ᵖʳᵒᵘᵈ ᵖᵃʳᵉⁿᵗˢ ; ʰᵃʳᵐⁱᵒⁿᵉ

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter 18 - Changes are Coming

When Ginny awoke to the sunshine streaming through her bedroom window, the first thought of the morning was exactly the same as her last had been before falling asleep - her mother was visiting today.

Harry had rather cleverly offered a visit to his Italian home for the Weasley parents, knowing Ron and the twins would have to still be staying in Italy for Arthur and Molly's visit. Everyone else who was currently staying at Harry's had no trouble at all receiving parental permission to extend their holiday beyond the initial two weeks originally planed.

With both Ginny's parents visiting, Poppy had arranged for her Mind Healer to be present for that meeting too. Depending on how the visit panned out, there was also the possibility of her mum and dad having a talk with representatives from the Italian Ministry. With assurances from Bill, Poppy and Harry ringing in her ears that she wouldn't be returning to Britain any time soon, Ginny finally thought she was ready to face her mother.

Meeting up with the gang and heading down to the beach for their training was Ginny's favourite part of the day, so she was more than willing to face her mother to give Ron, Fred and George the opportunity of spending longer in Italy. Her Mind Healer was convinced training with her friends was helping Ginny more than just physically, an opinion both she and Poppy fully agreed with.

Watching as the entire gang took turns at verbally picking on Sirius, a Sirius who sported a ridiculously wide grin on his face after his first 'date' with Francesca last night, had Ginny almost forgetting what was scheduled for her later on this morning. They had finished the physical portion of their training and were just moving onto their wand work when the strangest sight any of them had ever seen banished all thoughts of training - and anything else - from their minds.

Harry's goblin friend was racing across the sand, waving his arms in the air and shouting like someone who was more than a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Seeing this very smart goblin - who always appeared so in control of his emotions - behave in this manner warned them something very bad had just happened, or something very, very good. Ginny didn't have enough dealings with goblins for her to tell whether Barchoke was currently smiling or snarling at them.

Barchoke raced straight for Harry and Sirius, shouting at the top of his voice about 'finding it!'. Both of them could easily see his excitement as everyone else soon crowded around. Knowing that anyone training here would have already been informed of what they were hunting by Harry, the little goblin took a deep breath and then passed on the monuments news.

"Lord Black employed a team of goblin curse breakers to cover every inch of Grimmauld Place before he would let Francesca or the orphans anywhere near the building. While a great many dark objects are being discovered and dealt with, the team found one object that had their dark magic scans registering off the scale. A certain locket, once owned by Salazar Slytherin, was immediately dispatched to Gringotts, with the cursed soul being removed and immediately destroyed. That's the last piece, he's now mortal."

Harry managed to mumble a question to his goblin friend. "How could it possibly have gotten there?"

Emma reacted in a totally different manner. The emotional mother pounced on Harry and Hermione with tears of relief and joy rolling down her cheeks. "I don't care how it got there, you won't have to go into that cursed cave to try and get it out now."

That started a celebration which saw all of them ending up running into the sea and acting more like a bunch of toddlers than teens - and adults. The sight of Barchoke, bedecked in his normal immaculate three-piece pinstriped suit joyously cavorting about in the waves as if he didn't have a care in the world was something that would stay with them all for a long time.