The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

Kreacher's Garden

Regulus closed his eyes when Kreacher disapparated, and he kept them closed for a moment after they'd come out the other side, too, afraid that Kreacher's idea of a good place to go might've been Number 12 Grimmauld Place, which would've been precisely where they all would've gone to look for him, which would have meant he wasn't safe at all. But there were no shouting voices, no running footsteps, nothing to indicate they'd been followed, and furthermore there was a gentle breeze on his face and the smell of flowers.

He opened his eyes and looked around. They were in a garden. The garden was a bit shabby, but what garden isn't in the dead of winter, really? There was snow on the ground, and the smell of the flowers had been coming from little bunches of them that lay here and there throughout the little knoll they stood in, tied with ribbons and strings of beads. The bouquets were leaning against small stone piles, each bouquet was already dead and slowly decaying away.

"Where are we, Kreacher?"

Kreacher's ears went flat to his head.

"Kreacher?" Regulus asked.

"Oh Kreacher has brought Master to a most disgraceful place where Kreacher never should've brought Master..." the elf croaked quietly. "But Kreacher could not think of another place quickly to take Master to. Kreacher will boil his ears in hot water and set his tea towel on fire, Master Regulus, Kreacher is most sorry."

"Hang on," Regulus said, "I forbid you to do either of those things, Kreacher," Regulus said quickly, then added, "What is this place you've taken me to?"

Kreacher walked slowly over to one of the piles of stones. Beside it was a filly yellow kitchen apron and a handful of half-dead roses that Regulus recognized as the sort of roses Mother always kept in the library in a small vase by her chair. "Kreacher is brought Master to Kreacher's mother, Master Regulus." He bowed his head in shame and reverence.

Regulus looked around himself at the little stone stack and the apron and the flowers and he realized what Kreacher meant. "We're in a house elf cemetery?"

Kreacher tugged his ears nervously, "Yes, Master Regulus. Of sorts."

"Well You Know Who would never look for us here, Kreacher - you've done very well."

Kreacher looked hopefully at Regulus.

"Of everywhere in the world, this is where you wanted to go?"

Kreacher nodded.

"Why?"

"It's the closest Kreacher ever gets to be with his mother, Master Regulus," the elf explained.

Regulus remembered once when he was younger he had asked Kreacher about house elf families and Kreacher had told him about how house elves were parted from their families young and never allowed to see one another again, how he didn't get to know his parents because of that... and Regulus felt a lump rise up in his throat, realizing that Kreacher only got to know his mother by seeing a grave. He realized, too, that the elf had brought those roses here from the library at Number 12, and he pictured the elf taking the half-dead roses, which were replaced every week, and laying the spent ones on his mother's grave and it made Regulus feel so sad that it hurt deep in his guts. The thought hurt more than his face or his knees.

A thought occurred to Regulus then.

"But Kreacher, you're not supposed to leave Number 12 without one of us telling you to?" Regulus asked, confused.

Kreacher's ears were flat, "Oh Master Regulus, sir, we are at Number 12 Grimmauld Place, sir, Kreacher is not disobeying rules, sir! Please!" 

"No, don't panic, Kreacher, that's not why I asked. We aren't at Number 12... There's not a garden here..." He looked around himself more carefully then. The little garden was high-walled and the walls were covered in thick climbing vines and brush, and he looked up and realized what he was looking at was the back of Number 12 jutting up into the sky - and there was Sirius's old bedroom window way up at the top. "How...?"