Mid-morning. Somewhere on the Irish coast—roughly near the Welsh border on England's west side.
Three sharp cracks split the air above the black rocks. Apparition always sounded violent when multiple people arrived at once.
Salt and damp sea-mist filled the lungs. Even in summer the wind off the water carried a chill. Grey-white clouds hung low; weak sunlight flickered through gaps like a dying torch.
Kreacher stood on the highest jagged outcrop, staring down. His cloudy eyes widened. Pupils shrank to pinpricks. The ancient elf's whole body shook uncontrollably.
A sheer cliff dropped straight into the sea. Waves rolled in heavy and relentless, exploding into white foam against the rocks below.
Melvin and Sirius flanked the trembling house-elf. Dumbledore had arrived moments earlier—still wearing yesterday's grey robes, a faint trace of beer foam clinging to one cuff.
The rock they stood on looked as though it had sheared away from the cliff face long ago. Ahead lay a fissure like a sword-cut through stone.
Nothing moved for miles except the sea. No trees. No grass. No beach. Just desolate rock and endless water.
The wind moaned through the crack—almost like distant banshee weeping.
Sirius scowled. "This is where Voldemort hid the locket? A cave and a lake underneath—and you just left Regulus soaking in an Inferi pool for over a decade?"
Fresh tears rolled down Kreacher's wrinkled cheeks.
"Calm yourself, Sirius," Dumbledore said gently. He surveyed the bleak landscape as though appraising a picnic spot. "This was Regulus's choice—made after careful thought. You cannot expect Kreacher to disobey a direct order. Your brother valued even a house-elf's life. That makes his sacrifice… noble."
Sirius stared into the black gash below. He said nothing.
"Melvin?" Dumbledore turned to the younger man. "Any observations?"
Melvin had been invited along mostly out of courtesy. The real locket already rested safely in his pocket. This trip was about fulfilling Sirius's request: recovering Regulus's body.
"Voldemort must have attached special meaning to this place," Melvin said, eyes on the distant hills several miles inland. Faint signs of life stirred there—villages, perhaps. "Otherwise he wouldn't have chosen it."
Dumbledore nodded slowly.
"More precisely… it held special meaning for every child from Wool's Orphanage."
The old Headmaster had spent years piecing together Voldemort's past. Nothing escaped his notice—from Little Hangleton to the Gaunt hovel. Had Melvin not arrived with foreknowledge, Dumbledore would still have tracked the Horcruxes eventually.
Wool's Orphanage had been a particular obsession.
"London summers could be stifling. No cooling charms or Muggle machines. The staff sometimes brought the children here by coach—let them breathe sea air, watch the waves. For parentless children, a seaside day-trip was a memory that lasted a lifetime."
Dumbledore's voice drifted on the wind.
"I visited the village once, but never came down to the cliffs. By then young Riddle could already control his magic. He must have led a few of the boys who'd bullied him out here—to this inaccessible cove no boat could reach. Probably just to enjoy terrifying them."
"Twisted little monster," Sirius spat. "Evil from the cradle."
Riddle had been a once-in-a-millennium prodigy. Even before formal magical training he could terrorise other children on cliff edges. After Hogwarts, his Dark Arts advanced at terrifying speed. Once he acquired Slytherin's locket, he turned it into a Horcrux, hid it here, and layered the cave with protective curses.
Anti-Apparition wards blanketed the cliffs—identical to Hogwarts'. Kreacher's house-elf magic could bypass them, but the ancient elf was too frail to Apparate two powerful adult wizards deep inside.
So they would have to descend the old-fashioned way.
Sirius immediately started picking his way down the sheer face. Dumbledore—surprisingly spry—joined him, clearly delighted by the prospect of a little free-climbing.
Melvin declined to join the madness.
A Levitation Charm lifted him gently. He drifted down the rock face, touching only the protruding ledges, finally settling on a half-submerged boulder.
The lower stones were smoothed round by centuries of waves. Cold, salty spray exploded around them, soaking robes.
Sirius and Kreacher plunged straight in, heedless of wet clothes. Dumbledore didn't seem to mind getting splashed. Only Melvin conjured a Bubble-Head-like membrane around himself—he had no desire to smell like low tide.
He stepped onto the largest exposed rock nearest the cliff face and snapped his fingers.
Soft blue flames bloomed along the wall, illuminating the fissure—a narrow passage half-submerged in seawater, stretching deep into the rock.
"You don't mind getting a little damp, do you?" Dumbledore asked with perfect seriousness. He hiked up his robes, tied back his silver beard and hair with quick strips of cloth, and suddenly looked twenty years younger—agile as a Quidditch Chaser.
Sirius and Kreacher didn't answer. They simply slid into the water and swam toward the black crack.
Melvin watched the three figures disappear, sighed, and took a step forward.
The instant his shoe would have touched seawater, the surface dimpled inward—as though an invisible sphere pressed down from above.
A perfect magical bubble enveloped him from head to toe. Thin, flexible, watertight. He tested it with a cautious step. The bubble wobbled on the waves like a poorly balanced boat.
Not ideal.
Another light tap on the inner surface. The bubble stabilised. Now the sea itself seemed to obey—lifting and carrying him smoothly deeper into the fissure. The blue flames trailed after like floating lanterns.
Slime-coated walls. The passage started narrow—barely wide enough for two abreast—then gradually widened while staying oppressively low. At high tide the whole tunnel would flood.
They reached the end: a set of rough-hewn steps rising out of the water into a large, enclosed cavern.
"This is only the antechamber," Kreacher's trembling voice echoed off bare rock. "Meant to mislead anyone who stumbled in by accident. The lake… the island… they're deeper still. We must go further."
The elf groped along the wall, expression distant—lost in memory. Tears fell silently. At last his thin fingers found a protruding knob of stone and pressed.
A stone archway shimmered into existence.
Melvin blinked.
The shape felt eerily familiar.
Slytherin himself had built something similar—beneath the Black Lake at Hogwarts. A long underwater passage. A special door at the end.
But where the Chamber of Secrets had been grand—palatial, ancient, a true wizard's sanctum—this place felt cheap and makeshift. The opening spell was childishly simple. Slytherin had hidden legacy and a basilisk. Voldemort had left only Inferi and poison. No depth. No real mastery.
Small wonder the Chamber survived a thousand years untouched.
This cave had lasted barely a few decades before it was found.