Harry Potter & The Black Sacrifice
Post 17: Untitled
Chapter 15
Untitled
Severus Snape picked his way carefully through the ruins of the Gaunt home in Little Hangleton. He had known before he'd even gotten here that what he was supposed to find was not here, but when creating a false memory in your own head, it's always best to make it as real as possible. Severus was going through the motions as if he really was looking for Gaunt's Ring, so that when the time came to alter his memory, he would only need to alter the very end. Luckily for him, he had indeed seen the ring for himself, so forging this particular memory would be simple.
He knew that creating a memory of the locket would be trickier since he had never actually seen it, so he had to rely on Harry's memory of the object to be accurate.
The third item that Voldemort had sent him after he had never seen before, so he hoped that it had not been disturbed so that he would not need to imagine what it might look like. A single incorrect detail would mean death.
"Ring.. ring.. looking for a ring with a big black stone… Ah!"
He opened the cupboard that Voldemort had told him the ring would be inside, reached inside, and closed his hand around nothing. He brought his hand out and examined his palm as if there was something resting on it. He shook his head, satisfied, and put his hand back inside the cupboard.
He closed the cupboard, and pointed his wand at his own head. "Obliviaddo!"
Snape searched his memories of the past 10 minutes, and found the memory of finding the ring inside the cupboard to be believable enough. Satisfied, he apparated to the seaside cave.
***
Despite his assurance that he would be checking in on Harry a week later, Remus didn't return to Godric's Hollow until the end of October. By that time, the name of Samantha Cotton had become a major point of contention between Harry and Hermione.
"What if I were to go speak to the Baron myself?" Hermione yelled from the bottom of the stairs. "You can't stop me from doing that!"
"No offense Hermione, but you're a muggle-born, and the Baron is pure Slytherin," Harry yelled back. "I doubt he'd have anything to say to you!"
"How long are you going to ignore this, Harry!?" As she was saying this, there was a knock on the front door.
Hermione cautiously made her way to the door and peeked through the eyehole, to see Remus standing on the front porch, looking more cheerful than she had seen him in years.
"Remus!!" she exclaimed as she invited him in. "What happened? We expected you back weeks ago!"
"I was incommunicado for a while," Remus said. "McGonagall sent me in to gather some information from the werewolves."
Hermione looked at him, puzzled. "But… Greyback must have seen you fighting with the Order at Hogwart's last year. How did you…?"
Remus chuckled. "Fortunately, I've managed to convince them, and Greyback, that they must have seen someone else there, as I was clearly in Ireland recruiting leprechaun spies that evening."
Hermione nodded. "What did she send you in to find out?"
They were interrupted by Harry, who came running down the stairs two at a time.
Remus hugged Harry, then continued. "Nothing in particular, it had just been a while since we'd heard anything from them. I didn't really find out anything interesting from them anyway; Fenrir seemed too pre-occupied with something to pay the rest of us any attention. He only spoke to me twice the whole time I was away."
Harry was only mildly interested in Remus' dealings with the werewolves; impatiently he asked, "Did you find the locket?"
Remus shook his head. "It's as you said Hermione, that house was picked clean. I even checked Kreacher's nest but that was completely empty as well. If the locket was in that house, it's not anymore."
Harry frowned, then punched the wall in frustration, and began walking towards the kitchen to get a drink. Remus started to follow him, but the look on Hermione's face made him stop. "Hermione?"
Hermione was grinning from ear to ear. "Picked clean… of course…" she muttered to herself.
Harry had stopped to regard Hermione's odd reaction as well. "What are you grinning about?"
Hermione tried to put on a serious expression, but she was simply too proud of herself to stop grinning. Mischievously, she said, "Remus, Harry, would you care to accompany me to the Hog's Head in Hogsmeade?"
Harry, too tired to pick up on Hermione's hint, said "Hermione, we've got drinks here. And clean glasses to boot."
Hermione put her hands on Harry's shoulders. "We're not going for drinks. Aberforth Dumbledore has the locket. It was given or sold to him, after it was stolen from Sirius' house by Mundungus Fletcher."
* * *
"For the last time, no! I don't have any blasted locket!"
Hermione and Remus were sitting at the bar of the Hog's Head, attempting to coax the truth out of Aberforth. Up until then the conversation had been kept low, but Aberforth had shouted this last bit loud enough to make most of the patrons look in their direction.
"We know for a fact that he has sold you stolen items in the past," said Remus. "Can you at least tell us if he tried to sell it to you?"
"Damn it Lupin, all he showed me from the Black place were some silver goblets, of which I had no interest in," said Aberforth. "Anything else he may have borrowed, he kept for himself, or sold to others."
Remus tried again. "So… could you maybe tell us who else he might have…"
"FLETCHER IS NOT MY PROBLEM!" roared Aberforth, and Hermione noticed that he seemed a little frightened. "I wash my hands of ANYONE careless enough to wind up in Azkaban!"
"But.." Hermione started, but it was no use.
"GO ASK HIM YOURSELF IF IT'S SO IMPORTANT! Now get OUT!"
* * *
"I still think he's hiding something," muttered Harry. Hermione and Remus and re-joined him in Sirius' old hide-out cave, more recently occupied by Hagrid.
Hermione shook her head. "I don't know… if he had the locket, and was so eager to 'wash his hands' of Fletcher, it seems to me he'd be glad to be rid of it, " she said, becoming more frustrated with each word. "One less thing to tie the two of them together."
Remus was sitting to the side of them with his face in his hands. He too had been frustrated by the meeting. After a minute of silence, he said, "It seems to me our next step is clear. I'm going to Azkaban to speak with Mundungus."
"I'm going with you," Harry said at once.
"Don't be absurd, Harry," said Remus, shocked. "With the Dementors gone, Azkaban is one of the most dangerous places in the world right now. Especially for you!"
"I don't care," said Harry. "If Mundungus has the locket, I'm going to get the information from him personally. He owes me."
Remus looked as if he wanted to try to continue reasoning with Harry, but the look of determination on Harry's face made him give up. "Fine. As soon as we can let the Order know where I'll be…"
Harry interrupted him. "No. We're going right now. Hermione can let everyone know for us."
Under normal circumstances Hermione would have protested at the idea of being left out of something as important as this, but she was secretly relieved that she was not being asked to go to Azkaban. She nodded at Harry at once.
Remus sighed. "I assume you have your cloak?"
"Always. Let's go."
They both popped out of existence, and Hermione soon apparated away as well, inventing a reason for Remus to be at Azkaban in her head along the way.
* * *
Less than a mile away, a dark figure walked out of the Shrieking Shack. The old house was the last place that Voldemort had asked him to check. While the objects he had been sent to check up on had been removed from the Gaunt house and the seaside cave (as he had known they would be), he had fully expected to find this object still in its rightful place.
Severus Snape looked up at the grey sky over Hogsmeade and sighed. The object he had expected to find in the Shrieking Shack was missing as well. His only hope was that the object in question had been removed by Harry Potter, and not some random looter.
Just as he had done in the Gaunt house and outside the cave, Snape pointed his wand at his head and whispered "Obliviaddo." He was now nervous. He had no idea what this object looked like, so this false memory was going to be the hardest to pull off.
With a feeling of dread unlike any he had felt in years, Snape apparated back to the Dark Lord's side to report that the rest of his "heirlooms" were all accounted for.
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