Neville Longbottom was on his way out of the Fat Lady’s portrait when Harry approached the Gryffindor common room.
“Hold the door,” he said.
“Harry!” exclaimed Neville, who didn’t even make an effort to hold the portrait ajar. “What’re you doing back?”
“Just popping in for a visit,” responded Harry vaguely.
“Oh,” said Neville, who had turned a sort of maroon color. “For how long?”
Harry shrugged. “What’s wrong with you?”
Neville swallowed and averted his eyes. “Nothing.”
“OK…”
The round-faced boy was shuffling his feet uncomfortably.
“What’s the password?” asked Harry.
“Fever Fudge,” Neville replied, obviously relieved to end the conversation.
The portrait swung open and Harry stepped through, calling, “Thanks,” to Neville, who had already hurried away towards the Great Hall.
Harry intended to sit by the fire, waiting for Ron and Hermione and pondering over the memories that Dumbledore had shown him. He saw a couple kissing in one of the dark corners, but otherwise, the room was empty. He ignored the pair and started towards the best chair. He had just put down the things that he’d been carrying when…
“Harry!” exclaimed a girl’s surprised voice.
He turned to see Ron and Hermione. He froze in shock.
The three of them looked at each other. Harry could tell, even in the dimly lit room, that Ron’s face was a brilliant shade of red.
“You two?” choked Harry.
Hermione nodded.
He gulped. “How long?”
“Couple of months,” Ron shrugged.
“Months?” Harry exclaimed. “Did you ever plan on telling me?”
This is how Ron must have felt when Harry had kissed Ginny. It was not the best of feelings.
“Of course, we did,” Hermione began. “We just thought you had enough to worry about as it was.”
Harry stared at them. He was suddenly very much like a third wheel, as if their trio had become a twosome and he was no longer wanted or needed. Not knowing exactly what to do next, he just stomped away towards the Fat Lady’s portrait.
“Harry, wait.”
Hermione had come into the light. Ron continued to cower in the shadows.
“Please don’t be upset,” Hermione said.
Harry blinked. “I’m just… surprised…”
“Are you really?” she asked. “I mean, no one else was.”
“No one else? Everyone knew but me?”
At this point, Ron stepped up beside Hermione, as if to defend her from a tirade he thought might be coming.
“You had loads to deal with and it didn’t concern you,” he said.
“Didn’t concern me?” hissed Harry. “You’re my best friends!”
“Look, I let you go out with my sister, so you have no right to be mad about this,” Ron countered.
“I’m not mad,” Harry said. “I just hate being the last to know.”
“But can’t you see why we didn’t tell you?” pleaded Hermione.
Harry shrugged. Yes, he could see why. And he really wasn’t mad. But he did feel very excluded from every aspect of his life that he’d previously known, and this sensation did anger him. He wasn’t allowed to spend time with his friends or keep up on the latest Hogwarts couples or even to revise along with everyone else. He had a mission that was so much bigger than himself, and sometimes, he wished that this had happened to someone else.
“What are you even doing here?” Hermione asked then, interrupting Harry’s thoughts.
“Oh…” Harry held up the scarlet key. “Opens the headmaster’s office.”
Hermione gasped.
“You went to talk to Dumbledore’s portrait?” asked Ron.
“Yeah, and it was… informative.”
Hermione had taken Harry’s hand and was dragging him to the fireplace. “Tell us everything!”
Harry settled into one of the large chairs and Ron and Hermione did the same, opposite him.
He sat there, trying to clear his head of the vision of his two best friends that seemed to be burned behind his eyelids. For some reason, he found himself wishing that he could talk to Luci. He always felt better when he was with her. Then he scolded himself.
Ron and Hermione were watching him circumspectly.
So he asked, “Hey, what’s up with Neville?”
They shared a furtive glance.
“He’s been dreading running into you,” Hermione started.
“Why?” asked Harry, surprised.
“He likes Ginny,” interjected Ron.
“What?”
“But that’s all it is,” said Hermione quickly. “He just didn’t want you to find out and be angry with him.”
“I don’t care. Loads of blokes like Ginny,” Harry said, but he was feeling a sense of possession rising in his chest.
“You are planning to get back together with her when all of this is over, aren’t you?” asked Hermione.
“I can’t think about that right now.”
“Well, she’s counting on it, Harry,” she continued. “She’s turned down a lot of requests for dates, because she thinks you two will be together again.”
Harry inhaled deeply. He couldn’t be with Ginny right now, but he didn’t want her to be with anyone else either. Yet, something in him didn’t want the obligation when it was all over, and this realization instantly brought on a bout of guilt.
“So tell us what happened with Dumbledore,” said Ron, changing the subject.
Harry gave him a grateful smile. Then he explained the past month and a half to his two best friends, though he left out the bit where he’d told Luci about the Horcruxes, pretending that he’d recognized the locket himself. They listened intently, with a few intakes of breath here and there, especially from Hermione.
When he’d explained his experience at Godric’s Hollow, she had gasped, “Oh, Harry, that’s awful!” and her response at the tale of Ravenclaw’s wings went something like, “Of course, it all makes perfect sense. Lucky Moody was around.”
Finally, when Harry’s mouth was dry from talking and he’d finished conveying his adventure inside of the Pensieve, Ron said, “Snape and your mum, that’s disgusting!”
“Yeah, you’re lucky you didn’t have to see it,” agreed Harry, his stomach turning at the memory.
“Harry, what if Dumbledore was right in trusting Professor Snape and he really is on our side?” offered Hermione.
“Don’t be daft,” chortled Ron.
She narrowed her eyes at him, but before they could begin to bicker, Harry said, “Ron’s right. It doesn’t matter what he has or hasn’t done. He killed Dumbledore, and that’s proof enough to me that he’s still a Death Eater.”
Ron nodded and Hermione frowned thoughtfully.
“So you’ve done away with two Horcruxes,” said Ron. “Maybe you could take a break and stay here a while, watch some Quidditch, you know. I’ve kept the team alive without you.”
“I have some things to do here, so that sounds all right,” agreed Harry.
“We can’t lose our sense of urgency,” Hermione huffed. “We’re not ahead of the game until we’ve destroyed all of them.”
“Can’t you see the man needs to rest, Hermione?” asked Ron.
“Yes, but getting rid of two Horcruxes that quickly just seems too easy to me. If it was a stroke of luck, we may be in for much more difficult endeavors with the remaining ones.”
Ron and Harry exchanged a significant glance.
“Oh, all right,” sighed Hermione. “But just a short break.”
None of them had been down to the kitchens in a long while. When Harry reached up to tickle the pear in the painting that transformed into the kitchen door, he realized that he’d been much shorter the last time.
Inside, the house elves were very busy, bustling around with their breakfast duties. Harry’s eyes ran over the brass pots and pans along the walls, towards the brick fireplace in the back, and across each of the house tables, searching for Kreacher.
“There,” said Hermione, pointing towards the Hufflepuff table.
The three of them made their way over to where Kreacher was standing, lazily scrubbing a teacup with a small, white rag. He looked exactly the same as the last time they’d seen him, his wrinkled skin folded along his body and his face aged and grumpy, wearing the same filthy loincloth about his hips. Harry tapped him on the shoulder. He turned with a terrified squeak, mumbling something like, “Filthy,” at the sight of them.
“Got some questions for you,” said Harry.
Kreacher blinked. “Kreacher knows nothing.”
Harry held up the locket. “No?”
The house elf shook his head.
“Look, I know that Dobby won it from you, so where did you get it?”
Kreacher scowled at Harry and said, “It belonged to Kreacher’s mistress and Kreacher rescued it from her home, desecrated by the friends of Mudbloods, filthy, dirty...”
“How did you get it?”
The house elf hesitated.
“I demand that you tell me exactly where this came from,” said Harry firmly.
“Kreacher must do what his despicable Master wants,” snarled Kreacher. Then, he continued, “But it is a horrible story to relive.”
“Too bad.”
Then, Harry had an idea.
“Perhaps you could show us?” he asked.
Kreacher, who seemed to need no further explanation, went to a nearby shelf and retrieved a glass jar. Unscrewing the lid, he put a finger to his temple. After a moment, a silvery strand of mist followed his crooked finger and swirled into the jar, after which, he replaced the lid. He begrudgingly handed the jar to Harry.
“Did you see that?” asked Ron, poking Harry in the arm. “Didn’t even need a wand!”
“Wand?” scoffed Kreacher. “Stupid, ignorant, knows nothing…” Then he walked away from the three of them, mumbling hatefully as he went.
“That was easier than I thought it’d be,” muttered Ron.
“Come on,” said Harry. “We have to get back to the headmaster’s office before breakfast is over so that we can use the Pensieve.”
“Headmistress,” Hermione corrected him.
“Right.”
The three of them hurried from the kitchens and back up through the castle to the tower that contained Dumbledore’s old office.
Harry forced the key into the gargoyle’s mouth and they rode the staircase up to the oak door. They were relieved to find that the room was still unoccupied. The Pensieve sat where Harry had left it on the desk. He’d forgotten to put it away. Dumbledore was gone from his portrait and Hermione was looking into the blank frame, tears in her eyes.
“Hurry,” Harry said, stepping up to the Pensieve and emptying the contents of the glass jar into it.
Ron and Hermione were standing to his right.
“Ready?” he asked them.
They nodded, and then, all three of them plunged their faces into the basin.
After a long fall through space, Harry was back on that tiny little island. It was exactly as it had been the night with Dumbledore, except that Ron and Hermione stood beside him. The air had the same fragrance, the same chill. Every hair on Harry’s body was standing on end, his nerves alive with tension. Being here again was worse than he could have ever imagined it.
It was dark all around them, but they could see Regulus Black’s lit wand as he and Kreacher approached in the small boat. The house elf was blaspheming wildly, calling Regulus all sorts of rude things.
“I’ve told you to stop your complaining,” Harry could hear Regulus say as the boat hit the shore of the island, just a few feet from the three onlookers. He was not as attractive as his older brother had been at the same age, but they were unmistakably related. His shaggy brown hair fell into his dark eyes and his chiseled jaw was set as he hauled the small vessel onto the bank.
“Don’t touch the water!” he commanded the house elf, who was now making his way out of the boat.
“Why Kreacher had to come, betraying the family, betraying your poor mother, Kreacher’s poor mistress…” Kreacher was growling as he went.
“Quiet!” Regulus hissed.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione watched in silence as the young man stood, looking around the flat expanse of rock, his eyes immediately falling on the stone basin that Harry remembered so vividly. Its green light illuminated a small circle around the pedestal.
“The Horcrux will be in there,” Regulus said, pointing.
“Dangerous, reckless, stupid ideas,” replied Kreacher.
“Cambias said that you must drink the liquid to get to the bottom,” he said, pondering aloud. Then he gestured to Kreacher, “That’ll be your job, I think.”
“Kreacher refuses!”
Regulus smiled, his handsome features brightening. “Oh, if only you had a choice,” he laughed.
Kreacher stomped in place, turning angrily in a circle, as if he were a child throwing a tantrum.
“Who, do you suppose, is Cambias?” Ron whispered, leaning into Harry, who shrugged.
“He can’t make that poor house elf drink that stuff!” Hermione objected.
Harry glanced at her. “You can’t expect Regulus to drink it.”
Hermione’s bottom lip quivered, but she didn’t reply.
Regulus was removing a small cup from his pocket and approaching the basin.
“Come here, Kreacher,” he said to the elf.
Kreacher sauntered over begrudgingly, the liquid’s phosphorescent light casting a glow over his ripened face.
Regulus, who appeared to have been clearly instructed on how to retrieve the Horcrux, perhaps by this Cambias person, dipped the cup into the green liquid with no difficulty. He handed it to Kreacher, who took it, but shook his head adamantly.
“I command you to drink it,” said Regulus.
Harry saw Hermione grip Ron’s arm and bury her head in his shoulder, her face hidden by her bushy hair.
Kreacher had drained the cup and Regulus was refilling it. The three of them watched as Kreacher emptied cup after cup of the green liquid. It seemed to have no effect on him.
But gradually, after many helpings (Harry thought they might be up to nine), Kreacher’s tiny little body began to twitch convulsively. His whitened face looked up pleadingly at Regulus. “No more!”
Regulus frowned sternly at the house elf, thrusting another cup-full into his hands.
“I command you to drink it,” he said again.
And Kreacher did. He consumed three more cups before falling to the ground, begging, “Please, no more, Kreacher begs, Kreacher begs!”
Hermione was sobbing. Ron was looking on in horror. Harry, who found this all too familiar, could suddenly hear Dumbledore’s frightened voice in his head, begging, crying the same things. He couldn’t prevent it “ he turned from Ron and Hermione and threw up onto the cold, hard rock. But the vomit disappeared as it hit the surface of the island. Perplexed, Harry clutched his stomach and forced his eyes back to the horrible scene.
Kreacher was screaming, “Don’t make Kreacher! Please! Kreacher wants to stop!” His wrinkled body was flailing on the ground. He cowered as Regulus offered him another cup-full.
“Death! Kreacher wants death! Kill Kreacher!”
Another cup.
“Kreacher is so thirsty…”
Harry could see that Regulus’s features were now soft and sympathetic, and he was revolted by what he was doing. Harry knew this feeling well. He thought that he might heave again, but before he could, he heard a whooshing sound, and as he turned towards it, he realized that Ron and Hermione were no longer beside him. A wave of panic swept over him, but it was immediately replaced by the sensation of sailing through the air.
All of the sudden, he was in the office again, and Professor McGonagall had him by the scruff of the neck.
“What do you think you three are doing?” she snarled wrathfully, fire practically erupting from her ears.
Harry swallowed and looked from Ron to Hermione. They were both frozen in shock.
Without waiting for an explanation, Professor McGonagall shrieked, “OUT! Out this instant!”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione rushed from the room, tore down the staircase, and didn’t stop running until they were many yards from the stone gargoyle.
Bending over, his hands on his knees, Ron breathed, “Mum and dad’ll be furious!”
At that moment, a small man wearing billowing red robes rounded the corner. Harry didn’t recognize him.
“Arnaud Finnister, the new Defense teacher,” said Hermione, as if reading his mind. He looked at her, and her face was blanched and tear-stained.
“Shouldn’t the three of you be getting to class?” Professor Finnister asked as he approached them. His sandy hair was clean cut and he looked remarkably as if he were a Muggle who might have wandered into the wrong attire.
His young face adjusted into a striking smile as he continued, “Right, off you go then.”
The three of them began to continue past him, but suddenly, Finnister had seized Harry forcefully by the arm.