"Henry? Are you all right?"
Harry flashed his twin a quick smile. Luckily, Draco's intense overprotectiveness from the ritual they'd done had worn off, but he was still the first to notice when Harry felt bad. "Yeah. Just a bit of pressure from the scar."
"A bit of pressure."
Harry shrugged.
"Henry."
Harry glanced around. They were in a quiet corner of the library where they'd met up with Ron and Hermione to study. But Hermione was away looking for another book to study for the Charms OWL, and Ron had gone to have an argument with Fred and George in a different part of the library. "It's weird. Nothing like the pain that I had in first year when I was around Quirrell or anything like that. A sort of—tug."
"Tug, Henry Aldebaran?"
"Just repeating my words does nothing, Draco Lucius."
Draco started to snap back, but Hermione arrived triumphantly waving a tome over her head, and he sat back. He didn't like to discuss the scar or Horcruxes anywhere with Hermione nearby, which Harry could understand.
Besides. The tug and the pressure were diffuse, so far, to the point that Harry wasn't entirely sure he was feeling them instead of them being in his imagination. Maybe it was born of the stress of studying for OWLS.
He would let it go for right now, and see if anything developed in the future. At the moment, there wasn't much he could do except Charms study, with Hermione reading as fast as she could from the book she'd found and the mind-numbingly long list of spells that he had to memorize for the practical.
"This was coming for you from a Black house-elf, Mistress Narcissa."
Narcissa raised her eyebrows as she regarded the black lacquered box her personal elf, Jester, had delivered to her. "I see. Please leave it here, Jester."
"Yes, Mistress."
After the elf had popped away, Narcissa leaned back in the chair behind her desk and stared at the box in silence. She had seen it before—or rather, one like it. Aunt Walburga and Uncle Orion had kept a number of similar boxes around Grimmauld Place to deliver gifts in. They took the theme of their last name seriously.
It would have had detection spells cast on it if it had passed through house-elf hands, but Narcissa cast a number on it anyway. She knew spells that her elves did not, and if this was a gift from Sirius—
She sensed nothing, which was both reassuring and disappointing. It would have been all too convenient if he had found the Horcrux and delivered it to them.
When she flipped the lid open, Narcisa's breath caught, and her eyes filled with tears. Inside the box on a pillow of violet velvet lay a string of black pearls that she had often seen around Aunt Walburga's neck. They were the one piece of heirloom jewelry outside her own immediate family that Narcissa had always wanted to possess. Something about their shine and their smoothness spoke to her.
Beneath the pearls was a note. Narcissa moved them so she could read it.
Cissy,
I've been doing a lot of thinking the past few months, and I have to admit, I was wrong. Wrong to steal your son, and act as though having a second one made up for having the other one stolen. Wrong to assume that he would ever want to have anything to do with me after I tried to kidnap him multiple times.
If I'm ever to be Harry's godfather, I have to accept him the way he is now, and not the way I wish he was. And some of the thinking…well, James and Lily weren't perfect, either. I couldn't admit it to myself at the time, since James was my first friend and Lily was his wife, but they did things even to me that make me a little sick when I recall them.
So I sent these pearls as what I hope will be a gesture of reconciliation. I remember you always liked them. I sent a little something for Harry, too. Maybe with time, you'll think more kindly of me, and give it to him.
Best wishes,
Sirius.
Narcissa tilted the box, and noticed that there was indeed something else poking out from beneath the cushion of velvet the pearls had rested on. When she removed it, she saw a lion-shaped silver pin that had been Regulus's. Lion for the Leo constellation, but of course, it would also fit Henry, with his Gryffindor Sorting.
She cast detection charms on the pin, but there was nothing on it, either, except the single black pearl that formed the lion's eye. Narcissa sat back and cradled the necklace and the pin in her palms, looking from one to the other.
Sirius had truly reformed, it seemed, if he was sending gifts like this. He was asking for a future connection, not an immediate one.
Narcissa's natural caution surfaced a moment later, and she narrowed her eyes. She would, of course, hold the gift to Henry back, and have Lucius test it, since in some matters of the Dark Arts he was more experienced than she was. She would not permit her son to be in any danger, no matter how tempting it was to simply accept these gifts.
But if they proved innocent…
Narcissa had her sister back, thanks to Henry, and one of her cousins. If she could have another, then it would be a priceless gift, worth far more than this.
She sat down to write the owl to Sirius, reaching out now and then to stroke the black pearls. She was hardly aware of the smile on her face. It felt natural there.
I can feel that she took the bait, hissed the locket. She could not feel the spells that I told you to place there. They are unique to me.
Sirius smiled, and stroked the locket's chain.
Harry couldn't sleep.
That was nothing unusual, really, but this time, it meant that he rolled over and stared at the ceiling, and then got up and wandered out of the Gryffindor fifth-year boys' bedroom and down to the common room. He flopped in front of the fire and stared into the flames.
His scar hurt. Or the place where his scar used to be, really. It was nothing but a pale mark now. Harry knew the Horcrux was entirely gone.
Then what was this tug, this pulling feeling?
It wouldn't stop, and no matter how long he stared at the flames, Harry's brain wouldn't stop flipping over itself with anxiety. In the end, he stood and went back to his bedroom for the Invisibility Cloak. Maybe if he hunted down the tugging feeling, then he would have something more concrete to tell his parents besides "Something is pulling at me."
Invisible, he padded out through the portrait hole and into Hogwarts. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the pull, something he couldn't do when he was around other people. They would always yell about something and disrupt his concentration.
Down. Up. Down?
Even here, it was hard to be sure of the exact direction. Harry sighed and started walking.
....
Do you want to read ahead by more than 60 exciting premium chapters?
Then join my p*atreon right now.
Link: p*atreon.com/Sonic_Spectre (Remove the *)
Free members can unlock upto 2 chapters.