(Word Count: 2,088)
Harry rolled back out of bed, and sat at his desk.
"Kreacher," Harry called.
The old house elf popped into the room just to his right. Kreacher ran his hands together gleefully. "Yes, my Lord? How can Kreacher serve?"
"Kreacher, you know that I'm a seer, correct?" Harry asked.
"Of course, my Lord, Kreacher knows. My Lord is extraordinarily gifted with his inner eye," Kreacher said.
"Not only can I see the future, but I can see the past as well. Kreacher, I know what happened to Regulus," Harry started.
At the mention of Regulus's name, Kreacher immediately tugged his ears down in shame. "Poor, poor young master Regulus." It didn't look like Kreacher was listening to him now. He had a thousand-yard stare, muttering despondently "poor young master" over and over again.
"Kreacher, I know how Regulus died, and I know that he entrusted you with the locket," Harry said.
That snapped Kreacher out of his trance. His face twisted in pain, as if he wanted to cry out but was too emotionally exhausted. "Young master Regulus asked Kreacher to destroy it. Kreacher tried and tried, but no matter what Kreacher did, Kreacher could not do it," he whimpered sadly.
"Kreacher, do you still have the locket?" Harry asked.
"Kreacher has the locket, yes," Kreacher nodded.
"Do you know what the locket is? Why it was so important for Regulus to steal it from the dark lord?" Harry asked.
"Kreacher only knows it is powerful dark magic, my lord," Kreacher said.
"The locket is a horcrux. It contains a piece of Voldemort's soul. As long as the horcrux is intact, the dark lord can never truly die. But it is not the only one he made. There are others. I am collecting them so that when the time is right, I can destroy him all at once. Kreacher, if you give me the locket, I promise you it will be destroyed," Harry said solemnly.
Kreacher's eyes widened. "Master can destroy the locket?" he said in awe. "YES, please, master! Please destroy the locket! Kreacher will fetch it right away!"
Kreacher scrambled out the door in such a hurry, he forgot he could have just popped there and back in an instant. Harry could hear the old elf's feet patter down the hall as he ran off to his sleeping quarters.
A few moments later, Kreacher popped back into Harry's room. He eagerly shoved an ornate locket into Harry's hands. "Here, take it! This evil thing! Destroy it!"
Harry took the locket by the chain and held it up to examine properly. It was an oval locket made with heavy gold, with a stylized "S" set with emerald along its curvatures. He could feel the dark magic radiating off of it, trying to affect his mind.
"Well done, Kreacher. I know you did everything you could. You can rest easy now. I will ensure this horcrux is destroyed," he said to Kreacher.
Harry took a sheet of parchment from his desk and transfigured it into a small jewelry box lined with lead on the inside of the walls, so there wasn't any exposed lead for him to accidentally touch. He placed the locket inside, on a small cushion.
As he did so, he realized that he never told Sirius about his brother or how he died. Now that he was moving to collect the horcruxes, with the locket now in hand, it was time to tell him. Arcturus too, for that matter. They had a right to know how Regulus died.
"Kreacher, Sirius and Arcturus need to know the truth about how Regulus had died," he said.
Kreacher sagged with guilt. "Kreacher is a bad elf for hiding it for so long, but Kreacher can't tell anyone! Master Regulus ordered Kreacher to keep it hidden. Oooh," Kreacher groaned pitifully. Then he perked up, "perhaps Kreacher's head will be mounted on the wall?"
'Was that a bit of hopefulness?' Harry looked at the elf in bewilderment. He had known the elf's priorities were off, but this was just sad. "You're not going to die, Kreacher."
Kreacher's eyes dimmed again. "Perhaps Master is right. Kreacher does not deserve the honor."
They made their way back downstairs where Sirius was.
"Sirius, we need to talk," Harry said.
Sirius raised an eyebrow, and set aside the letter he was reading. "Oh? This does sound serious. What's up, pup?"
"I think Arcturus should be here for this as well. Let's call him over," Harry said.
"Merlin, it is serious. Alright then, he should be up in his study," Sirius said.
They made their way upstairs to Arcturus's study. He had claimed this room for his study when Sirius and Harry moved in. He wasn't usually here year round, but he did come by to stay for a week or two at a time on occasion. Harry suspected that he enjoyed the company of his family, even if he mostly stayed cooped up in the study when he was here. Perhaps it was comforting just knowing they were in the same house, and he didn't want to impose too much.
Sirius knocked on the study's door. "Grandfather, Harry has something he wants to talk to us about."
"Come in," Arcturus answered.
They entered, with Kreacher following behind.
Arcturus eyed Harry curiously. "You seem somber, Harry. What is the matter?"
Harry looked between Sirius and Arcturus. How was the best way to say this? He had learned from his experience with Ron that it wasn't always the best to be completely honest. It wouldn't be very good if they realized he had kept this information from them for a while now. He decided to throw Kreacher under the bus.
"Kreacher just told me something very important. It's about Regulus," Harry started.
Both Sirius and Arcturus's eyes widened in surprise.
"What about Regulus?" Arcturus demanded.
"The truth about how he died," Harry said. "Kreacher, tell them what happened that night."
Kreacher stepped out nervously from behind Harry.
"What does Kreacher have to do with anything?" Sirius asked with disgust. He still hated the elf for everything it had done when he was a child.
"Just let him explain," Harry said.
Arcturus narrowed his eyes and waved impatiently for the elf to get on with it.
Kreacher went on to explain everything that happened with Regulus: how the dark lord needed to use one of the death eater's house elves for a secret task, how Regulus had volunteered Kreacher for the "honor" of serving the dark lord.
Voldemort used Kreacher to test the dark potion he used in the middle of the underground lake. Satisfied with the results, he left Kreacher to die at the hands of the inferi, not knowing house elves could ignore anti-dissaparition wards.
Kreacher returned to Regulus, and told him everything that happened. That's when he realized what Voldemort was hiding there, and what sort of monster he was following.
As Kreacher was telling his story, Sirius and Arcturus grew more and more somber. Arcturus was simmering in anger, which grew stronger the more the story went on.
When Kreacher got to the point of Regulus's death, sending Kreacher away with the locket, Arcturus stood up so forcefully his chair tipped over behind him. Arcturus slammed his hands on the desk shouting, "You just left him there to die!? How DARE you!"
He angrily took out his wand and thrust it at Kreacher. "Avada—"
"Langlock," Harry said hastily. He knew Arcturus's anger was reaching the tipping point, so he had been anticipating something like this. Arcturus's tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, preventing him from completing the curse.
He turned to Harry in shock and anger. Arcturus waved his wand at himself in a silent Finite to free his tongue. "Boy, do not get in my way," he hissed.
"It wasn't Kreacher's fault, Grandfather. The moment Regulus commanded Kreacher to leave him and save himself and get the locket to safety, Kreacher was powerless. He could not save him, though I know he wished to," Harry said calmly.
"I DON'T CARE!" Arcturus roared. "It's that thing's fault my grandson is dead!"
"House elves are bound to follow their master's order! It was Regulus that ordered him away!" Harry yelled back, rising to his feet.
"So it's Regulus's fault, then? Do you expect me to believe my grandson committed suicide?" Arcturus asked coldly.
"No, of course not. It wasn't Regulus's fault either. I recently had a vision about this event, which prompted me to ask Kreacher about it. I saw what happened. The potion protecting the locket drove Regulus mad. It's meant to drive a man to despair and acceptance of death. His mind wasn't his own anymore. If you must blame anyone, blame Voldemort. Regulus died in a valiant attempt to get the Dark Lord's horcrux to make him mortal once more," Harry explained.
They stared at each other, Arcturus seething hard in anger, neither budging.
The moment lasted until Sirius let out a heavy sigh and commanded Kreacher: "Kreacher. Never appear in front of Grandfather again."
Kreacher let out a choked sob, and vanished.
Sirius turned to Harry. "You called the locket a Horcrux. What is that?"
Arcturus clenched his jaw for a moment, before he let out a heavy sigh of his own, releasing all of the anger out with it. The stand off between Harry and Arcturus broke. Arcturus crashed back down into his chair—which had righted itself moments after it had tipped over—the strength leaving him. "A horcrux is a vile thing," he said tiredly. "It requires tearing off half of your own soul using ritualized murder and storing it into an object. Doing that to your own soul… It drives you mad, and you lose what makes you human in the first place. Regulus… Regulus was right to take it." His voice tapered off to a bitter whisper at the end.
"You mean this is how he survived that night?" Sirius asked.
"Yes. So long as the horcrux survives, Voldemort's spirit will not pass on. He will be anchored here as a wraith, which I had encountered during my first year," Harry said.
Sirius and Arcturus' eyes turned towards the locked box that contained the locket. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's destroy it!" Sirius said.
"Wait!" Harry said, "We can't. Not yet."
"Why not, boy?" Arcturus asked. "Would you rather we wait until he gains another body?"
"Unfortunately, we have to," Harry said.
"WHAT!?" They both shouted, looking at him as if he was crazy.
"There are prophecies surrounding this, and Fate requires that he has a body so that he can 'die' at my hand. If he doesn't have a body, it won't exactly be a 'death' now would it? But there's another, more important, issue: what Regulus didn't know is that Voldemort made more than one horcrux," Harry explained.
"WHAT!?" Sirius shouted again.
"Confound it, boy! How many of those cursed things did he make?" Arcturus cursed.
"Including this one, six," Harry said. The locket, diadem, cup, ring, diary, and himself, but he wouldn't be mentioning that. "Voldemort will feel when one is destroyed so I intend to gather them all and destroy them all at once."
"Do you already know where they are, or what they are? We can go get them now and be done with it," Sirius said.
"It's not so easy, Sirius," Harry said. "But I intend to have them all by the end of fourth year."
"Good," Arcturus nodded. "In the meantime, you can keep them here in the vault."
"Er, I need to hold onto them for now," Harry said awkwardly.
Both Sirius and Arcturus frowned at him. "And why not?" Arcturus asked. "Carrying around an artifact as dark as a horcrux is not good.
Harry fidgeted uncomfortably. He couldn't really come up with a good excuse."Because, well…" Harry sighed. Perhaps he would need to mention it after all. "I need to research a way to destroy the horcrux without actually destroying the item itself. Some of the horcruxes are priceless artifacts from the four founders. This locket was Slytherins, then there's Ravenclaw's diadem, and Hufflepuff's cup. They're priceless historical artifacts."
"Even so, Harry," Arcturus began, "there is no known way to purify a horcrux to save the item. It's hopeless. Better off just destroying the item, then work on repairing what damage you can."
"I have to believe it's possible, because…" Harry reached up to touch his scar, "I'm a horcrux as well."