Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Do Not Enter 

---

Without the Express Permission of 
Regulus Arcturus Black 
Excitement trickled through Harry, but he was not immediately sure why. He read the 
sign again. Hermione was already a flight of stairs below him. 
“Hermione,” he said, and he was surprised that his voice was so calm. “Come 
back up here.” 
“What’s 
the 
matter?” 
“R.A.B. I think I’ve found him.” 
There was a gasp, and then Hermione ran back up the stairs. 
“In your mum’s letter? But I didn’t see –“ 
Harry shook his head, pointing at Regulus’s sign. She read it, then clutched 
Harry’s arm so tightly that he winced. 
“Sirius’s brother?” she whispered. 
“He was a Death Eater,” said Harry. “Sirius told me about him, he joined up when 
he was really young and then got cold feet and tried to leave – so they killed him.” 
“That fits!” gasped Hermione. “If he was a Death Eater he had access to 
Voldemort, and if he became disenchanted, then he would have wanted to bring 
Voldemort down!” 
She released Harry, leaned over the banister, and screamed, “Ron! RON! Get up 
here, quick!” 
Ron appeared, panting, a minute later, his wand ready in his hand. 
“What’s up? If it’s massive spiders again I want breakfast before I –“ 
He frowned at the sign on Regulus’s door, in which Hermione was silently 
pointing. 
“What? That was Sirius’s brother, wasn’t it? Regulus Arcturus … Regulus … 
R.A.B.! The locket – you don’t reckon -- ?” 
“Let’s find out,” said Harry. He pushed the door: It was locked. Hermione pointed 
her wand at the handle and said, “Alohamora.” There was a click, and the door swung 
open. 
They moved over the threshold together, gazing around. Regulus’s bedroom was 
slightly smaller than Sirius’s, though it had the same sense of former grandeur. Whereas 
Sirius had sought to advertise his diffidence from the rest of the family, Regulus had 
striven to emphasize the opposite. The Slytherin colors of emerald and silver were 
everywhere, draping the bed, the walls, and the windows. The Black family crest was 
painstakingly painted over the bed, along with its motto, TOUJOURS PUR. Beneath this 
was a collection of yellow newspaper cuttings, all stuck together to make a ragged 
collage. Hermione crossed the room to examine them. 
“They’re all about Voldemort,” she said. “Regulus seems to have been a fan for a 
few years before he joined the Death Eaters …” 
A little puff of dust rose from the bedcovers as she sat down to read the clippings. 
Harry, meanwhile, had noticed another photograph: a Hogwarts Quidditch team was 
smiling and waving out of the frame. He moved closer and saw the snakes emblazoned 
on their chests: Slytherins. Regulus was instantly recognizable as the boy sitting in the 
middle of the front row: He had the same dark hair and slightly haughty look of his 
brother, though he was smaller, slighter, and rather less handsome than Sirius had been. 

---

“He played Seeker,” said Harry. 
“What?” said Hermione vaguely; she was still immersed in Voldemort’s press 
clippings. 
“He’s sitting in the middle of the front row, that’s where the Seeker … Never 
mind,” said Harry, realizing that nobody was listening. Ron was on his hands and knees, 
searching under the wardrobe. Harry looked around the room for likely hiding places and 
approached the desk. Yet again, somebody had searched before them. The drawers’ 
contents had been turned over recently, the dust disturbed, but there was nothing of value 
there: old quills, out-of-date textbooks that bore evidence of being roughly handled, a 
recently smashed ink bottle, its sticky residue covering the contents of the drawer. 
“There’s an easier way,” said Hermione, as Harry wiped his inky fingers on his 
jeans. She raised her wand and said, “Accio Locket!” 
Nothing happened. Ron, who had been searching the folds of the faded curtains, 
looked disappointed. 
“Is that it, then? It’s not here?” 
“Oh, it could still be here, but under counter-enchantments,” said Hermione. 
“Charms to prevent it from being summoned magically, you know.” 
“Like Voldemort put on the stone basin in the cave,” said Harry, remembering 
how he had been unable to Summon the fake locket. 
“How are we supposed to find it then?” asked Ron. 
“We search manually,” said Hermione. 
“That’s a good idea,” said Ron, rolling his eyes, and he resumed his examination 
of the curtains. 
They combed every inch of the room for more than an hour, but were forced, 
finally, to conclude that the locket was not there. 
The sun had risen now; its light dazzled them even through the grimy landing 
windows. 
“It could be somewhere else in the house, though,” said Hermione in a rallying 
tone as they walked back downstairs. As Harry and Ron had become more discouraged, 
she seemed to have become more determined. “Whether he’d manage to destroy it or not, 
he’d want to keep it hidden from Voldemort, wouldn’t he? Remember all those awful 
things we had to get rid of when we were here last time? That clock that shot bolts at 
everyone and those old robes that tried to strangle Ron; Regulus might have put them 
there to protect the locket’s hiding place, even though we didn’t realize it at … at … “ 
Harry and Ron looked at her. She was standing with one foot in midair, with the 
dumbstruck look of one who had just been Obliviated: her eyes had even drifted out of 
focus. 
“… at the time,” she finished in a whisper. 
“Something wrong?” asked Ron. 
“There was a locket.” 
“What?” said Harry and Ron together. 
“In the cabinet in the drawing room. Nobody could open it. And we … we … “ 
Harry felt as though a brick had slid down through his chest into his stomach. He 
remembered. He had even handled the thing as they passed it around, each trying in turn 
to pry it open. It had been tossed into a sack of rubbish, along with the snuffbox of 
Wartcap powder and the music box that had made everyone sleepy …” 

---

“Kreacher nicked loads of things back from us,” said Harry. It was the only 
chance, the only slender hope left to them, and he was going to cling to it until forced to 
let go. “He had a whole stash of stuff in his cupboard in the kitchen. C’mon.” 
He ran down the stairs taking two steps at a time, the other two thundering along 
in his wake. They made so much noise that they woke the portrait of Sirius’s mother as 
they passed through the hall. 
“Filth! Mudbloods! Scum!” she screamed after them as they dashed down into the 
basement kitchen and slammed the door behind them. Harry ran the length of the room, 
skidded to a halt at the door of Kreacher’s cupboard, and wrenched it open. There was the 
nest of dirty old blankets in which the house-elf had once slept, but they were not longer 
glittering with the trinkets Kreacher had salvaged. The only thing there was an old copy 
of Nature’s Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy. Refusing to believe his eyes, Harry 
snatched up the blankets and shook them. A dead mouse fell out and rolled dismally 
across the floor. Ron groaned as he threw himself into a kitchen chair; Hermione closed 
her eyes. 
“It’s not over yet,” said Harry, and he raised his voice and called, “Kreacher!” 
There was a loud crack and the house elf that Harry had so reluctantly inherited 
from Sirius appeared out of nowhere in front of the cold and empty fireplace: tiny, half 
human-sized, his pale skin hanging off him in folds, white hair sprouting copiously from 
his batlike ears. He was still wearing the filthy rag in which they had first met him, and 
the contemptuous look he bent upon Harry showed that his attitude to his change of 
ownership had altered no more than his outfit. 
“Master,” croaked Kreacher in his bullfrog’s voice, and he bowed low; muttering 
to his knees, “back in my Mistress’s old house with the blood-traitor Weasley and the 
Mudblood –“ 
“I forbid you to call anyone ‘blood traitor’ or ‘Mudblood,’” growled Harry. He 
would have found Kreacher, with his snoutlike nose and bloodshot eyes, a distinctively 
unlovable object even if the elf had not betrayed Sirius to Voldemort. 
“I’ve got a question for you,” said Harry, his heart beating rather fast as he looked 
down at the elf, “and I order you to answer it truthfully. Understand?” 
“Yes, Master,” said Kreacher, bowing low again. Harry saw his lips moving 
soundlessly, undoubtedly framing the insults he was now forbidden to utter. 
“Two years ago,” said Harry, his heart now hammering against his ribs, “there 
was a big gold locket in the drawing room upstairs. We threw it out. Did you steal it 
back?” 
There was a moment’s silence, during which Kreacher straightened up to look 
Harry full in the face. Then he said, “Yes.” 
“Where is it now?” asked Harry jubilantly as Ron and Hermione looked gleeful. 
Kreacher closed his eyes as though he could not bear to see their reactions to his 
next word. 
“Gone.” 
“Gone?” echoed Harry, elation floating out of him, “What do you mean, it’s 
gone?” 
The elf shivered. He swayed. 
“Kreacher,” said Harry fiercely, “I order you –“ 

---

“Mundungus Fletcher,” croaked the elf, his eyes still tight shut. “Mundungus 
Fletcher stole it all; Miss Bella’s and Miss Cissy’s pictures, my Mistress’s gloves, the 
Order of Merlin, First Class, the goblets with the family crest, and – and – “ 
Kreacher was gulping for air: His hollow chest was rising and falling rapidly, then 
his eyes flew open and he uttered a bloodcurdling scream. 
“—and the locket, Master Regulus’s locket. Kreacher did wrong, Kreacher failed