The Time-Meddlers [Harmione]

18. Sirius Horcrux Hunting

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It was the first Friday of the summer vacation. The previous day, Hermione had mentioned to her parents that she might go to the library that day, so that they wouldn't be worried if they called the house and didn't reach her. She and Harry decided to try to stop being so dependant on their Time-Turner as they had been during the school year because they didn't really need to always use it - only when they'd need an alibi. The Dursleys didn't know when Harry was or wasn't in his room, and Harry figured there was nothing odd about him leaving Privet Drive for the day if Dumbledore did detect he wasn't there. He had checked himself for tracking charms and found one, but simply moved it to his bed.

Harry and Hermione had met up with Sirius, who was staying in the now Fidelius-protected Number Twelve Grimmauld Place with Hermione (the least likely suspect) as Secret-Keeper.

"It's good to see you two," he happily greeted when they arrived. Motioning to Harry's watch, he added, "I'm about ready to move back into your apartment. Even with the place redecorated, it brings back a lot of bad memories."

"I know," said Harry sympathetically. "You'll be able to claim your new identity soon and won't have to live here anymore, but it would still be a good Headquarters...if we need it."

Hermione added, "We just don't want you to suddenly appear just before or just after Gringotts is robbed. It would be too suspicious."

"And we don't want you to have your new face until after the robbery, so that no matter what happens, your alter-ego won't be a suspect," interjected Harry.

"But I'll be able to establish my new identity in a month - tops - right?" Sirius asked, sounding almost desperate.

"Yes."

"So, we're going to the Gaunt house, then?" asked Padfoot.

"Yeah," said Harry. "I suppose we'd better get it over with." He took a deep breath. "If you'll hold onto me, I can guide you to the nearby cemetery, where we should modify certain graves while we're there."

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With three small pops, a group of three, hiding under two invisibility cloaks, arrived at a location that frequently visited Harry Potter's nightmares. He and Hermione were under his cloak, while Sirius was under the other one they'd obtained from the Crouch family (while holding onto Harry through the cloak). The Boy-Who-Lived couldn't help but feel a bit tense here, at the place where he'd seen Voldemort resurrect in another life. They all looked around to see no one in the area.

"It looks like the coast is clear," whispered Harry, before examining the gravestones with his eyes. "This way to the Riddle family." The three invisible figures silently walked in the indicated direction until they arrived. "Hermione, if you will?"

The smartest witch of her ages pointed her wand down at the dirt in front of Tom Riddle Senior's headstone and performed a special spell she'd found in an old tome at Black Manor. It searched for the casket below and vanished both it and the contents so that nothing was left in that plot but dirt and a hole where the casket was. It wouldn't take long at all for the hole to fill itself up so that someone digging for the casket wouldn't realize that it had been moved away and would keep digging further down. She then performed the same spell on the other Riddle family members' graves. In all, the process took less than fifteen minutes. Now there were no bones of Voldemort's father, grandfather or grandmother for him to find.

The group then carefully walked out of the cemetery onto the road, where Harry looked for the remains of the Gaunt house he'd visited in Dumbledore's Pensieve. They followed the hedge on the side of the road downhill until they reached a very small gap in the hedge.