Chapter Text
Kreacher wakes up one morning to find number 12 Grimmauld Place empty.
This does not worry him overly much; Master Harry sometimes does not sleep very good and goes to his job early. Kreacher had even started to regularly pre-make breakfast for Master Harry to take with him to work for days like this.
Kreacher was of the opinion that his Master’s work was plebeian. He is always running around chasing bad wizards and attending Wizengamot meetings and bringing lots of paperwork home to pour over every night. Master Harry has said that he would ‘die of boredom’ staying inside all day, and ‘likes the adrenaline from a good case’ …Kreacher thinks the bad blood from Master’s mother or his muggle upbringing must have prevented him from ever becoming properly dignified.
Kreacher still misses his Master Regulus every day, but Master Harry killed the Bad Necklace and gave him Master Regulus’ Good Necklace. Whenever Kreacher is sad he can simply put on the necklace and pretend the feeling of Master Regulus’ magic on the necklace is from the magical contract bond linking them together instead.
Kreacher also likes his new Master very much. He is much better than the disgraceful Master Sirius, kinder than Mistress Walburga, and very powerful. He even allowed Kreacher to fight against bad wizards with his favourite meat cleaver, and then let Kreacher watch him kill his enemy after reviving himself from death! Kreacher is very proud to have a Master strong enough to kill a Dark Lord and defeat Death, and he appreciates avenging one’s family like a Proper Black…
The Black blood must be so strong that it supersedes the mudblood’s and the Potter’s even when it is many generations since one of Master Harry’s direct ancestors married a Black! Kreacher has been forbidden from saying mudblood though, so he does not share these thoughts out loud.
“Master Harry is very messy – Kreacher has not seen the kitchen this dirty in years!” Kreacher mutters happily to himself when he leaves his cupboard and sees the state of the kitchen.
All alone in an empty house with a messy kitchen, Kreacher spends almost six and a half hours to get it clean enough to start dinner – that’s how dirty his Master had made it! He is very lucky to have such a considerate Master who gives Kreacher something fun to do. Kreacher decides to make him his favourite venison stew for dinner and treacle tarts for pudding as a reward.
While cooking, Kreacher thinks about how lucky he is to find such a kind Master. His Master spent the whole summer after the war teaching himself how to manipulate space just to expand Kreacher’s cupboard. It is now five times as large, and Kreacher was allowed to take all of Master Regulus’ bedding to make his new bed, and he told Kreacher to pick anything he would like to decorate with.
His ancestors heads are now mounted over the cupboards doorway beside his trusted meat cleaver and the frying pan he once threatened the thieving Mundungus with. Master Harry did stop him from adding the foot from one of the Death Eaters Kreacher severed with his meat cleaver during the battle, though.
He also set up shelves to showcase valuables; Mistress Melania’s finest china, a vase depicting the bloody and violent Goblin Rebellion of 1612, and a newly curse-free enchanted music box that makes Kreacher fall asleep in seconds each night. The box actually works so well that Master’s mudblood friend had to give him a muggle alarm clock to wake him up which Kreacher pretended to hate and throw away but secretly uses to wake up at 5:30 every morning.
Kreacher is very happy with his life these days.
When Kreacher has finished the meal and Master Harry still hasn’t returned from work, Kreacher feels the first inklings of worry. Sometimes Master Harry’s cases keeps him at work until very late, but he always sends Kreacher a patronus to warn him.
Master has not done so now.
Kreacher places the food under a stasis charm and for lack of someone to fret over, decides to find something else to clean.
He finds the public library looking like a mess – and the hidden Black family library is even worse! There are Doxies and other vermin hidden everywhere, and the layers of grime and dust is making Kreacher sneeze uncontrollably. Kreacher is truly worried now; Master would not have managed to make so many rooms filthy in such a short time.
Kreacher checks other rooms, hurrying through the house in increasing panic.
The new pretty paint is gone from the ball room walls, the receiving hall chairs are falling apart, the garden is overgrown, Mistress Walburga’s portrait is back in the hallway instead of in the attic, and Master Harry’s bedroom is hosting a whole swarm of Cornish Pixies.
“No no no… the tapestry is ruined!” he howls in despair when he enters the drawing room. The Black family tapestry is yellowed with age and fraying at the edges, and many names are crossed out again. Master Harry spent many Galleons to have it restored to it’s former glory, and now all the work is gone!
Then Kreacher feels it. The familiar, insidious darkness that creeps all over the room and gives Kreacher bad thoughts…
Kreacher screams.
The Bad Necklace is back!
—
After three days of despairing and weeping hidden in his (small and empty) cupboard, Kreacher has to face the truth; Master Harry is not coming back to help Kreacher, for Kreacher has gone back in time – without Master Harry at his side! Even though Master had promised that Kreacher would never be alone again! Now Kreacher is all alone with Bad Necklace, angry Mistress Walburga’s portrait, a filthy house, and many creatures and vermin.
He wallows in his feelings, but the insidious magic of the Necklace infecting his thoughts and making him feel even worse sparks an anger in him.
He will not be defeated by the Necklace again!
With the anger clearing his mind, he gets a wonderful idea; Master promised Kreacher would not be alone, so Kreacher will simply have to interpret it as a command. Then he can find Master Harry and take him back to Grimmauld Place on his own. Surely the boy would do much better here than stuck in the muggle world!
Master Harry had once told Kreacher about the nasty muggles who hurt him and did not give him enough food (the worst crime Kreacher has ever heard of), so Kreacher knows his Master would be happy to be taken away from his muggles. Maybe even allow Kreacher to kill them or at least hurt them a little bit. But first he has to find out the date to know how old his Master is and if he can be found with muggles or at Hogwarts. Kreacher doesn’t know what happened outside the house during those long years trying to kill the Bad Necklace, so he has no way to tell the date…
One small trip to Diagon Alley and cleverly stealing the Daily Prophet right from a Wizards hands later (“Merlin’s balls… the paper just vanished itself!”), Kreacher learns it is May 1989; a little over two years until Hogwarts for his Young Master.
Excellent.
It’s much easier to take Master from muggles than to infiltrate the castle without alerting the house elves or Headmaster Dumbledore.
He also learns that the current Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher is awaiting trial because he allegedly unleashed a curse which trapped students inside portraits for a slow and painful death. Kreacher is very impressed at the creativity. But it also confirms what Mistress Walburga has always said – Hogwarts has gone to the crups after Dumbledore took over as Headmaster. Kreacher normally wouldn’t care about Wizarding affairs other than those directly impacting the Blacks, but he is worried about sending his young Master to such a dangerous place. Kreacher decides the first thing he will teach him is how to fight his enemies.
Kreacher is just about ready to hunt his Master down when he takes another look around him. The kitchen window is broken and a belladonna plant is growing through the cracks, the air smells of mildew and rot, and he can hear what sounds like something fighting upstairs.
“No, no… Master Harry can never see this- this- TRAVESTY!” he wails.
He considers punishing himself, but he has other priorities first. Full of both shame and determination, Kreacher starts to clean as best as he can.
…His late Mistress Walburga would surely kill him if she had been alive to see the sorry state of the ancestral town house.