[From Litha to Lammas]: Light To Us Who Wander Here, gen, goblin Harry, 2/6, PG-13

[lomonaaeren]

Part One.

Title: Light to Us Who Wander Here (2/6)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing these characters for fun and not profit.
Content Notes: Massive AU (Harry Potter raised by goblins), light angst, present tense, minor character deaths, violence.
Pairing: Discussion of background one-sided and canon pairings, otherwise gen
Rated: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 6000
Summary: The second part of goblin-raised Harry's fifth year and the first part of his sixth year, wherein Harry deals with Creature Culture classes, haunted Headmasters, meddling Malfoys, Horcrux hunts, and lots and lots of duels and souls.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my Litha to Lammas fics for this year, a series of fics being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. It's the sequel to five previous fics in the "Realm of Song" series: “Music Beneath the Mountains,” “In Their Own Secret Tongues He Spoke,” and “The Dragon-Headed Door,” “More Marvellous-Cunning Than Mortal Man’s Pondering,”and "Harmonies Unconquerable," and you should read those first. This story will make zero sense without them. This should have five or six parts, to be posted over the next several days. The title and quote at the beginning come from J. R. R. Tolkien's "Elven Hymn to Elbereth," and the section titles come from that poem as well as "To the Sea, to the Sea!"

Thank you for all the reviews!

Snow-White

Harry folds his arms and frowns at Fred and George. He doesn't shake his head in disappointment, but the twins can obviously tell that he's getting there. They exchange disconcerted looks and then focus on Harry.

"What?" Fred asks.

"You're leaving the school before your NEWTS?"

"Well, yeah." George shrugs and stares down at the Skiving Snackbox in his hands, which they started working on when Umbridge was still there but continued improving after that. "There doesn't seem--"

"To be much reason to stay and finish our NEWTS." Fred scratches meditatively at the remains of a boil on his face, which he told Harry happened because of an Extendable Ear blowing up early in production. Harry worries sometimes that not all the ingredients the twins work with are safe enough. "We don't--"

"Need them for our jobs. We're not going to the bloody Ministry." George shrugs again and looks up and down the corridor outside Gryffindor Tower as if he thinks their brother Percy, who left school two years ago, is going to pop up and scold them. "What else--"

"Should we do but leave, and use the couple extra months to get an early start on renting the building for our shop?"

"I didn't think you were cowards," Harry says, disappointed in his friends beyond measure.

Both Fred and George stare at him, and Fred takes a step nearer and stops rubbing at the boil. "What do you mean by that?" they demand, both at the same time.

Harry is glad for that, though, and their glares; it means they're paying attention, instead of bouncing thoughts between their heads and concentrating more on that. He glares back at them. "You're going to go sneaking off into the night, instead of using the NEWTS as a grand advertisement for your products?"

George blinks. Fred is the one who says, "How could we do that? We'd just get told off and thrown out."

"And it's not fair, when you think about it, to do things like ruin Katie and Angelina's chances by giving the examiners Canary Creams or something," George adds.

"No, you wouldn't have to do that," Harry says. "Just do it during your exams. You come at the end of the seventh year, don't you, because they do the individual practical exams alphabetically? I can't think of anyone whose name comes after Weasley."

Fred and George exchange nods and shrugs. They're starting to grin, now, and Harry thinks they're seeing the outlines of his plan. But he explains it anyway, because they've both shown a worrying tendency not to understand so far.

"Show them your charms, offer them your sweets, listen in when the proctors talk among themselves earlier in the day with your Extendable Ears and dazzle them by repeating their secrets back to them." Harry shrugs. "I'd thought you were planning to go out with a bang, not a fizzle."

Fred and George slap each other's hands, and then grab him and ruffle his hair. Laughing, Harry just makes sure that their hands don't come too close to his basilisk-fang dagger or the casket in his robe against his heart, which holds the half-forged piece of his mother's soul. He doesn't really want to kill his friends.

"Forge," Fred says, with a determined nod.

"Gred," George replies with the same gesture.

"Your Lordship of Mischief," they say in unison, and bow to Harry.

Harry rolls his eyes at them as he watches them go. Honestly, they probably had that idea in the back of their heads all along and just wanted to see what he would say by telling it to him. Harry doesn't think he's as clever as the twins, but he's pretty good at coaxing people to become warriors of all kinds.

Are Crying

Harry sighs and looks back and forth between Michael Corner and Ginny in a remote corridor of the dungeons. Ginny is vibrating with righteous indignation. Michael has his hand pressed against the bandaged cut on his face, even though Harry did use all his skill to make sure it wouldn't bleed down onto his robes, and told him he could go to Madam Pomfrey. But Michael said he wanted to be here for this.

"All right, try to make me understand," Harry says, with a shake of his head. "Michael, you wanted to date Luna. Why did Ginny have to cut you with her daggers?"

"She didn't have to."

"Yes, I did."

Harry sighs a little. "Yes, that's why I'm asking the questions, because so far no one has been very clear."

Michael and Ginny glare at each other for a little longer, and then Michael mutters, "I went to ask her about dating Luna, since you made it clear that you didn't want to talk to me about Luna."

"Why didn't you go talk to Luna?"

"Does that matter?"

"Yes, actually." Harry studies Michael more closely. He never thought his yearmate was a coward, but Michael is acting awfully like one. Or like someone who does want to bully Luna or play a terrible prank on her. Sneaking around, not talking directly to the girl he claims to like, angering other people close to her...

Maybe Michael sees Harry's narrowing eyes, because he clears his throat hastily. "Fine. I went to Weasley because I thought she might be able to tell me things like what shops in Hogsmeade Luna likes to visit, or what I should get her for a present."

"But Luna could tell you that, too," Harry feels compelled to point out. "She would know a lot better than Ginny, even." He glances at Ginny, who nods and shifts her knives in their sheaths, watching Michael narrowly.

"But I want to surprise Luna."

"Why?"

Michael audibly grinds his teeth. Harry wonders for a second if Blackeye should have another patient, but dismisses the notion. He doesn't want to ask a goblin healer to treat someone who might be bullying one of his friends.

"Because it's...it would make me feel good to surprise her because I already knew those things on our first date."

"But you could learn that by watching her," Ginny says. "And making good guesses. Not sneaking around behind her back and asking her friends questions that make it look like you want to prank her."

"Do neither of you understand why I did this?" Michael stares back and forth between them desperately. "I expect that of Potter, since he's a goblin, but you grew up with humans, Weasley. I thought you were normal."

"What did you say?" Ginny asks softly.

Harry shakes his head. There's going to be another cut on Michael's other cheek in a second, and Harry won't be able to do anything about it. Interfering in Ginny's justified revenge on someone who's insulted her would be extremely dishonorable.

On the other hand, it's flattering to have Michael acknowledge him as a goblin. Harry could ask Ginny not to scar him.

Michael stares at her, then mutters, "I apologize."

Oh, good. Harry looks at Ginny, who considers it, then nods and takes her hands off the hilts of her knives. She doesn't see a reason to seek revenge right now.

"Look, you can take the information you already have and ask Luna on a date," Harry says. "Or you could ask her what she'd like to do. You just can't ask me or Ginny to tell you things about Luna she might not want you to know, and you can't ask us to give you permission to date her like it's that time in history when powerful purebloods enslaved others and were responsible for them."

Michael lets out a short grunt. "I was trying to be courteous to you, Potter. And even Weasley. I thought you might have some interest in dating her yourselves, since you're around her all the time."

"Even if that were true, why would you ask us instead of Luna? She's the one who has to make the decision. And she's the one whose interest in us would be the important determining factor."

Michael stomps off. Harry shakes his head at Michael's back and glances at Ginny. "Did that make any more sense to you? Since you were raised as a human?"

Ginny snorts. "I'd cut off my own head if it started making sense."

"Be careful, Ginny," Harry says, concerned. "I never want to lose you as a friend, and you know how insidious some of those human ideas can be, creeping their way past your defenses."

Ginny smiles at him. "I don't think I'll have to worry about it, but thank you."

Harry grins and draws his non-envenomed blades. "What do you say to a short dueling practice?"

*

Harry does see Luna at dinner with a slightly troubled look on her face, and he puts an arm around her shoulder as he sits down beside her. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Oh." Luna stirs and looks at him. "Yes. I merely had an unsettling encounter with Michael Corner, and I don't understand what prompted it."

"Oh?" Harry glances around, but Michael isn't at the table, perhaps wisely. "Did he upset you?"

Luna shakes her head. "He came up to me while I was with the thestrals, and he asked me what I thought about the new bookshop in Hogsmeade. I told him that I didn't think it had enough books about magical creatures. Then he asked about the Three Broomsticks, and I said that I'd always found their food fairly dry. Then there were more questions about Honeydukes and Zonko's and other shops. It was very strange. At the end, he got so flustered about something that he left. I've been trying to figure out what he wanted to know about the shops, and I couldn't. It seems a very strange invasion plan, if it is one."

"No," Harry says. He's never going to keep secrets from Luna, no matter how much Michael would probably like him to. "He was trying to figure out how to ask you on a date."

"He was?" Luna stares at him in astonishment. "Then why didn't he just do that?"

"I have no idea," Harry says truthfully. "I do know that he came and asked me and Ginny first, so perhaps this is typical of the indirect way he does stuff."

"And you and Ginny didn't want to date him?"

"He said that he was asking because we might like you. And also something about permission. I didn't understand it, to tell you the truth."

"It might have been fun to go as a foursome," Luna says thoughtfully. "But he appears to have a severely muddled mind. I couldn't date someone that so many Nargles were orbiting around."

Harry blinks. "I can't believe I never considered Nargles. You'll have to take a close look at him the next time you see him and tell me where they are, so I can throw a dagger at them."

"Or we could speak with them and come to a peaceful resolution with them," Luna says gently.

"It's not as much fun," Harry points out.

"I think we owe them more than stabbing them for fun."

Harry settles down with a grumble. Luna is right, and of course it's best to find peaceful solutions whenever he can. He just sometimes feels the need to prove his warrior credentials to humans who won't take him seriously as a goblin.

He can already hear Ripclaw's amused voice in his head. And if they don't take you seriously, do you need to prove the stereotypes of senseless violence true?

No, Harry acknowledges to himself. He doesn't. But his life remains trying, nonetheless.

We See Your Silver Blossom Blown

Harry has sometimes noticed Draco Malfoy down the years, but not very often. The Slytherins have little to do with him. If they stare and mutter and have prejudices against goblins, well, that's just about everyone human in the castle as well as the wider society. If they sneer at him because they think he's terrible for surviving Voldemort, there's not much difference between those and the sneers that happen because he doesn't fit anyone else's stereotypes of the Boy-Who-Lived. And Slytherins don't hate Ravenclaws the way they hate Gryffindors.

Mostly, Harry has noticed Malfoy because he thinks Snape is great and Luna is mental. Harry has stared at him thoughtfully, and Malfoy has backed down.

Now, though, he struts past as Harry goes to Charms with his nose aimed at the ceiling and his blond-white hair falling halfway down his back, making Harry frown a little. It's not polite to look at a Veela child's unbound hair. But then again, he doesn't know that Malfoy actually has Veela heritage, and assumptions like that have tripped him up before.

Harry's opening his mouth to ask, and averting his eyes because better safe than sorry, when Malfoy turns to him. Harry prepares himself for another happy, successful communication attempt with a human, such as has become the norm these days.

Instead, Malfoy spits, "Potter. The Dark Lord is coming back."

Harry waits a second for the actual news, and then shrugs when Malfoy goes on staring at him and says, "He's always coming but he never actually seems to arrive. Malfoy, I was wondering--"

"Did you hear me?" Malfoy takes a long step nearer. A few other Ravenclaws and Slytherins are watching them, but the Ravenclaws don't seem inclined to interfere and the Slytherins are sniggering sycophantically, which always happens when Malfoy talks. Harry feels sorry for them, lacking a sense of humor as they do. "He's returning. That means my father will stand high in his inner circle."

"That's terrible," Harry says sincerely. "Do you think he would be interested in being rescued? It's so hard to tell with humans who decided to get that Mark on their arms." Barty, for one, wasn't interested in being rescued, but on the other hand, he was a more honorable opponent than his father. So Harry isn't going to discount that Death Eaters might be more complex than he thinks they are.

Malfoy bristles at him, after a long moment in which he seems to be hesitating to choose among several different reactions. "No, of course not! My father will have wealth and power."

"Oh, so you don't have it right now? I don't think you can blame goblins for that, though. Our war didn't strike your vaults."

Malfoy crosses his arms. "Are you listening to what I'm telling you?"

"Yes. Did you want to tell me some more?"

Malfoy stomps his foot on the ground, which makes Harry think worse of him--that's childish--and walks towards the Creature Culture classroom. Harry sighs and walks on. It's too bad that he doesn't think he can count that as a successful communication attempt. Malfoy never did explain exactly what was new about his words and why he thought they should matter to Harry.

Harry smacks himself in the forehead a second later. And he never did ask Malfoy about his possible Veela heritage. An owl will just have to do.


By Her Were Sown

"Is this seat taken?"

Harry shakes his head and smiles up at Granger, who's sitting down across from him at his usual table in the library. Luna sits quietly at his side, observing, and Ginny has class right now. Harry squeezes Luna's hand for a second, wondering if she's worried by Granger's presence, but she shakes her head at him. It must be all right, then.

"You have so much expertise in goblin culture," Granger says, sorting out various books in front of her, including the goblin history one that Blackeye assigned their class a few weeks ago. She was sure to pick one that Harry hasn't read, to make it fairer. "I thought you might help me understand how Professor Blackeye--"

"Healer Blackeye--"

"Feels about the premises behind the essay she assigned." Granger pushes away a curl that's already ink-stained and arranges quills and an inkwell within easy touching distance. She peers at Harry. "I want to make sure they make sense."

"That you understand them, you mean?"

"No, that they make sense," Granger says, with peculiar emphasis. She snatches up a quill and turns around the piece of parchment she was carrying on top of the books, so Harry can read it. "For example, it's not true that human and goblin cultures are interdependent, is it, the way the essay assignment said? You're pretty separate from us. The only time we interact is in the bank."

"And in discussion of the economy, and in legal contexts, and in disputes over half-goblins, and in historical matters relating to the goblin rebellions, and in matters of honor, which unfortunately most humans don't understand," Harry points out. "You don't have to include all of those contexts in your essay, but you'll need to pick at least a few of them."

Granger stares at him for a second. Then she says, "I suppose Healer Blackeye does know what she's talking about, after all."

"I mean, yes," Harry says, beyond amused. "She's a goblin. Why wouldn't she be an expert on it?"

"There's only one goblin culture, I suppose," Granger says, relaxing a little. "I wouldn't classify myself as an expert on all human cultures, but there are many of those."

Harry shrugs. "There's only one goblin culture in Britain. There are others beyond our tunnels, but they won't really matter to you unless you move to the countries above those tunnels. I can recommend some books on them if you're thinking about moving to France. Or other places, of course."

Granger blinks at him, and then looks distressed. She stares down at the parchment in front of her, scribbles half a sentence, and stops.

"What is it?" Harry asks gently. Granger has never been a particular friend, but he doesn't like seeing someone in pain, even annoying people like Snape or Dumbledore. That's one reason that Harry has offered to duel Snape and end his pain, and got Blackeye to be a Healer for Dumbledore.

"There's so much to learn," Granger says, in a near-wail. "I thought I was doing pretty well knowing most of the things I read about magical creatures, and now they have countries and cultures and tunnels and--and--I don't even know what I don't know!"

"That's the beginning of wisdom, my dad always says," Luna murmurs, and smiles at Granger in a friendly way. "We can help you study. I know lots of things about Heliopaths and Nargles that never made it into the official books, either."

Granger nods. "I need to know these things! Healer Blackeye said that some people believe lies about the goblins." Her mouth firms. "I don't want to be one of those people."

Harry doesn't tell her that most humans believe lies about the goblins, just because some of the inner workings of goblin culture are things they refuse to believe in. And who knows? Granger might turn into one of the rare few, like Luna, honored with an inner glimpse if she can demonstrate that her desire to know more is sincere enough.

"Let me tell you by giving an idea of the economic power goblins have," Harry begins.

*

"And no one cast the Imperius Curse on Dumbledore?"

Harry and Professor Moody are sitting in Professor Moody's office with Blackeye. There are instruments made of glass with four legs prowling around them, snarling and sticking their long muzzles into various corners. Harry ignores them. He knows they're sniffing out any trace of eavesdropping spells and Dark Arts. And after poor Professor Moody got kidnapped last year and held captive for so many months, he has the right to be paranoid.

"No." Blackeye frowns and glances back and forth between them. "You must understand, I am only telling you this much because I believe that Dumbledore might end up proving a threat to the school itself, and as the strongest warriors I know of in Hogwarts, I need to coordinate with you. Otherwise, I would never divulge personal details about my patient."

Harry nods. He knows full well what a great honor he's been entrusted with. Professor Moody grunts, which probably means the same thing.

"There was no sign of the Imperius Curse," Blackeye begins. "And Dumbledore wouldn't tell me who he talked with to create the map you saw, Harry. In fact, he tried to deny the existence of a map at all, and I had the feeling that he genuinely didn't remember creating it. But I looked for objects with traces of his magical signature, and found this." She takes something small and round from a notch in her belt. It's a large gold ring with a cracked black stone in the middle of it.

Harry narrows his eyes. "That crack looks like the hole in the diary I stabbed with the basilisk fang back in second year!"

"A Horcrux?" Professor Moody asks hungrily. Harry has told him the truth about the Horcruxes, thinking that the man should know it if he's going to help them in the hunt.

"It was," Blackeye says. "It's also been struck with basilisk venom. What I don't understand is how it could influence my patient with the spirit that inhabited it destroyed."

"May I?" Professor Moody waits for her nod before reaching out and touching the ring. At the same moment, he rests a hand on the back of the nearest glass device wandering by. His face goes distant, and he frowns and shakes his head, while the creature begins to snap and snarl.

"What does that mean?" Harry asks. He's a warrior, but that doesn't mean he knows how to automatically interpret what Professor Moody's device is telling him.

"My hound senses a resonance. As if there's a fragment of the soul left behind and preserved."

"Should I stab it with my dagger, too?" Harry draws the fang-blade half out of the sheath.

"Basilisk venom never hurts in a situation like this," Professor Moody says with a nod.

Harry stabs, not through the original hole in the stone that the other fang made but a little lower under it. The ring doesn't so much as flinch, let alone steam and smoke the way the diary did. Harry settles back, a little disappointed.

"Did it affect the resonance?" Blackeye asks Moody, but appears to anticipate it when he shakes his head. She frowns. "Very well. We will have to make sure that we have destroyed this ring completely. I believe that Dumbledore kept it because he wanted to study how it was made, or perhaps otherwise further his knowledge in the Horcrux hunt, but it's doing him more harm than good now."

"What would destroy it completely, if the venom doesn't?" Harry asks.

"Fiendfyre," Professor Moody says, his magical eye whizzing around his face and ending up focused as intently on the ring as his original eye. It's nearly the first time Harry has seen them both pointing in the same direction. "I can't master it myself. It's an extremely difficult spell to control. But I do have an artifact that can buffer and contain the flames."

"Or I can take it back to the caves and destroy it there," Blackeye offers. "In a cavern kept and polished by goblin song, it'll stand no chance."

Professor Moody settles back in his chair. "Then you should do that. I'm not against using a bit of Dark Arts when it's necessary, but if it's not..." He waves his hand.

Blackeye nods and slips the ring into the notch on her belt again. "I'll speak with Dumbledore and try to figure out whether he heard Voldemort speaking to him through the ring, or only thought he did. He may have felt that resonance and actually imposed a personality and memories on it. It's been known to happen before."

Harry relaxes. That doesn't sound good, but it comforts him more than the idea that Riddle might have managed to come back in the soul and influence Dumbledore. Then they wouldn't just have to find and destroy the Horcruxes; they'd have to capture each of them specially and bring them back to the goblin caverns. "Do you want me to keep an eye on Dumbledore for you while you're gone, Healer?"

"That would be for the best." Blackeye is frowning heavily. "And alert us immediately if you see any sign that he's being influenced by another Horcrux, or hiding information about one. The map was probably useless, but I don't like that he wouldn't let you see it."

Harry nods. Dumbledore needs to be involved in the Horcrux hunt, Harry feels, to recoup some of his own sense of honor, but Harry and his clan are also involved because of revenge and honor, and they can't allow Dumbledore to run around keeping secrets all the time.

Besides, just look at all the silly things that he does when that happens.


The Sunless Year

"Hi, Harry."

Harry frowns and sits down in the chair across from Sirius. Ever since he arrived back home for the Easter holiday, Sirius has been avoiding him. Even now, he huddles down in the chair and gives a longing look at the door. Harry shakes his head. If Sirius was upset with something he did, Harry thinks he would just say it, and if he wanted to get away from Harry and back to someone he was having sex with, he would probably have just put off their conversation to a more convenient time.

"Hi, Sirius. Why have you been avoiding me?"

Sirius jumps and turns back to stare at him. "I haven't been."

His voice is so clear and his manner so convinced that Harry almost believes him. But then Sirius opens a pouch attached to his belt and peers into it, and Harry is unconvinced again.

He points his wand at Sirius, who freezes, and snaps, "Accio mind control device!"

The pouch jumps about, but nothing flies out of it, which probably means that Harry didn't get the name of the device specific enough. Sirius, though, bolts to his feet with his face going white, and turns and runs towards the door of the little cavern where Harry's forge is.

Harry casts Incarcerous and binds Sirius's limbs, although he casts a Cushioning Charm under him so that his godfather doesn't slam his head into anything. Then he sighs and walks over to stare down at him. Sirius is struggling with the ropes, trying to stand, but it's hard for him because he keeps clutching the pouch closer.

Harry crouches down next to him. "I'm so sorry," he says, stroking Sirius's hair back from his brow. "I didn't pay enough attention to you, and you might have been in the thrall of this thing for months."

"I'm not in the thrall of anything!" Sirius glares at him, and that's a little more like his old self. "You're just an interfering half-breed busybody!"

Well, that's not like him, Harry thinks, and draws his daggers. Sirius freezes, his gaze locking on the basilisk-fang dagger. That might just be common sense, because he knows how dangerous it is, but Sirius honestly doesn't have much common sense. Harry shakes his head and uses the curved tip of the fang to scoop the pouch off Sirius while he's still too frozen to prevent it.

The pouch begins to jump up and down, as though something inside it is agitating to get out. Harry has an idea of what he'll find, but then again, when he tips over the pouch and a tarnished silver locket flies out, he's still a little surprised. He supposes all the Horcruxes don't have to be diaries or rings. The one in his head wasn't.

The locket lands on the floor of the cavern and spins. When it opens, Sirius cries out, and Harry sees various shapes moving in the dark mist that spirals out of the locket. Sirius does have a lot of past nightmares and bad memories the locket could pick to torment him with.

Harry sets his feet and braces his daggers. He has no idea what the locket will throw at him, or if it'll try to negotiate like the shade of Tom Riddle in the diary did.

The mist seethes, and the different shapes in it collide and dance and clash for a long moment. Then it settles into an image of Harry kissing Luna, while a Ginny with a twisted face dances behind him and stabs him in the back with one of her knives.

Harry rolls his eyes. "Why does everyone think I'm dating Luna or want to date Luna?" he asks the locket. "And anyway, I don't believe Ginny would be treacherous like that or that I wouldn't be fast enough to stop her."

The mist changes just as the false Ginny opens her mouth, as if she was going to speak but the locket realized it wouldn't do any good. For a moment, the image is Harry kissing Ginny while Luna tries to hit him with something that might be an Erumpent's Horn, and then it turns to goblins from his clan.

"I can't believe that we ever thought you were a true goblin," Ripclaw says, in a slow, sad voice.

"I must break you back to apprentice rank, since you haven't proven worthy of the rank of a journeyman." That's Toothsplitter.

"I insist that you leave the caverns, for interfering with my patient," Blackeye declaims.

Harry snorts. "Nice try, but why are they speaking in English?"

The answer is probably that Tom Riddle doesn't know Gobbledegook, but the mist still recoils in what seems to be anger.

Harry shakes his head. While it would be kind of interesting to stand there and see what the mist comes up with next, he doesn't want to expose Sirius to any more of the locket's evil. He leaps forwards, spinning around the curls of mist that reach for him, and stabs the locket with the basilisk-fang dagger.

The scream that echoes through the room makes Harry shudder. The locket's chain whips towards him, and Harry thinks that it might be trying to grab his feet. He leaps over it and lands in a defensive crouch on the other side, blades at the ready.

The casket under his shirt warms as the mist reaches for him a final time. Harry smiles as he watches it flinch back, and then dissolve as the locket becomes warped and twisted. Tom Riddle's Horcrux was probably dying anyway, but it would be nice to think that his mum's soul is protecting him, the way she did when he was a baby.

The locket gives one final spin and then lies still. Harry straightens up and shakes his head at Sirius, who's gaping at him, but whose eyes do look much clearer.

"I would have preferred it if you were just having sex with an embarrassing person," Harry tells him. "You know, for future reference."

*

"But how did you come into contact with a Horcrux in the first place?"

Blackeye's implacable repetition has worn Sirius down at last. He gives a huge, harsh sigh, and puts down the steaming cup of tea that Blackeye made for him. He looks hopeless, but already, a cloak of grease and grime that seemed to be lying on him has been lifted off.

Harry thinks about that, carefully, and tucks away the idea for later examination as Sirius licks his lips.

"I went to clean up one of my family's houses, the one I lived in when I was a kid," Sirius whispers. "I wasn't looking forward to it because I knew my mother probably had a portrait there, and my family's mad house-elf might still be alive."

"And you went alone?" Blackeye glares at Sirius.

Sirius doesn't shrink and cower under that glare as much as he ordinarily would, which just proves that the Horcrux really did damage his mind. "It seemed safe," he mutters. "And anyway, the elf couldn't attack me directly, as a member of the House of Black. And I would have left if my mother's portrait started screaming abuse."

"Instead, you left with a Horcrux," Harry points out. He thinks it needs to be pointed out. He's sitting close to Sirius on the couch that Blackeye herded him to once she found out, and now and then patting his godfather's hand. But he really can't do much if Sirius goes charging off after another Horcrux later. "How?"

Sirius licks his lips. "The old house-elf, Kreacher, said that he was trying to fulfill Master Regulus's orders. Regulus was my younger brother. He was a Death Eater, and he disappeared somewhere before I even when to Azkaban. It seems that he decided to turn his coat in the end, after You-Know-Who used Kreacher in some sort of experiment. I think Kreacher was almost the only friend Regulus had."

Harry sighs in sorrow for the vanished Regulus. Poor man. It would be hard if your only friend went mad, and maybe almost died.

"Kreacher wasn't very clear about it, but he said the locket belonged to You-Know-Who, and Regulus's final order was that Kreacher destroy it. Kreacher had tried for years without being able to do it. I picked up the locket, because I thought it must be simple and Kreacher had just overlooked something..." His voice trails off.

"You decided that it wasn't dangerous even though it belonged to Voldemort?" Harry asks. He has to be the one to ask, even though Sirius is Blackeye's patient. Her mouth is so thin that he knows she won't be able to speak.

"Well, I didn't know it was a Horcrux!"

"But you knew it belonged to him." Harry shakes his head. He loves Sirius, but sometimes the best wizards--Sirius accepts goblins without trouble--still have blind spots when it comes to other magical creatures. He just assumed Kreacher was stupid and not corrupted by a Dark artifact because he despised him.

"Yes, well, I won't go picking up any more Horcruxes that might be floating around my family's holdings," Sirius mutters.

"That's right," Blackeye interrupts, in the cold, quietly furious voice that makes Harry wince in sympathy for the victims of it. "You'll need a full week of rest, since you said this was a month ago. And you'll need to go through regrowth in bones and muscles for your hand." She nods at the one Sirius was touching the locket with. "I could have hoped it would be at least a decade since your last major healing before you needed another one, Black."

"What?" Sirius stares at his hand. "Why would I need to regrow t? It's not even scorched!"

"Because it touched a Dark artifact, and might bear an invisible film of corruption, of course," Blackeye says. She's gearing up for a full lecture, and Harry decides that she and Sirius can be left alone now. He pats Sirius's hand again, not the corrupted one, and leaps off the couch.

Sirius stares at him with a tragic face, but Harry manages to ignore that well enough. Sirius should really have thought before touching a Dark artifact Voldemort once owned, even if he can't be blamed for his own actions once he was under the influence of the locket Horcrux.

In the meantime, Harry will examine the locket's corpse to make sure there's no magical resonance left in it the way there was with the ring from Dumbledore's office, and probably report its destruction to Dumbledore. Poor man, he'll be distraught at being left out of this part of the hunt, but that's just the way it'll have to be.

Especially since he was hiding the ring. Harry hopes that he can be there for the stern talk that Blackeye will have with Dumbledore about that, if she doesn't decide it's against patient privacy and her own honor.