Lyra jetted off towards her own dorm to get ready for her mission in complete darkness. Her hair plait was messy but she shoved it inside her black hoodie and jumped into her camo combat trousers, giggling to herself as she debated covering her face with the same pattern. Although she knew she couldn't perform magic outside of school she pocketed her wand regardless and slung her backpack on to finish the look, content with her barely visible reflection that grinned back in the mirror.
"What is Mistress up to?" asked Kreacher once he took in her new appearance. It wasn't the look he was expecting, and he passed her the blank map that he pulled from within his black rags. He still hadn't given in to Lyra's new uniform suggestion.
"Oh, you know, just Mistress things," she hummed, summoning the map's true form after muttering the password, "what happens between us stays between us, ok? I need you to promise me that you will not tell anyone about this."
"Kreacher will take this to the grave," he promised, drawn in by her mystery, "this is not the first time Kreacher has dealt with family secrets."
"Mhm, yeah I bet it's not," Lyra commented under her breath. Before she could ask him to spill all of the Black family secrets he had retained over the years she finally spotted a path on the map that led directly out of the grounds' boundaries and off towards Hogsmeade. "Ah ha! Here we go, let's use this one."
"After you," said Kreacher with a wicked glint in his eye, and he held the snoozing Fat Lady's portrait open for her, gesturing at Lyra to go first.
The drab grey morning light barely illuminated the deserted corridors and Lyra took great care with her hurried steps, knocking into a suit of armour would give her away faster than she could blink. They arrived in front of a statue of a severely deformed witch with a crooked spine and warts the size of golf balls on the third floor, and Lyra scoffed at her own ignorance — she had passed this statue countless times, she never knew it held so many secrets. Thankfully it didn't take her long to work out the spell that revealed the hole in the witch's back, it was barely wide enough to accommodate a fully grown adult, and she offered her house elf her hand as she hopped inside, amused by his baffled expression.
"We don't have a lot of time, come on!" pestered Lyra when Kreacher didn't move, but after shaking his shock away Kreacher followed after his mistress and the pair left Hogwarts behind as they jogged down the secret dirt tunnel.
Sweat was pouring down her face by the time the path sloped upwards, and she ran her hands along the concrete ceiling of the tunnel when she realised they had come to a dead end. Her fingertips felt for indents of a floor tile and she held in her exerted grunts as she pried the exit open, cautious of what was waiting for them on the other side.
"No way!" gasped Lyra, befuddled by the crates upon crates of Honeydukes sweets that greeted her, their labels flashing like crazy pink and green carnival banners. The basement of Hogsmeade's famous sweet shop was by far the best place to end up and she mentally thanked the creators of the secret passageway for their perfect placement. The compulsion to pinch a handful from every single crate was unshakable, her trouser pockets bulged and she had to compress them down when she slipped through the high basement window hidden in the corner, worried that they would rip on the frame's edges.
The cold breeze of the wintery morning took Lyra's breath away, she could taste the ice on her tongue and she relished the wind against her searing neck as she figured out her bearings. Kreacher, who refused to climb through the window, popped into existence beside Lyra as she hunched down in the shadows of the alleyway running behind Honeydukes.
Curtains were drawn and the misty cobbled streets were bare, the highlands were extra spooky this morning but she appreciated the haunting empty streets. The people of Hogsmeade hadn't woken up yet and Lyra double-checked their surroundings before unearthing the next stage of her plan. As much as she wanted to run around and explore the picturesque wizarding village with her camera in her hand, she knew she would appreciate both the discovery and her camera roll with her friends at her side. They would never let it go if she didn't include them.
"I need you to take me to a town called," Lyra re-read the smudged scribble on her clammy palm, "Little Hangleton, and I need you to make sure that no one sees us. I dunno if the town is wizard-friendly or not and I don't fancy getting caught by the Ministry today."
Lyra wasn't expecting Kreacher to react to the name of their next destination but she couldn't help but pout when he simply nodded, looking just as lost as her.
"Is Mistress going to tell Kreacher what she is doing? Or does Kreacher have to work it out for himself?" croaked the grumpy elf, holding his cold, knobbly hand out for her to grasp, and Lyra bit her smirk as she accepted it.
"Let's see what happens first," she decided to say, "if you do a good job today then maybe I'll let you in on my secret."
Determined to prove himself as a worthy confidant, Kreacher straightened his spine and tightened his grip on her hand, wanting to keep her safe and as close as possible. Lyra responded with a squeeze, thankful for his company.
Pop!
Little Hangleton, like most villages dotted around the British countryside, was a quaint, conservative town surrounded by fields of wheat and rolling green hills. It didn't look any different from the sleepy villages Lyra had driven through with Danielle. It had all the staples — a mediaeval stone church that matched the cobbled fences lining the town's limit, the generic town square decorated with war monuments and commemorative benches, the essence of prejudice in the misty morning air.
They appeared in the centre of the town and kept close to the ground, wary of early morning dog walkers or workers starting their sleepy commutes. The dense fog shrouding the entirety of Little Hangleton made everything seem more dreamlike, Lyra could barely see a few feet in front of her but she could feel the mystery of Tom's history past lingering just in front of her. This was definitely the right place.
"Where exactly does Mistress want to go?" clarified Kreacher, put off by the cold morning weather as he crept closer to Lyra as though for reassurance, and Lyra took his hand again, pulling him towards a nearby wooden bus shelter for more privacy.
"Huh, I wonder if you would have to buy a child bus ticket or an adult one?" Lyra mused out loud, getting distracted by the bizarre turn her morning was taking, but Kreacher's apprehensive expression sobered her up. "Oh right, sorry. We need to visit the town's graveyard, apparently it's situated next to some manor on a hill?"
Kreacher's ears twitched and he nodded, looking more like his sulky confident self. "Mistress should be more specific next time, Kreacher hates being out in the open," he muttered, almost as an afterthought.
"Hey, this is my first proper sneak-out," justified Lyra, annoyed that she was being sloppy, "if you're the secret mission expert then you take charge."
His whiskery brows rose in intrigue as he tried to pry, "Kreacher does not know what Mistress is doing, if she would just tell him—,"
"Just take me to the graveyard."
Pop!
The first thing Lyra noticed was the immediate decrease in fog, the graveyard of Little Hangleton was blessed with a gentle haze of morning dew compared to the white waves in the village beyond the hill. There was so much to look at, the overgrown garden was wild with crawling insects and sharp weeds, the scattering of tombstones were buried beneath layers of strangling fauna but the bursts of yellow and rose broke through around the edges, creating some sort of order in the chaos of the neglected graveyard.
Behind the burial site, sitting at the very top of the hill, was a stately manor that looked as though it had seen better days. The bolted wooden boards on the windows were hard to miss, she could see a warning sign chained to the elegant wrought iron gates and her tense shoulders relaxed a little. At least she didn't have to worry about the owners of the manor lurking around. Kreacher, however, was on his highest guard and he yanked on her hand, bringing her attention back to the graveyard.
"There is scum nearby, be careful Mistress," warned the elf gruffly, nodding towards the tiny English cottage that sat snugly between the gardens of the grand manor and the cemetery. Although she couldn't see any movement through the cottage's netted curtains she instinctively ducked down, using the tall wild grass to her advantage. If the cottage's inhabitant was a Muggle like Kreacher suspected then she needed to be quick, who knows how they'd react to seeing a small teenage grave-robber and their house elf sidekick.
"This should be simple," Lyra whispered, rubbing her hands together as she beckoned Kreacher to come closer, "we need to find the graves of the Riddle family, keep your eyes peeled for their name on these headstones."
"Who are the Riddles? Kreacher has never heard of that family name before," he wondered as the pair inspected the nearest graves, stamping a path through the greenery. The headstones were weather-worn and tangled with ivy vines but in a click of Kreacher's fingers the strangling fauna melted away from the stones, revealing the names of the dead.
"Their descendant is a good friend of mine," Lyra told him, choosing her words carefully, "they asked me to fetch something for them." Kreacher's narrowed eyes bore into the side of her face but she adjusted her hood and pressed on, her own gaze trained on the burial plots below her feet. "It's not your concern, anyways, don't worry."
"Kreacher isn't worried," he murmured, but the deep crease on his already wrinkled forehead said otherwise. Rushing to divert the conversation topic, Lyra turned on her house elf and pursed her lips.
"How's the search for Dobby coming along? I've noticed you haven't updated me in a while," she wondered, weaving through the prickly bushes and crouching down to avoid a particularly stubborn branch, and Kreacher glowered at the ground, his ears wilting.
"...Kreacher hasn't found Dobby," he admitted, his breath fogging up as he hesitated, "he is sneakier than Kreacher imagined, Dobby knows how not to be found."
"Then keep trying, buddy, I believe in you," encouraged Lyra, softening her tone after realising she was being a tad harsh on him, but she dropped her voice once she realised that the groundskeeper's cottage was only a few feet away.
Taken aback by Lyra's kind response to his failing task, Kreacher fell silent and continued to search for the Riddle name amongst the faded lettering of the tombstones. The guilt on his aged face went unnoticed as Lyra stopped in front of the main attractions of the graveyard, distracted and slightly intimidated by the collection of expensive obelisks that commemorated the passing of the original owners of the manor on the hill.
It was by far the largest plot of land in the graveyard, the few feet of unruly grass that lay before it gave the family's graves ample space for visiting mourners, but by the condition of the untouched gravestones Lyra knew no one had visited them in decades. She stood before the three marble tablets and dared to glance up into the face of the decrepit, moss-covered guardian that stood over the dead, amazed by its presence. This place held no magic, that much was obvious, but as she stood under the Angel of Death's gaze she knew there were traces of magic nearby… But where?
"Kreacher," Lyra called for her elf, her bright eyes never leaving those of the dark statue or the raised scythe in its bony hands, "I think this might be them, can you clean the headstones please?"
With another snap of his fingers, soapy suds scrubbed the cracked tablets clean and Lyra tried to hide her grin as she read the names that had been hidden for years - Thomas Riddle, Mary Riddle, and Tom Riddle. The years below them confirmed Lyra's hunch and she beamed, awfully confident that she was in the presence of something that proved the existence of the boy she longed to meet. This meant that he was a real boy, Tom wasn't just some figment of her imagination, he was a physical being who could look at her, and talk to her… and touch her.
"This is it," she told Kreacher, smoothing her hand across the name Tom Riddle until her fingertips tickled with frost, "we need to access these graves, I need a piece of their remains."
"Kreacher can do that for you," he told her, sobering up at the intensity of his mistress' plans. This wasn't what he expected from the Gryffindor brat, from his spawn, but he couldn't resist encouraging her naughty behaviour. He wanted to see where this would lead her, the path she had taken was growing darker by the minute and all he could do was watch and wait.
The frost-bitten earth protecting the graves quaked as the soil loosened, charmed by the house elf that stood before it with his slender arm outstretched, and Lyra held her breath as the ground fell away like it was made from sand. Her surroundings faded as she focused on the task at hand, nothing else mattered right now, and she dropped to her knees to peer into the crack in the ground once the tremors seized. It was too dark to see whether any more obstacles stood in their way, but Kreacher thought ahead. He joined his mistress' side and raised his arm once more, enchanting the coffins of the Muggles below them. The crack of wood snapping echoed around the graveyard and Lyra held her breath, worried for the cover.
"Is this what Mistress requires?" he rasped, and Lyra watched in glee as a shard of ivory floated out of the depths of the crack towards her. The bone fragment fit perfectly in the palm of her hand and she shivered as she ran her finger along its sharp edges, roused by the presence of Tom's ancestry. The frantic rush of success inspired Lyra to celebrate prematurely and she scooped her diary from her backpack, itching to tell Tom the good news. Kreacher watched in calculated silence.
"I've got it," she scribbled in a hurry, "I've found a fragment of a bone, will that work?"
"...You have it?" Tom was flabbergasted, she could feel his urgency, "you're in Little Hangleton right now?"
"I'm staring at the graves of your grandparents and who I assume is your father as I write," estimated Lyra, her eyes darting to the marble to re-read the dates, "wow, it looks like they all died on the same day in 1943, my condolences." By the looks of the dilapidated manor Lyra hazarded a guess that something tragic happened in their family home, possibly a ferocious house fire? A home invasion gone wrong? Magic?
"It doesn't matter, I never met them," he brushed her sympathy aside, "Lyra, I can't describe to you how proud I am of you. My good girl, my sweet angel… thank you."
"You don't have to thank me," she rushed to reply, "you deserve help after all these years."
"But you will be rewarded, I swear to you with every fibre of my soul," he wrote, his words darker than before, "I will give you anything your heart desires, just say the words and it will be yours, angel."
I want you.
Flustered by her own fleeting intimate thoughts, Lyra smoothed the page back and thanked him, keeping her true desires to herself for the time being. Actually admitting to Tom that she had a massive crush on him was a huge step and definitely something she couldn't erase from the diary page, but she didn't want to reveal her secret until she knew for certain that he liked her back. She needed to meet him again, she needed to look into his eyes and see it for herself.
"I'll keep that in mind," she decided to write instead.
"Mistress!" yelped Kreacher, yanking Lyra's hand away from her book and pulling her to her feet in a hurry, "we need to go!"
"Huh?! Wha-?!" Lyra began to panic, whipping her head around in order to spot the threat that spooked Kreacher, and heavy rocks of dread plummeted through her body and knocked her knees when the flickering orange lights of the groundskeeper's cottage caught her eye. The front door creaked open and hobbled footsteps disturbed the gravel path on the other side of the cobbled wall, the gardener was awake.
"Oi!"
"Shit! Go! Go go go! Take me back to school!" exclaimed Lyra, frantically shoving her diary and the bone fragment into her hoodie pocket and slinging her backpack onto her shoulder, keeping her freckled face hidden. There wasn't any time for them to cover their tracks, Kreacher sacrificed hiding the evidence of them being there for his mistress' safety and he apparated the girl out of the graveyard just as the fragile, wheezing elderly man reached the cobbled stone wall in search for the source of the racket that woke him up.
POP!
The usual pop indicating elvish Apparition was much louder this time, Lyra flinched as the thunderous sound dwelled in her eardrums like a backfiring car. The twisting, squeezing sensation was much stronger than before — it was newer and sharper — but the rush of nausea that accompanied this particular journey transformed into pure astonishment when Lyra realised that Kreacher hadn't taken her back to Hogsmeade.
"Kreacher…?" mumbled Lyra, a little tongue-tied as she inspected the room they were standing in, "how did you…? I'm confused."
He had taken her to a room that looked extraordinarily like her bathroom back in the Gryffindor Tower, with the exact same layout and the exact same fluffy grey robes hanging on the hooks on the wall… Lyra blinked hard as she spotted her starry toiletry bag that she left by the sink that morning, the exact same bag she was staring at right now... But that couldn't be her wash bag, no way! This wasn't the bathroom in her dorm, it was impossible to apparate within Hogwarts grounds.
"Why?" croaked Kreacher, blissfully unaware of Lyra's confusion as he waddled over to the nearest marble bathtub so he could run her a well-deserved bath, "Mistress asked to be taken back to school so Kreacher obeyed."
"Yeah, I can see that," she scoffed, "but that should've been impossible, you can't apparate inside of Hogwarts."
"Wizards cannot apparate inside of Hogwarts, but house elves can," explained Kreacher with a creepy smile that exacerbated his devilish way of thinking, "Mistress did not use her magic to apparate, Kreacher did."
"Wow!" gasped Lyra, gobsmacked, "have you done that before?"
"No, it has never been done before," Kreacher shook his head, still smiling, "Kreacher took Mistress' words for what they were and it succeeded, it is lucky that the headmaster's enchantments did not kill Mistress. It appears he has missed a trick, or we are stronger than him. Considering Mistress has an affinity with danger Kreacher assumed she would be happy risking her life again."
"Mhm," Lyra tried not to take his passive threat to heart, he did just save her arse after all, "great, thanks I guess?"
"Mistress is welcome," he bowed again, sounding very pleased with himself, and he finished preparing her steaming bubble bath before leaving her with a fresh cup of Earl Grey and small triangles of buttered toast.
Still a little dazed from Kreacher's neurotic behaviour, Lyra sunk into the foamy tub and savoured the loosening shivers that rocked her body, but her gaze was instantly drawn to her pile of clothes where her diary and the shard of bone lay. The graveyard in Little Hangleton was already becoming a mere memory, it all happened so fast it didn't even feel real, but she never drew eyes away from her latest treasure as she imprinted the image of the Riddle graves on the back of her mind forever. She had a true piece of him now, it was never leaving her side.