For superbeffie. Feel better soon :(
This chapter didn't change much at all from the old version but the next several will be much more H/Hr-centric and will be considerably different from Le Olde Version.
Chapter Nine
Unraveling R.A.B.
HARRY
One afternoon, Ron and Hermione returned from Transfiguration bickering fiercely. This would have been nothing out of the ordinary, if it wasn't for Ron's unusual appearance. Since Harry had last seen him, his fingers had sprouted two-inch talons and his nose had turned strangely beaky.
"It was a simple spell, Ronald!" Hermione said scathingly, her already-bushy hair sticking out sideways, lending her a somewhat crazed look. "It isn't McGonagall's fault that you're not up to N.E.W.T. level!"
"Just because you're so perfect-" Ron stopped speaking at the sight of Harry's amused expression. "Hello, Harry," he said stiffly, stuffing his clawed hands into his pockets to hide them from view.
"Ronald Weasley! Don't you think you ought to apologize to Professor McGonagall, for storming out of her class like that?!"
"Hermione," Ron sighed, exhaustedly, "are you going to help me get rid of these talons or not?"
Hermione harrumphed indignantly, but quickly set about looking up the counterspell, which she located within moments. "Manicuris," she said, almost lazily and Ron's fingernails shortened instantaneously.
After a gruff murmur of thanks, a very red-faced Ron turned to Harry. "What's got your wand in a knot?" Ron asked, plopping down on the hearthrug, kicking off his tattered trainers and pulling out a deck of Exploding Snap cards.
"Just thinking," Harry said. "Something Aberforth Dumbledore said the night of the Match keeps bothering me…"
"What's that?"
"Something about some turncoat, someone on the Dark Lord's side who changed his stripes-"
"Well, of course anything about Snape's going to get under your skin, Harry!" exclaimed Ron, jumping to conclusions as usual. "And after what the skulking, lying b****** did, how couldn't it?"
"It's not that," Harry said, fighting once again to keep his hatred of Snape from surging over. "He was referring to someone other than Snape… someone else who had made a mistake and had recanted it, somehow."
"I don't think you need to be obsessing over what that old codger said, Harry. He seemed half-senile when we met him. He's probably just on about some old bar patron or another," Hermione said without looking up from her Transfiguration essay. She sounded nothing short of exasperated and Harry had the distinct impression that she did not believe what she was saying, but was only seeking to allay his fears. "You really ought to be trying to figure out what to do about the other Horcruxes. I mean, have you even looked into the locket yet?"
Struck by a sudden remembrance, Harry rummaged around in the pocket of his robes until his hand brushed against a crumpled scrap of paper. He'd almost forgotten about it - the note that had come inside the imposter locket.
"R.A.B." He chanted the initials like a mantra, waiting for a sudden burst of inspiration. "R.A.B. - we don't know anyone by those initials."
Hermione rattled off a list of names at breakneck speed - "Rosalind Antigone Bungs, Rupert Axebanger Brookstanton - but they'd never do!"
Suddenly, something clicked in Harry's brain - "REGULUS!"
"'Scuse me?" Ron looked up from his teetering card tower.
"Regulus Black - Sirius' brother!"
"But of course! How could we have forgotten?"
"But--" Ron looked bemused. "-but Harry, Regulus Black is dead - Sirius said so."
Hermione rolled her eyes impatiently and snatched the crumpled note from Harry's hands. "But the letter-writer
is dead too, Ron! See here? `I know I will be dead long before you read this'!"
Harry's mind was racing. How long ago had Regulus Black penned this note? Hadn't Sirius said he died some sixteen years ago?
"Harry!" Hermione cried excitedly, causing Ron's card tower to explode. "D'you remember the locket we found while we were de-doxying the parlor? The one Kreacher kept trying to sneak off with-"
"-and when he had a go at it, we couldn't get it open!"
"Has it really been destroyed then?" Hermione asked eagerly.
Ron emerged from behind the cloud of smoke, coughing. "You don't suppose Grimmauld Place could be home to any more Horcruxes, do you?" he asked hopefully, clearly feeling left out of the conversation.
Harry's heart sank, remembering a certain light-fingered thief who'd had the run of the Black family home for nearly a year before being chucked into Azkaban. Thanks to Mundungus Fletcher's pilfering, the locket could be anywhere. "If it was, it won't be anymore!"
"Mundungus," Hermione said darkly, seeming to read his thoughts. "But we could always ask Kreacher, he should know, shouldn't he?"
"Oh, right," said Harry dully. He generally preferred to have as little contact with the house elf as possible. "Kreacher?"
The house elf appeared with a pop and spun dizzily on the spot. "Master called Kreacher? Master ignores Kreacher for months and then expects Kreacher to cater to his every beck and will?"
"Kreacher, I need you to tell me about Regulus Black."
"Kreacher does not speak of his former Master to blood-traitors and Mudbloods," he said spitefully.
Harry narrowly resisted the temptation to strangle Kreacher; "Fine. Do you remember the locket - the one you kept trying to hide from us two summers ago?"
Kreacher pursed his lips.
"Kreacher!" Harry said warningly.
"Kreacher cannot say. Kreacher has nothing from his Master and Mistress' house anymore." He wiped his moist eyes on the hem of his filthy loincloth.
Harry cursed the elf under his breath. "That was loads of help," he muttered sarcastically. For once, Hermione didn't leap to Kreacher's defense. The elf stood before them, absentmindedly plucking hairs out of his overlarge ears.
"That leaves us with only one option," Harry looked seriously from Ron to Hermione.
Hermione nodded stoically, but Ron looked clueless, as usual.
"I'm going to go back to Grimmauld Place. Tonight."
Ron did a double-take and Kreacher flung himself to the ground at Harry's feet.
"Kreacher beseeches Master--"
"You can come," Harry said roughly, "but only if you help me."
Kreacher nodded frantically, "Kreacher will oblige Master's every--"
"That will do." Harry turned to Ron and Hermione. "You two don't have to come - I reckon I can do this alone."
Hermione bit her lip.
"Don't look like that, Hermione," said Harry bracingly. "I'll be fine. Grimmauld Place is Unplottable, remember? Even they won't be able to find me there."
Hermione nodded reluctantly, seemingly tottering on the edge of flinging herself into his arms, as she had so many years before when Harry had been on the verge of doing something equally dangerous and daring.
"We'll come to see you off," Ron said, wrapping a comforting arm around Hermione's shoulders - one that she did not shrug off, as was her custom.
"Shall I fetch Ginny?" Hermione asked hesitantly.
"No, I'd rather not bother her with this," Harry replied, evading the questioning look Ron shot him.
"You're sure, mate?"
"Quite."
"You've got everything you need, then?"
"Invisibility Cloak, check. Wand, check… Kreacher…check," he added, eyeing the elf with great distaste. Together, the foursome set off for the edge of the grounds.
"Don't reckon they have enchantments to keep you from getting out, d'you?" Harry asked, studying the heavily chained gates.
"Leg up?" Ron asked, bending over so that Harry could climb onto his back.
Harry scrambled nimbly over the fence and toppled to the grass on the other side. Kreacher slipped through the bars to join him.
"Harry, Harry," Hermione murmured, bracing herself as she tried to put up a brave front for his sake.
"Don't worry about me," Harry reassured Hermione, reaching through the bars to take her hands.
"It'll be alright, Harry," Ron said, though he was very pale behind his mask of freckles.
Harry forged a smile as Ron pried Hermione away from the fence and, with a final backward glance, he started down the winding road to Hogsmeade. Seizing Kreacher's hand in his, he visualized himself landing on the grubby doorstep of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.
* * * * *
Harry's feet slammed into the ground and he staggered sideways. He shook his head violently before opening his eyes, to find that he and Kreacher were standing on the stoop of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. For a split second, Harry wondered how they would gain entrance to the dwelling, but then Kreacher seized the handle and the door groaned open at once.
A thick layer of dust lay upon the floor, muffling the sound of their footsteps. Harry's heart clenched painfully, his thoughts with Sirius, who had spent his last days in this musty house that he so despised.
Kreacher ran one wrinkled finger along the dusty banister and pulled a face. "What would Mistress say?" he moaned. "Mistress' house gone to dust and dirt!"
Harry led the way into the drawing room and was greeted by a scene of total destruction. The tapestry detailing the lineage of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black had been cut and shredded. The cabinets, once brimming with Dark objects looked as though they had been emptied of all but their cobwebs. Even the windows stood bare, stripped of their mildewy velvet draperies. As much as Harry hated Grimmauld Place and all it stood for, he hated Mundungus Fletcher even more for having destroyed it.
Kreacher seemed stunned into silence by the sight of his former home. He kneeled on the grimy floor and buried his face in his loincloth.
"The locket," Harry whispered, remembering his mission. He clambered through the rubble to the cabinets and rooted frantically through the cobwebs, broken glass, and bits of porcelain.
"No!" he cried and darted to the kitchen. He dug furiously through Kreacher's den, but found nothing but filthy blankets and a framed portrait of Bellatrix Lestrange propped against the wall. Harry dashed the picture to the ground and dug his heel into Bellatrix's leering face. "NO!"
He hurried up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Within moments, he reached the room Sirius had shared with Buckb--Witherwings; the floor was still littered with gnawed chicken bones and shed feathers.
Something glinted amongst the feathers - it was the mirror. Harry scooped it up and cried out in agony. It was too much to bear; he sprinted down the hall and burst into the musty bedroom he's once shared with Ron. There he sank to the floor and buried his face in his hands.
"Troubled, are we?" asked a nasally voice.
Harry jerked his head up and saw Phineas Nigellus watching from his portrait.
"It's not easy, being alive," Phineas Nigellus observed. "The pain is acute and the journey hard. I may have been a bit too hard on you two years ago, Mr. Potter. You've been dealt a tough lot in life. My great-grandson was very proud of you, son. Thought you had mettle, he did."
Harry expected a snide remark, but Phineas Nigellus merely sighed.
"Dumbledore, gone," he shook his head slowly. "Hard to imagine a Hogwarts without Dumbledore. What we'll do now…"
Harry turned away, his grief morphing into agitation. The last things he needed to hear now were the disjointed ramblings of a dead man - unless -
"Sir?"
Phineas Nigellus stopped scratching his canvas nose and looked down at Harry in mild surprise.
"Sir - you haven't heard from Sirius, have you?"
Phineas Nigellus' face fell. "No," he said heavily. "I cannot. I am but a portrait, a mere caricature of my former self. I cannot converse with my great-grandson from beyond the grave."
Harry scolded himself for getting his hopes up; Sirius was forever lost to him.
"But maybe I can be of some assistance still," Phineas Nigellus said in his nasally voice. "It seems to me that, before you located that mirror of your godfather's, you were looking for something else? Or tearing the house apart, more like." He winked at Harry.
"I was, but you just said you can't--"
"I said I cannot converse with your godfather, but I am fully capable of seeing all that goes on within this house."
"There was a locket…but Mundungus Fletcher's gone and sold it…"
To Harry's great surprise, Phineas Nigellus scoffed. "I'd like to see him try! That locket - the only mark of the true nobility of the Black family spirit, mind you - is safe and sound."
"You know where it is, sir?"
"Indeed. Follow me," and Phineas Nigellus slipped sideways from his portrait.
Harry pocketed the mirror and hurried out of the room. He spied Phineas Nigellus waiting for him in a portrait further down the hall.
"Down these stairs," Phineas Nigellus said. "I'll be waiting for you in the portrait of The Fates."
They continued on in this way until they reached a small, dank room Harry had never set foot in before.
"Here, sir?" he queried. "We last saw the locket in the drawing room."
Phineas Nigellus wagged his finger warningly. "Youth nowadays, never trusting the wisdom of their elders!" He
gestured at a run-down desk in the corner. "There you will find what you seek."
Harry pulled open one of the drawers and found a handful of bloodstained needles. Momentarily, he wondered if this was Phineas Nigellus' idea of a joke, but in the second drawer, he found the locket, swaddled in a filthy handkerchief.
Phineas Nigellus smiled knowingly and faded out of his portrait before Harry had a chance to thank him.
* * * * * *
Harry finally located Kreacher in the Entrance Hall, tearfully scrubbing the slashed portrait of his mistress.
"Who did this?" Harry asked incredulously. He did not miss Mrs. Black's screams in the slightest, but it seemed an unnecessarily violent gesture to destroy her portrait.
Kreacher let out a fresh wail and crumpled to the ground. He banged his fists upon the floor, sending waves of dust rippling across the hall.
"Kreacher!" Harry cried in alarm, and the elf stopped flailing immediately. Harry reached down and pulled the breathless elf to his feet. "Kreacher, I need you to tell me everything you know about Regulus Black and this locket." Harry swung the locket before Kreacher's eyes like a pendulum.
Kreacher took the locket delicately and sat down on the stair beside Harry. He rubbed the filigreed Slytherin `S' with his gnarled fingers.
"Kreacher?" Harry repeated and the elf seemed to regain himself. "What do you know about this locket?"
Kreacher rocked back and forth, clutching the locket to his bare chest. "Kreacher must tell Master what he wants to hear, Kreacher has no choice." Instead of sounding vengeful - as was customary for Kreacher - he sounded downtrodden, and when he continued, his voice was uncharacteristically low and grave.
"Master is gone away a long time," Kreacher began slowly, "but he comes home late one night. Says for Kreacher to come so Kreacher came. Man came with Master and Kreacher-"
"A man? Who?"
Kreacher hunched his shoulders defensively. "Kreacher does not know his name. Man told Master never to say his name."
"What did he look like?"
"Large," Kreacher said simply, and Harry could milk no other details about the mystery man from him. Kreacher continued disjointedly, "Man and Young Master Regulus went to a cave by great waters. Man took blood from Master, smeared it on the wall." Kreacher flinched, as though imagining Regulus Black's "pure" blood being spilt again in his mind.
"Master got into a boat," Kreacher said. "Master and Kreacher paddled out to the island and Master got out. Kreacher went back to shore for the Man."
"How is it that you could go with him, Kreacher?" Harry interrupted.
"The Dark Lord does not care for house elf magic," Kreacher muttered bitterly.
Kreacher mentioned the strange basin, with the potion clear as glass within it. "Man tested the potion, made another. Master had to drink the potion." Kreacher trembled. "Screamed and screamed, Master did. Master begged Kreacher to kill him and Kreacher tried sir, Kreacher tried. House elves must do as their Masters wish. Maybe if the blood traitor son had asked Kreacher to kill him…" Kreacher's face brightened momentarily.
Harry aimed a kick at Kreacher's wrinkly head and the elf scuttled down the stairs and hid himself behind an ancient wardrobe. He did not stop speaking however.
"Master screamed for water, Kreacher had to draw water from the lake -"
Harry remembered the horrific scene in the cave - bodies arcing up and out of the water, a cold slimy hand on his wrist. He shuddered involuntarily.
"…the Man left. Kreacher brought Master home all by himself. Master and his locket. Mistress was most aggrieved - her favorite son, her favorite son. Master was so weak. Then they came," he said and buried his wrinkled face in his knobbly hands.
"They? Who are `they'?" Harry shook Kreacher's shoulders.
"They-they! The old allies turned on Master, killed my Master," Kreacher said in a hollow voice.
"The Death Eaters?"
Kreacher sobbed afresh. "Dragged my Master away, killed my Master."
"What happened then?"
"Left! Left!" he howled.
"They didn't want the locket?"
Kreacher shook his head vigorously. "Kreacher hid it. Hid it in the drawing room."
"Did they hurt you?"
"No, no - but my poor Mistress!"
"What about your Mistress? Did they hurt her?"
"No, no," he moaned again. "Traitor-son gone, Regulus dead. Mistress died soon! Too much, too much!"
Kreacher bawled uncontrollably and Harry knew their interview was over. In the course of a few days, Harry now knew, Kreacher's entire world had crumbled down around him. First with his young Master's death, then with the passing of his beloved Mistress.
"Come on, Kreacher," he said.
For the first time, he felt sympathy for the aged house elf. He guided Kreacher out of the house and into the street. After hours of breathing the rank air inside, Harry gratefully inhaled the fresh breezes. Then, with the locket bundled in his pocket and Kreacher at his side, he turned towards the eastern horizon. The sun was just coming up. Hogsmeade, he thought and squinted his eyes shut. The world spun around him and when his feet touched the ground again, he was standing on the corner between The Hog's Head and Scrivenshaft's.
* * * * *
As Harry set off down High Street, he glimpsed the hem of a black cloak whipping around the corner into the alley beside the Hog's Head.
Curious, Harry followed. A boy with sleek white-blond hair jaunted down the alley.
"Malfoy?" Harry asked incredulously.
Draco Malfoy wheeled around, drawing his wand. "Potter," he hissed.
Harry looked Malfoy up and down; he was paler and bonier than Harry remembered him, and even as Harry watched, a nervous twitch began in Malfoy's sunken cheek. The last time he'd seen Malfoy, Dumbledore had offered Malfoy a chance for redemption. Moreover, Harry felt that - had the Death Eaters not burst in - Malfoy might have accepted.
"It's not too late for you, Malfoy," Harry said, though his hand closed around his pocketed wand.
"As if, Potter," Malfoy spat. "I happen to know for a fact that it's too late for you," he added scornfully.
"Kill me, then!" Harry burst out savagely. "That's what he wants, isn't it?"
Malfoy glowered at him, but did not raise his wand.
"You are no killer." Harry said smoothly. "Come back to Hogwarts, Malfoy. Dumbledore would've given you a second chance."
"Dumbledore's dead!" Malfoy sputtered, flinching as he said the name. "No one in Hogwarts would have me now."
"Have it your way, then," Harry replied evenly. He turned his back on Malfoy and walked swiftly back up the road to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
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