Moody's letter went out on a Fawkes feather and Dumbledore arrived within the minute, which never stopped being unsettling no matter how many times Kevin saw it.
He read the letter, looked at Kevin, and said simply, "Professor Moody says you've found something of Voldemort's."
"Here." Kevin placed the locket in his outstretched hand.
Dumbledore turned it over. He tried a scanning charm — standard diagnostic, the kind a careful wizard applied to any unknown object — and watched it deflect off the surface as though the locket simply refused to acknowledge the spell's existence. He was quiet for a long moment.
He could feel what was inside it. Anyone sensitive to dark magic could, once they were close enough. A dense, oppressive weight. The same quality as Tom Riddle's diary, which had destroyed Ginny Weasley's second year from the inside. The same wrongness — something that should not exist in that form, something that had been forced into permanence against all natural law.
"Where was it?" he asked.
Kevin explained: the cleaning, the junk pile, Harry and the others discovering it without understanding what it was.
Harry confirmed it. He'd felt uneasy near the locket and hadn't been able to explain why — similar to the feeling the diary had given him, though he hadn't made the connection at the time.
Dumbledore processed this without visible expression. Then he turned to Sirius, who had gone very still when Kevin had mentioned the Black family home and the possibility that a Death Eater had left the object here.
Sirius was already thinking through the same names Dumbledore was.
"Kreacher," Sirius said abruptly. He was out the door before anyone could respond.
They heard him in the hallway, then the sharp sound of his voice — "Kreacher! Get out here!" — and then a scuffle, the sound of small feet attempting to flee, and Sirius returning with the ancient house-elf held firmly by one arm, dragging him through the doorway.
Kreacher looked at the locket. His face contracted.
"Sirius." Dumbledore's voice was calm but final. Sirius released the elf.
Dumbledore crouched down — an old man folding himself to eye level with a creature considerably smaller than himself — and spoke with the same courtesy he extended to everyone.
"Mr. Kreacher. Do you know where this locket came from? It would mean a great deal to us if you could tell us."
Kreacher glared at the locket. The glare was not defiance — it was the expression of something that had been carrying a weight for a very long time and did not trust what would happen when it was set down.
"That is the Dark Lord's locket," he muttered.
The words fell into the room and sat there.
"How did it come to be here?" Dumbledore asked. "Has Voldemort been in this house?"
"No." Kreacher's voice dropped lower, more hoarse. "Master Regulus brought it here. Sixteen years ago. Master Regulus swapped it — for a fake. Identical."
The silence that followed had a different quality to it.
"Tell us what happened," Dumbledore said. "From the beginning."
What came out was not a story Kreacher seemed to want to tell. He told it in the manner of something being extracted rather than offered — each sentence pulling against some internal resistance.
The Dark Lord had come to Regulus Black once, seeking a house-elf for a task. Regulus had sent Kreacher without understanding what the task was. The Dark Lord had taken Kreacher to a sea cave on the coast. Inside: a black lake, an island, a stone basin filled with a pale potion. The Dark Lord had made Kreacher drink it — all of it — and placed his locket in the empty basin. Then he had refilled the basin and left, without a backward glance, while the lake's Inferi dragged Kreacher toward the water.
Kreacher paused.
Dumbledore waited.
"Master Regulus had promised to call Kreacher home," the elf said, his voice roughened with something that in a human would have been grief. "A house-elf must obey his master's orders. So Kreacher came home."
He told the rest quickly, as though speed might lessen it. Regulus hearing the account. Regulus going very quiet and very still. Regulus telling Kreacher to stay inside, stay hidden, tell no one.
Then Regulus returning one night. Looking different. Wrong. Like someone who had already decided something irrevocable and had made peace with the consequences.
He had given Kreacher a fake locket. Identical in every visible particular.
His orders had been simple: when Regulus drank the potion, swap the lockets. Take the real one. Come straight home. Destroy it.
"And Kreacher obeyed," the elf said. The words came out rough and flat. "Kreacher watched Master Regulus — the Inferi took him — but Kreacher had orders."
No one spoke.
"Kreacher came home. Kreacher tried to destroy it." His voice went bitter. "For sixteen years. Kreacher could not."
Sirius had not moved since Kreacher started speaking. He stood near the wall with his arms at his sides and the expression of a man quietly dismantling something he'd believed for a long time.
He had always assumed his brother had died a Death Eater's death — foolish loyalty to the wrong cause, the inevitable end for someone who had chosen Voldemort over everything else. He had grieved it in the way you grieved something you also resented. Had never let himself examine it too closely.
He was examining it now.
Regulus had understood. Had gone back alone to undo what he'd helped create. Had understood exactly what the basin required and had gone anyway. The only witnesses had been a house-elf too loyal to disobey and the dark water.
Sirius left the room quietly, after a moment. No one stopped him.
Dumbledore held the locket a little longer, then pocketed it.
---
---
Hey you
Yes, you—still reading without dropping Power Stones? That's kinda illegal here
If you're enjoying the story, don't forget to vote with your Power Stones and leave a review. It only takes a few seconds, but it makes a massive difference in helping this story grow.
(low voice) Every bit of support might just unlock… bonus chapters
Also, some readers are already way ahead on Patreon—they've reached the final climax already. If you want early access (and to support me directly), feel free to check it out.
[email protected]/Wicked_Wizard
And one more thing… A brand new HP fanfic is in the works.
Stay tuned—you won't want to miss it