Dumbledore had lingered a while at Holmes's home, and when he finally returned to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, he felt at once the grief that saturated the drawing room.
The fire in the hearth had dwindled to almost nothing. A listless cluster of orange-red flame licked weakly at the logs, stretching everyone's shadows broken across the walls.
Harry stood to one side with his head bowed, the corners of his eyes were red. He had clearly already told Sirius everything.
"My foolish little brother—"
Sirius clutched in both hands the note Regulus had left for Voldemort—that final evidence and declaration of war. His knuckles had crumpled the parchment at its edges; the white of his finger bones showed clearly through the skin, as though he meant to press the paper into his palm.
His shoulders had collapsed. The back that had always been so straight now bent as if crushed under a great weight.
The voice that had once been so careless and bold was now hoarse and ragged. Each word seemed wrung from a torn throat, raw with the taste of blood: "Why did you have to be so foolish—why didn't you tell me—why?"
Tears—those things he had sealed away beneath anger and endurance ever since his escape from Azkaban broke free without warning and came flooding out.
Burning drops rolled down his haggard cheeks and struck the floor, blooming into dark circles, like shards fallen from a shattered heart.
Sirius's tall frame shook violently. Only by bracing both hands on the edge of the table did he manage to keep himself upright.
All the years of complex feeling he had suppressed toward his brother—the bewilderment, the disappointment, the anger were swallowed whole now by a tide of remorse and grief, leaving nothing but a dense, aching pain in the centre of his chest.
'I should have seen it—'
Sirius knew it plainly enough.
This damned family had chosen to sink into darkness, wearing their pure-blood status like a crown.
Yet the pride and courage buried in their bones—almost obsessive in its stubbornness had never truly disappeared from any of them.
Whether it was himself, or the sister locked away in Azkaban, or the brother he had once taken for weak and compliant—it was the same in all three.
Only they had chosen three utterly different roads. The one Regulus had chosen was a road toward self-destruction—and also toward self-redemption.
"But why didn't you trust me—Regulus—why? Why!"
Sirius's voice dropped gradually, taking on a tone that broke the heart with its bewilderment.
He raised his head. His eyes, threaded with red, were full of despair: "I'm your brother!"
Then, all at once, he turned around and fixed his gaze on Kreacher, lurking in the shadows at the foot of the stairs.
His stare had weight to it, as though he meant to wring from this little creature—the one who had witnessed everything—every last trace of his brother's existence.
Kreacher had already curled himself into the shadows at the staircase landing, his small body folded into a knot.
Now, watching his master suffer so, the ugly little face with its many folds was twisted with its own grief for Regulus.
Just as Sirius was weeping, Kreacher's clouded eyes overflowed, tears tracking down his cheeks in silence—not daring to make a sound.
He inched forward slightly, as though to draw close and offer comfort.
Yet the long estrangement and bitterness between himself and Sirius brought him to a hard stop before he got any further.
In this moment, at last, he felt the depth of Sirius's love for the young Master Regulus he had devoted himself to.
He could hold back no longer. His voice came in broken pieces, thick with weeping: "Master Regulus—ordered—Kreacher must not say—must not—"
Sirius closed his eyes.
He knew, of course. Once Regulus had given an order, Kreacher could never disobey.
Compared to himself—the traitor struck from the family tapestry—Kreacher's loyalty and feeling for his brother had always run far deeper. Harry's account, just now, of Kreacher accompanying Regulus to the cave and witnessing him drink the poison made that painfully clear.
He, the elder brother, had understood his brother less than a house-elf.
He, the elder brother, had never once thought to learn about Regulus through Kreacher.
He, the elder brother—what a wretched failure he had been.
"He didn't even leave me a single thing to remember him by—"
A moment later, Sirius opened his eyes again. His gaze moved slowly—first settling on the crude false locket cradled in Kreacher's arms.
It was the failure Regulus had purchased with his life, yet Kreacher now held it as the most precious thing in the world, having sworn to guard it with his own.
Then his gaze shifted to the Slytherin locket on the table, its green stones catching the dim light, and tears blurred his sight entirely.
That damned Horcrux.
That damned Voldemort.
Beneath that cold metal shell lay his brother's young life—and his fearless sacrifice.
Sirius reached out a hand. His fingertips had barely grazed the edge of the locket when he snatched them back, as if burned. The pain in his chest nearly stopped his breath.
The flames in the hearth seemed to feel the heaviness of the grief, growing ever fainter in their dancing.
The orange-red light dimmed by degrees. The temperature in the drawing room seemed to fall with it.
Harry stood to one side, gripping the hem of his robes with both hands. His lips moved once, but he could find nothing to say—only silent company was left to give.
Dumbledore, who had just returned, was silent for a long time as well. He stood with his hands at his sides, and behind his spectacles his blue eyes were full of compassion.
His gaze passed in turn over Harry, over Sirius, over Kreacher—then he drew a breath and let it out.
The room held nothing but Sirius's stifled gasps and the faint sound of Kreacher's weeping.
Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place—that grim old house was wrapped now in a sorrow deeper than any it had known before.
After what felt like a century, Dumbledore walked softly forward.
He laid his hand gently on Sirius's heaving shoulder.
That hand seemed to carry a kind of steadiness. Under its weight, Sirius's shattered composure eased just slightly. The rigid tension in his body began to loosen, the violent trembling gradually stilled, until only the silent shudder of his shoulders remained.
"He loved you, Sirius."
Dumbledore's voice was low and clear, his eyes full of understanding and sorrow:
"He loved you in his own way—and he loved his family. I believe his silence was the only means of protection he could think to give you, however terrible the cost. It was because he had followed Voldemort that he was able to see Voldemort's true nature sooner than anyone else. His choice deserves respect. Like you, he was a true hero."
Dumbledore was not Sherlock Holmes. He would not, at a moment like this, offer the cold assessment of 'Brave and Admirable but foolish'—even though somewhere in his heart, he thought Sherlock had some right of it.
"A hero?"
Sirius jerked his head up. His red-rimmed eyes were full of self-contempt. He pulled at the corner of his mouth into a smile worse than tears: "What sort of hero am I? I'm a self-righteous fool. A reckless coward. An irredeemable bastard."
His voice cracked up suddenly, wound to breaking point with a fury turned entirely on himself.
"But Regulus—my foolish little brother—
Why did you have to be as stubborn as me—why? Why!"
Sirius closed his eyes and drew a long, deep breath, his chest rising and falling in surges, as though pressing down by force the pain that was splitting him apart.
When he opened his eyes again, the grief in them had not left but something else had joined it: a light that was almost wild. It was the agony of losing kin, the shock of a truth he had never known, and above all a hatred for Voldemort that had taken root in his bones like fire lit in the depths of hell.
Before tonight, he had only known that Regulus had gone in deep and had tried to get out.
Tonight, he learned that Regulus had chosen the most absolute way out of all.
"Voldemort."
He bit the name out, syllable by syllable, each one freighted with pure hate: "He will pay for this. With everything he has."
"He will pay for it. Yes."
At that, even Dumbledore's tone became cold and hard.
He turned his gaze to the locket lying on the table: "Regulus's sacrifice was the most critical step on the road to defeating Voldemort. With his life, he wrested this vile thing from the enemy's hands."
As he spoke, Dumbledore walked to the table.
With careful fingers, he lifted the locket gently from the wood.
The metal was cold against his palm, and that faint pulsing—like a mechanical heart beating inside the case was clearer to him now than ever before.
Dumbledore understood at once what it was.
There was a dark, seductive malice in it—a malice that reached for his thoughts.
It was more insistent than the ring of Marvolo Gaunt had been.
That ring had carried a second identity beyond being a Horcrux, and it was that second identity which had made him unable to resist the urge to put it on. Only Sherlock's intervention had stopped him from bringing disaster upon himself.
Set against the ring of Marvolo Gaunt, this locket of Slytherin was simpler.
Simple to the point of being nothing but malice—pure and uncut.
Though for Dumbledore, such pure malice was actually somewhat easier to withstand.
The compassion on his face gave way to something grave and resolute. His aged fingers moved slowly across the surface of the locket, taking in the darkness sealed within.
"This Horcrux carries a fragment of Voldemort's soul, and it is dense with dark magic and protective enchantments."
Dumbledore's voice was low and measured: "It must be destroyed utterly. Only then can we give Regulus's spirit rest—and truly begin to strip Voldemort of his power."
He turned to look at Sirius and Harry, and said with seriousness: "I'll take it to Hogwarts now. There we have a means that is both safe and reliable for destroying it completely."
Harry's heart gave a small leap. He understood at once what Dumbledore meant—the Sword of Gryffindor, soaked through with Basilisk venom, which had already helped them destroy two Horcruxes.
Sirius's gaze had been fixed on the locket from the moment Dumbledore lifted it, his expression layered with feeling beyond counting. It was both the thing that had taken his brother's life and the trophy his brother had purchased with that life.
Now, hearing Dumbledore's words, he gave a deep nod and said in a hoarse voice: "Destroy it. Albus—destroy it now. Make this cursed thing vanish from the world. Regulus—"
His throat worked. He swallowed back the sob that had risen to his lips.
"—may he rest in peace."
Harry nodded hard as well, the tears not yet dry in his eyes but a fierce light burning through them: "Yes, Professor. Please—destroy it. We cannot let Regulus have died for nothing."
"Rest assured. The moment we found it; its fate was already sealed."
Dumbledore made his promise with full solemnity.
He drew from his robe pocket a thick square of black velvet and wrapped the locket with careful hands.
Once bitten, twice shy.
Though he believed himself capable of resisting the Horcrux's pull, the incident with Marvolo Gaunt's ring had made him considerably more careful.
He placed the wrapped locket into the inner pocket of his robes and pressed his hand against it from the outside.
The gesture was both the reverence one gives a sacred relic and the caution one takes with a weapon of extreme danger.
"Harry," Dumbledore turned to him, "stay here with Sirius. He needs someone near him now. And—"
He paused. He had been about to raise another matter, but decided this was not the moment. Instead, he turned to the creature in the corner: "Kreacher—look after them."
Kreacher, for his part, received this instruction with his usual blank expression and offered nothing in return.
Dumbledore did not linger further. He exchanged a few words with Harry, who was managing reasonably well, then looked once more at Sirius.
Sirius was still gripping the letter, staring into the fire with hollow eyes.
Dumbledore shook his head and turned away. His figure disappeared into the darkness beyond the door.
What he had held back—what he had almost said—was this: that when the opportunity came, he intended to return to the cave of the Horcrux and see whether Regulus's remains might be found.
He hoped that the flames he had conjured had not consumed the body completely.
A hero like that deserved better than to spend eternity as one of Voldemort's instruments of harm.
At the very least—he deserved a proper burial. A chance to rest.
But thinking of Sirius's impulsive nature, Dumbledore had swallowed the words before they escaped.
Better to wait until all the Horcruxes were destroyed.
Voldemort had already returned. Any rash move now risked stirring the snake in the shadows.
The drawing room of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place fell once more into its heavy silence.
Sirius stood exactly where he had been, as though nailed to the spot, gripping his brother's letter in both hands, staring into the leaping flames in the hearth with empty eyes.
As though gazing at the day Regulus had walked toward the cave of the Horcrux.
Harry stood quietly beside him—no words came to him. Only his presence remained.
Kreacher had curled further into the deeper shadows, clutching the false locket Harry had given him—the only keepsake Regulus had left behind.
Outside the windows, London's night was at its darkest. Ink-black clouds closed over the sky without even a star showing through.
The grief and solemnity within these old walls seemed to have stopped time itself, each second was stretching out without end.
In this hour when midnight drew near, a hero who had worked in obscurity for years had finally, in the tears and regret of his kin, been given the recognition he was owed—long overdue, but given at last.
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