Sunday November 29, 1994 – Evening
The First Task was over. Harry was sitting in the Merlin House common room reading the next textbook chapter to be covered in the Transfiguration lessons. This was noticed by his minders. Harry had never done preparation before.
“Are you reading ahead in your subjects Harry?” Tracey quietly asked.
“Yes, I noticed that you all do that. In Gryffindor, only Hermione read ahead. I was always careful not to get Ron upset. He used to really insult Hermione for all the extra work she did. I realize now that she was doing the right thing and Ron was pulling me down to his level. I miss Hermione, I’m happy that I don’t have to put up with Ronald.” The young ladies exchanged glances and returned to their reading.
Lord Greengrass had borrowed the Golden Egg to allow his experts and Unspeakable Davis to examine it. During the afternoon a Greengrass house-elf returned the egg with a transcript of the message in it.
‘Come seek us where our voices sound,
We cannot sing above the ground,
And while you’re searching, ponder this:
We’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss,
An hour long you’ll have to look,
And to recover what we took,
But past an hour – the prospect’s black
Too late, it’s gone, it won’t come back.’
A note from Unspeakable Davis had the details of the egg message. The egg was opened, and an unbearable screeching noise came out of it. The noise was identified as Mermish. The language of the Merfolk who lived in the Black Lake. It became audible speech when the egg and the listener were submerged under water. A large bath would be sufficient.
The Merlin House students all contributed to unriddling the words. The generally agreed opinions were listed
‘Come seek us where our voices sound, We cannot sing above the ground,’
That must mean that the task will be underwater, in the Black Lake.
‘And while you’re searching, ponder this: We’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss,’
They will take something or someone that you value.
‘An hour long you’ll have to look, And to recover what we took,’
So the task is to get whatever it is back.
‘But past an hour – the prospect’s black Too late, it’s gone, it won’t come back.’
This must be poetic license. It might be saying that the time limit is an hour. They promised that nobody will be harmed, although nesting female dragons doesn’t inspire confidence in that promise.
An owl came from Lord Greengrass. Harry read it out to the common room.
“I have engaged a team of underwater specialists. They will equip you with a magical outfit which will let you breath underwater and move about easily. You can try it out in the lake at Greengrass Manor over the Christmas break.”
Harry was stunned. “This task looked impossible. In one afternoon, they have found solutions for the whole thing.”
Harry looked at Daphne and Tracey who were glowing with undisguised pride.
At 9pm the fire in the Merlin House head of house office came to life.
“Sirius! It’s good to see you. How are you?” Harry squirmed in his less than comfortable kneeling position in front of the fire.
“I’m well, Pup. I’ve been getting better food and I don’t have to sleep in the rain. Although that depends on which bedroom I use here. The leaks are pretty bad.” Sirius grinned. “What are you doing now?”
“We are getting lots of stuff from the Gods of Olympus. What do you know about Horcruces?”
“Horcruces! That’s very dark stuff Harry. That is the sort of thing my ancestors did. They are pure evil. How do you know about them?” Sirius went from happy to worried.
“Riddle made six of them. Hermes gave us a list of them, where they are and how to kill them.” Harry was getting used to dropping god’s names in his conversation.
“You shouldn’t be mentioning too much of that in a floo call Harry.” Sirius was still concerned.
“I’ll get to the point. One of them is at Grimmauld Place. Kreacher knows where it is. It is Slytherin’s Locket. You can get him to hand it over and we will arrange for it to be destroyed. If you let a Potter house-elf into Grimmauld Place, we can take it to a safe place until we can destroy it.” Harry said.
“I’ll tell Kreacher to open the house-elf wards to let any Potter house-elf in. Send one as soon as you can.”
“Thanks Sirius, that will help a lot. We should shut this down now. I will send Polly tomorrow.”
“OK Pup. Stay safe!” Sirius popped away.
--ooOOoo—
Sirius had been making trips from Grimauld Place to wizarding localities such as Diagon Alley to catch up on news and gossip. He didn’t have anyone bossing him around and he liked it that way. He wanted to take a risk and trot around as Padfoot, scrounging from café back doors and stealing day old copies of The Daily Prophet. He had lived as Padfoot for months after escaping Azkaban, why not keep up his skills as a doggy moocher.
On the day of the First Task, Sirius had insinuated himself into a cosy spot where he knew the Wizarding Wireless Network broadcast of the event would be playing at full volume, and some meaty treats would be surreptitiously thrown his way. In this way he had learned of Harry’s use of parseltongue to take delivery of his Golden Egg.
Grimauld Place, however, did not hold happy memories. The misery of his childhood had not left Sirius. His father’s distant isolation had allowed his crazy mother to torment Sirius as his more light-sided views came out. The blatant hostility of the Black house-elf Kreacher was an irritation which Sirius responded to by ordering Kreacher around with equal hostility.
Harry’s alarming news of the existence of Horcruces was awful. The news that one Horcrux was located here at Grimauld Place filled Sirius with dread. How was he to get Kreacher to give it up?
Sirius entered the kitchen. “Kreacher! Come here!”
The elderly house-elf emerged from his den. “Kreacher is here, master.”
“Kreacher! Tell me what you know about Slytherin’s Locket. Also, tell me why it is here, in this house.” Sirius glared at Kreacher with all the hostility that he could muster. The house-elf could not defy such direct orders from his master. Sirius was the true Lord Black, and Kreacher’s master.
The ancient house-elf did not respond at first. Then he slowly crumpled into a sobbing curled up ball at Sirius’ feet. “Kreacher has failed! Kreacher is a bad elf. Kreacher has failed Master Regulus.”
Sirius did not understand what was wrong with Kreacher. “Kreacher, what is it? Tell me!”
“The locket was given to Kreacher by Master Regulus. Master Regulus ordered Kreacher to destroy it. Kreacher could not. It is too strong. Master Regulus died and Kreacher has failed.”
Sirius had always known that his younger brother Regulus was adored by his mother, and that Regulus had followed her pure-blood mania and joined the Death Eaters.
The full story of how Regulus had never completed his Death Eater initiation came out of Kreacher. Regulus and Kreacher had been ordered by Riddle to place the Locket in a cave on a remote coast. Regulus learned what the Locket was and how it had been created by ritual murder. Regulus took Kreacher and retrieved the Locket, replacing it with a fake. The retrieval meant that Regulus had to accept being poisoned by the Locket’s defences. As he died, he ordered Kreacher to destroy the Locket.
The burden of failing to carry out Regulus last instruction had eaten away at Kreacher.
Sirius saw that he had to give Kreacher a way out.
“Kreacher! I want you to give me the Locket. I know of a way to destroy it. Give it to me and I will complete Regulus’ last instruction.”
A Goblin made gold locket decorated with snake emblems and the letter ‘S’ was produced and handed over to Sirius. The Potter house-elf Polly visited and took the Locket away.
From that time on a gradual change overtook Kreacher. He ceased his insolent backchat and started to care for the house and its inhabitant. Kreacher was never what could be called friendly. Sirius made an effort to be civil. That was as much as each party could manage.
Later that day, the Locket was in its strong box in the Chamber of Secrets.
Sirius struggled with a new problem. He had to take Regulus out of his list of Death Eater enemies and put him his list of heroes who had died while trying to defeat Riddle.
245Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQHnr6lROj1
