History did not adore us.

We weren't lucky,
Romeo and Juliet had tragedy
sown in their souls.
and I guess then so did we.

The sky, which had seemed so crystal clear and sunny at Hogwarts, was silky grey and overcast in London. The fog hung over No.12 Grimmauld Place like thick white candyfloss, shrouding its façade in a milky twilight.

Serena looked at the house-elf heads on the first floor, lost in thought and also a little disinclined, while she balanced her fingertips over the banister and waited for her father to fetch some of the rest of his things. She herself had already packed the few things she had forgotten when she left in winter. It looked as though she would not be returning to her ancestral home, which would now only serve the purposes of the Order, for quite some time.

The journey home on the Hogwarts Express had been almost like every year. Hailey had been reading her magazine, Nate had been solving a quiz in the Quibbler, Neville had been stroking his weird plant whose name Serena had already forgotten, and Ron and Harry had been passing their time playing wizard's chess while talking about Harry's more or less existing relationship with Cho.

It hadn't been particularly hard for either of them to say goodbye, as they would be seeing each other again later that evening at a party at Crystal Cottage to celebrate the end of the school year.

Gradually, Serena began to get bored and walked randomly along the gallery before a strange noise made her sit up and take notice. "Shh."

It took a while before Serena could make out the source of the noise. Kreacher crouched in a dark alcove and beckoned her towards him with his long, skinny fingers. A little hesitantly, she approached the old house-elf, whose eyes seemed to widen with anticipation. "Hello Kreacher," she said pleasantly, while he merely scrutinised her and didn't even try to fake a smile.

The unfriendly creature stepped out of the darkness and seemed to be hiding something behind his back before he pulled her down towards him a little roughly by the arm. "Miss Serena must promise never to tell anyone."

The bony fingers dug roughly into Serena's forearm, but she nodded, despite not even knowing what the house-elf was talking about, "Master Regulus has spoken to Kreacher." He closed his eyes as if he couldn't bear what he was going to say next, "Kreacher did wrong, Kreacher couldn't follow his orders! But Kreacher had a new order... An order he will carry out this time."

Before Serena could say anything back or even make sense of it, the house-elf had brought his hand out from behind his back and dangled a medallion of some sort right in front of her nose. It appeared to be made of pure gold with a snake modelled from green stones coiled on its surface, "What is it?"

"Miss Serena must swear to destroy it," he whispered and she thought she saw tears glistening in his eyes as he tried to slip it into her hand, "For Master Regulus."

She tried to give it back to him, but Kreacher seemed to resist with all his might, "Kreacher tried everything, everything he knew, but nothing worked. Kreacher wasn't following orders, Kreacher couldn't destroy the locket! Miss Serena must destroy it, this is important. Miss Serena must do it..."

"Kreacher, I'm afraid I don't know how to destroy the locket either," Serena tried to explain carefully. "Why do you want to destroy it anyway?"

"Kreacher mustn't say it, Kreacher has..."

"Serena!" it roared from below at the sudden moment and made her move upwards from her bent position. The house-elf's eyes were filled with the usual expression of hatred before he walked away from her, muttering as if nothing had ever happened. "Blood traitors and other scum in this house! Oh, what would my mistress say..."

The locket was still dangling in Serena's hand as she looked after him, completely perplexed. She hadn't the faintest idea what to do with it or what to make of the house-elf's strange behaviour. With a sigh, she finally put the piece of jewellery in her jacket pocket and descended the dark steps.

"Good, there you are. I really don't need to spend any more time here than necessary," she was greeted by her father as she walked downstairs and briefly considered telling him about her encounter with Kreacher. She decided against it, however, as he would probably take the locket away from her immediately and Serena really wanted to find out what it was all about. Finally, she shouldered her rucksack and reached for his arm, which he had already stretched out impatiently.

Out of reflex, she held her jacket pocket tightly in her hand during the numerous turns for fear of losing its contents. When Serena opened her eyes again, she found herself in the middle of the light-filled parlour of Crystal Cottage and could hear an unnerving sound echoing throughout the house.

Remus, who had made himself comfortable on the sofa, looked up from his book, looking a little stressed, "Serena, that tune has been coming from your room for twenty minutes."

"What's that?" his friend asked, confused, and it took Serena a while to categorise the sound before the scales fell from her eyes. "Oh, damn it!" she exclaimed as she sprinted up the stairs.

Her heart pounding, she finally reached her room and immediately discovered her mobile phone lying in the open case. In fact, she had only ever used one in emergencies with her mum and now that she had another, the ringtone was incredibly unfamiliar.

She hastily opened it and the unpleasant thought that something bad might have happened began to creep into her head like an unwanted guest. "Hello?"

"Hi!" it shouted back and she almost dropped the phone in shock, "You don't have to shout like that... just talk normally."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Edmund replied on the other end, while Serena reflected on the fact that she had last seen him at the railway station just a few hours earlier. "Has something happened?"

"No, my father's been surprisingly quiet since the thing at the Ministry," he said and was silent for a few seconds. "I guess I was just curious how your gift worked and since we haven't had much contact in the last few weeks anyway..."

"It's okay," Serena replied, preferring to keep to herself the fact that he had kept Remus from a quiet afternoon on the couch with his attempts to call. Lost in thought, she pulled the necklace out of her jacket pocket and began to take a closer look at it, "We're having a little party tonight. If you want, you can come too," she offered and didn't quite know whether she would regret her decision.

"Honestly, I don't think that would be such a good idea," he admitted as the Gryffindor ran her fingers over what appeared to be a very old heirloom. She clasped the mobile phone between her head and shoulder and began to fiddle with the clasp with both hands. Just as she thought she had opened the pendant a tiny crack, she was blinded by a light so bright that it hurt her eyes.

The shock made her cry out and the lingering pain made her stifle another scream. Glowing hot sparks, as sharp as a knife, had burnt the skin on her right hand in some places. Serena pressed her fist against her mouth and bit into it so that she didn't start whimpering loudly and instead fished with trembling fingers of her other hand for her phone, which had fallen to the floor. "What happened?" Edmund asked, audibly amused, as if he assumed she had just seen a spider.

"Nothing, I just bumped into something," Serena lied in a shaky voice and hurriedly began to rummage through her suitcase for the diptam essence he had once given her, her hand burning like fire. When she finally found the small bottle between her school uniforms, she had to pull herself together not to squeal out loud again when the liquid, as cold as ice, hit the glowing wound.

Some information would have been helpful, she thought, cursing the house-elf in her head as she peppered the locket into the bedside drawer. The burning had stopped by now thanks to the miracle cure and the pain was slowly being relieved. With a relieved groan, Serena dropped back onto her bed and could almost hear the grin on Edmund's face. "So you want the conversation to go in that direction, Black."

Serena rolled her eyes as another sigh escaped her lips at the pleasant sensation the essence had left on her skin. "What did I tell you about pushing the red button, Hall?"

There was silence on the other side for a while before she noticed a change in the mood of her conversation partner, who suddenly seemed to be in quite a hurry. "Someone's coming."

Before she could say anything in reply, Edmund had already pressed the red button, just as she had shown him, and hurriedly tucked the muggle object under his pillow. There was another knock on his door and before he could ask the person in front of it to come in, the handle was pushed down. "Why are you knocking if you're coming in anyway?"

"You're lucky I even knocked," Damien replied, unimpressed, and leaned against the door frame with his arms folded. "Father has just spoken to Severus Snape, by the way, and he's furious."

Edmund remained silent, knowing what his brother was going to tell him before he even did, "You didn't pass any of your N.E.W.T. subjects."

"It's just been an eventful year," he tried to justify himself and, to his surprise, Damien looked at him sympathetically. "I know and I told him that."

"What?"

"First what happened with mum a year ago and then I demanded far too much of you with my requests," he replied quietly and Edmund could only stare at him thunderstruck. "Is that why Dad's been avoiding me since the Ministry thing? Because of you?"

He smiled slightly, "Someone has to look after my little brother now that mum's gone."

"Thank you," Edmund said quietly and actually meant it at that moment, because he had been wondering and a little scared that he hadn't received any punishment for his behaviour – or at least a telling off.

"After all, you've been helping me for the past few years and you haven't really received anything in return," Damien explained and began to glide his gaze around the room, which was so similar to his own. "I know it's not the same as, say, the Firebolt in your... Which one was it? Was it your fourth or fifth year? But I thought I should give you something in return for your efforts."

"As I said, thank you," Edmund repeated a little dryly by now and, despite his brother's supposed kindness, wanted him to leave again. In fact, he wished by now that he hadn't gone for his requirements back then. Not even for the firebolt, or that he would have at least left it after receiving it. It had been a deal with the devil, he knew that now. If for his own benefit, at least to some extent.

"I should have listened to you and mum sooner, though," Damien continued his speech of sorts, which Edmund did not yet know where it was going, "So you will be pleased to know that I will be taking care of it myself from now on. After all, it was my job from the start."

Completely shocked, his younger brother was now staring at him and had stood bolt upright, hoping he had misheard. "Wait, what?"

"You can concentrate on school, your friends and whatever else you want to do." His smile was probably meant to be friendly, but Edmund was now terrified. "Damien..."

Damien stared at him in confusion and didn't seem to know what to make of his unhappy face, which almost looked angry. "You should be happy! After all, you were never really keen to help me."

"You said only when..."

"And I should have taken care of this much sooner," Damien interrupted him. "We went about it all wrong, as it turns out. Mum might have thought it was a good idea, but it wasn't."

"What are you going to do?" Edmund asked him, trying to sound indifferent, which seemed to work in his ears.

"You'll find out soon enough."

"Damien!" he called after him, but his older brother had long since disappeared out of the door and let it fall into the lock behind him.

"Damn it!" the Slytherin cursed and kicked his bedstead once out of frustration. Actually, he should have seen the moment coming and it would only have been a matter of time anyway. He had thought he was doing the right thing, which had ultimately turned out to be the wrong thing.

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This was the last 'real' chapter of this book! I hope you enjoyed it and that I was able to build up the suspense for the next part 😉
There still will be an epilogue and more detailed information in this book, so stay tuned!