CHAPTER 83: THE SILENT HERO

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Khayyam, who stitched the tents of science,

Has fallen in grief's furnace and been suddenly burned,

The shears of Fate have cut the tent ropes of his life,

And the broker of Hope has sold him for nothing!

~

– Omar Khayyam Extract from The Rubaiyat

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Before Ciri woke up, Ed and Hermione had planned to destroy one of the horcruxes. Ed could hear the sound of dribbling raindrops outside as he sat in front of a portrait in a dusty hall. He had a small table beside him, on top of it a teacup was resting, and Hermione was also sitting with him nervously.

"What have you been up to, my grandson?" The portrait in front of Ed spoke, it was Druella, Ed's grandmother.

"A lot really…" Ed sips his cup of tea. "In a year or two, I will be one of the richest man in the British wizarding community."

Druella rolled her eyes. "Money talk is boring, I'm dead, I don't care about any of that anymore."

"Right." Ed chuckled. "I will have an Order of Merlin medal, first class. Does that interest you? "

"Still boring." She snorted. "Is your life all about fame and money, my dear?"

"Of course not, grandmother." Ed smiled. "This is my girlfriend, Hermione Granger. Does that interest you now?"

"Well, well..." Druella sang. "Granger? She's not a pureblood then? "

"I thought you didn't mind muggle-borns now?" Ed raised his eyebrows.

"I don't mind." Druella said, she then looked at Hermione, who was fidgeting uncomfortably. "No need to be nervous, dear. You're British? "

"Y-Yes, Mrs. Black…"

"There's no need for formalities; Grandmother is perfectly fine." She said, smiling softly at Hermione. "I'm curious… What did you find appealing about my grandson over here? "

"Hey!"

"Oh.. um... He was my very first friend, so... and he's always been patient with me. "

"Really? Ed? patient? " Druella was a bit surprised, which made Ed offended.

"Yeah, I'm patient. What about it?" Ed scoffed.

Druella ignored him. "He's been treating you right is he?" she asked Hermione again.

"Um... yes. He's been very kind to me…"

"Then good." Druella nodded. "I've got no ill will towards you, nor should you be afraid of me. Remember, I am dead, you are not."

Druella then looked at Ed. "Have you visited your aunt's grave?"

"Not yet… maybe later." Ed answered weakly. "Where's Kreacher by the way? I haven't seen him since I stepped into this place. "

"You know Kreacher?" Druella was surprised. "Maybe he avoided you or something. He's always intimidated by Aldrich's silver eyes."

"Really?" This time Ed was the one who was surprised. "Why? What happened to him that made him intimidated by the eyes?"

"I never know... Ask your father if you will ever meet him again. "

Ed sighed. "Sure, can you call Kreacher now?"

"He doesn't respond when you call him?"

"Never tried."

"Then do it yourself and ask me if he doesn't answer."

"Fine, you know what, I'll call Sirius."

Ed and Hermione then stood up from the chair and walked towards the first floor. Ed then sat on a couch in the living room and pulled out his wand.

"Expecto Patronum." Ed waved his wand, summoning a silver owl. He then whispered to the owl. "Sirius, I have something that might interest you. Go to the Black Ancestral House."

The owl then flew away, passing through the walls. "Kreacher." Ed called for the old house elf, and the elf appeared.

"Would you look at that? You actually appeared." Ed remarked sarcastically.

"W-What did m-master Aldrich call Kreacher f-for?" inquired the house elf. stuttering.

"Why are you so scared, Kreacher? Take it easy." Hermione muttered.

"K-Kreacher wouldn't dare to relax in front o-of Master Darius's descendant."

"What did my father do to you?" Ed raised his eyebrows.

"N-Nothing… M-Master Darius is n-nice towards K-Kreacher. "

"Then why?"

"K-Kreacher c-can not say…" The house elf was holding out tears. "K-Kreacher is a-a bad house elf, b-breaking Master D-Darius's orders!"

Ed sighed, Ed had gotten the gist of it, his father probably told Kreacher to protect Regulus, but because of the house elf contract, he couldn't fight Regulus's orders. "Calm down, Kreacher, it's not your fault."

However, Kreacher ignored Ed's plea, and slammed his head towards the floor, punishing himself. Hermione then tried to hug the elf in a panic, but Kreacher just hissed.

"G-Get away, you mudblood!" he shrieked.

Hearing Kreacher start to insult Hermione, Ed quickly intervened. "Kreacher- Kreacher Stop!" Ed commanded, and the elf stopped abruptly. "Don't insult Hermione again."

Kreacher just nodded his head weakly.

"Kreacher, show me the thing Regulus told you to destroy." Ed continued.

"B-But Kreacher tried! Kreacher tried to destroy it but failed, Kreacher is a failure! Kreacher can't finish orders! " He slammed himself again to the ground, weeping.

"Kreacher, please stop." Ed didn't really want to deal with a weeping house elf right now. "Where's the locket, please."

"I-In Master Regulus's room…" the house elf sobbed. And like the gods favouring Ed right now, Sirius suddenly came into the room, confused at the scene.

"What's going on? Why is Kreacher crying? " he asked.

Ed sighed. "Kreacher, tell Regulus's story."

"K-Kreacher c-can't! Master Regulus's order! "

"I'm about to destroy it, Kreacher. Trust me, now, tell him, or I won't destroy it." Ed bluffed.

Kreacher nodded weakly, and Ed signalled to Sirius, who was still confused at the situation, to sit, and Hermione sat with him to prepare him for what Kreacher had to say. While all of them were talking, Ed walked to Regulus's room upstairs. He entered the room that was signed R.A.B. and searched the room. The locket was found on the shelf near the bed. When he picked up the lock, he could already feel the evil energy that was permeating from the locket. It is so thick that space warps around it. Normal people can't see it, but Ed can definitely feel it.

"Now, how should I destroy this…" Ed whispered to himself. "I forgot to bring the fang... The sword is at Hogwarts... So fiendfyre it is then. "

Ed then put the locket on top of the shelf and pulled a small piece of paper from his pocket. He spread the paper out and read it.

"Let's see… 'opens'… is that how you pronounce it? Yeah…" Ed cleared his throat and looked at the locket. He then spoke in a rough parseltounge.

"Openss…."

The locket then opened abruptly, and black smoke started to rise from the locket. The black smoke then slowly morphed into Ed's body.

"Yeah, I've got no time to deal with this." Ed then just pulled his wand and summoned a white fiendfyre and directed it to the locket, burning it. Ed can hear the screams of pain from the locket, and just smirked.

"Right, it's done… I think…" Ed then took the burned locket and just quickly got out of the room, quickening the ordeal.

When he arrived at the living room again, he saw Kreacher weeping, and Sirius with blank eyes. Hermione was comforting the house elf, much to the elf's dismay, as Ed heard him whispering insults to Hermione.

"All of you all right?" Ed asked, leaning against a wall. "Here, Kreacher, I've destroyed it."

Ed threw the locket to the house elf, who quickly got out of Hermione's grasp and caught the locket.

"I-It's really destroyed." He wailed as he inspected the locket. "Kreacher finally completed Master Regulus's orders!"

Ed just let the house-elf cry to get it out of his system. Hermione looked at him sadly, which Ed just answered with a weak smile.

Ed then turned to Sirius, who was still shocked by what he had heard. "You alright?"

"Of course I'm not." He sighed as he massaged his head. "Kreacher, do you know where Regulus leads you to?"

"Kreacher knows, master..." Kreacher started to calm down a bit.

"Take me there, I'll pick up his body myself." Sirius said decisively.

"Sirius, you can't! You'll die! " Hermione pleaded, but Sirius ignored her.

Ed sighed, seeing this. "We can't stop you, can we?"

"You can't. He's my brother Ed." he stated.

"Then I'll help you."

"You can't be serious!?" Hermione protested to Ed.

"I'll be fine, Hermione, I can face wraiths. What can Inferi do to me?"

"Then I'll come with you."

"Okay, but I'll pick you up when I get there." Ed said it with a dominant tone, making Hermione flinch. "Take us there, Kreacher."

Kreacher just nodded his head weakly and grabbed Ed's and Sirius's hands, apparating them to the place where Regulus lies, leaving Hermione alone in the place.

Ed and Sirius then arrived in front of a cliff. There was a cave below it. They now stood on a lone rock in the middle of the sea.

"Well, Kreacher, can you not move us closer?" Sirius asked sarcastically.

Kreacher once again just nodded weakly and apparated them in the cave, but there was nothing there.

"How can we enter it, Kreacher?" Sirius asked.

"K-Kreacher used Kreacher's blood to open it m-master…"

"Can you do it now?" Sirius nonchalantly asked, but before Kreacher could answer, Ed interrupted.

"No, I'll pick Hermione up now so she can open it." Before Sirius could ask what he meant, Ed disappeared, surprising Sirius. Then he appeared again, with Hermione besides him, looking all serious.

"Can you open it?" Ed asked Hermione.

"I'll try." She nodded. "But won't I be detected now?"

"No." Ed shook his head. "There's some kind of ward here… I can sense it… it's weird to use an anti-trace ward here… this place was probably used by Tom when he was underage…"

Hermione hummed and pulled her wand. She then gestured with her wand towards the rock wall, and the wall moved. Hermione removed a medium sized rock from the wall, making a hole. She threw the rock to the sea, getting rid of it.

"Hermione can do that?" Sirius was surprised. "Was I a weak little wizard back then?" he conceded, shaking his head.

Ed and Hermione just ignored him and entered the cave, Hermione and Ed used their fire elements to light up the place, while Sirius used Lumos. All of them carefully travelled the cave, and they passed some crystal-like substance, and after a while, they arrived at the cave.

Ed saw the island in the middle of the lake and spoke. "You're going to get Regulus's body, right? Wait for me here. "

Ed then blinked to the middle of the lake, and he went there without activating the trap. He saw the fake locket in the middle of the island, and quickly made it blink to Ed's hand, so he doesn't need to drink the water.

After that, he quickly returned to the group and talked. "How are you going to do this?" He said as he pocketed the fake locket.

"I- I don't know, have any ideas?" Sirius asked. "Could you— I don't know… summon his body or something?"

"I can scan the faces of each of the bodies…" Ed answered. "But it's useless, his face has probably changed anyway because of decomposition."

Sirius gulped. "Then what should we do?"

"You have to use your guts, I guess…." Ed mumbled. "You're his brother, surely you must recognise some things."

"M-Maybe he still has the ring of the Black family…" Sirius said. "Can you sense that or something?"

"I'll try." Ed then scanned the whole lake using space magic. He carefully searched from the nearest to the farthest inferi in the lake.

"I sensed a couple of rings... Any attributes that signified the black family? "

"The ring should have an inscription of our motto…"

"Toujours pur then." Ed nodded, and he scanned the rings that he found. He then found Regulus's body, buried beneath other inferi.

"I found him…" Ed said. "But if I move it here, it'll trigger the other inferi, because he's buried underneath a lot of inferi…"

"So we have to fight?" Sirius asked.

"Not necessarily." Ed answered. "It's just that he will activate as an inferius himself… so we need to lock him up."

"Can you cancel the spell or something?"

"Use 'Finite'…" Ed looked blankly at Sirius. "If that didn't work, use 'Surgito'. If you do that, I'll hold the inferi off, although it will probably be easy. "

Sirius nodded. "Okay… I'm ready…"

Ed then looked at the nervous Kreacher. "Kreacher: Once he's finished cancelling the enchantment, apparate him back."

"Kreacher shall do as Master Aldrich commands." He weakly said, scared of the Inferi.

"Right." Ed took a deep breath. "Three… two… one."

Ed then quickly blinked the body of Regulus Black to Sirius's front, and the dark magic instantly activated. The Inferi, including Regulus, tried to attack the group, scaring Kreacher, while Hermione panicked a bit.

"Hermione, when I dealt with the Inferi, make the cave collapse okay?" Ed said, preparing for a white fire spell.

"Okay…" she mumbled, a bit scared at the Inferi.

Ed then waved his wand, and a burst of white flame came out of Ed's wand, instantly enveloping the entire lake's surface, burning almost all the inferi. The room suddenly became steamy as Ed's flame touched the water.

"Are you done yet?" Ed asked Sirius, and when Ed saw that he and Kreacher were crying at Regulus's unmoving body, he cancelled the enchantment.

"Let's go Regulus… I'll get you home…" he whispered to the body.

Ed sighed at this as Kreacher quickly apparate Sirius away from the place.

"Bury this place, Hermione, I've got the fake locket already." Hermione complied as instructed by Ed. She pointed her wand at the ceiling of the cave, and gestured for it to fall. The ceiling collapsed, making a small earthquake nearby as she and Ed quickly blinked away from the place, not looking back.

In the evening of that day, Ed and Hermione was now in the Black's cemetery for Regulus's burial. It was quiet, only a couple of people are there. Ed saw Amelia Bones comforting Sirius, he saw Narcissa with a blank expression with Draco, he saw Dumbledore with a calm look, but Ed could tell that he was thinking about something, he saw Remus standing besides the sad Sirius quietly, and finally, he saw Andromeda Tonks, she just stood quietly in the back of people, staying away from all the grief.

"I didn't know Regulus betrayed the dark lord..." Ed heard Andromeda whispering to him. "We all thought he was a death eater through and through."

"People will surprise you." Ed whispered back. "Who knows? We have a lot of examples of people changing in the face of pressure… Peter Pettigrew, and now Regulus…"

"No doubt that the ministry will hear about this." Andromeda continued. "That Regulus Black was a hero..."

"Perhaps…" Ed said. "But his situation is a bit… complicated…"

"Why?" Andromeda asked with curiosity.

"It's about the thing that he stole from the dark lord." Ed said. "If revealed, it will definitely prove that Voldemort is still alive, and the ministry will certainly deny it."

Andromeda was quiet after that, but after a while, she spoke. "Horcrux... such dark magic…" she said.

"The dark lord is a coward." Ed stated. "Afraid of death."

"We all are."

"True… but we didn't kill another person to achieve immortality, did we? "

Andromeda just hummed. "I must go now…"

"Any business to attend to?" Ed raised his eyebrows.

"Not really... But I have paid my respects to Regulus, and as you might know, I'm not exactly welcome in this place. " She said as she looked at the Black family symbol.

"Very well, until another time, Aunt Dromeda."

"Farewell Ed." The woman then apparated away from the place, leaving the others. Dumbledore then approached Ed, and that made the boy sigh.

"What do you want, old man?" Ed asked the white wizard.

"I can't help but hear your conversation with Andromeda... You seem to know a lot about these horcruxes. Do you know where they are?"

"I do." Ed answered. "If you want to destroy all of it, you'll do it my way."

Dumbledore frowned. "What are you planning, Ed?"

"Claiming the blood debt slowly and painfully." Ed blurted out. "So if you want to destroy it, give it to me first, I'll destroy it at the right place, at the right time."

"So you won't destroy it instantly?" Dumbledore furrowed his brows. "But you destroyed this one instantly."

"Because it's different." Ed said. "Someone needed closure for it, and Kreacher needed closure for it, while the rest of the horcruxes are safe to keep."

"You know about the quantity of these dark magic items?" Dumbledore asked calmly.

"Seven." Ed didn't lie. "Including Harry."

Dumbledore was calm, too calm. "So you knew."

"I knew from the first time I met him."

"You're going to tell him?"

"Hermione advised me to do just that." He answered. "That way, he'll prepare for it."

"You're going to tell a boy that he lived to die." Dumbledore stated.

"He won't die." Ed said, surprising Dumbledore. "If he listened to me, he wouldn't die. It's the only way if he wants to live."

"Do you want to tell me what your plan is?"

"Of course not." Ed smiled. "Knowing you, you'll interfere with it."

"You're so young, Ed. Yet you're already… scheming…"

"Scheming?" Ed raised his eyebrows. "This is already a better alternative to your plan."

"And what are my plans for the future?"

Ed was silent. He ignored the question and spoke. "Anyway, try to contain the information. The fewer people know, the better. Don't tell the ministry just yet."

Dumbledore sighed. "I will watch you, Ed, to make sure that you won't make the same mistakes as me and Tom made."

Ed scoffed. "Yeah, 'watch', like you did in the forbidden forest?"

Dumbledore went silent after that, "I'm the one who will watch you, Dumbledore, to make sure that you won't hurt people in your plans…" Ed then showed his mark to the old man, the owl insignia in its full glory. "Because we are always watching, and we are always listening."

Ed then walked away from the gathering of people, which Hermione, who was talking to Remus, noticed. She then followed him, and she found him standing in front of his aunt's grave.

Ed noticed her presence. "It's funny, isn't it." Ed chuckled, with a tone full of pain. "I'm getting revenge for an aunt that I never knew about."

Hermione hugged his arm and rested her head on his shoulder. "You're getting revenge because Tom Riddle tore apart your family." She said, "And your aunt is one of your family."

Ed chuckled. "I suppose you're right." Ed then made a flower made of ice, placing it on the grave.

After a moment of silence, the two went back to Regulus's grave, where he found that only Sirius and Amelia were there, and the rest had left.

"I never got to thank you, Ed." Sirius suddenly spoke. "For telling me this secret."

"I should've told you sooner to be honest." Ed said. "I've known for a while now."

"I'm sure you have your reasons to keep it a secret until today." Sirius. "But I thank you nonetheless."

"Don't mention it Sirius." Ed said as he looked at Regulus's epitaph, reading it aloud. "He deserved it, He's a silent hero."