Harry wakes very early the next morning, in a sleeping bag on the floor of the drawing-room at 12, Grimmauld Place. Ron and Hermione are asleep next to each other. `Ron had had a fit of gallantry and insisted that Hermione sleep on the cushions from the sofa, so that her silhouette was raised above his. Her arm curved to the floor, her fingers inches from Ron's.'  Harry wonders whether they fell asleep holding hands, and feels lonely.

His thoughts move from the wedding and recent events, to his mission. His thoughts, Jo tells us, are bitter. `Why hadn't Dumbledore told him? Why hadn't he explained? Had Dumbledore actually cared about Harry at all? Or had Harry been nothing more than a tool to be polished and honed, but not trusted, never confided in?' Harry poses these key questions to himself and, unable to find the answers immediately by thinking, lets go of the mental search for a moment and begins a physical search. He starts by searching above.

He climbs the stairs and goes into the bedroom shared by himself and Ron the previous year. Both the wardrobe and the contents of the beds have been searched. Phineas Nigellus is not visible in his portrait, and Harry assumes he is at Hogwarts.

Harry climbs the next set of stairs and finds two doors. He enters Sirius' room for the first time, and finds a dusty teenager's room – Gryffindor banners, Muggle motorcycle and Muggle girl posters, a photograph of Sirius and his schoolfriends, each fastened to the grey silk-clad walls with a permanent sticking charm.  Harry reflects on the characters of the four schoolfriends: ` …or was it simply because Harry knew how it had been, that he saw these things in the picture?'

`The sky outside was growing brighter: a shaft of light revealed bits of paper, books and small objects scattered over the carpet.'  Harry finds three things: scattered pages from `History of Magic' by Bathilda Bagshot, from a motorcycle maintenance manual, and  then he sees the first page of a letter written to Sirius by Harry's mother, Lily.  

Through this he discovers a little about the world that he inhabited when he was one year old: that his family had a cat, that Sirius gave him a toy broom for his first birthday, Petunia and Lily still corresponded and sent eachother presents, that Wormtail visits Godric's Hollow, that James imagined that Harry would become a great Quidditch player and that he and presumably therefore also Lily are unable to leave Godric's Hollow, that Dumbledore has had James' invisibility cloak for some time, and that Bathilda drops in frequently to talk to Lily, often about Dumbledore.

Harry ponders on the significance of the invisibility cloak: `I don't need a cloak to become invisible.'

Harry asks himself further unanswerable questions, about `traitor' Wormtail's feelings, about the significance of the invisibility cloak: `I don't need a cloak to become invisible,' and about Bathilda's incredible stories about Dumbledore. He is once again confronting his search for the answer to his key questions about Dumbledore. He searches for the rest of Lily's letter, and finds the torn photograph, showing himself, baby Harry, on a toy broomstick, and James' legs.

Hermione arrives, upbraiding him for his actions. They discuss the possibility that Snape has searched the house, but cannot determine why he might have done so. Harry's instinct wants to follow up the clues which all point to Godric's Hollow, but Hermione dismisses this as a pointless and self-indulgent diversion from what to her is a straightforward task that has been clearly delineated for them by Dumbledore.

  `It's not just that,' Harry said, still avoiding looking at her. `Muriel said stuff about Dumbedore at the wedding. I want to know the truth …'

  He told Hermione everything that Muriel had told him. When he had finished, Hermione said, `Of course, I can see why that's upset you, Harry-`

  `I'm not upset,' he lied, `I'd just like to know whether or not it's true or –`

  `Harry, do you really think you'll get the truth from a malicious old woman like Muriel, or from Rita Skeeter? How can you believe them? You knew Dumbledore!'

  `I thought I did,' he muttered.

  `But you knew how much truth there was in everything Rita wrote about you! Doge is right, how can you let these people tarnish your memories of Dumbledore?'

  He looked away, trying not to betray the resentment he felt. There it was again: choose what to believe. He wanted the truth. Why was everybody so determined that he should not get it?

Hermione changes the subject, suggests they have breakfast. Harry agrees grudgingly, but sees the sign on the other bedroom door as they cross the landing, and its arrogance reminds him of Percy Weasley.  He realises they have found R.A.B., Regulus Arcturus Black, Sirius' younger brother. Hermione calls Ron to join them, and they search the room, which is decorated as a monument to Slytherin House. They note that the room has also been searched, and sticky ink from a smashed bottle tells them that it has been done recently. Harry notes that Regulus was a Seeker.

They search unsuccessfully for the locket, and then Hermione suddenly realises that it may have been stored with other dangerous objects with the intention of protecting it, and she remembers that among the objects in the drawing room cabinet that they attempted to throw away the previous year there was a locket…

Harry remembers Kreacher's involvement in this exercise, and leads them down to the kitchen to Kreacher's bedroom, noisily and rapidly. His search continues below …   

There is only a dead mouse and a copy of Nature's Nobility; a Wizarding Genealogy in Kreacher's cupboard bedroom. Harry summons Kreacher, whose attitude appears to be unchanged, and starts addressing his questions to him. `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?'

He immediately establishes that Mundungus stole the locket. But Harry recognises from telltale signs in Kreacher's behaviour that this is just a small part of a critically important story. He pins Kreacher to the ground as Kreacher lunges for the poker with which to damage himself, and orders him to stay still. Hermione, again failing to comprehend what is happening, tries to intervene, but this time Harry stands his ground and continues his investigation of the truth, asking his elf the key questions which the Kreacher must answer truthfully, even though every question and answer is torture for all four of them.

Regulus joined the Dark Lord at age sixteen. When he was seventeen, he told Kreacher that the Dark Lord required an elf. Regulus told Kreacher that this was an honour and that Kreacher must do whatever the Dark Lord ordered, and then come home. Kreacher tells how he was taken in a boat by the Dark Lord across a lake in a sea-side cavern to an island in its centre, how he was made to drink all the potion from the basin, before the Dark Lord filled it again, having first dropped a locket into it. The Dark Lord then left in the boat, leaving Kreacher behind. Kreacher was thirsty, drak the lake water, was dragged under by the Inferi, and then disapparated – Ron guesses this -, returning to 12, Grimmauld Place as instructed.

After that, Regulus told Kreacher not to leave the house.  A while later he asked Kreacher to take him to the cave, and Hermione guesses the rest of the story at this point. Regulus gives Kreacher a locket, and tells him to exchange the lockets when the basin is empty of potion, to go home taking the locket with him, to then destroy the locket and to tell no-one what has happened.

Regulus drinks the potion and is dragged beneath the water by the Inferi. Kreacher returned home and tries repeatedly to destroy the locket, but fails. Kreacher's sobs increase and he becomes incoherent for a while. Hermione adjures Harry to stop Kreacher punishing himself; 'Harry had never seen anything so pitiful.' 

Harry tries to reason with Kreacher, to link in his mind Kreacher's loyalty to Regulus with his betrayal of Sirius, and Hermione points out to Harry that it is beyond Kreacher to think in this way; that instead he is simply loyal to people who are kind to him, serves them willingly and parrots their beliefs.

  `I'm sure "Miss Cissy" and "Miss Bella" were perfectly lovely to Kreacher when he turned up, so he did them a favour and told them everything they wanted to know. I've said all along that wizards would pay for how they treat house-elves. Well, Voldemort did…and so did Sirius.'

  Harry had no retort. As he watched Kreacher sobbing on the floor he remembered what Dumbledore had said to him, mere hours after Sirius' death: I do not think Sirius ever saw Kreacher as a being with feelings as acute as a human's …

Harry sends Kreacher to find Mundungus Fletcher and bring him to Grimmauld Place, telling him that they intend to finish the work that Regulus had started, to  - er - ensure that he didn't die in vain. He then gives the fake horcrux locket to Kreacher, something of Regulus' given to Kreacher as a token of his gratitude. It takes half an hour for Kreacher to recover from the uprush of emotion this causes him. Kreacher leaves his locket in his blankets, while the trio assure him that they will protect it while he is away, makes two low bows to Harry and Ron, and even gives a funny little spasm in Hermione's direction, and then he Disapparates to carry out his new task.   

Questions

1. What is the role of this chapter in the book?

2. What is its role in the search for the horcruxes?

3. What new facts does it reveal?

4. Which old questions does it answer and which new questions does it pose?

5. What are your thoughts and feelings when reading it?

6. How does it change the reader's view of the characters that it describes and refers to? 

7. If you were asked to choose at least one thing to change in it, what would you add or remove, and why? 

Chris