Chimaera Of Judgement

2: An Unexpected Guest

"Dobby?"

A pale, thin face poked its way into the drawing room, bright green eyes sweeping from the faded old tapestry to the curio cabinet filled with dusty heirlooms. Hesitating in the doorway, the young man decided to give the room a closer look before checking the rest of the house.

"Dobby, are you in here?"

But he found himself distracted from his search at once. The mysterious objects in the display case held his interest as always they did; sure, there was the Order Of Merlin, First Class, which was more or less ordinary other than the fact that not many people earned them, but then there were the things his father had told him about at bedtime, and when they went camping in Uncle Bill's tent. Sometimes he wondered if the stories were nothing more than faerie tales, but he caught himself fantasizing about them, imagining himself doing all the brave deeds his dad had done when he was a boy.

The old, battered diary... a yellowed fang the size of a boomerang... a ring without a stone... but the one that always drew his attention, that sent a wave of nausea and excitement through his stomach, was the severed snake's head, stuffed and mounted on a plaque. It almost made him question whether his parents had once been Dark, or known Dark wizards and witches, but all he needed was to talk to them again to know it was not true. Even so...

"Albie?"

Albus Potter's eyes squeezed shut, willing her to go away. "What?"

Her auburn hair almost preceded her head into the room. "Mum says supper'll be ready in a bit."

"Thanks, Lil."

Of course, it was too much to hope this would be enough to get rid of her, and sure enough Lily crept into the room to stand behind him. 'Here it comes,' he thought to himself. 'She can't resist...'

"Looking at Dad's, er, trophies again?"

"Yeah. I was looking for Dobby, but got sidetracked."

She rubbed her earlobe absentmindedly as she hovered near his shoulder, gazing into the case. "Why are you so fixated on those? It's not like any of them are Corhuxes anymore."

"Horcruxes," he corrected her reflexively.

"It's... it's kind of morbid. Mum says you shouldn't spend so much time staring at them, Albie, they're just-"

"Stop calling me 'Albie'," he snapped. "And who cares if I have a look? They're cool."

"They're creepy," she said in hushed tones, blue eyes flicking to the snake's head and back to his face. He saw this, and chuckled bemusedly.

"C'mon, it can hardly bite you anymore."

"Alb-"

"Can't you give over? Why should you care I'm looking at them? If we weren't supposed to look at them, Mum and Dad would've binned the lot ages ago!"

"Yeah, well-"

"What about this tapestry?" he said, gesturing over his shoulder. "It's not even our family tree on there, yet we still have it!"

She sighed exasperatedly. "Oh, don't try that one on me, Al, you know that's only because there's a Permanent Sticking Charm on it."

Oops. "Yeah, well... anyway, you still haven't told me why you should care."

The corner of her mouth turned down. "Well... you're my brother. How can I not?"

It's the only argument she'd ever been able to give that made a dent in his hard-headedness, and he could already feel it working again. To avoid admitting this, he walked past her and said, "C'mon, Mum'll have kneazles if we take too long."