Crookshanks | 𝘚𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘶𝘴 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬

Chapter 180

There was a moment's silence, during which Kreacher straightened up to look Harry full in the face. Then he said, "Yes."

     "Where is it now?" asked Harry jubilantly as Ron and Hermione looked gleeful.

     Kreacher closed his eyes as though he could not bear to see their reactions to his next word. "Gone."

     "Gone?" Sirius repeated angrily. "What do you mean, it's gone?"

     "Mundungus Fletcher," said the elf, his eyes still tight shut. "Mundungus Fletcher stole it all. He came one night, and took everything, along with the locket, Master Regulus's locket, Kreacher did wrong, Kreacher failed in his orders!" The house elf let out a loud sob, large tears now leaving his eyes.

     "You called the locket 'Master Regulus's,'" said Harry. "Why? Where did it come from? What did Regulus have to do with it?"

The house elf only cried louder, dropping himself to the ground.

"Kreacher, sit up and tell us everything you know about that locket, and everything Regulus had to do with it!" Sirius snapped with authority.

     The elf sat up, curled into a ball, placed his wet face between his knees, and began to rock backward and forward. When he spoke, his voice was muffled but quite distinct in the silent, echoing kitchen. And so, he told them everything; from how Voldemort had taken him to the cave, how Kreacher had escaped and told Regulus everything, and how Regulus went after the locket.

     "Master Regulus told Kreacher to take it and, when the basin was empty, to switch the lockets. And he ordered Kreacher to leave without him. And he told Kreacher to go home and never to tell my Mistress what he had done, but to destroy the first locket. And he drank all the potion and Kreacher swapped the lockets and watched as Master Regulus was dragged beneath the water." Kreacher sobbed even harder.

     Jenna and Sirius glanced at each other sideways, knowing that something was off about this story. They knew for a fact that Regulus was still alive, although they still had no explanation for it.

      Sirius tried questioning Kreacher about it, to somehow find out more about Regulus. But no matter how Sirius phrased his questions, Kreacher's answer remained to be that same sentence, in the exact way as it was said the first time. This made them become even more suspicious than before.

     Sirius realized that maybe Regulus had ordered Kreacher to say those exact sentences if anyone ever asked, but Sirius decided not to say anything about this in front of Harry and the others.

   "But I don't understand," said Ron after a long pause. "After all that You-Know-Who has done to Kreacher, he's still faithful to them."

      "Well, I think you know exactly why," said Hermione. "No offense, Sirius, but you'd always been horrible to Kreacher. Kreacher had been alone for a long time when Sirius came to live here, and he was probably starving for a bit of affection. I'm sure 'Miss Cissy' and 'Miss Bella' were perfectly lovely to Kreacher when he turned up, so he did them a favor and told them everything they wanted to know. I've said all along that wizards would pay for how they treat house-elves. Well, Voldemort did."

     Nobody had anything to retort as they watched Kreacher sobbing on the floor, sad that he had failed his Master by losing the locket and not being to destroy it. And in that moment, they all realized that Hermione was right.

     "Kreacher," said Harry after a while, "when you feel up to it, er... please sit up."

      It was several minutes before Kreacher hiccuped himself into silence. Then he pushed himself into a sitting position again, rubbing his knuckles into his eyes like a small child.

     "Kreacher, I am going to ask you to do something," said Sirius, this time trying to sound as gentle as possible. "Kreacher, do you think you can find Mundungus Fletcher for us?"

     "We need to find out where the locket — where Master Regulus's locket is. It's really important," said Harry. "We want to finish the work Master Regulus started, we want to — er — ensure that he didn't die in vain."

     Kreacher dropped his fists and looked up at Harry.

     "Find Mundungus Fletcher?" he croaked.

     "And bring him here, to Grimmauld Place," said Harry. "Do you think you could do that for us?"

     As Kreacher nodded and got to his feet, Harry had a sudden inspiration. That was when Jenna saw him pull out the fake Horcrux, the substitute locket in which Regulus had placed the note to Voldemort.

     "Kreacher, I'd, er, like you to have this," he said, pressing the locket into the elf's hand. "This belonged to Regulus and I'm sure he'd want you to have it as a token of gratitude for what you —"

     "Overkill, mate," said Ron as the elf took one look at the locket, let out a howl of shock and misery, and threw himself back onto the ground.

     It took them nearly half an hour to calm down Kreacher, who was so overcome to be presented with a Black family heirloom for his very own that he was too weak at the knees to stand properly. When finally he was able to totter a few steps they all accompanied him to his cupboard, watched him tuck up the locket safely in his dirty blankets.

Kreacher then made a low bow first to Sirius, then to Jenna, Harry, and Ron, and even gave a little spasm in Hermione's direction before Disapparating from the kitchen with another loud crack.