The Deathly Hallows - Harry Potter Male Reader Insert

Arc 1 Chapter 7: Intruders

Ellie woke ear­ly next morn­ing, wrapped in a sleep­ing bag on the draw­ing room floor. A chunk of sky was vis­ible be­tween the heavy cur­tains. It was the cool, clear blue of wa­tered ink, some­where be­tween night and dawn, and ev­ery­thing was qui­et ex­cept for Ron and Hermione's slow, deep breath­ing.

Harry, however, was curiously absent.

She slowly dragged herself out of her sleeping bag and contemplated waking the others, but ultimately decided against it. From what little pieces of the the puzzle they had given her, it seemed sleep was a scarce luxury they'd definitely need a lot of.

Ghost-Ellie didn't seem to be awake yet. Ellie found that there were moments when her alternate self would simply disappear for long periods of time and reappear when it suited her. Almost as though she was sleeping, though Ellie distinctly remembered the ghost telling her her kind didn't sleep.

She wondered, as she gave her pyjama top a sniff, if in a predominantly wizarding house such as this one there were any showers. Surely, if working Muggle toilets had been incorporated into Wizarding society, wouldn't showers too?

A quick tour of the ground floor and all it's toilets (tiptoeing past Lady Blacks portrait and praying Ghost-Ellie wouldn't suddenly wake and surprise her) would suggest that whilst Muggle plumbing had been incorporated into toiletry and bathing, there wasn't a single toilet in sight.

She freshened up at a bathroom sink, brushed her teeth and made to return to the living room and fetch a change of clothes, but she was stopped by one of the many moving paintings along the way.

"How very curious." Said the painting. "A Muggle in the esteemed House Black? Walburga would have a heart attack."

The man in the painting looked to be from the Victorian era, a top hat nearly triple the height of his entire face perched atop his clearly thinning hair.

Ellie stared at the painting in awe. It all seemed so surreal, like some kind of insane dream she was yet to wake from. It had been one thing hearing of magic from Andromeda and Dora, but another thing entirely to see it in action.

The paint embued on the canvas was moving, not to the point where it appeared liquid like water, but somehow instead retained all the micro-strokes a genuine painting would have. Almost as though someone had painted several works of art and filmed them all as a stop-motion animation, though Ellie could think of no Muggle artist who had ever done such a thing before.

Abandoning the portrait (who began blustering about the rudeness of the youth) Ellie bolted upstairs to the next floor, eager to see more magic.

She would find herself quite disappointed. Aside from the talking paintings, there were all manner of decapitated heads from creatures Ellie could only describe as the most grotesque little stunted humans. What could only be described as magical parasites littered every floor, from spiders to flea-like things. Even the weapons hung on the walls didn't do much, staying locked in place purely for decoration.

Did Wizards ever even use medieval weaponry? She wondered. If supremacy against Muggles was so severe, why did it seem like wizards had an abundance of old-fashioned weaponry and suits of armor proudly displayed in their homes?

She found Harry, who like her was still in his pyjamas, at the top­most land­ing where there were on­ly two doors. The one fac­ing him bore a name­plate read­ing Sir­ius. If Harry had noticed Ellie's presence, he was ignoring her, his eyes locked onto a piece of parchment.

The room was spa­cious and must once have been hand­some. There was a large bed with a carved wood­en head­board, a tall win­dow ob­scured by long vel­vet cur­tains and a chan­de­lier thick­ly coat­ed in dust with can­dle scrubs still rest­ing in its sock­ets, sol­id wax bang­ing in frost­like drips. A fine film of dust cov­ered the pic­tures on the walls and the bed's head­board; a spi­ders web stretched be­tween the chan­de­lier and the top of the large wood­en wardrobe, and as Ellie moved deep­er in­to the room, she heard a scur­ry­ing of dis­turbed mice.

The once-occupant of this room had plas­tered the walls with so many posters and pic­tures that lit­tle of the wall's sil­very-​gray silk was vis­ible. There were sev­er­al large ban­ners, fad­ed scar­let and gold. There were many pic­tures of Mug­gle mo­tor­cy­cles, and al­so sev­er­al posters of biki­ni-​clad Mug­gle women. Ellie blanched, focusing her attention back to Harry, peering over his shoulder to read the letter in his hands.

She expected him to frown at her and move it away, but he silently allowed her to read.

Dear Pad­foot,

Thank you, thank you, for Har­ry's birth­day present! It was his fa­vorite by far. One year old and al­ready zoom­ing along on a toy broom­stick, he looked so pleased with him­self. I'm en­clos­ing a pic­ture so you can see. You know it on­ly ris­es about two feet off the ground but he near­ly killed the cat and he smashed a hor­ri­ble vase Petu­nia sent me for Christ­mas (no com­plaints there). Of course James thought it was so fun­ny, says he's go­ing to be a great Quid­ditch play­er but we've had to pack away all the or­na­ments and make sure we don't take our eyes off him when he gets go­ing.

We had a very qui­et birth­day tea, just us and old Bathil­da who has al­ways been sweet to us and who dotes on Gar­ry. We were so sor­ry you couldn't come, but the Or­der's got to come first, and Har­ry's not old enough to know it's his birth­day any­way! James is get­ting a bit frus­trat­ed shut up here, he tries not to show it but I can tell - al­so Dum­ble­dore's still got his In­vis­ibil­ity Cloak, so no chance of lit­tle ex­cur­sions. If you could vis­it, it would cheer him up so much. Wormy was here last week­end. I thought he seemed down, but that was prob­ably the next about the McK­in­nons; I cried all evening when I heard.

Bathil­da drops in most days, she's a fas­ci­nat­ing old thing with the most amaz­ing sto­ries about Dum­ble­dore. I'm not sure he'd be pleased if he knew! I don't know how much to be­lieve, ac­tu­al­ly be­cause it seems in­cred­ible that Dum­ble­dore -

When it became clear that the rest of the letter was absent, Ellie turned looked at Harry, who was gripping it very tightly in his hands. He seemed to reread it a couple of times. Ellie gave him a brief moment of silence before she spoke.

"Was this from - your mother?"

Harry nodded.

"And this Sirius? He was -?"

"My godfather." said Harry quietly. "This is his house... left for me by him. He died on the same day your -" he passed. "-on the same day your home went up in flames."

Ellie pursed her lips, and Harry gave her an apologetic look. At the same time, she felt a sort of unnatural lurch in her stomach that was not her own, and the hitch of a voice behind her. Ghost-Ellie was awake.

The two orphans sat in silence for a few minutes more. But Ellie felt as though she were in an intruder, the moment felt like it was being shared between Harry and ghost-Ellie rather than Ellie herself.

And why wouldn't it? It was ghost-Ellie who understood the reality of being an orphan more than Ellie ever could. It was she who had been raised in an Orphanage, perhaps wondering every night who her real parents were. Wishing every day to become part of a real family...

What did Ellie know of that pain? She had technically been alive for only a year, and she'd been gifted what her ghost counterpart had dreamed of almost straight away. Dora, Andromeda and Ted.

"Where's the rest of the letter?" said Ellie eventually, breaking the silence.

"I've looked all around the room and I couldn't find it." Harry replied. "It's probably lost somewhere. Or Kreacher took it, the little rat."

"Kreacher?"

But her query would have to wait.

"Har­ry? Ellie? Har­ry!"

"We're here!" Harry called, "What's hap­pened?"

There was a clat­ter of foot­steps out­side the door, and Hermione burst in­side.

"We woke up and didn't know where you two were!" she said breath­less­ly. She turned and shout­ed over her shoul­der, "Ron! I've found them!"

Ron's an­noyed voice echoed dis­tant­ly from sev­er­al floors be­low.

"Good! Tell Harry from me he's a git!"

"And me?" Ellie called back out of curiosity.

"Do you honestly think I'd have the guts to insult Y/N's sister?" exclaimed Ron incredulously.

Ellie laughed. She heard ghost-Ellie let out a small giggle and was relieved the ghost's mood had improved.

"Har­ry don't just dis­ap­pear, please, we were ter­ri­fied! Why did you come up here any­way?" Heemione gazed around the ran­sacked room. "What have you been do­ing?"

"Look what I've just found."

He held out his moth­er's let­ter. Hermione took it out and read it while Har­ry watched her. When she reached the end of the page she looked up at him.

"Har­ry..."

"And there's this too"

He hand­ed her a torn photograph. Ellie peered over to get a look at is as well and both she and Hermione smiled at the sight of a ba­by zoom­ing in and out of sight on a toy broom.

"I've been look­ing for the rest of the let­ter," Har­ry said, "but it's not here."

Hermione glanced around.

"Did you two make all this mess, or was some of it done when you got here?"

"Some­one had searched be­fore me," said Har­ry.

"I thought so. Ev­ery room I looked in­to on the way up had been dis­turbed. What were they af­ter, do you think?"

"In­for­ma­tion on the Or­der, if it was Snape."

"But you'd think he'd al­ready have all he need­ed. I mean was in the Or­der, wasn't he?"

"Well then," said Har­ry, keen to dis­cuss his the­ory, "what about in­for­ma­tion on Dum­ble­dore? The sec­ond page of the let­ter, for in­stance. You know this Bathil­da my mum men­tions, you know who she is?"

"Who?"

"Bathil­da Bagshot, the au­thor of -"

"A His­to­ry of Mag­ic," said Hermione, look­ing in­ter­est­ed. "So your par­ents knew her? She was an in­cred­ible mag­ic his­to­ri­an."

"And she's still alive," said Har­ry, "and she lives in Go­dric's Hol­low. Ron's Aun­tie Muriel was talk­ing about her at the wed­ding. She knew Dum­ble­dore's fam­ily too. Be pret­ty in­ter­est­ing to talk to, wouldn't she?" There was a lit­tle too much un­der­stand­ing in the smile Hermione gave him for Har­ry's lik­ing. He took back the let­ter and the pho­to­graph and tucked them in­side the pouch around his neck, so as not to have to look at her and give him­self away. "I un­der­stand why you'd love to talk to her about your mum and dad, and Dum­ble­dore too," said Hermione. "But that wouldn't re­al­ly help us in our search for the Hor­crux­es, would it?" Har­ry did not an­swer, and she rushed on, "Har­ry, I know you re­al­ly want to go to Go­dric's Hol­low, but I'm scared. I'm scared at how eas­ily those Death Eaters found us yes­ter­day. It just makes me feel more than ev­er that we ought to avoid the place where your par­ents are buried, I'm sure they'd be ex­pect­ing you to vis­it it."

"It's not just that," Har­ry said, still avoid­ing look­ing at her, "Muriel said stuff about Dum­ble­dore at the wed­ding. I want to know the truth..."

He told Hermione ev­ery­thing that Muriel had told him. When he had fin­ished, Hermione said, "Of course, I can see why that's up­set you, Har­ry -"

"I'm not up­set," he lied, "I'd just like to know whether or not it's true or -"

"Har­ry do you re­al­ly think you'll get the truth from a ma­li­cious old wom­an like Muriel, or from Ri­ta Skeeter? How can you be­lieve them? You knew Dum­ble­dore!"

"I thought I did," he muttered. "And Y/N never liked Dumbledore, remember?"

"Don't say that." Hermione frowned. "He respected Dumbledore very much."

"But he never trusted him." Harry pointed out.

Hermione pursed her lips. "No. I don't suppose he did. But Harry, you and Dumbledore had a much different relationship than Y/N and Dumbledore did. Y/N never once disapproved of how close you two were. He more disagreed with Dumbledore's methods than he did the man."

She wasn't wrong. "But -" Harry started.

"You know how much truth there was in ev­ery­thing Ri­ta wrote about you. How can you let these peo­ple tar­nish your mem­ories of Dum­ble­dore?"

He looked away, try­ing not to be­tray the re­sent­ment he felt. There it was again: Choose what to be­lieve. He want­ed the truth. Why was ev­ery­body so de­ter­mined that he should not get it?

"Shall we go down to the kitchen?" Hermione sug­gest­ed af­ter a lit­tle pause. "Find some­thing for break­fast?"

He agreed, but grudg­ing­ly, and fol­lowed her out on­to the land­ing and past the sec­ond door that led off it.

Ellie followed them both, respecting their request for her not to ask any questions. She hadn't the faintest idea who this Dumbledore chap was, but he seemed rather important.

There were deep scratch marks in the paint­work be­low a small sign that he had not no­ticed in the dark. They passed at the top of the stairs and Harry read it. It was a pompous lit­tle sign, neat­ly let­tered by hand the sort of thing that Per­cy Weasley might have stuck on his bed­room door.

Do Not En­ter

With­out the Ex­press Per­mis­sion of

Reg­ulus Arc­turus Black

Harry stopped dead and Ellie bumped into him. Ex­cite­ment trick­led through him, but he was not im­me­di­ate­ly sure why. He read the sign again. Hermione was al­ready a flight of stairs be­low him.

"Hermione," he said, and he was sur­prised that his voice was so calm. "Come back up here."

"What's the mat­ter?"

"R.A.B. I think I've found him."

There was a gasp, and then Hermione ran back up the stairs.

"In your mum's let­ter? But I didn't see -"

Har­ry shook his head, point­ing at Reg­ulus's sign. She read it, then clutched Har­ry's arm so tight­ly that he winced.

"Sir­ius's broth­er?" she whis­pered.

"He was a Death Eater," said Har­ry. "Sir­ius told me about him, he joined up when he was re­al­ly young and then got cold feet and tried to leave - so they killed him."

"That fits!" gasped Hermione. "If he was a Death Eater he had ac­cess to Volde­mort, and if he be­came dis­en­chant­ed, then he would have want­ed to bring Volde­mort down!"

She re­leased Har­ry, leaned over the ban­is­ter, and screamed, "Ron! RON! Get up here, quick!"

Ron ap­peared, pant­ing, a minute lat­er, his wand ready in his hand.

"What's up? If it's mas­sive spi­ders again I want break­fast be­fore I -"

He frowned at the sign on Reg­ulus's door, in which Hermione was silent­ly point­ing.

"What? That was Sir­ius's broth­er, wasn't it? Reg­ulus Arc­turus ... Reg­ulus ... R.A.B.! The lock­et - you don't reck­on -- ?"

"Let's find out," said Har­ry. He pushed the door: It was locked. Hermione point­ed her wand at the han­dle and said, "Alo­hamo­ra." There was a click, and the door swung open.

Before entering, Harry turned to Ellie. "Alright, kid." he said. "We're looking for a locket with an 'S' on it. Help us out but don't actually touch it if you see it."

"Why not?" said Ron.

Hermione gave him a pointed look. "Remember Ginny?"

Realisation seemed to dawn on Ron. "Right."

Ellie nodded, again not asking any questions and they moved over the thresh­old to­geth­er, gaz­ing around.

Reg­ulus's bed­room was slight­ly small­er than Sir­ius's, though it had the same sense of for­mer grandeur. Where­as Sir­ius had sought to ad­ver­tise his dif­fi­dence from the rest of the fam­ily, Reg­ulus had striv­en to em­pha­size the op­po­site. The Slytherin col­ors of emer­ald and sil­ver were ev­ery­where, drap­ing the bed, the walls, and the win­dows. The Black fam­ily crest was painstak­ing­ly paint­ed over the bed, along with its mot­to, TOU­JOURS PUR. Be­neath this was a col­lec­tion of yel­low news­pa­per cut­tings, all stuck to­geth­er to make a ragged col­lage. Hermione crossed the room to ex­am­ine them.

"They're all about Volde­mort," she said. "Reg­ulus seems to have been a fan for a few years be­fore he joined the Death Eaters ..."

A lit­tle puff of dust rose from the bed­cov­ers as she sat down to read the clip­pings. Har­ry, mean­while, had no­ticed an­oth­er pho­to­graph: a Hog­warts Quid­ditch team was smil­ing and wav­ing out of the frame. He moved clos­er and saw the snakes em­bla­zoned on their chests: Slytherins. Reg­ulus was in­stant­ly rec­og­niz­able as the boy sit­ting in the mid­dle of the front row: He had the same dark hair and slight­ly haughty look of his broth­er, though he was small­er, slighter, and rather less hand­some than Sir­ius had been.

"He played Seek­er," said Har­ry.

"What?" said Hermione vague­ly; she was still im­mersed in Volde­mort's press clip­pings.

"He's sit­ting in the mid­dle of the front row, that's where the Seek­er ... Nev­er mind," said Har­ry, re­al­iz­ing that no­body was lis­ten­ing. Ron was on his hands and knees, search­ing un­der the wardrobe. Har­ry looked around the room for like­ly hid­ing places and ap­proached the desk. Yet again, some­body had searched be­fore them. The draw­ers' con­tents had been turned over re­cent­ly, the dust dis­turbed, but there was noth­ing of val­ue there: old quills, out-​of-​date text­books that bore ev­idence of be­ing rough­ly han­dled, a re­cent­ly smashed ink bot­tle, its sticky residue cov­er­ing the con­tents of the draw­er.

"There's an eas­ier way," said Hermione, as Har­ry wiped his inky fin­gers on his jeans. She raised her wand and said, "Ac­cio Lock­et!"

Noth­ing hap­pened. Ron, who had been search­ing the folds of the fad­ed cur­tains, looked dis­ap­point­ed.

"Is that it, then? It's not here?"

"Oh, it could still be here, but un­der counter-​en­chant­ments," said Hermione. "Charms to pre­vent it from be­ing sum­moned mag­ical­ly, you know."

"How are we sup­posed to find it then?" asked Ron.

"We search man­ual­ly," said Hermione.

"That's a good idea," said Ron, rolling his eyes, and he re­sumed his ex­am­ina­tion of the cur­tains.

They combed ev­ery inch of the room for more than an hour, but were forced, fi­nal­ly, to con­clude that the lock­et was not there.

The sun had risen now; its light daz­zled them even through the grimy land­ing win­dows.

"It could be some­where else in the house, though," said Hermione in a ral­ly­ing tone as they walked back down­stairs. As Har­ry and Ron had be­come more dis­cour­aged, she seemed to have be­come more de­ter­mined. "Whether he'd man­age to de­stroy it or not, he'd want to keep it hid­den from Volde­mort, wouldn't he? Re­mem­ber all those aw­ful things we had to get rid of when we were here last time? That clock that shot bolts at ev­ery­one and those old robes that tried to stran­gle Ron; Reg­ulus might have put them there to pro­tect the lock­et's hid­ing place, even though we didn't re­al­ize it at ... at ... "

Har­ry and Ron looked at her. She was stand­ing with one foot in midair, with the dumb­struck look of one who had just been Oblivi­at­ed: her eyes had even drift­ed out of fo­cus.

"... at the time," she fin­ished in a whis­per.

"Some­thing wrong?" asked Ron.

"There was a lock­et."

"What?" said Har­ry and Ron to­geth­er.

"In the cab­inet in the draw­ing room. No­body could open it. And we ... we ... "

Har­ry felt as though a brick had slid down through his chest in­to his stom­ach. He re­mem­bered. He had even han­dled the thing as they passed it around, each try­ing in turn to pry it open. It had been tossed in­to a sack of rub­bish, along with the snuff­box of Wart­cap pow­der and the mu­sic box that had made ev­ery­one sleepy ..."

"Kreach­er nicked loads of things back from us," said Har­ry. It was the on­ly chance, the on­ly slen­der hope left to them, and he was go­ing to cling to it un­til forced to let go. "He had a whole stash of stuff in his cup­board in the kitchen. C'mon."

He ran down the stairs tak­ing two steps at a time, the oth­er two thun­der­ing along in his wake. They made so much noise that they woke the por­trait of Sir­ius's moth­er as they passed through the hall.

"Filth! Mud­bloods! Scum!" she screamed af­ter them as they dashed down in­to the base­ment kitchen and slammed the door be­hind them. Har­ry ran the length of the room, skid­ded to a halt at the door of Kreach­er's cup­board, and wrenched it open. There was the nest of dirty old blan­kets in which the house-​elf had once slept, but they were not longer glit­ter­ing with the trin­kets Kreach­er had sal­vaged.

"Does a person live here?" asked Ellie, aghast.

"Not a person." Hermione shook her head. "An elf."

Ellie immediately thought of the humanoid elves from The Lord of The Rings, which didn't do much to comfort her.

Ghost-Ellie had a very different idea. "Elves as in Santa Claus?" she squealed in delight.

"Not likely considering how filthy this little den is." Ellie whispered back non-vocally.

Harry, Hermione and Ron scoured the cupboard. The on­ly thing there was an old copy of Na­ture's No­bil­ity: A Wiz­ard­ing Ge­neal­ogy. Re­fus­ing to be­lieve his eyes, Har­ry snatched up the blan­kets and shook them. A dead mouse fell out and rolled dis­mal­ly across the floor. Ron groaned as he threw him­self in­to a kitchen chair; Hermione closed her eyes.

"It's not over yet," said Har­ry, and he raised his voice and called, "Kreach­er!"

There was a loud crack and the house elf that Har­ry had so re­luc­tant­ly in­her­it­ed from Sir­ius ap­peared out of nowhere in front of the cold and emp­ty fire­place: tiny, half hu­man-​sized, his pale skin hang­ing off him in folds, white hair sprout­ing co­pi­ous­ly from his bat­like ears. He was still wear­ing the filthy rag in which they had first met him, and the con­temp­tu­ous look he bent up­on Har­ry showed that his at­ti­tude to his change of own­er­ship had al­tered no more than his out­fit.

"Not a fun Santa Claus elf, then." non-vocally said Ellie in alarm, while ghost-Ellie painfully screeched in her ear at the sight of the nasty thing.

"Mas­ter," croaked Kreach­er in his bull­frog's voice, and he bowed low; mut­ter­ing to his knees, "back in my Mis­tress's old house with the blood-​traitor Weasley and the Mud­blood -"

"I for­bid you to call any­one 'blood traitor' or 'Mud­blood,'" growled Har­ry. He would have found Kreach­er, with his snout­like nose and blood­shot eyes, a dis­tinc­tive­ly unlov­able ob­ject even if the elf had not be­trayed Sir­ius to Volde­mort.

"Master brings a dirty Muggle this time, as well... my mistress would die again if she knew..." Kreacher continued to murmer. Ellie felt afronted.

"Shut up." Harry warned. "I've got a ques­tion for you, and I or­der you to an­swer it truth­ful­ly. Un­der­stand?"

"Yes, Mas­ter," said Kreach­er, bow­ing low again. Har­ry saw his lips mov­ing sound­less­ly, un­doubt­ed­ly fram­ing the in­sults he was now for­bid­den to ut­ter.

"Two years ago," said Har­ry, his heart now ham­mer­ing against his ribs, "there was a big gold lock­et in the draw­ing room up­stairs. We threw it out. Did you steal it back?"

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?" echoed Har­ry, ela­tion float­ing out of him, "What do you mean, it's gone?"

The elf shiv­ered. He swayed.

"Kreach­er," said Har­ry fierce­ly, "I or­der you -"

"Mundun­gus Fletch­er," croaked the elf, his eyes still tight shut. "Mundun­gus Fletch­er stole it all; Miss Bel­la's and Miss Cis­sy's pic­tures, my Mis­tress's gloves, the Or­der of Mer­lin, First Class, the gob­lets with the fam­ily crest, and - and - "

Kreach­er was gulp­ing for air: His hol­low chest was ris­ing and falling rapid­ly, then his eyes flew open and he ut­tered a blood­cur­dling scream.

"-and the lock­et, Mas­ter Reg­ulus's lock­et. Kreach­er did wrong, Kreach­er failed in his or­ders!"

Har­ry re­act­ed in­stinc­tive­ly: As Kreach­er lunged for the pok­er stand­ing in the grate, he launched him­self up­on the elf, flat­ten­ing him. Hermione's scream min­gled with Kreach­er's but Har­ry bel­lowed loud­er than both of them: "Kreach­er, I or­der you to stay still!"

He felt the elf freeze and re­leased him. Kreach­er lay flat on the cold stone floor, tears gush­ing from his sag­ging eyes.

"Har­ry, let him up!" Hermione whis­pered.

"So he can beat him­self up with the pok­er?" snort­ed Har­ry, kneel­ing be­side the elf. "I don't think so. Right. Kreach­er, I want the truth: How do you know Mundun­gus Fletch­er stole the lock­et?"

"Kreach­er saw him!" gasped the elf as tears poured over his snout and in­to his mouth full of gray­ing teeth. "Kreach­er saw him com­ing out of Kreach­er's cup­board with his hands full of Kreach­er's trea­sures. Kreach­er told the sneak thief to stop, but Mundun­gus Fletch­er laughed and r-​ran ... "

"You called the lock­et 'Mas­ter Reg­ulus's,'" said Har­ry. "Why? Where did it come from? What did Reg­ulus have to do with it? Kreach­er, sit up and tell me ev­ery­thing you know about that lock­et, and ev­ery­thing Reg­ulus had to do with it!"

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.

"Mas­ter Sir­ius ran away, good rid­dance, for he was a bad boy and broke my Mis­tress's heart with his law­less ways. But Mas­ter Reg­ulus had prop­er or­der; he knew what was due to the name of Black and the dig­ni­ty of his pure blood. For years he talked of the Dark Lord, who was go­ing to bring the wiz­ards out of hid­ing to rule the Mug­gles and the Mug­gle-​borns ... and when he was six­teen years old, Mas­ter Reg­ulus joined the Dark Lord. So proud, so proud, so hap­py to serve ...

And one day, a year af­ter he joined, Mas­ter Reg­ulus came down to the kitchen to see Kreach­er. Mas­ter Reg­ulus al­ways liked Kreach­er. And Mas­ter Reg­ulus said ... he said ..."

The old elf rocked faster than ev­er.

"... he said that the Dark Lord re­quired an elf."

"Volde­mort need­ed an elf?" Har­ry re­peat­ed, look­ing around at Ron and Hermione, who looked just as puz­zled as he did.

"Oh yes," moaned Kreach­er. "And Mas­ter Reg­ulus had vol­un­teered Kreach­er. It was an hon­or, said Mas­ter Reg­ulus, an hon­or for him and for Kreach­er, who must be sure to do what­ev­er the Dark Lord or­dered him to do ... and then to c-​come home."

Kreach­er rocked still faster, his breath com­ing in sobs.

"So Kreach­er went to the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord did not tell Kreach­er what they were to do, but took Kreach­er with him to a cave be­side the sea. And be­yond the cave was a cav­ern, and in the cav­ern was a great black lake ... "

Harry envisioned what Kreacher was describing. This must have been where Dumbledore went the previous year to get the fake locket.

"... There was a boat ... "

This, then, was how Volde­mort had test­ed the de­fens­es sur­round­ing the Hor­crux, by bor­row­ing a dis­pos­able crea­ture, a house-​elf...

"There was a b-​basin full of po­tion on the is­land. The D-​Dark Lord made Kreach­er drink it ..."

The elf quaked from head to foot.

"Kreach­er drank, and as he drank he saw ter­ri­ble thing ... Kreach­er's in­sides burned ... Kreach­er cried for Mas­ter Reg­ulus to save him, he cried for his Mis­tress Black, but the Dark Lord on­ly laughed ... He made Kreach­er drink all the po­tion ... He dropped a lock­et in­to the emp­ty basin ... He filled it with more po­tion."

Clearly some sort of poison. If it had been causing the Elf such physical pain.

"And then the Dark Lord sailed away, leav­ing Kreach­er on the is­land ... "

Left the Elf exhausted and fatigued from whatever the strange potion had done to him. Harry could almost see Voldemort's twisted grin.

"Kreach­er need­ed wa­ter, he crawled to the is­land's edge and he drank from the black lake ... and hands, dead hands, came out of the wa­ter and dragged Kreach­er un­der the sur­face ... "

Inferi. There had been inferi in the lake. Hermione seemed to have come to the same conclusion for she anxiously wrapped an arm around Ellie.

"How did you get away?" Har­ry asked, and he was not sur­prised to hear him­self whis­per­ing.

Kreach­er raised his ug­ly head and looked Har­ry with his great, blood­shot eyes.

"Mas­ter Reg­ulus told Kreach­er to come back," he said.

"I know - but how did you es­cape the In­feri?"

Kreach­er did not seem to un­der­stand.

"Mas­ter Reg­ulus told Kreach­er to come back," he re­peat­ed.

"I know, but - "

"Well, it's ob­vi­ous, isn't it, Har­ry?" said Ron. "He Dis­ap­pa­rat­ed!"

"If that were possible, wouldn't Dumbledore have just -?"

"Who's to say he didn't? We don't know the details of what happened with Dumbledore that night. And even if it was impossible, Elf mag­ic isn't like wiz­ard's mag­ic, is it?" said Ron, "I mean, they can Ap­pa­rate and Dis­ap­pa­rate in and out of Hog­warts when we can't."

There was a si­lence as Har­ry di­gest­ed this. How could Volde­mort have made such a mis­take? But even as he thought this, Hermione spoke, and her voice was icy.

"Of course, Volde­mort would have con­sid­ered the ways of house-​elves far be­neath his no­tice ... It would nev­er have oc­curred to him that they might have mag­ic that he didn't."

"The house-​elf's high­est law is his Mas­ter's bid­ding," in­toned Kreach­er. "Kreach­er was told to come home, so Kreach­er came home ... "

"Well, then, you did what you were told, didn't you?" said Hermione kind­ly. "You didn't dis­obey or­ders at all!"

Kreach­er shook his head, rock­ing as fast as ev­er.

"So what hap­pened when you got back?" Har­ry asked. "What did Reg­ulus say when you told him what hap­pened?"

"Mas­ter Reg­ulus was very wor­ried, very wor­ried," croaked Kreach­er. "Mas­ter Reg­ulus told Kreach­er to stay hid­den and not to leave the house. And then ... it was a lit­tle while lat­er ... Mas­ter Reg­ulus came to find Kreach­er in his cup­board one night, and Mas­ter Reg­ulus was strange, not as he usu­al­ly was, dis­turbed in his mind, Kreach­er could tell ... and he asked Kreach­er to take him to the cave, the cave where Kreach­er had gone with the Dark Lord ... "

And so they had set off. Har­ry could vi­su­al­ize them quite clear­ly, the fright­ened old elf and the thin, dark Seek­er who had so re­sem­bled Sir­ius ... Kreach­er knew how to open the con­cealed en­trance to the un­der­ground cav­ern, knew how to raise the tiny boat: this time it was his beloved Reg­ulus who sailed with him to the is­land with its basin of poi­son ...

"And he made you drink the poi­son?" said Har­ry, dis­gust­ed.

But Kreach­er shook his head and wept. Hermione's hands leapt to her mouth: She seemed to have un­der­stood some­thing.

"M-​Mas­ter Reg­ulus took from his pock­et a lock­et like the one the Dark Lord had," said Kreach­er, tears pour­ing down ei­ther side of his snout­like nose. "And he told Kreach­er to take it and, when the basin was emp­ty, to switch the lock­ets ..."

Kreach­er's sobs came in great rasps now; Har­ry had to con­cen­trate hard to un­der­stand him.

"And he or­der - 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 ... and ... "

"Oh, Kreach­er!" wailed Hermione, who was cry­ing. She dropped to her knees be­side the elf and tried to hug him. At once he was on his feet, cring­ing away from her, quite ob­vi­ous­ly re­pulsed.

"The Mud­blood touched Kreach­er, he will not al­low it, what would his Mis­tress say?"

"I told you not to call her 'Mud­blood'!" snarled Har­ry, but the elf was al­ready pun­ish­ing him­self. He fell to the ground and banged his fore­head on the floor.

"Stop him - stop him!" Hermione cried, now hugging Ellie tight. "Oh, don't you see now how sick it is, the way they've got to obey?"

"Kreach­er - stop, stop!" shout­ed Har­ry.

The elf lay on the floor, pant­ing and shiv­er­ing, green mu­cus glis­ten­ing around his snot, a bruise al­ready bloom­ing on his pal­lid fore­head where he had struck him­self, his eyes swollen and blood­shot and swim­ming in tears. Ellie had nev­er seen any­thing so piti­ful.

"So you brought the lock­et home," Harry said re­lent­less­ly, for he was de­ter­mined to know the full sto­ry. "And you tried to de­stroy it?"

"Noth­ing Kreach­er did made any mark up­on it," moaned the elf. "Kreach­er tried ev­ery­thing, ev­ery­thing he knew, but noth­ing, noth­ing would work ... So many pow­er­ful spells up­on the cas­ing, Kreach­er was sure the way to de­stroy it was to get in­side it, but it would not open ... Kreach­er pun­ished him­self, he tried again, he pun­ished him­self, he tried again. Kreach­er failed to obey or­ders, Kreach­er could not de­stroy the lock­et! And his mis­tress was mad with grief, be­cause Mas­ter Reg­ulus had dis­ap­peared and Kreach­er could not tell her what had hap­pened, no, be­cause Mas­ter Reg­ulus had f-​f-​for­bid­den him to tell any of the f-​f-​fam­ily what hap­pened in the c-​cave ..."

Kreach­er be­gan to sob so hard that there were no more co­her­ent words. Tears flowed down Hermione's cheeks as she watched Kreach­er, but she did not dare touch him again. Even Ron, who was no fan of Kreach­er's, looked trou­bled. Har­ry sat back on his heels and shook his head, try­ing to clear it.

"I don't un­der­stand you, Kreach­er," he said fi­nal­ly. "Volde­mort tried to kill you, Reg­ulus died to bring Volde­mort down, but you were still hap­py to be­tray Sir­ius to Volde­mort? You were hap­py to go to Nar­cis­sa and Bel­la­trix, and pass in­for­ma­tion to Volde­mort through them ... "

"Har­ry, Kreach­er doesn't think like that," said Hermione, wip­ing her eyes on the back of her hand, letting go of Ellie and resting her hands on the girls shoulders. "He's a slave; house-​elves are used to bad, even bru­tal treat­ment; what Volde­mort did to Kreach­er wasn't that far out of the com­mon way. What do wiz­ard wars mean to an elf like Kreach­er? He's loy­al to peo­ple who are kind to him, and Mrs. Black must have been, and Reg­ulus cer­tain­ly was, so he served them will­ing­ly and par­rot­ed their be­liefs. I know what you're go­ing to say," she went on as Har­ry be­gan to protest, "that Reg­ulus changed his mind ... but he doesn't seem to have ex­plained that to Kreach­er, does he?" And I think I know why. Kreach­er and Reg­ulus's fam­ily were all safest if they kept to the old pure-​blood line. Reg­ulus was try­ing to pro­tect them all."

"Sir­ius - "

"Sir­ius was hor­ri­ble to Kreach­er, Har­ry, and it's no good look­ing like that, you know it's true. Kreach­er had been alone for such 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 ... and so did Sir­ius."

Har­ry had no re­tort. As he watched Kreach­er sob­bing on the floor, he re­mem­bered what Dum­ble­dore had said to him, mere hours af­ter Sir­ius's death: I do not think Sir­ius ev­er saw Kreach­er as a be­ing with feel­ings as acute as a hu­man's ...

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

It was sev­er­al min­utes be­fore Kreach­er hic­cupped 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 Har­ry. He glanced at Hermione for as­sis­tance. He want­ed to give the or­der kind­ly, but at the same time, he could not pre­tend that it was not an or­der. How­ev­er, the change in his tone seemed to have gained her ap­proval: She smiled en­cour­ag­ing­ly.

"Kreach­er, I want you, please, to go and find Mundun­gus Fletch­er. We need to find out where the lock­et - where Mas­ter Reg­ulus's lock­et it. It's re­al­ly im­por­tant. 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. He pulled out Ha­grid's purse and took 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, and as­sured him that they would make its pro­tec­tion their first pri­or­ity while he was away. He then made two low bows to Har­ry and Ron, and even gave a fun­ny lit­tle spasm in Ellie and Hermione's di­rec­tion that might have been an at­tempt at a re­spect­ful salute, be­fore Dis­ap­pa­rat­ing with the usu­al loud crack.

* * *

If Kreach­er could es­cape a lake full of In­feri, Har­ry was con­fi­dent that the cap­ture of Mundun­gus would take a few hours at most, and he prowled the house all morn­ing in a state of high an­tic­ipa­tion. How­ev­er, Kreach­er did not re­turn that morn­ing or even that af­ter­noon. By night­fall, Har­ry felt dis­cour­aged and anx­ious, and a sup­per com­posed large­ly of moldy bread, up­on which Hermione had tried a va­ri­ety of un­suc­cess­ful Trans­fig­ura­tions, did noth­ing to help.

"I don't get it." said Ellie, picking on her mouldy bread. "We went to Tesco that night after the wedding. What's stopping us from Apparating there and getting some better food?"

"Yeah!" agreed Ron moodily, grimacing as he took another bite of the bread. "Why can't we?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "That was right after Wizard-Hitler took over the Ministry. We had some time before his forces spread everywhere. And it's likely they've put a bounty on our head. If even one wizard sees us and decides to turn us in, it's all over."

No one argued with her logic.

"And then theres the subject of money." Hermione continued. "We've only got a handful of Muggle money and we can't exchange any more from Gringotts. We shouldn't waste it all."

"Couldn't we just nick some food from corner shops?" said Ellie. "They're fairly low security and there aren't usually a lot of people in them. You're magical, aren't you."

Harry, Hermione and even Ron exchanged looks. None of them were comfortable with the idea of stealing. No matter how easy it may be.

"Stealing from small Muggle businesses who are already in danger of getting blasted by Wizards on the street." said Harry dryly. "'Cause we're the good guys, apparently."

It did sound rather cruel when interpreted like that. Ellie didn't mention it again.

Kreach­er did not re­turn the fol­low­ing day, nor the day af­ter that. How­ev­er, two cloaked men had ap­peared in the square out­side num­ber twelve, and they re­mained there in­to the night, gaz­ing in the di­rec­tion of the house that they could not see.

"Death Eaters, for sure," said Ron, as he, Har­ry, and Hermione watched from the draw­ing room win­dows. "Reck­on they know we're in here?"

"I don't think so," said Hermione, though she looked fright­ened, "or they'd have sent Snape in af­ter us, wouldn't they?"

"D'you reck­on he's been in here and has his tongue tied by Moody's curse?" asked Ron.

"Yes," said Hermione, "oth­er­wise he'd have been able to tell that lot how to get in, wouldn't he? But they're prob­ably watch­ing to see whether we turn up. They know that Har­ry owns the house, af­ter all."

"How do they --?" be­gan Har­ry.

"Wiz­ard­ing wills are ex­am­ined by the Min­istry, re­mem­ber? They'll know Sir­ius left you the place."

The pres­ence of the Death Eaters out­side in­creased the omi­nous mood in­side num­ber twelve. They had not heard a word form any­one be­yond Grim­mauld Place since Mr. Weasley's Pa­tronus, and the strain was start­ing to tell. Rest­less and ir­ri­ta­ble, Ron had de­vel­oped an an­noy­ing habit of play­ing with the De­lu­mi­na­tor in his pock­et; This par­tic­ular­ly in­fu­ri­at­ed Hermione, who was whiling away the wait for Kreach­er by study­ing The Tales of Bee­dle the Bard and did not ap­pre­ci­ate the way the lights kept flash­ing on and off.

"Will you stop it!" she cried on the third evening of Kreach­er's ab­sence, as all the light was sucked from the draw­ing room yet again.

"Sor­ry, sor­ry!" said Ron, click­ing the De­lu­mi­na­tor and restor­ing the lights. "I don't know I'm do­ing it!"

"Well, can't you find some­thing use­ful to oc­cu­py your­self?"

"What, like read­ing kids' sto­ries?"

"Dum­ble­dore left me this book, Ron -"

"-and he left me the De­lu­mi­na­tor, maybe I'm sup­posed to use it!"

"Are they always like this?" whispered an exasperated Ellie to Harry, as they both got up to escape the argument.

"Believe it or not, this is them holding back a little for your sake." Harry replied, making his way downstairs. "If you weren't here, it'd be a lot worse."

They head­ed down­stairs to­ward the kitchen, which Harry kept vis­it­ing be­cause he was sure that was where Kreach­er was most like­ly to reap­pear. Halfway down the flight of stairs in­to the hall, how­ev­er, they heard a tap on the front door, then metal­lic clicks and the grind­ing of the chain.

Ev­ery nerve in Harry's body seemed to taut­en: He pulled out his wand, gestured for Ellie to follow him into the shadows, waiting.

The door opened: He saw a glimpse of the lam­plit square out­side, and two cloaked fig­ures edged in­to the hall and closed the door be­hind it. The in­trud­es steped for­ward, and Moody's voice asked, "Severus Snape?" Then the dust fig­ure rose from the end of the hall and rushed him, rais­ing its dead hand.

"What the -?" one of the figures said in bewilderment.

Just like before, the pseudo-Dumbledore rose from the dust on the ground and charged at the figures. Neither of them even flinched as it collided harmlessly against them and disintegrated back into dust. But Harry chose that moment to strike.

"Don't move!" he hissed, having crept up behind them, pressing his wand to one of their heads, Ellie tucked away safely behind him.

The figure he had at wand point raised their hands in surrender, and the other slowly reached to lower their hood.

"Hold your fire." said Neville Longbottom, gesturing to the hostaged intruder. "That's Kassandra."

Harry didn't move.

"I'm Neville Longbottom. Met you in first year. You became a Seeker by out-flying Malfoy for my Remembrall back. I squared up to you at the end of that year and Hermione used the body bind on me. I was a proud member of Dumbledore's Army and came to your rescue the night the Death Eaters took over the Ministry."

Satisfied, Harry let Kassandra go, who also lowered her hood and grumbled. "Nice to see you too, Potter."

"Sorry," said Harry. "Had to check."

"I don't blame you." smiled Neville. He peered at Ellie, who was still hiding behind Harry.

Ron and Hermione suddenly came crash­ing down the stairs be­hind Har­ry, wands pointing.

"We heard unfamiliar voices - Neville?"

Neville gave them a cheery wave.

"Who's that?" demanded Ron, moving his wand to Kassandra.

"Easy, Ron." Harry assured him. "This is Kassandra. The one I told you about - Ginny and I met her in Azkaban."

Ron blinked. "The Y/N-fangirl?"

Kassandra looked very offended.

Neville cleared his throat. "Speaking of Y/N, is there anywhere we can sit? We've got a lot to tell you."