Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin

Chapter 46: Three Princes

9 May 1993
The Prince's Lair

"But enough about ancient history," said Lucius. "Regulus Black, I should like to know very much where you have been these last thirteen years."

"Well, Lucius, it's a long story. One that starts with a cave in Dorset. No, that's not right. It really begins ... with a house elf."

"In 1979," Regulus began, "the Dark Lord demanded the use of a house elf, so I sent my family's servant Kreacher to do his bidding and then return to me when he was finished. The poor thing showed back up around midnight nearly dead. You see, Voldemort needed the elf to test the magical defenses of a treasure he wanted protected, and apparently, in his arrogance, Voldemort failed to realize that house elves could easily bypass any and all wards if ordered to do so by their masters. I had ordered Kreacher to return, and the fact that he was poisoned almost to death was not enough to keep him from fulfilling his duties. By that point, I was already ... ambivalent about continuing my association with the Death Eaters, and I was incensed at what had happened to Kreacher, so I decided to follow his footsteps and find out exactly what Voldemort considered so important as to hide under such extreme security."

Regulus paused as if collecting himself. "It turned out to be a golden locket bearing the crest of Salazar Slytherin ... and containing a fragment of the Dark Lord's soul."

Lucius's eyes flashed in a fury. "You mean...?" he hissed.

Regulus nodded.

"It was a horcrux?" Harry asked in clarification. Both men turned to look at him as if he'd just sprouted horns.

"As I believe I mentioned, Harry Potter," Regulus said after a long pause, "you are dangerously well-informed. How in the name of Morgana's lacy underthings did you ever learn that word?!"

Harry shrugged. "Actually, I picked it up less than an hour ago from Rufus Scrimgeour. It was the word he used to give a name to an object Headmaster Dumbledore described to me." He paused and turned to Malfoy. "The diary was a horcrux as well."

Lucius closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

"I take it you didn't know, Mr. Malfoy?" Harry inquired.

"Of course not!" Malfoy snapped. "I knew it was a dark object which the Dark Lord had ordered my father to conceal and, as he put it, to treasure more than the lives of all his family members combined, a fact that Father was only to happy to share with me. When the aurors began raiding Pureblood homes in the aftermath of that debacle at your birthday party last summer, I elected to rid the house of everything that I thought might lead to censure or worse. Narcissa doesn't know I removed it or that I ever even had it. Most of the items I stored in the secret vaults beneath Borgin and Burkes, but they flatly refused to keep the diary on the premises. I later learned that it was because Tom Riddle had once been an employee of theirs, and they feared keeping the diary onsite might implicate them in his disappearance."

"Woah, woah, woah," said Regulus angrily. "I've been on the run from the aurors for two days and am obviously a bit behind. What's all this about a diary that's also a horcrux?"

Harry briefly filed him in on what they'd learned about the diary, its effects on Ron Weasley, and how it had made its way into his possession. Regulus turned towards Lucius. "You gave a horcrux to an eleven-year-old girl?!"

Lucius looked at him with a sour expression. "Keep a civil tongue, Regulus. At the time, I had no reason to think it was a horcrux. My father, in a depressingly typical failure of his paternal obligations, never taught me the identification spells. I knew only that it was a dark object I no longer wished to keep under my roof. Unfortunately, I subsequently had that ill-timed encounter with Arthur Weasley in front of Flourish & Blotts. Between my desire to be rid of dangerous contraband and the force of the Oath of Emnity I was under, passing the diary off to one of his children suddenly seemed an entirely reasonable course of action. My assumption was that the diary would be discovered when the girl tried to carry it through the school's wards. I thought that it would be personally and professionally embarrassing to Weasley and might well derail his Muggle Protection Act. But I never dreamed anyone would actually be able to penetrate the school with an object so obviously cursed. As governor, I am well-aware of how sensitive Hogwarts' wards are to dark objects."