In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter - Chapter 511: Regulus
Arriving at the glass case on the ground floor that Jon had mentioned, Sirius easily found the locket.
The item had been lying there for a long time, and next to it, there was an Order of Merlin medal – one that one of Sirius’ ancestors had bought through a donation.
But at the first moment he got his hands on the locket, he didn’t just hand it over to Jon, instead frowning as he scrutinised the item, before turning his head and asking.
“I certainly don’t have any doubts about Dumbledore, but what I can be sure of is that you are not a member of the Black family, so how did you know about this locket?”
Jon had certainly expected this.
Even if Sirius disliked this home of his, now that he was the sole owner of the place, questions were bound to arise as to why Jon knew about it.
“My origins are as per the agreement with Professor Dumbledore, need to be hidden for the time being, and as far as what this locket is. I think you should ask the one who brought it back instead.”
Sirius’ face turned a little unpleasant, he felt that Jon, the eccentric little boy, was playing himself for a fool.
“Do you think I would be asking you this if I knew who brought it back?”
“If you couldn’t find the person who brought it back here right now, do you think I would ask you to do so?”
There was a sudden silence in the atmosphere, and Sirius abruptly shifted his gaze to the house elf who was still hiding behind the stair railing, looking as old as a rotten orange.
The moment the house elf met his gaze, he disappeared in the next second, actually escaping straight away!
However, Sirius just let out a loud shout.
“Kreacher!”
A ‘snap’ sound rang out, and Kreacher came back, although he was still full of reluctance and resistance, he still could not disobey Sirius’ order.
Sirius paid no attention to his emotions, ever since he had left the house, he hadn’t felt anything for anyone in his family.
And since the death of James Potter, his best friend, it was even more so with the entire Black family as if they were enemies.
“Why did you never tell me about this locket!”
He questioned harshly.
Kreacher’s eyes averted and he stammered a reply.
“Sirius, Lord Sirius never asked Kreacher either.”
Sirius grabbed a handful of the rags he was wearing, his eyes staring him dead in the face.
“Then I’m going to ask now! Who told you to bring this box back!”
“Yes, yes it was Young Lord Regulus!”
Kreacher, who couldn’t refuse Sirius, also screamed loudly.
After hearing this name, Sirius’ hand movements paused, a cold smile unconsciously appeared on his face, and at the same time, he also loosened his grip on Kreacher’s ‘dress’ and looked at the snake-shaped relief on the locket box.
“So he asked you to bring it back, then it’s only natural, of course, his lord would trust him to keep something precious.”
The released Kreacher listened to Sirius’ taunts with only a vague and scornful distaste on his face, only for such an expression to be masked by his still respectful posture as if he simply didn’t care to say anything at all about what had transpired.
The locket was tossed into Jon’s hands by Sirius, and he didn’t look the least bit interested in it once he had learnt where it came from.
Jon had been watching the interaction between the pair of master and servant in silence, only after receiving the locket he spoke up.
“Perhaps things aren’t what you think they are, Mr Black.”
In the previous world, Jon had called him by his first name, but here they hadn’t been that close to each other.
“Maybe it was something that was important to Voldemort and your brother found out exactly that and stole it from Voldemort?”
Sirius laughed as if he had heard some funny joke.
“Just do what Dumbledore assigned you, how much more do you know about the Black family than I do?”
Jon didn’t argue with him much, and it wasn’t Sirius’ fault, because the inherent impression his family had once left on him wasn’t something that could be changed so easily.
Even in the original world, regarding Regulus and the locket, Jon knows, it still had taken a long time for Kreacher to get to Sirius and make him truly believe in the fact by saying a lot of things to him.
Later that day, he found the cave where Voldemort had once hidden the locket and sat there alone all night.
“Why don’t you ask that house elf about it? You’re now his master, so surely he can’t lie to you if you ask him, right?”
After saying all that, Jon left 12 Grimmauld Place without looking back.
He wasn’t in the mood to get involved in the Black family’s household affairs, but he also didn’t want Regulus, a confused young man, to be consistently misunderstood and scorned all the time, especially by his own family, so he didn’t mind telling all these hidden secrets that Kreacher would probably never voluntarily talk about if Sirius didn’t take the initiative to ask about them.
And after Jon had left, Sirius was still thinking about the words he had left behind, and eventually he looked back at Kreacher, who was still keeping his big head down and not even looking at him.
“You were involved in getting that case, weren’t you!”
Facing Sirius’ question, Kreacher had no way of not answering even if he internally refused to answer.
“Yes, yes.”
“Then tell me right now, as it is, how that woman’s perfect son, who worked for his lord back in the day, was really a perfect and good son!”
There was no way for Kreacher to refuse; no house elf ever had the right to refuse in front of their master, even if he was beyond disgusted with this master of his.
So he told the story as it was, all the way back to the beginning, from when Voldemort had taken him to hide the locket, to when Regulus had made his way to that cave with him.
And after listening to all of this, Sirius fell silent where he was.
He knew that Kreacher couldn’t possibly deceive him, that all of these things had to be true.
The younger brother, who had always been a supporter of the egoistic purebloods in his eyes, had actually turned the tables and sacrificed himself to bring out the locket, which was obviously extremely important to Voldemort.
Sirius didn’t know what kind of emotion he was feeling right now, he only felt like something was blocking his chest, and the memories in his mind about his brother were so blurry when he recalled them at this time.
It was only after a long time that he managed to say with a renewed hoarse voice.
“Take me to that cave that you went with him.”
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