Making-Moves (II) [Chapter 171]

~~Number 12, Grimmauld Place, London~~

The trio followed Kreacher inside the house with Narcissa wondering why Harry wasn’t doing anything to the said house for calling his mother a Mudblood, but a part of her was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Meanwhile, Sirius was wondering why Harry didn’t look enraged when Kreacher insulted his mother. He decided to sit down with Harry and have a chat with him after returning to Malfoy Manor.

“Filthy blood traitor! How dare you step in this house!!” The trio were brought to a screeching halt when they came across a portrait of a haughty looking woman at the end of the hall.

“Shut up, you old hag!” Sirius screamed back in a similar fashion and Harry noticed that there were some minor similarities between the woman and Sirius.

“Kreacher apologizes, Mistress. Kreacher wasn’t able to stop them entering” Kreacher wailed apologetically and Harry didn’t miss the look of devotion and loyalty in Kreacher’s eyes, which led him to realize that the painting was probably very important to the house elf. After that, Sirius, Kreacher and the woman in the painting started to throw insults at each other, completely ignoring Harry and Narcissa.

“Who is the woman?” Harry asked Narcissa even though he was almost certain that the woman was Sirius’ mother. Alas, he could never be sure with the Purebloods as they were very enthusiastic to keep their Bloodline pure. Though he didn’t have much leg to stand upon, especially when he was in love with his own mother… Thankfully, he was planning to mess with the genes of his mom’s new body, so it wasn’t going to be incest, at least not biologically.

“She is Aunt Walburga, his mother” Narcissa jerked her chin toward Sirius.

Harry smiled at the confirmation… “Kreacher, she is someone important to you, isn’t she?” Harry asked, finally breaking the argument between Sirius, Kreacher, and the woman in the painting as all of them turned toward him.

“Mistress is very important to Kreacher, filthy half-breed Master” Kreacher answered reluctantly.

“You don’t belong here. Begone fil…” The woman started to screech before Harry placed his hand on the painting. The woman was about to start screeching at him for such a transgression when yellow flames started to erupt from his hand and spread over the painting. Sirius jumped back in panic as he felt his skin tingle at the heat even though there was some considerable distance between himself and the painting.

Kreacher screamed something unintelligible and lunged at Harry, but the little creature was blasted away in the opposite direction with a simple look from Harry. Kreacher crashed against the wall, but he didn’t fall down… Harry kept him sticking to the wall with his Magic as he wanted Kreacher to watch the destruction of the portrait.

The woman in the portrait screamed as she was being burned alive… Harry was somewhat surprised at this development as he didn’t know that paintings could experience pain. Then again, it wasn’t every day when someone burned a painting with Fiendfyre, but still, he had never read or heard of such a thing… Harry decided that he might need to conduct some experiments, but that could wait for later.

After a couple of seconds, there was only a charred spot on the wall, in place of the painting. The flames quickly dispersed into thin air, which surprised Sirius quite a bit as he knew just how difficult it was to control Fiendfyre. He had seen some foolish Death Eaters try and use Fiendfyre during the war and then get consumed by the same flames when they lost control if they were in control of those Cursed Flames, to begin with.

Now that the painting was gone, Harry finally released his grip on Kreacher and the said creature crumpled down on the floor. Krecaher stared at the charred spot on the wall and started to cry… Harry was already planning to kill Kreacher by the end of the day, so he didn’t feel bad for the creature in the slightest. Meanwhile, Narcissa practically sighed in relief as she no longer needed to be on her toes.

“Kreacher, do you have anything else you value more than your life?” Harry asked and he immediately became intrigued when he saw that Kreacher was visibly struggling to stop himself from acting on the order, and Harry had to admit, he was impressed by the fight he was putting on, but ultimately, Kreacher ended up losing as he popped away before returning with a locket only after a couple of seconds.

Harry snatched away the locket from Kreacher with his Magic as he could sense something similar from the locket… The locket felt much similar to the ring he found in the Gaunt Shack, which could mean only one thing… The locket was a Horcrux too. He pulled up the locket in front of him but he didn’t grab it… There were no Compulsions this time, making him want to grab the locket, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

“That’s Slytherin’s Locket” Narcissa gasped in surprise as she finally recognized the locket. As a prideful Slytherin, she remembered every little detail of Salazar Slytherin’s portrait hanging inside the Slytherin common room, so it was quite easy for her to recognize the locket.

Harry didn’t know much about Salazar Slytherin except for the fact that the man was one of four founders of Hogwarts, and the man was a Pureblood supremacist. There was a fight between him and Godric Gryffindor and he was chased off from Hogwarts by the latter. Harry wasn’t sure how much of the story was true as history was written by victors and then someone might have twisted the whole story for his own agenda.

“Where did you get this?” Harry asked Kreacher, who once again tried to fight against the order. After struggling for a few seconds, Kreacher finally started to speak, even though he looked extremely reluctant. He explained how the Dark Lord took him to a cave to hide the locket and later used him to test a Potion before leaving him to die inside the cave.

He told them how he managed to return to Master Regulus who treated him back to health. Then he told the trio how Master Regulus decided to betray the Dark Lord and how he ended up sacrificing his life in the process… Kreacher tried to hide the last order given to him by Master Regulus, but he failed.

After listening to the whole story, Sirius plopped down on the floor with a hand on his head… “I can’t believe Regulus did that” Sirius muttered, sounding really surprised. He knew that Regulus loved Kreacher, but he never thought that Regulus might betray his vaunted Dark Lord just because he left Kreacher to die… “So, he died trying to defeat Voldemort…” Sirius mumbled with a conflicted look on his face as he didn’t know how to feel after such a shocking revelation.

Meanwhile, Narcissa stared at the locket with a complicated look on her face… With how zealously the Dark Lord tried to hide this locket, it must be something really important to him. Then there was the fact that the man never wore it and tried to show it off, instead, he squirreled it away inside some cave… No matter how much she thought about it, she couldn't come up with a reason for his actions.

“Why did Regulus order him to destroy the locket with his last breath?” Narcissa asked curiously while she glanced at Harry expectantly.

Harry pondered his options… He could lie or he could tell them the truth. Not that it would hinder him either way. “It is a vile piece of Magic if not one of the vilest and you will be able to sleep better at night if you don’t know anything about it” Harry said in a serious tone. While both Narcissa and Sirius were curious, they decided to drop the matter and Harry clearly didn’t want to tell them anything.

“Dobby” Harry called out loud and moments later, the said creature arrived with a soft pop. “Bring me a dragon skin pouch” Harry ordered before Dobby could greet him in some sort of extravagant manner. Dobby disappeared with a soft pop and returned with the said item only a few seconds later. After that, Harry put the locket inside the pouch and ordered Dobby to keep the pouch in a safe place.

“Now… What to do with you” Harry said as his gaze focused on Kreacher who was wailing on the floor while apologizing to Master Regulus for not being able to complete his final order. “It would be best to get rid of you” Harry revealed after thinking for a bit, making Sirius look somewhat perplexed at his words while Narcissa simply grimaced.

“Since you are my Heir, he is bound to follow your orders. So, can’t you leave him as he is right now?” Sirius asked with a sympathetic look on his face as he stared at Kreacher. “I think he had been punished enough” Sirius added as he turned toward Harry. Even though Sirius hated the creature he didn’t want him to be murdered.

“You are being naive…” Harry said softly while he continued to stare at Kreacher. “I am not killing him for calling my mother Mudblood. He had been punished for that, but I am going to kill him because it is necessary… I can give him a plethora of orders, but there is always a chance that I might miss something, or there is always a chance that he might find a loophole in my orders, and use that small chance to fuck us over in the pettiest way possible” Harry explained, making it impossible for Sirius to argue with his point.

Though before he could send Kreacher to his elvish afterlife, Harry had some questions for him… “Kreacher, tell me about all the artifacts in this house” Harry ordered. This was an old Pureblood house, so there was no shortage of artifacts in this house and some of those artifacts might turn out to be useful for him…