The Black Family Graveyard
Even though Harry had cleansed the taint of dark magic from Regulus's corpse, the body could never find peace. Its contorted expression seemed to whisper of the agony its owner had endured in life.
In the end, Sirius chose to cremate Regulus's body. He stood motionless, watching the flickering flames as that familiar face melted away, reduced to ashes.
Without a word, Harry stood beside his godfather, gently patting Sirius's back.
"…I…I never thought…" Sirius's voice, rare in its tremble, carried a weight of confusion more than sorrow.
"…Regulus was two years younger than me, but we were nothing alike. He clung to our parents' pure-blood ideals with fervor… the perfect 'good boy.'"
"But clearly, he wasn't just a good boy," Harry said softly, handing Sirius the note from the fake locket. "He was far braver than most."
Staring at the handwriting on the paper, Sirius's face was soon streaked with tears.
"…Regulus idolized me once, until I ran away and got myself disowned," Sirius said, wiping his face haphazardly. "By sixteen, he worshipped Voldemort and became a Death Eater. Made our parents proud."
"Then one day, he was just… gone. I figured he either failed a mission and got silenced or regretted it and tried to leave… but Death Eaters don't let you walk away."
"No question about it, Sirius," Dumbledore said, approaching slowly. "Regulus was a hero—one who uncovered Voldemort's secret and dared to defy him, even if few will ever know."
Sirius could only nod silently, at a loss for words.
"So, you'll admit it now?" Harry said, tilting his head. "Even Slytherins can have extraordinary courage—sometimes more than most Gryffindors."
"…Even Slytherins," Sirius muttered.
Declining help, Sirius dug Regulus's grave himself, shovelful by shovelful, and buried the urn of ashes. A tombstone, indistinguishable from the other Black family markers, bore a simple inscription: A brave warrior who rebelled against the Dark Lord, Regulus Arcturus Black.
For Regulus, perhaps the greatest wish in life would have been to hear such praise from his brother.
Harry retrieved both lockets, handing the real one to Sirius and unstrapping his warhammer—Ragehorn—from his waist.
"Go on," Harry said curtly. "You want to take revenge yourself… don't you?"
"…Of course!" Sirius wiped the tears from his eyes, took a deep breath, and seized the warhammer, forged from a basilisk's fang. He tossed the locket to the ground.
Suddenly, as if the fragment of Voldemort's soul within sensed its impending doom, Slytherin's locket sprang open. A wisp of soft smoke billowed out, and figures began to take shape within it.
Harry saw his parents—not the Bloodhoof family, but his true parents, James and Lily—waving to him, pleading for him to save them, to spare their lives.
Sirius stood frozen, staring at the figure of Regulus in the mist—the brother he felt he'd failed to recognize for his courage.
Everyone present saw their heart's deepest desire in the smoke, yet the urge it stirred was the same: to rush forward and protect the locket at all costs.
"Master Regulus!" Kreacher's anguished cry pierced the air. The house-elf saw his most longed-for figure in Voldemort's illusion—not even his mistress, but Regulus himself.
Without a moment's resistance, Kreacher scrambled toward the locket, desperate to shield it.
"Stand back, Kreacher!" Sirius barked, his command instinctive. Bound by the nature of a house-elf, Kreacher's charge halted mid-step.
"No!" Kreacher wailed, forced to watch as Sirius swung Ragehorn down with force. The exquisite locket crumpled and shattered under the blow.
A piercing scream, as if it could rupture eardrums, erupted. The venom from the basilisk-fang warhammer seeped into the soul fragment, eroding its last vestiges of power, making it fade, dissolve.
Just as Harry had seen with the other two soul fragments, memories from this one bled out in torrents, then vanished into nothing.
Within seconds, all that remained was a broken locket, its hinges twisted, the large emerald within cracked.
Panting heavily, Sirius bent down, picked up the ruined Horcrux, and tossed it into Regulus's grave.
"Regulus died because of it," Sirius said quietly. "Let it stay with him. That alright?"
"Of course," Harry replied calmly. "It's not a Horcrux anymore."
"I agree," Dumbledore said with a smile. "A fitting reward for a brave soul."
Without another word, Sirius swiftly filled the grave with earth until it was level.
"Let's go."
After one last look at Regulus's tombstone, Sirius paused. He pulled the fake Slytherin locket—the one Regulus had crafted—from his pocket, stuffed the note with its defiant words into it, and tossed it to Kreacher, who had been staring blankly at the grave.
"For you!" Sirius said gruffly, then strode away from the graveyard.
He needed a night to himself.
"As I've said, Harry, you're the one who can truly defeat Voldemort," Dumbledore said, sitting on a bench in Grimmauld Place. "Isn't it fascinating? By sheer chance, you found Voldemort's real Horcrux. I'll be honest, Harry—I found the cave's location myself."
"It's where Voldemort, as a young boy, first terrorized other orphans. Or perhaps not the first time… Regardless, that place holds deep meaning for him." Dumbledore turned to Harry. "That's the crux of it, Harry. If it were me, I'd likely have drunk the potion in that basin and retrieved only Regulus's fake Horcrux. I wouldn't even have known who R.A.B. was. But you—you're different. That's fate."
"You'd have figured it out," Harry said evenly.
"Perhaps, but I might've died in that cave after drinking the potion. He's cunning, isn't he?" Dumbledore chuckled. "You had Kreacher Apparate you to the island, but I'm certain Voldemort left other traps along the way. He wouldn't want to kill intruders outright."
"Who knows?" Harry shook his head. "You'd find a way."
"Oh, thank you for the confidence. It's truly touching," Dumbledore said, feigning a tear. "But I haven't let you down, Harry. I've found a trace of another Horcrux."
"You've got it?" Harry asked.
"Not yet," Dumbledore said, a rare hesitation in his voice. "I'm wondering… if I can face it."
"It?" Harry pressed. "What treasure did Voldemort defile this time?"
"The Resurrection Stone," Dumbledore said softly. "You may not know its legend, growing up in the Muggle world. For wizard children, it's a familiar tale."
"It's from The Tales of Beedle the Bard, like a Muggle fairy tale. Three brothers, skilled in magic, crossed a dangerous river by conjuring a bridge. They didn't drown, which angered Death, who usually claimed travelers in that river."
"Furious but cunning, Death pretended to praise their magic and offered each a reward. The eldest, a warlike man, demanded the most powerful wand in the world, unbeatable in battle—until someone slit his throat in his sleep."
"The second, an arrogant man, sought to humiliate Death further. He asked for the power to recall the dead. When he used the stone Death gave him, the girl he loved, who had died young, appeared before him."
"But she was sad and distant, separated by a veil. She was in the world but didn't belong. Driven mad by hopeless longing, the second brother took his own life."
"Death claimed two souls, but the third brother, humble and wise, didn't trust Death. He asked for something to keep Death from finding him. So, Death gave him his own Invisibility Cloak."
"Death searched for the third brother for years but could never find him. Only when the brother, old and ready, chose to remove the cloak did he calmly meet Death and depart with him."
Dumbledore finished his tale, gently stroking his wand, waiting.
"…You're saying this fairy tale is real?" Harry's gaze fell on Dumbledore's wand. "Death is real?"
"I don't know, Harry," Dumbledore said, shaking his head. "No one's seen Death, not even me. But in my youth, I sought the Deathly Hallows."
"And that's the result?"
"Yes. The Elder Wand, the Wand of Destiny, call it what you will," Dumbledore said, raising his knotted wand. "Even I can't deny its power. Spells cast with it are amplified beyond compare, achieving effects far beyond their normal limits, as if failure is impossible."
An Elder Wand. Harry had long been curious about Dumbledore's wand, unlike the smooth sticks of other wizards, knotted and made of elder wood.
"No wonder…" Harry murmured. "No wonder you could repair a magically reinforced ceiling with a simple charm, while I couldn't, no matter how hard I tried. I thought I just hadn't mastered the spell."
"My apologies for not telling you then," Dumbledore said with a chuckle. "I must admit, I found your confusion rather amusing."
"It doesn't matter," Harry said, shaking his head. "So, Voldemort used these… Deathly Hallows to make his Horcruxes?"
"I'm afraid so."
"If the Elder Wand is with you, then Voldemort could only have used the other two," Harry reasoned. "Which one did you find?"
"Just one," Dumbledore said lightly. "You haven't used your father's heirloom in a while, have you? That Invisibility Cloak."
Harry froze.
"You mean…?"
"Exactly. The Potter family's Invisibility Cloak has been passed down for centuries," Dumbledore said with a smile. "I've seen your library records at Hogwarts. You've read books on magical creatures and artifacts. You should know ordinary invisibility cloaks, made from Demiguise hair, lose their power after a few years."
Harry opened his mouth but found no words.
He suddenly recalled Dumbledore's earlier words about fate. One of Voldemort's Horcruxes was among the Deathly Hallows. One was in Dumbledore's hand, and the other… was in Harry's bag.
"This is… incredible," Harry said softly. "I haven't used it in ages."
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