"Are you ready to go?" Sirius called from down stairs as his voice echoed all the way up to his room.

"Almost," he shouted back as waved his hands about, tossing clothing cauldrons, magical ingredients, spell books, and other assorted items into his suitcase. He was back at the Black family home, 12 Grimmauld Place to pick up any items or stuff he might have left behind.

Summer was finally over and the school year was right around the corner as the Hogwarts express was waiting for him in the station.

He felt kind of nervous and giddy to be going back to school, even with Dumbldork and Snivellus waiting for him back there he always did love Hogwarts. It was a second home to him, where he learned magic, made new friends, and had a fun time even with his life constantly at risk.

Plus he had been able to send three quarters of the year far away from the Dursley's, but now it was an added plus that he could look forward to his summer and holidays. Closing his magical suitcase as he had everything he needed, he took out his wand and cast a simple cleaning spell on the room which looked like a mad house.

Right before his eyes, all the pilled clothing, upturned books, and spilled objects went back to their places and the bed cleaned itself nicely. Nodding his head appreciatively at his work, he turned around and say Tonks at the door.

"I see that you are all packed up and ready to go!"

"Yep, another school year awaits," he answered with a smile.

Coming up on him in a few strides, she embraced him tightly as he smell her scent as her bubble gum pink caressed his cheeks. Breaking away from the hug, he grinned up at her, and mockingly said, "I did not know you cared so deeply for me Ms. Nymphadora! I feel so touched."

"Shut it you idiot," she replied as she gave him a soft punch on the shoulder, "take care, and don't get into trouble."

"Who me?" he asked in surprise, "I will have you know miss- my middle name is Mr. Careful."

"Very funny," she said, "I am being deathly serious. Don't get up to our usual hijinks like facing deadly situations."

"I will," he said as he lifted up her chin and in one motion began to kiss her.

Looking surprised at first, soon she was returning the kiss as she ran her fingers through his hair and pressed up against him real close. Finally, at long lost, he broke away from the intense tongue action, and he could see how disappointed she was.

"Don't worry," he said, "I will see you during the holidays and the whole summer."

"I know," she said with a say as she put her hands on her shoulders, "but it will get lonely without you here."

Putting his hands on her hips as he slowly spun her around, he put his forehead right up against her's. Well, this was his life now, juggling around different women and meeting their needs.

"I make no promises, but I can see about sneaking back here or to my manor whenever I am free," he whispered to her, "what do you say to that?"

"Sounds wonderful," she breathlessly answered as her lips began to close in on his, but before they could get anywhere else, there was a polite knock on the door.

Nearly jumping out of their skins, they broke away from each other and tried to make themselves as presentable as possible. Coming to the door, he swung it open and saw Kreacher politely standing there.

"Master, the faile-... the new head of the house awaits you downstairs."

"Thank you Kreacher, I will be right down," he said with a nod as he grabbed his suitcase and made for the door.

"Same here," Tonks added as she flushed a bit in embarrassment as her hair went from pink to a flaming red.

Walking past the house-elf, he caught the flash of a locket in his hands and immediately got a strange feeling from it.

"Where did you get the locket from?" he asked out of curiosity, he trusted the animalistic sense he gained from the creatures he assimilated with and gained their power. It was pretty handy and pointed at things he would otherwise forget about or throw to the back of his mind.

Clutching the object close to his chest, Harry was surprised who possessive he was house-elves were never attached to any material goods. "Master gave this to Kreacher," he answered in his hoarse voice.

"Master?" he asked in confusion, if anything he imagined that anything that the old house-elf would want to keep would be from the old head of the Black family, Walburga Black.

"Kreacher has failed Master," he blathered on, "Oh, Master," he then began to weep. "Kreacher has been a bad elf. Kreacher must be punished."

Looking at each other in confusion, Harry and Tonks couldn't make heads or tails what he was going on about. "Alright," Harry cut in stopping the house-elf before he could begin to bang his head against the wall. He gave the locket a closer look with his Magic Sight and immediately noticed something vile wrapping around the necklace.

It kind of was very familiar to him, and was right at the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't recall it. Maybe he will need to advance his Occlumency to the next level, he did read that at very advanced levels you would be able to recall anything from feeling to scent or even touch when you reach the very absolute peak.

"Let's go downstairs to Sirius, huh? Maybe he can make heads or tails what you are talking about."

Leading the house-elf to the living room where Sirius and Remus were waiting for them, Sirius being impatient as he walked back and forth along the length while Remus on the other hand just sat back- relaxing as he sipped his tea.

"There you are," the older wizard said once he spotted him come down the stairs and into the Living room. "Are you ready?" he asked, seemingly to be taking his job seriously for once. "The train will be at the station any moment now."

"Yeah, I am all packed up and ready to go," he voiced as he pointed to his magical suitcase.

"But before that," Tonks cut in as she pointed to the ancient house-elf behind them. "We need to deal with this."

"What did he do this time?" Sirius inquired with a sigh, assuming the worst already.

'Can you not lay into the house-elf so thick?" Remus asked with out looking up from his newspaper laid before him. The werewolf seem to be going into an early retirement thanks to the large fortune that his parents left to him as he seem to be laid back, not as rugged as he used to be, and just taking life easy in general.

"I wouldn't be so hard on him, if I didn't think he was scheming behind my back like always," he growled in a mumble. "Alright," he said, "tell me, what wrong."

Before Harry could go into his suspicions about the locket, the house-elf broke into tears as it began to grab Sirius's pants. The wizard looked just as surprised if not even more as tears fell down the house-elf cheek and snot oozed out of his snout-like nose.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Kreacher has failed Master. Kreacher has been a bad elf," it repeated itself.

"Are you talking about Regulus?" Sirius asked in confusion as he let it pour all of its sorrow on to his poor pants.

"Yes, Kreacher has failed brave Master Regulus. Kreacher -sniff- needs to be punished."

Face going through a variety of expressions, it finally settled on cool expressionless, "What do you mean you failed Regulus? Be clear with me or I can't help you and him."

"Kreacher -sniff- was going one task by Master," it answered in between sobs.

"What exactly did my brother tell you to do?" the older wizard asked as his eyes narrowed into slits.

"Kreacher was told to -sniff- destroy this, my kind Master Regulus," it finally got out as it presented the locket.

Finally deciding it was time to step in, he added, "I got some really bad feels from this. Like it's a... I don't know something I ran into maybe....."

"It's a Horcrux," Sirius cut in as he peered closely at it.

"Yea, I get the same feeling from it," Remus agreed as he was up from his chair long ago and now studding it along side Sirius.

"What, but how?" Tonks stuttered in shock.

"That a real good question," the Black wizard agreed, then bending down to his knees he softly spoke to the house-elf for the first time in his life that Harry saw. "Do you want to tell me Kreacher how my brother was able to get his hands on Voldermot's Horcrux, if I am correct?"

"The Dark Lord asked for Kreacher services and great Master Regulus accepted not what was going on. Then the Dark Lord brought Kreacher to a very dark cave where... undead and other horrors were. The Dark Lord had poor Kreacher test all the defenses for him as Kreacher was forced to go through so much torture.

After everything was done, Kreacher was left to die by the Dark Lord but Kreacher was able to escape and kind Master Regulus tended him back to health."

"Let me guess," Tonks said as he looked over at the Horcrux, "those defenses were for the necklace."

"Yes, wise Master Regulus was able to work out what was being guarded."

"Then what happened next," Remus asked as he was engrossed in the tale like everyone else.

"Brave Master Regulus couldn't stand for that," the house-elf exclaimed. "He created a duplicate of the locket and placed a note inside for anyone wanting to destroy the Horcrux to find, and then ordered Kreacher to take him to where the real locket was hidden. Kreacher guided great Master Regulus past the cave's defenses.

At the island with the basin of potion containing the locket, Master Regulus ordered Kreacher to take the locket once the potion was gone and replace it with the fake one, then escape without him and find a way to destroy the Horcrux.

Master Regulus drank the potion himself, and when he tried to get water from the lake to quench his thirst, he was dragged to his death by the Inferi. Kreacher obeyed Master's final order and switched the lockets before escaping. However, despite Kreacher best efforts, Kreacher was unable to destroy the Horcrux."

"Give it to me," Sirius said as he held his hand out for the cursed magic item. Looking up at him with tear filled eyes, the house-elf croaked out, "Will Master Black destroy it."

"Yes," he said with a nod of his head.

Handing it over begrudgingly, the tiny creature rasped out, "is Master Black sure he can do it? Bad Kreacher has tried everything he could for over a decade to destroy it, but it- sniff- impossible."

"The key isn't to destroy the shell," he said as he gave Harry a glance. "What you need to do is destroy the would fragment, and my brother did seem to be researching it before he went off to collect it. That's why I was able to find a solution so fast, I just followed his tracks."

Taking the necklace by its chain, he peered at the object and mused out loud, "this stuff also seems to be quite sturdy. I think it's made of Adamantium."

"What's that?" Harry asked, as this was a first for him to hear about his mysterious stuff.

"One of the toughest known metal to man," Remus answered for him.

"Alright, you guys stick here, I can do a quick ritual to remove the soul!"

"You need help?" Remus asked, "that thing is pretty draining."

"No," he said, "I won't underestimate it this time. I will be using some of the house extra power stored up."

"Alright."

Waiting along for a while as they milled about in the living room for a response, Sirius came back breathlessly with the locket in hand.

"Is it done?' Harry asked as he got up from the chair he was lazing in.

"Yep," he said triumphantly as he held it up.

"Really?" the house-elf rasped out looking as still as a statue as it couldn't decide what to feel at all.

"What you think I would lie about something this important?" the man asked with a glare.

Giving it a closer look with his Magic Sight, he saw that the necklace was rid of all evil taints but he saw something put in it. "What did you do to it?" the young wizard asked out of curiosity.

"I see that you caught that," he said as he gave him a thumbs up. "Well," he began with, "since we really do not know how much more of these evil stuff is out there, I made this."

"Can you cut the dramatics?' Remus asked with an eye roll, "and get to the part where you tell us what exactly you did?"

"Yeesh," he said, "do you guys not like any suspense? Where is your sense of adventure, mystery or...."

"NO, we don't," all three of them shouted at the same time.

"Alright, alright," the Black wizard said as he made calming gestures, "I basically put up a detection spell in it, so that it would go off whenever it's near another Horcrux."

"That would be handy," Remus commented as he rubbed his chin in contemplation, "so what's the range."

"Now that's where the bad news comes in," the older wizard uttered, "the range is only 10 meters."

"Yea, that's real awful," Tonks remarked.

"Hey," Sirius exclaimed taking offense at the comment, "I did the best I could, I can promise you nobody could have done a better job than I did. Anyway did any of you even think up this genius plan, huh, huh?" he demanded as he nearly went all up in everyone's face

"That's what I thought!" he said as nobody made any side comments, "I rest my case."

"Nobody is denying your awesome spellwork," Harry tried to ease in, "but we can not search in a wide range for the other Horcrux that must be out there. We will still be counting on luck and a whole lot of research to find the others."

"Yes, do we even know how many other of these things are out there?" Remus asked.

"Plus if we do not destroy them all, then Voldemort would just come back like he is doing right now," Tonks added not so helpfully.

"Yea, that's going to be a big problem."

"Well let's just take it one problem at a time," Sirius declared. "all this worrying won't get us anywhere except for giving us grey hair."

"I hate to argue with him," Remus said with a sigh, "but Sirius is right." Making fist pumps in the air as if he got the life time acknowledgment he was looking for, Remus continued with a shake of his head. "We will just need to carry on with our lives and hope for the best."

"So who is going to keep it?" Harry asked the question that sat waiting.

"It would be you," Sirius said as he tossed him the item.

"What? Why?"

"Well to be fair, you are the one who seems to attract these things," the older wizard answered with a grin to which everyone had the gull to nod in agreement. "If I know anything about your luck, then you just might run into a few this school year."

Having no words at all to express himself, he didn't need to or had time to as just then out of the fireplace a giant head appeared looking as fuming as the flames, "What are you still doing here!" it shouted.

"Mom," Tonks said in surprise, "What are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here? I should be asking you that."

"Oh shit," Sirius cursed as he looked at his watch, "the Hogwarts express."

"Are you a helpless lot," Ms. Tonks asked in an exasperated voice, "can you not do anything for yourselves? Of course not you dear," she added towards him with a kind smile.

"Oh help me magic," she said, "Sirius I will have your neck like a chicken. You said you would get Harry to the station on time!"

"Yes, about that," he tried to comfort, but the woman was having none of that.

"I do not want to hear your excuses, the train leaves the station in only 10 minutes! It seems like I must do everything myself," she said with a sigh, "hold on, I will be there in a moment."

"Oh shit," Sirius cursed again, "let's go right now pup," he said as he waved him over. But it was too late to save his skin as Ms. Tonks walked out of the flames. If she had any tool in her hand at the moment, he would have been sure that she would have been beating Sirius with it.

Still he got the earful he was trying to avoid, he did a time or two try to talk out of it, but gave up in the end after a single look from the woman.

"Let's go dear," she finally said as she went out of breath the dozenth time. Following after the woman since it was obviously the wise thing to do, he grabbed her hand and they stepped into the flames, from behind him he could hear a, "Traitor."

But that was no skin off his back since he was basically Ms. Tonks apple in her eyes.

"Last call, Hogwarts," a conductor called as they walked into platform 9 and 3/4. All around him he could see parents waving to their children's on the train and stragglers just like him running on to the train.

Coming out of the fireplace Sirius in his Yankee form, Remus brushing his coat, and then Tonks. They all came up to him, "Alright, you take care dear," the older witch said.

"Make sure you learn a lot," Remus added, "that is what school is for."

"Don't listen to him," Sirius said with a grin, "make lots of mischief and make the Marauder proud."

"Will do," he said as he returned the smile.

"I will miss," Tonks said as she gave him a hug, "but I will await your visit," she whispered into his ear beyond everyone's hearing.

"Hogwarts express is leaving station," the conductor called out one final time.

"That my signal," he said as he picked up his suitcase.

"See you during the holidays," Ms. Tonks shouted as he ran to the train just as it began to slowly roll out of the station. Jumping on, he gave them a wave.

Looking forward, a brand new school year awaited him.