Chapter 111: Fangs and Locket

The crack stopped halfway across the second shield.

Dumbledore turned the damaged surface into a layered wall of clear crystal while the curse specialist closed a third barrier around it. The transformation cost no time and exposed no one to the vapour.

Edward did not use fire. The black cloud carried unknown magic, and heat might spread it or damage the evidence. He kept Kreacher behind the observation line and watched the instruments instead.

The locket's pulse weakened in uneven beats. Each one forced another thread of vapour into the collection jar. The scream lost volume, then structure, until it became a vibration under the floor.

At last, the metal stopped moving.

The specialist waited a full minute before lowering any ward. She tested for a living pulse, compulsion, and self-repair, using the same sequence applied to the diary. Nothing answered.

"The enchantment is destroyed beyond repair," she said.

Bones recorded the time.

Kreacher remained motionless. "It is finished?"

"The active fragment is gone," Dumbledore replied. "The shell and venom remain dangerous to handle, but the thing Regulus ordered destroyed no longer survives inside it."

The house-elf sat on the floor where he stood. Edward sat beside him rather than demand that he rise. Kreacher pressed both hands over his face, and the sounds that escaped were grief without the old edge of failure.

No one hurried him.

The healer examined Edward and Kreacher for mental intrusion. Both retained complete orientation, memory, and independent thought. Their distress came from what the locket had shown, not from a presence left behind.

Edward described the false Isabella for the record. Kreacher described the imitation of Regulus. Dumbledore noted that the enchantment had drawn on memories and fears available through proximity, as the diary had done through written confession.

"Was that part of Voldemort?" Edward asked.

"Yes," Dumbledore said. "Not a portrait or an ordinary stored memory. Something of him was separated and fixed inside the object."

The answer confirmed the resemblance without explaining the method. Edward remembered a title in the restricted Black catalogue that Kreacher had once refused to retrieve: Secrets of the Darkest Art.

They did not open it in the ward room. Bones sealed the locket shell and fang separately, while the specialist labelled the collected residue for examination. Dumbledore retained one key to the evidence case. Edward received the second as the representative of the House of Black. Neither key worked alone.

Bones photographed the broken clasp and puncture before the case left the room. The locket had not dissolved. Its front plate had split around the fang, and the inner stone had lost every trace of its former light. The distinction entered the record: the Horcrux was destroyed, while the damaged object remained.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Someone may later see the shell and assume the fragment survived," the specialist said. "The tests, witness statements, and retained residue must make the sequence clear."

Edward signed beneath her conclusion. Keeping evidence created a continuity problem of its own. An object could remain physically present after its active enchantment ended, and careless language might restore a danger only on paper.

They agreed on fixed terms. Active locket meant the Horcrux before the fang strike. Locket shell meant the inert remains afterward. No report would call the shell a surviving fragment or claim that destroying the fragment erased the metal.

Kreacher added his initials. The precision did not diminish Regulus's achievement. It protected it from being confused later.

Only then did they move to the library.

Kreacher brought the restricted catalogue and identified the hidden shelf. Dumbledore removed the book after checking its wards. Several pages had been cut out by an earlier Black ancestor, but an index and defensive summary remained.

The word appeared there: Horcrux.

The surviving passage defined it as an object containing a fragment torn from a person's soul after murder. Destruction required damage so complete that magic could not restore the object. The missing pages had once contained a construction method. No one proposed searching for another copy.

"The diary and locket were Horcruxes," Edward said.

"The evidence supports that conclusion," Dumbledore replied. "The formal name gives us access to records that a description alone would not. It does not tell us how many Tom made."

Riddle's diary had been created while he was a student. The locket came later. Two examples established repetition, not a total.

Edward's first impulse was to list every artefact associated with Voldemort and begin searching. Bones stopped that line before he voiced it.

"A broad seizure of old family objects would alert every former follower and violate half the laws we are trying to enforce," she said. "We build probable cause for specific searches."

Dumbledore would compare memories from Riddle's school years with known disappearances and objects he valued. Bones would preserve the legal record connecting Lucius to the diary without disclosing the Horcrux analysis publicly. The curse specialist would prepare a defensive description so trusted investigators could recognise similar enchantments.

Edward's role was narrower. He could review Black records for references Regulus left behind and give Dumbledore copies. He could not visit suspected sites, test family heirlooms with venom, or tell the alliance how a Horcrux was made.

"They signed rules for dangerous knowledge," Edward said.

"Then the first test of those rules is accepting that they do not receive everything," Dumbledore replied.

Edward disliked the answer less than he would have a week earlier.

Kreacher returned carrying a small envelope. Regulus had left it with the locket, but the house-elf had never considered it evidence because it contained only the initials R.A.B. and a message addressed to Voldemort.

Dumbledore read it under a preservation charm. Regulus stated that he had discovered Voldemort's secret, stolen the locket, and intended its destruction in the hope that Voldemort would one day be mortal when he met his match.

The note did not name Horcruxes. It did prove intent.

Bones added it to the sealed record of Regulus's actions. Kreacher gave a formal statement identifying the handwriting and the moment he received it. Edward supplied samples from family letters for comparison.

"Will people know what he did?" Kreacher asked.

"Not immediately," Bones said. "Revealing the object could warn the person who made it. But the record will exist, and the reason for delay will be written."

Kreacher considered that. "No more saying he died because he was a coward?"

"The evidence says the opposite."

That was not public vindication, but it was the first official answer Kreacher had received in thirteen years.

After the visitors left, Edward returned to the lower ward room. The stone table stood empty behind inactive shields. A black mark showed where the locket case had rested.

He had imagined this moment as victory. Instead, completion felt quiet and incomplete. Regulus remained dead. Voldemort had made at least one other Horcrux, and perhaps more. Lucius's actions still required judgment.

Yet one fragment was gone. One false accusation had a record against it. Kreacher could say that he had obeyed.

Edward closed the room and logged the time.

Power had not destroyed the locket safely. Preparation, witnesses, restraint, and a fang Harry had proved effective had done it together.

That distinction would shape everything that followed.