A Crack! made Regulus start from his desk. The writhing tangle of limbs appearing in the middle of his floor made him shoot to his feet. Kreacher had returned, but the elf struggled feebly in the grip of a pale human figure. “Expelliarmus!” Regulus shouted, and the Inferius’ hands shot from Kreacher’s throat.
And now that vacant slug-pale face turned toward Regulus. He was far too angry to be afraid of it. That monster had laid hands on his elf. He found a plan full-formed in his head. Flames leaping from his wand, he backed the thing into a corner, then burned it to dust. The scorch marks on the floor could be hidden with his wardrobe later.
The elf huddled trembling and dripping on the rug. “Master… Kreacher is sorry…”
Regulus knelt beside him. “It’s all right, Kreacher. I’m sure you didn’t mean to bring home a soggy Inferius and land it in my bedroom.”
“Kreacher is sorry,” the elf said one more time. Regulus threw a blanket around his elf, letting Kreacher burrow into it to hide his face. The Dark Lord had wanted an elf, and Regulus had trusted that another wizard would know what a rare and dear thing an elf could be. He had forgotten the example of Lucius Malfoy. Not everyone was a kind master to a house elf.
And he’d ordered Kreacher to obey. Whatever the order had been, Kreacher could have ignored it and vanished if he’d had the choice. “What happened, Kreacher?” No answer came but muffled sobs. “Tell me what you need,” Regulus commanded, but the command was a gentle one.
“Water,” the elf said reluctantly. Regulus could manage that. There was a glass by his bed, always, and he filled it with his wand before shoving it at his elf. It seemed impossible that this soaked being could want a drink. Kreacher had to have nearly drowned.
When Regulus had been almost big enough to bathe himself, not quite, it wasn’t Sirius who kept an eye on him in the big cold-sided claw-footed tub. No, Sirius wasn’t that reliable a brother. He tended to wander off on some distraction. It was Kreacher who had stayed close by and kept the towels by the heater. Kreacher had made sure nothing bad happened to ‘Master Regulus.’
The old elf pushed away the blanket, suddenly panting. “Come on, Kreacher. You should lie down,” Regulus told him. “It’s all right; you may sleep on my bed tonight.”
Kreacher seemed to be in no state to argue. He permitted Regulus to steer him to the bed, curling up at the foot. Regulus decided asking more questions would be mere cruelty. He returned to his desk, watching Kreacher around his book and reading the same sentence over and over.
House elves had their own ways to deal with boggarts. After watching Kreacher dispatching the one in his closet, Regulus didn’t call his mother when he was frightened in the night. He called Kreacher, and the elf would come to him no matter how softly he whispered or how late it was. The weight at the foot of the bed had been reassuring to a small boy in a big dark house.
An hour or an eternity later, Kreacher shivered on the bed and sniffled once. He seemed to be asleep. Regulus crept over and pulled the coverlet down to fold it over his elf. The extra layer didn’t seem to help. Perhaps those shivers were of fear from some awful dream, not from cold. Perhaps the weight of another being on the bed would be as reassuring for Kreacher as it had once been for his master. Regulus kicked off his shoes and stretched out atop his blankets, still dressed. He was too worried to sleep. He wanted to know what the Dark Lord had done to his elf, his friend, and what possible excuse there could be for it. Kreacher was tough. He wouldn’t have wept and apologized, or trembled like this, for no good reason.
What would the Dark Lord need an elf for? It hadn’t occurred to Regulus to wonder. Obeying the Dark Lord without question “ much as Kreacher obeyed the family “ had seemed the safest course. Looking at the elf now, though, made Regulus question that safety. Kreacher was part of the family in his own way, and Regulus had not kept him safe with the Dark Mark he suddenly could feel weighing down his wrist. It had never had weight before. It had burned, but never dragged.
His anger at the Dark Lord, his own master, boiled over his own guilt. Kreacher’s misery was his fault. He had volunteered his elf, in a flash of youthful pride, to do something he suspected was dangerous. He had been so confident that his own companion was superior to anyone else’s. He’d shown off.
He had almost lost something precious to him “ he might still. Kreacher still seemed too pale, and still thrashed in his sleep. Something like a denial broke from the thin bullfrog lips. Regulus hesitated, then worked his way around on the bed to rest his hand on the dome of the elf’s skull. Kreacher settled at the touch, apparently able to sense a friendly hand without waking. The warmth of the thin skin felt cozy despite the hard bone beneath.
Did the Dark Lord have anything precious to him, anything that could be threatened or taken away? Regulus would think about this and study his own master. Unlike Kreacher, Regulus could choose to disobey. There would be a punishment, but he would not have to inflict it on himself.
”Take care of Regulus.” His parents went out so often, and the house echoed when Sirius was away at school. Kreacher would settle his young master in the kitchen and feed him well, and would play draughts or wizard chess for hours. Sometimes he would hear Regulus read his lessons. It was a cozy time for them both, or so Regulus liked to think. It had been cozy for him. His mother had never thought to order Kreacher not to feed a little boy too many desserts, and had never thought to tell Regulus not to indulge the elf with the plentiful scraps. He was pretty sure Kreacher had enjoyed those evenings too.
Without more information, he could not plan. Regulus lay awake, watching Kreacher’s thin body stir with his breath and wondering what happened if that faint movement stopped. What would he tell his mother? What happened to a house elf’s spirit when one died? Would Kreacher’s idea of a heaven be to serve all the generations of Blacks, all at once, for eternity?
Suddenly Regulus knew what was most precious to the Dark Lord. So many times, his master had bragged of the steps taken toward immortality, and asked who had dared to follow. If there were some way to take away that prideful invulnerability, Regulus would willingly do so. He owed Kreacher.
The old elf stirred and woke as the sun lightened the window. “Kreacher must make breakfast,” he said weakly.
“I’ll tell Mum you have “ distemper or something. She doesn’t know any more about it than I do. She’ll let you sleep.”
The towering ears quivered and drooped. Regulus had always thought Kreacher’s elegantly large ears his best feature. “Kreacher doesn’t want to sleep anymore. Kreacher wishes to make breakfast for Mistress Black and Master Regulus.”
Elves would always thrive best on work. Still, Regulus needed something else more than breakfast. “Can you tell me what happened?” He wouldn’t order it, not if it would hurt Kreacher more to tell, but he hoped. He could ask. “He tried to kill you, didn’t he?”
It wasn’t fair. If the Dark Lord needed someone to kill, it should be someone of his own. He should have to weigh his own losses, instead of demanding someone else take the risk without knowing. Kreacher didn’t belong to him, wasn’t his. As Regulus listened to Kreacher’s reluctant tale of a lake, a boat, a basin, and a locket, something too vague to be called a plan began to shape in his mind. The locket was clearly precious to the Dark Lord as few things were, and if Regulus just found the right way to think about it, he might know why. He needed the right books. He needed the right clues. For now, all he knew was that the locket had to be stolen.
Courage burned in him, the kin to anger but stronger. When something was wrong, as truly wrong as Kreacher’s tale, then the person who knew had to put it right. Kreacher couldn’t pay back the wrong done to him. The grief of almost-loss had fired Regulus to imagine actions he would not have dreamt of the night before. Kreacher was his; revenge, then, should also be his.
So Kreacher Came Home by Vindictus Viridian
Chapter Notes: Bunnied by a comment from my spouse, who pointed to my dog and suggested Regulus and I might have something in common.