Kreacher stared at the outstretched hand, his bloodshot eyes swimming with fresh tears. The agonizing weight of a twelve-year-old failure seemed to press down on his frail, trembling shoulders.
"Master... Master will help Kreacher fulfill Master Regulus's final wish?" Kreacher asked, his gravelly voice cracking with desperate, fragile hope.
Orion nodded solemnly, his expression unwavering. "I swear it, Kreacher. I will destroy the darkness within it."
The ancient house-elf let out a shuddering, broken sob. He didn't hesitate. With a sharp, echoing CRACK, Kreacher vanished from the trunk.
He returned exactly ten seconds later.
Kreacher reappeared near the desk, his hands shaking violently as he clutched a heavy, ornate golden locket. The chain was thick, and the surface of the locket was inlaid with glittering, emerald-green serpentine 'S's. Even from a few feet away, Orion could feel the cold, sickly, pulsating aura of dark magic radiating from the artifact.
It was a piece of Voldemort's soul.
Kreacher held the locket out, his face a mask of absolute misery and profound relief.
Orion reached forward. He didn't flinch as his fingers brushed the cold metal. He took the locket from the elf, feeling the immediate, hostile prickle of the Horcrux testing his Level 2 Mind Arts shields. The magic slid off his mental barriers harmlessly.
"Thank you, Kreacher," Orion said softly, looking at the heavy gold in his palm. "You have served your Master well. Your burden is lifted."
Kreacher collapsed into a deep, weeping bow. "Kreacher thanks Master Orion! Kreacher is eternally grateful!"
"Go now," Orion instructed gently. "Go to the Manor. Begin moving the portraits and your belongings. Set up your new quarters. I will call for you when I need you."
CRACK.
The elf was gone, leaving Orion alone with the second anchor of the Dark Lord's immortality.
"Well," Orion murmured, staring at the glittering emeralds. "Two down. Three to go."
"Inventory," he whispered.
The locket vanished in a flash of digital blue light, settling into the grid next to the Diary.
[ Tom Marvolo Riddle Fragment 3 (Slytherin's Locket)]
"Dobby," Orion called out, shaking off the lingering chill of the Horcrux.
The cheerful elf popped in instantly. "Master Orion?"
"I am quite hungry, Dobby. Please bring my dinner directly here to the trunk. I have much planning to do tonight."
"Dobby will bring a feast!"
A few minutes later, Orion was seated at his desk, methodically cutting a slice of roast pheasant. The silence of the expanded study was a welcome respite.
He chewed thoughtfully, his mind already shifting to the next objective on the board.
"Well," Orion thought, taking a sip of water. "Now that I have two of them... now sounds like a reasonably good time to go and take the third one as well. The Diadem."
He checked his mental calendar. "Tomorrow is the Quidditch match between Slytherin and Gryffindor. The entire school will be out on the pitch. I have absolutely no interest in watching Draco chase Potter around in the rain anyway. Best go and get the Diadem while the castle is deserted."
"Finally!" Sparkle's interface erupted into view, flashing a bright, exasperated orange. "And there I was, thinking you were only going to bother getting it after the world froze over! What was the point of all this delay anyway, Orion? It was right there! A few floors up! You literally had the location mapped. You could have gotten this achievement last year, immediately after securing the Diary. Hell, even before that!"
Orion swallowed his food, dabbing his mouth with a napkin. He looked at the buzzing screen with a patronizing smirk.
"Three reasons, Sparkle," Orion listed, holding up his fingers. "First, exactly as you said. It was right there. I could have gotten it anytime. Tom Riddle, being the arrogant, theatrical megalomaniac he was, thought it was perfectly safe in the Room of Hidden Things. He assumed he was the only one clever enough to discover the room. So, the chances of it going missing, or someone else stumbling upon it and recognizing what it was, was next to null. It was secure."
He took another bite, chewing deliberately.
"Second reason," Orion continued, his tone turning analytical. "As I have said before regarding the curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts position... I don't remember the exact mechanics of it from my past life. But I have this strange, persistent feeling that if Tom placed a curse of that magnitude and endurance on the position, then that curse likely requires a magical anchor to sustain it within the castle walls."
Orion pointed his fork at the ceiling.
"I have a very strong feeling that anchor is somehow tied directly to the Diadem. I will need to verify the magical matrix around it before I simply yank it off its pedestal, or I might accidentally break the curse too early, which will alert Tom that one of his Horcruxes was compromised. It would make things even more complicated."
"Okay," Sparkle conceded, her waveform settling slightly. "The tactical caution makes sense. And the third reason?"
Orion set his fork down, leaning back in his chair. A look of profound, aristocratic vanity crossed his face.
"Last, and arguably the most important one," Orion stated flatly. "It was simply too easy to be the first, or even the second, Horcrux that I collected."
Sparkle's interface went completely still. "Excuse me?"
"I wanted my first Horcrux and my second Horcrux collected to have value, narrative weight, and a significant amount of difficulty," Orion explained, sounding entirely serious. "Securing the Diary required intercepting a Basilisk crisis. Securing the Locket required political maneuvering and manipulating a fanatical house-elf. Taking the Diadem first would have literally just been a matter of walking upstairs and picking up a tiara. It would have been anti-climactic. It lacked poetry. It was not something I wanted for my debut in Horcrux hunting."
The blue screen flashed rapidly between red and yellow, indicating severe digital malfunction.
"Your other two reasons make so much more tactical sense than the final one!" Sparkle practically yelled in his mind. "What do you mean the only reason you delayed it was because it was 'too easy'?! You are insane!"
"Aesthetics matter, Sparkle," Orion smirked, picking up his goblet. "So now, as the third Horcrux, its ease of acquisition is acceptable. A nice, relaxing mid-game fetch quest."
He took a sip, his eyes darkening as he considered the remaining targets.
"After tomorrow, all that remains is the fourth and fifth one," Orion murmured, the arrogance fading into cold pragmatism. "The Cup in my dear Aunt Bellatrix's vault, and the Ring hidden at the Gaunt shack in Little Hangleton."
He set the goblet down with a heavy thud.
"Both are incredibly dangerous," Orion acknowledged. "And both will require extensive, meticulous planning and several failsafe contingencies. The Cup will require Grand Theft Gringotts, which, I admit, sounds awesome on paper, but is probably going to be dangerous as hell in execution. Goblins do not play fair."
He frowned, tapping his fingers on the desk.
"The Ring has protections that, while Dumbledore was eventually able to bypass them... I will require significantly more preparation. I do not currently possess his level of raw, foundational knowledge or his perception of ancient curses. I need to study more before I step onto that property."
He shook his head, clearing the long-term dread.
"Either way, let's see how it goes," Orion said, pushing his empty plate away. "For now... Sparkle. Surely there is an achievement for acquiring the Locket, right? Show me the loot. It has to be a Tier 3."
The interface instantly recovered from its exasperation, glowing a brilliant, triumphant gold.
"You know it is," Sparkle hummed.
[ ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! ]
Tier: 3 (Ultimate)
Name: A Fine Addition to My Collection
Description: You successfully negotiated the transfer of a highly volatile piece of a Dark Lord's soul from a fanatical, traumatized house-elf, purely by leveraging his deceased master's legacy. You now possess two Horcruxes. Voldemort is officially losing the scavenger hunt.
Reward: 1x The Familiar's Orb.
Orion opened his inventory grid. In a new, golden-bordered slot, a small, smooth, pulsing orb rested. It glowed with a faint, shifting, iridescent light that seemed to breathe.
"The Familiar's Orb," Orion whispered, leaning closer to the screen. "Fascinating."