Cook was sitting cross-legged on the tabletop, smock dress decorously tucked in around her legs. She was still clutching the napkin Scorpius had given her. It would have been completely sodden by now, had not Hermione Silently Cast Exaresco several times.

  The two items lying on the table before Cook were depressing enough, that was certain. None of their former grandeur remained, just twisted, scorched metal.

  Cook had regained most of her composure. SIghing, she said, "Mistress loved her things. Loved these most of all. But it was not a good love. And now, no one can love them at all."

  Hermione frowned. "What does that mean, Cook?"

  Cook looked curious. "Can not Miss Miney feel it? The bad man, the Riddle, lived in them so long. Even though he is gone, truly gone, these things..." Cook grasped for a word, then found one that made perfect sense to her. "These things stewed in his magic for years and years and years. Cook feels it, like Cook can feel the heat from a scorching pot, even across the kitchen. Cook can almost see it. And Cook does not like what she almost sees."

  Curiosity piqued, Hermione got out her SpectreSpecs, and started to put them on.

  "Ah, ah, ah!" Harry's voice came from the opening kitchen doors. "I would not do such a thing, were I you!" He walked in, Draco beside him. Draco was giving him a disgusted look.

  "Is he always this pretentious?" he demanded of Hermione, who shrugged and waggled one hand in a 'sorta-kinda' motion.

  "It comes and goes," she added. "And I was going to be careful, Harry. Just a peek."

  "Really?" Harry scoffed. "And how long did it take to get your vision back to normal after a quick 'peek' at the Stone from Marvolo's ring?"

  Hermione gaped. "That... was the Stone? How did it get...?"

  "I dropped it there when I went to confront Riddle. One of the things I may have forgotten to mention to you." Harry didn't go into how the Shades had accompanied and comforted him. That was his, and his alone.

  "So, it was a...," she stopped, glancing at Draco.

  "Horcrux," he said helpfully. "The 'H' Word. The Big 'H.' Riddle's One-Stop Immortality Shop. Yes, you may colour me 'Aghast.' In fact, my ghast is almost entirely flabbered."

  "Speaking of pretentious." Hermione sniffed. "You seem to have recovered well?"

  "Four fingers of good whisky and a modicum of time," agreed Draco. "Forget that. Cook, how are you? Are you well? Is there anything I can do?"

  "Cook is better than well, Mister Draco." She looked down at the remains of Hufflepuff's Cup and Slytherin's Locket, and dismissed them entirely from her world. "Miss Miney has made Cook whole and happy, and Cook thanks her." She glanced up at Harry, who was grinning like an idiot at the prospect of teasing 'Miss Miney.' "And Cook thanks Mister Haralt, too, of course."

  Harry frowned. Draco snorted. When Hermione gave him a questioning look, he said, "Later."

  Cook popped to her feet, hopped down to the bench, and then to the floor. "Please excuse Cook. Cook is going to see if the Boy needs help with Miss Astoria." With a high-pitched chiming sound, she vanished.

  Draco's mouth dropped open. He closed it when he noticed the others looking at him. He shook his head, amazed.

  "She never leaves the kitchen. Never." He looked down at the spot she had vanished from. "And she can Apparate inside the Wards?"

  "So could Dobby." Any vestige of mirth dropped from Harry's face. "It's a House-Elf thing. He came to visit me any number of times."

  He sighed. "Water under the bridge. Back to business. Yes, Hermione, the Unknowns appear to be collecting Riddle-connected artefacts. We are hoping that they don't know about the Horcrux connection, that they are just targeting places that have some connection to him."

  Hermione grasped it quickly. "So they would definitely know about the Cup. Probably not the Locket. They have the Stone, which was not set in the ring, right? So they probably don't know its true purpose..."

  "Nor do I," Draco said, hurriedly. "Not cleared for that part. Let me know if I have to leave."

  She got it. Horcruxes, yes. Hallows, no. "Understood. That leaves the Diary, the Snake, and the Diadem. The Diary is at your parents?"

  Draco nodded. "To the best of my knowledge, yes."

  "The Snake, Nagini?" Hermione looked to Harry. "What happened to its body?"

  "No clue," Harry said. "Come to that, I have no idea what happened to Riddle's body, and you'd think the Aurors would have been all over that."

  Hermione shuddered. "A Shrine to Tom Riddle. There's a thought to haunt your dreams."

  "Demelli came up with a memo that implied ROCC was collecting things related to Riddle, getting them off the market, you might say." Harry spread his hands in a helpless-looking gesture. "She's looking for more info."

  "Well, if they did have anything, and kept it, it's likely in the hands of the Unknowns now." Hermione frowned. "Of the things we know about, that leaves only the Diadem, and we saw that wholly destroyed. Just fragments of metal that probably got swept up and thrown away, right?"

  There was an awkward sort of silence after this statement. Hermione looked up at the men from where she was still sitting. Her eyes narrowed ominously.

  "Right?" she asked again, through slightly clenched teeth.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  ***

  "...so, you remember, when we came out of the Room of Hidden Things on those brooms, we didn't so much land, as, you know, crash into a wall. Goyle was Capital 'S' Stunned, and I was small 's' stunned, and Crabbe... was dead. I was burned and coughing, but all I could think of was... Crabbe was dead. You three were talking, but I wasn't paying attention. Then I think the Wild Hunt went through. I got enough of myself back to push Goyle behind a fallen painting. I was about to get up and try to find a safe place."

  "Then I saw the metal fragments on the floor. They were scorched and had some black tar-looking residue, and obviously weren't all there. But I could tell it was what was left of the diadem Potter had been holding. That had been one of the last things Crabbe had seen in this life, and he was gone. Destroyed or not, they didn't deserve to be trampled like trash. As I said, I was not thinking clearly."

  Draco shrugged. "So I scrabbled up what I could find, tied them up in my handkerchief, and stuffed them in my pocket. And immediately forgot their existence."

  "You must remember how the next few days, few weeks, were. Questions, and confusion, and insanity. My parents and I eventually made it back to the Manor, without the aid of magic. Father was completely disassociated, only responding in monosyllables, if at all. Mother and I took help where we could find it, and I, for one, was absolutely shocked to find how easy it was to come by. When no one at the school seemed interested in speaking to us, much less detaining us, we walked out the front gates. We found and followed the old cart track that led through the Forest. It was the last remnant of the era before the Hogwarts' Express, when upper-class students would arrive in carriages, middle-class in laid-on coaches, and everybody else walked, rode animals, or flew on brooms."

  "No sooner had we set foot on a Muggle by-way, than an old Muggle in a truck pulled up and insisted on taking us to the nearest town. We must have looked a fright, bruised and bloody, and in my case, burnt. But he practically forced us into his vehicle, and then we were at his home, and his wife was fussing over us, and using Muggle healing potions. They were especially solicitous of Father, who didn't even notice them, or us. They fed us, and found us clean clothes, and then the old man took us in to the village. He put us on a thing called a bus, which I found later he must have had to pay for. His wife had made us a lunch. Ten hours later we were in Wiltshire, within walking distance of the Manor. Walking, because none of us had a wand to our names."

  "Before I boarded the bus, the old man had taken me aside. He said, "Lad, tek keer er yer Da. I seen them eyes on a man before, an' 'e may caim back, er he may nae. But, tek m'word, ee'll ne'er be th' saim agin. Ee's bin t'war."

  "And we were home. Mother and I traveled to Paris and obtained Acajour wands. Father was still not well enough to accompany us, but we had gotten his father's last wand from our Vault, and that seemed to comfort him."

  "With my school days over, and Father unwell, I and Mother began to navigate our way through this new world. Mother had taken an extreme dislike to the Manor, which, honestly, I shared at the time. I, however, was determined to make it back into my home. Mother had a Townhouse in London she inherited through the Rosier line of her family. Father seemed to do better there, as well. To this day, there are rooms in the Manor he will not enter."

  "I engaged a valet, by the name of Reginald Wilberforce. He was a quiet chap, who nonetheless proved invaluable. His connections seem limitless, both in and out of the magical community. He was the one who engaged Johnstone Landscaping for us."

  Draco quirked a small smile. "And, before you ask, I have no idea what his Blood Status is. In turn, he has never expressed the least interest in my family history."

  "Several months later, he appeared by the desk in the study where I was working. Nothing magical involved, he just had a knack for suddenly being there when he hadn't been before. 'Sir,' he said, "I was giving your chambers a more thorough going over than usual, in anticipation of the Vernal Equinox. I came across a bundle of clothes that had fallen behind a chest. The garments were quite beyond repair, but this was in one of the pockets.' "

  "With that he handed me the knotted handkerchief. I was baffled at first. When I said I forgot their existence, I was not exaggerating. The sight of the fragments, though, brought everything back, and I do mean everything. The fire, and the flight, and the battle, and Crabbe, idiot that he was..."

  "Wilberforce had vanished in that way of his. I prodded a few of the pieces gently. Honestly, they seemed more like foil than metal. I was surprised they hadn't crumbled into nothing. Still, I had that feeling that they meant something, at least to me. So I put them in a more durable container with cotton batting to cushion them. And I made my first trip to Diagon Alley since the War."

  "It wasn't pleasant, I assure you. But I wasn't the only one there with bad memories. I could tell that just by looking around. I made the mistake of wandering too close to your brother-in-law's shop, and that cleared some of the cobwebs away, no mistake."

  "There was a jeweler my family had always had good relations with. To my relief, the staff received me courteously, as if nothing but time had passed since my last visit. While I was describing what I wanted, another customer entered and was waiting. I finished giving them my somewhat unfocused ideas, and left the details to their discretion."

  "I turned to find Astoria Greenglass waiting her turn. I knew her sister, Daphne, of course, so I greeted her, perhaps a little stiffly, perhaps fearing disdain, I do not know. She was cordial, if a little inwardly focused."

  "I was unaware of her Blood Malediction at the time, and simply thought she looked unwell. She wavered slightly as she approached the counter. Instinctively, I magicked up a chair, and insisted, almost rudely, that she use it while conducting her business."

  "I am afraid I made a bit of a pest out of myself. I invited myself to assist her in the rest of her shopping, carried her packages, small though they were, and escorted her to the Leaky Cauldron, where she was to wait on her transportation."

  "All the while, she tolerated my officiousness, with an occasional half-smile that seemed to disrupt my train of thought. At the Cauldron, I took for granted that I would be waiting with her. I offered to buy her a Gillyweed Tonic, for no other reason than it had the word 'Tonic' in the name. That made her giggle, which in turn made me break out in the first honest smile I'd had since the war."

  "The conversation went easier after that. When I found she was waiting on the Knight Bus, I told her of my experience on the Muggle bus line, emphasising the odd bits, and not the angst. I had never ridden the Knight Bus, and what she told me of it horrified me. I went all officious again, and insisted on taking her side-along to her family home. And again, she tolerated me with a small smile."

  Draco sighed. "To this day, if I want to make her laugh out loud, I just have to come over all, 'Heavy-Handed Head of the Household.' "

  He noticed the smiles on Harry and Hermione's faces, and came to himself with a start.

  "Oh! The Diadem. Thaaat's what I'm supposed to be talking about. Sorry for nattering on." He Summoned a shallow rectangular slab that looked to be made of crystal. Roughly eight inches wide and tall, it was about three inches deep. From any side but the top, it looked clear and empty. From the top, however, the fragments of the Diadem seemed to float in the crystal, and the background was an undulating white cloudscape, with wisps sometimes floating around and snagging on the bits of metal.

  The fragments floated in an approximation of where they had been when the Diadem was a single item. Wisps of the cloud stuff occasionally filled the gaps, mimicking the details of the original. When every gap was filled, sheet lightning circled the outline, and the illusion was gone.

  "My goodness," said Hermione. She stood and leaned in to examine the slab more closely. "How did your jewelers get those fill-in and lightning effects?"

  "They didn't," Draco said flatly. Hermione straightened up, looking slightly alarmed. Draco continued. "The background clouds were the only thing I requested. The craftsmen thought to put them in motion, which was quite nice. The other... things, they just started happening a few weeks ago. I found it quite unnerving, so I placed it in the vault."

  Hermione unconsciously took a step back. "Unnerving is... definitely a word."

  Harry's chuckle was grim, indeed. "Oh, you haven't seen anything yet."