Of Butterflies in a Hurricane

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A resounding crack filled the room as Kreacher appeared in front of Harry. He looked as filthy and decrepit as always. His bat-like ears quivered as he looked up at Harry from his hunched over position at Harry's feet.

"Master," he greeted him then muttered under his breath, "the filthy half-blood dares summon me into the house of my forefathers, the noble and most ancient house of--"

"Kreacher!" Harry said, interrupting the elf's insane ramblings. "You took something from the drawing room two years ago, a locket!"

"Kreacher would not steal from his own home," the elf told Harry in a voice that pretended he was innocent. Then he added in an undertone, "Master is not worthy to walk in the Black house."

Harry just ignored the dark muttering and went on. "Where is it?!"

"Kreacher does not know— Kreacher would not tell the half-blood if it threatened death, no, he would not."

"Kreacher!" Harry said sternly, having had enough. "Tell me where the locket is right now! That is an order!"

The house-elf seemed to be struggling with himself. He couldn't disobey a direct order from his rightful master, no matter how much he despised him.

"Kreacher took it for safe-keeping," Kreacher told Harry evasively then muttered, "Kreacher saves things from nasty little blood traitors, yes, he does. Oh my poor Mistress, what would she say if she knew Kreacher let filth into her--"

"Kreacher!" Harry interrupted again. "Where is it?!"

"Kreacher will show you," Kreacher told Harry quite civilly but then added, "the despicable thing wants to know where Kreacher hides his treasures he saves from the purging of the blood traitor. Kreacher will show him. Nasty, filthy, little beasts they are."

Harry sneered as he followed the old house-elf out of his bedroom and down the stairs. He was getting incredibly anxious to find the locket and see if it was what he thought it was. He followed the shuffling elf down the stairs and past the Entrance Hall.

Ron and Hermione were sitting at the kitchen table as Kreacher shuffled past, Harry following closely behind. They both looked flabbergasted as Harry and Kreacher passed.

"Harry, what is that doing here?" Ron asked, pointing openly at the still-muttering elf.

Kreacher stopped and turned to Ron, his large eyes narrowing angrily. "The other nasty blood traitor is here also, besmirching my Mistress' house. Oh, what would my poor Mistress say if she knew what Kreacher--"

"I think I may have found something!" Harry said over Kreacher's dark undertones.

"And don't call him 'that', Ron!" Hermione said indignantly. Ron just rolled his eyes at her behind her back.

"And there is the Mudblood, once more dirtying the once noble and most ancient house of--"

"Oh, shut up," Harry snapped. "Now, where is it?"

"Kreacher is showing Master," the elf said politely then, "Master pokes and pries into things that are not his. Master does not deserve the--"

"Go!" Harry shouted, unable to control his impatience or temper any longer. "Show me where it is!"

"Yes, Master," Kreacher muttered grudgingly and, for once, did not add anything else. He led the way through the kitchen, Ron and Hermione now trailing behind, very confused.

They came to where Kreacher's old bedroom had been; the tiny corner underneath the boiler. Inside, it smelled just as bad as it had two years ago, despite not having been slept in since then.

Harry's eyes roved over the contents of the room. There were the broken pictures of Bellatrix Lestrange which Harry vowed to destroy as soon as possible. There was the quilt Hermione had knitted him, untouched and still wrapped.

In a far corner, Kreacher climbed. He rummaged for a minute or two and came back out with the glittering locket Harry had now seen twice in the Pensieve. He held it out and Harry snatched it up immediately.

A look of understanding passed over Ron’s and Hermione's faces as they stared at the locket. Harry turned it over slowly to see the ornate S emblazoned on the back of the locket.

He nearly forgot to breathe for a second as he looked at it. He was holding a Horcrux in his hand. He stared at it with wide eyes for a moment, not sure what he should even do with it.

A snuffling noise brought him out of his shock. Kreacher was riffling through his blankets, looking for forgotten pieces of food.

"Kreacher, how do you open this?" Harry asked pressingly, hoping that maybe the elf might just know.

"Kreacher does not know," Kreacher told Harry. He then added in another dark undertone, "The little Master thinks Kreacher knows all dark things but Kreacher does not. Nasty half-blood demands answers to questions Kreacher does not know..."

Harry groaned in frustration and rolled his eyes. Ron was watching Kreacher with an expression of mingled disgust and amusement. Hermione looked at him almost pityingly. Harry didn't care.

"Kreacher, go back to Hogwarts and stay there!" he ordered.

Kreacher bowed low, all the while muttering to himself. "Filthy half-blood besmirches the noble and most ancient house of Black. He is not fit to wipe the slime from my Mistress' shoes. Oh my poor Mistress, what would she say if she saw what Kreacher had let into her house! Poor Kreacher is forced to serve the half-blood and his traitorous friends--"

"GO!" Harry exploded, his voice filling the entire kitchen. Kreacher did not wait another moment. He was gone in a loud crack, leaving Harry, Ron, and Hermione in peace and quiet, staring at the glimmering gold locket in Harry's hand.

"I hate that elf," Harry muttered murderously to himself. Hermione frowned but Ron nodded in agreement.

"Harry," Hermione said in a cautious whisper. "Is that... Is that what I think it is?"

Harry nodded slowly, his attention now back on the cold locket clutched in his hand. Together, they all went into the kitchen and sat down at the table. Harry set down the locket in the middle between them and they all stared at it for a moment.

Ron was the first one to speak after several minutes of silence. "Well... what do we do with it?" he asked tentatively.

"We destroy it," Harry answered swiftly. He still couldn't believe that it had been under his nose the entire time and he'd never realized.

"But how?!" Ron exclaimed. "Have you ever read somewhere where it tells you how to destroy one of these things? They don't even tell you what they are!"

"How did Dumbledore destroy them?" Hermione asked carefully, as if she was afraid of upsetting Harry.

"He never said," Harry replied quietly. The mention of Dumbledore made his stomach churn.

"Well, there's got to be a way," Hermione said matter-of-factly. "You destroyed that one in the diary, right? So it is possible."

"Yeah..." Harry said slowly, thinking back. He had used snake poison to pierce the diary, thereby killing Voldemort's soul.

"Try opening it," Hermione suggested.

Harry grabbed the locket from the center of the table and tugged fruitlessly at the golden clasp. He shrugged and set it down. "It won't budge."

"I didn't suppose it would," Hermione said, frowning slightly as she looked at the locket.

"Couldn't we try smashing it or something?" Ron asked suddenly. Harry and Hermione looked at each other.

"It's worth a shot," Harry said.

Ron took out his wand and cleared his throat. Both Harry and Hermione scooted back their chairs, wary of Ron's wand. He waved it above his head then brought it slashing through the air. There was a resounding sound of a gong that shook Harry in his seat.

Both Ron and Hermione put their hands over their ears and waited for it to stop ringing. When it finally did, they took down their hands, shaking their heads like trying to get water out of their ears.

"You're really getting good at those silent spells," Harry commented, and Ron looked pleased.

"Hermione's been helping me," he said proudly.

"Well, that was good, but it didn't work," Hermione said, pointing at the locket that remained stubbornly closed and without a single dent.

"How are we supposed to get it open?" Harry asked woefully. If they couldn't even open it, they had no chance of destroying it.

"Do you think that maybe opening it would kill the Horcrux, by setting it loose?" Hermione asked thoughtfully.

Harry was silent for a moment, thinking it over. It did make sense that if the object in which the Horcrux was being stored was compromised, the soul would be too. That still didn't solve the problem of how to open it, though.

"That's probably true, Hermione, but how do we get it open?" He looked hopelessly at the locket glittering innocently on the table.

"Well, actually, Harry, I've been thinking," she said slowly.

"Well, that's a good thing!" Ron interjected hopefully, and Hermione just rolled her eyes.

"It seems that the only way to destroy a Horcrux is to kill it like it was a person, right? You poisoned the diary; that would kill someone. Maybe we need to find a way someone could be killed that could be applied to the locket."

Harry just stared at her. "Wow, Hermione. I am so glad you came along," he told her.

She blushed slightly but, otherwise, disregarded the complement. "So what are ways you could kill someone?"

They spent the next half hour trying to come up with as many ways someone could die as possible. Most of their suggestions were completely useless and slightly ludicrous.

By the end, their suggestions were becoming less rational and more inventive.

"We could drop it from an airplane!"

"A what?"

"No, that wouldn't work. It can't be smashed, we already know that."

"But it's not technically smashing!"

"It is, Harry."

"What's an airmane?"

" Airplane."

"Same difference."

"Stop it, you two!" Hermione interjected. "This is getting us nowhere. We have to be really smart about this."

Ron and Harry exchanged a glance and looked at her. "Well then, that's your area," Harry told her. "We'll leave you to it."

They decided they needed a break and rose from the table, leaving Hermione to think in silence. Harry and Ron walked out into the foyer and leaned against the wall tiredly.

"I can't believe we found one," Ron said, sounding amazed. "How did you, Harry?"

"The Pensieve," Harry replied. "I saw it."

"You did?" Ron did not ask much more. He knew how reserved Harry was with the Pensieve and he didn't want to seem overly eager to know about it. He'd only ever seen it once when Harry had received it.

"Yeah, I saw Kreacher take it two years ago. You know, that summer we were all stuck here," Harry said quietly. It felt odd actually telling Ron what he had seen in the Pensieve. Normally, he kept it all to himself, but, for some reason, he just had the need to tell Ron how he'd found out.

"Wow," Ron breathed quietly. He didn't quite understand how the Pensieve worked, but Hermione had sort of explained it to him... in layman’s terms.

Harry didn't say anything. His mind was on the Pensieve once more. That memory was his and that must mean it was one of the one's Rose had seen. He wondered what other memories of his were in the Pensieve. He wondered if Rose had seen all that. Maybe she had just sensed it. She didn't seem like the typical Seer to Harry. She had a different way of doing things.

Harry and Ron stood outside the kitchen for a long time, falling into their own thoughts and not speaking much to each other. Harry slid down the wall to sit on the floor with his back against it. Ron soon joined him, staring off into space.

Harry wondered whether he would ever find Draco. So far, he hadn't done anything to find him. He hoped that Draco was not enduring too much pain. The thought was almost too much for Harry to handle. He felt so guilty for sitting safely inside Grimmauld Place while Draco was off somewhere, probably being tortured.

At night, he missed Draco's company. He felt empty without his warm body pressed against his. They fit perfectly together and Harry desperately needed him.

Outside, the sun began to set over the city of London. Red and gold bursts glided over the tops of the many houses outside the window. Harry and Ron still sat in the Entrance Hall in silence.

Harry thought that Ron had fallen asleep and his own head was starting to nod as they sat in the warm glow of the setting sun. Harry felt his head fall forward on his chest but did nothing to stop it. His mind was finally slowing down. He'd spent the better part of the afternoon thinking about the Horcrux.

The elation he had felt when discovering it was nearly gone. All he wanted now was to destroy it. He knew it wouldn't be easy but Hermione had never yet failed him. Her theory seemed quite probable and Harry was sure she could figure something out if no one else.

"Harry! Ron!" A shout came from the kitchen, startling Harry out of the light doze he had fallen into. He jerked awake, staring at the kitchen door. Beside him, Ron gave a grunting snore and lifted his head, looking around, disoriented.

"Wha's going on?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.

"I think Hermione is calling us," Harry said slowly. He pushed himself off the floor with difficulty, yawning, and made his way into the kitchen, stumbling slightly in his tiredness.

Hermione was sitting at the table, a look of ecstatic triumph on her face. Harry and Ron sat back down in their original places at the table and looked at her.

"What?" Harry finally asked.

"Harry," Hermione whispered. "I think I've got it."


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A/N: Ahh, Kreacher. As much as I dislike him, writing him is absolutely hilarious :D Please review!