Grimmauld Place was a small square tucked away - out of sight and mostly out of mind. Fourteen houses situated around a small square. The square was dismal and quiet, grey and not the sort of place that many people enjoyed spending much time. It wasn't maintained very well so that the grassy areas were overgrown and the small pond in the center was murky with pond scum, the kind of pond only big bullfrogs enjoy. There were a few scraggly trees, black jaggedy edged things that sliced through pale grey skies and held ravens that cawed out depressing tones.

Every now and then, odd people would be in the square, walking about and they would come to the gates of the square and stand, leaning against the stone gateway and stare into the alley between Number 11 and Number 13 with a funny expression.

"Real estate sales people, I reckon," said Jeffrey Stewart, the man who had owned Number 8 for as long as could be remembered. "I expect they're trying to puzzle out where Number 12 is at. Well ain't we all," the man laughed. There had never been a Number 12 Grimmauld Place that any of the occupants of Numbers 1 through 11, or 13 and 14 could recall. "Fascinates the kids - my grandson loves tellin' fantastical tales about the invisible house just there, in between, but it's just an alley way," Mr. Stewart would tell anyone who asked. "Always been an alley way and nothin' more."

But Number 12 Grimmauld Place did exist.

Invisible to Muggles, Number 12 was even greyer and more dismaler than the square that it overlooked. Dark grey from foundation to peak, the house had black shutters and looked a bit as though it were in disrepair these days. Once, long ago, the house at Number 12 Grimmauld Place had been in the best of repairs, but the occupant who lived there now did not care much about the appearance of the facade of the house.

"Keeps everyone out, out of Master and Mistresses things," the old house elf murmured, "The nasty look of the place keeps them all out, Kreacher doesn't like visitors..."

Which was good, for Kreacher never got any.

In fifteen years the elf had only had two visitors. Well... technically only one was a visitor. The other was technically a return - a homecoming, of sorts - though it was a most unexpected one.

The first had come on 28 March, 1979. The second had come, 2 November, 1981.

Everyday, Kreacher got up and did precisely the same thing.

A small gold alarm clock he set each night would ring and he would crawl out from his cupboard and stretch his little grey limbs in the kitchen, flap his ears a few times as he uncurled his gnarly spine, and would proceed to cook a breakfast that only he would eat. He would set a table that nobody would sit at, set a place with all the proper settings - including the tiny oyster forks that he would skew slightly, an old habit formed years ago by to entertain two giggling boys that had once occupied the bench seats. Kreacher would sit on the floor by the hearth and eat his breakfast then, out of a wooden bowl with an old bent up spoon that had been assigned as his own. When he'd finished, he would go and clear the untouched table, click his fingers and set all the dishes to washing themselves, despite never being dirtied, and they would fly to the cupboard shiny and fresh.

Next, Kreacher would go and dust the portrait of his Mistress in the hall. Standing on a precariously piled load of furniture and climbing up until he was balanced on the arms of a coatrack, he would dust off the top of the frame while the occupant pointed out all the places where he had missed a spot, her voice snippety and cold. Kreacher tried a couple times during the earlier days to hold a conversation with the portrait, but Mistress had never been interested in speaking more than was necessary to the elf, and even in her portrait form the most she would do is bark out a command or two or accuse Kreacher of allowing the place to become filthy, despite the elve's continuous work to clean the house.

Kreacher always lamented that there had never been a portrait made of the others in his family. How he would have loved if there had been one commissioned! Oh how he would long to have one of his Master... oh how he would long to have one!

Next, Kreacher would go to the library and collect the roses from the vase on the table by the high-back chair. He would look up at the empty frame hanging over the fireplace, where only black space filled the portrait. The occupant had left one day, summoned to speak to the Headmaster at Hogwarts and had never returned. Kreacher stood in a particular spot on the carpet for several minutes each day, staring at this empty span, holding the roses, before he would scurry out of the library.

Kreacher tried to spend as little time as possible in the library.

He would carry the roses down the stairs and back through the kitchen, into his cupboard, and he would slip past his nest, to the far back, where a panel pushed aside and allowed him through into a small, high-walled garden. The garden had a few small piles of stones, stacked in hastily moved piles long one wall to make room for a large onyx monument, cut with gold writing upon the top.

Here lies Regulus Arcturus Black. 25 December 1961 - 27 March 1979. The Kindest Master, and the Kreacher's Most Best Friend. You Were So Very Brave.

Kreacher cleared away the old roses from the day before, laying them on one of the piles of stones to the left of the grave. He untangled a locket from around the stems of the old ones and wrapped it fresh around these new roses, then lay them carefully on top of the onyx stone before curling up in a ball over the heart of it.

The first visitor that had been to Grimmauld Place had come with Master Regulus's body.

An old man with a wrinkled, withered appearance had arrived at Number 12 the day after Kreacher had seen Master pulled beneath the waters in the depths of Fingal's Cave. The man had Regulus's body and he allowed Kreacher to help to clean the murk from the body, and then Kreacher had watched the old man use his wand to clear away the cuts and bruises that had marred Master's skin. He'd used his wand, too, to give Master's face the flush of lifelike color and to fix Master's nose and to regrow Master's hair and to make Regulus look like Regulus again. Kreacher had been so happy, so happy to see Master Regulus one last time, he'd cried great big tears that had soaked the front of Master's clothes all over again, and Kreacher wiped his bulbous eyes with his little fists and trembled as he gazed upon his beloved Regulus.

Kreacher had watched the old man enclosed in the monument coffin made of onyx stone, to seal the grave, and raise his wand to inscribe upon the stone his name and the dates of his birth and death.

The old man had let Kreacher dictate the epitaph on the stone, too, and Kreacher made sure that Master's epitaph told the truth about Master Regulus.

Now keeping Master's grave was Kreacher's most important job. After he'd lay there on the stone for a time, whispering to Master memories of gobstones and promises to never forget Master, Kreacher would spend time polishing the onyx stone so that it shone.

When he was satisfied that the stone was as polished as it could be, Kreacher would cut fresh roses from a climbing bush of them, clipping them carefully and using tweezers to remove the thorns, and he would carry the fresh ones upstairs to the library, put them in the vase on the table by the high-back chair, and pause in the same particular spot on the carpet, staring up at the still empty frame where Cadmus Peverell had once been.

It would into the afternoon by then, and Kreacher would busy himself by cleaning the stairs or dusting the elf heads in the corridor despite how much those heads made Kreacher's heart ache. He would arrange the umbrellas in the troll's foot umbrella stand, and pull down the drapes and iron them. He'd go up stairs and dust Master Regulus's room and cast cleaning spells on the duvets and the carpets. He would always climb faithfully up to the third floor and try the knob of Master Sirius's bedroom door, but it would never turn and Kreacher would mutter what a bad, bad boy Master Sirius was, locking Kreacher out, and how filthy Master Sirius's bedroom must be without having a proper cleaning in over a decade... nearly two.

He never went to the attic. A sign hung on the door said no adults and no house elves, and though the command was written in a child's handwriting it was not possible for him to break it, and so the attic had been abandoned to itself ages ago.

Kreacher would make himself dinner and while dinner cooked, he would set a table that nobody would sit at, set a place with all the proper settings - including the tiny oyster forks that he would skew slightly. Kreacher would sit on the floor by the hearth and eat his dinner then, out of the wooden wooden bowl with the old bent up spoon. When he'd finished, he would go and clear the untouched table, click his fingers and set all the dishes to washing themselves, despite never being dirtied, and they would fly to the cupboard shiny and fresh.

At last, the place clean and silent, Kreacher would crawl into his cupboard, take up his alarm clock, wind it just-so, and curl up and fall asleep.

The only variation to this routine had come midway through his time alone, when Kreacher's filthy Master Sirius had arrived at Number 12 Grimmauld Place, around mid-morning on 2 November, 1981.

Kreacher had been in the garden, polishing Master Regulus's onyx grave, when he was suddenly summonsed and he'd disapparated to the corridor by the front door. Master Sirius had stumbled through the door, acting most peculiar - even for Master Sirius, who always acted a bit peculiar in Kreacher's opinion, but this time more than ever. His presence set off the angry shrieks of the portrait of Kreacher's Mistress and she hung in her frame screaming curses and hateful words at Master Sirius.

"FILTH, SCUM! STAIN ON THE HOUSE OF BLACK! BLOOD TRAITOR!"

"Oh shut the fuck up, mummy dearest, you great cunt," Master Sirius had growled, stumbling and only just catching himself on her frame.

"DON'T YOU DARE TO TOUCH MY FRAME, YOU BLIGHT ON THE NOBLE HOUSE---"

Master Sirius's eyes were darkly shaded and his whole entire body smelled thick of fire whiskey so that Kreacher's stomach turned horribly at the stench of it. "Master needs a bath," Kreacher accused, "Master is filthy, Master --"

"OH DON'T YOU START IN ON THAT RUBBISH TOO, you brain-washed little fuck," Master Sirius said, and he tripped over the trolls-foot umbrella stand, casting umbrellas every which way in the hall.

"Kreacher's Master is clumsy!" Kreacher snapped, angry because he'd just arranged those umbrellas very nicely the day before.

"Oh sod off," muttered Master Sirius and he'd stumbled the rest of the way down the hall and into the kitchen, looking around at everything and shaking his head. He'd turned 'round then, and started back toward the stairs, Kreacher trailing him all the way. Sirius bypassed the library, headed to the third floor and, much to Kreacher's distress, had pushed opened the door of Master Regulus's room.

"No, no, no, Master Sirius is not allowed in Master Regulus's room!" the elf cried, "Master Sirius has not noticed the sign on Master Regulus's door! The sign says Master is not to come in!" Kreacher was in a right panic.

Master Sirius looked over his shoulder at the sign and muttered, "Bah! The ickle sodcake!" and he proceeded to dig about in Master Regulus's desk, pushing aside Master's books and parchments, his very important documents and sending quills and tiny ink pots flying.

"Oh no, no, no, Master Regulus will be most displeased! Master Sirius must stop making such a mess of Master Regulus's things!"

"What do you think, that he's going to come back to them?" barked Master Sirius, his voice roaring, "Well you're wrong because he isn't going to. He's fucking dead, Kreacher, he's fucking dead and that means he's never coming back! HE IS NEVER COMING BACK!" Master Sirius's anger flashed and he turned and grabbed an ink pot and threw it, smashing it against the wall so that it exploded, ink flying everywhere in great arcs. "THAT'S THE BITCH ABOUT DEATH, ISN'T IT? THAT THEY NEVER COME BACK? THAT ONCE THEY'RE DEAD THEY'RE -- THEY'RE NEVER -- They -- they --" and Master's face had crumpled into a terrible knot of pain and he'd fallen to the floor.

Kreacher stared in bewilderment.

"They're never coming back," Master Sirius wailed, and the sound that Master Sirius made following it - something between a scream and a sob - was agonizing. The sound was something from deep inside of Master Sirius that was welling up and spilling out. Kreacher recognized the sound, because he had made that sound once himself, laying on the carpet in the library, just after watching the inferius take hold of his Master Regulus. Kreacher could feel the feeling of the sound that his Master Sirius was making, he could feel it in the very depths of his body and he shook at the memory of it.

"M-Master Sirius?" Kreacher held out a tentative hand, pressing his palm to the back of Master Sirius's shoulder.

"Never coming back, they're never coming back, they're never --" Sirius was rocking himself, covering his eyes and trembling so much that Kreacher could barely keep his tiny hand pressed to his Master's shoulder. "James, James and Lily... oh God... ohhh God... oohh." And he burst forth with that sound again, that horrible agonizing sound.

"Master Sirius's friends?" Kreacher asked, gentle toned, "The Potter boy and the mudblood girl?"

Kreacher hadn't meant it nasty. He hadn't. He'd been only asking.

Master Sirius was up to his feet, roaring angrily and knocked the elf to the floor. "DON'T YOU FUCKING CALL HER THAT! DON'T YOU FUCKING CALL HER THAT!" he screamed, and he took his wand and aimed it at the elf with all the hatred in the world in his eyes, "YOU LITTLE PIECE OF DUNG, DON'T YOU EVER CALL HER THAT! YOU BRAIN-WASHED PILE OF SHITE! YOU ROTTEN, FILTHY, RIDICULOUS THING! MOTHER SHOULD'VE PUT YOUR HEAD ON THE PLAQUES WHILE SHE HAD A CHANCE TO, YOU SODDEN SCAB!"

Kreacher trembled on the floor.

Master Sirius aimed a blasting spell at Master Regulus's desk and it burst, sending the parchments and books, quills and ink pots flying into the air, landing all about the room, the papers fluttering through the air and the ink pots exploding. Ink flecked the walls, flecked the curtains of Master's four poster, stained the carpet and the wallpaper, and Kreacher wailed at the mess. "Master Regulus will be most displeased!"

"HE IS DEAD, HE DOESN'T GIVE A RATS ARSE ABOUT WHAT HIS ROOM LOOKS LIKE, YOU STUPID ELF, HE'S DEAD!"

Kreacher sobbed.

"He wrote me a letter, where is it?"

Kreacher stared up at Master Sirius, trembling.

"Kreacher," Master Regulus whispered.

"Master Regulus?"

"I command you not to let any Master or Mistress harm you in the future.... If your Master or Mistress harms you.... then you are allowed to defy their orders."

"KREACHER, WHERE IS MY LETTER? I COMMAND YOU TO GIVE ME THE LETTER THAT REGULUS LEFT ME OR I'LL HEX YOU DEAD THIS VERY MOMENT!"

Kreacher stared up at Master Regulus in defiance. He balled his little fists. "No."

"No?" Master Sirius stared at Kreacher with such a lot of loathing and anger. "Did you just -- did you seriously just --" and he started laughing, a loud, manic, barking sort of laugh that was more terrifying than if he'd yelled more. "FINE. Fine, you know what, fuck this. FUCK THIS. I don't need to see it. I already know what it says. I already know what a dungpile of a brother I was, what a fuck up, what a mess, what a bleeding awful human being I'm sure he thought me to be. I don't need to read it... I don't need to read it to know that I've ruined every good thing that's ever been given to me... killed every person that's ever meant anything to me... I'm a fucking blight, mother's right... So you can... you can just go and boil your head in a pot, you fucking insolent little bastard of an elf!" and Master Sirius stormed out of the room.

Moments later, Kreacher heard the front door slam shut - so hard that the whole of Number 12 Grimmauld Place seemed to tremble as hard as Kreacher was doing.

Kreacher lay on the carpet among Master Regulus's destroyed things, and he cried. He cried because he missed his Master, he cried because if Master Regulus hadn't been so thoughtful then he would've had to go and boil his head in a pot like Master Sirius said. He cried because despite all the horrible things Master Sirius had done and said, he, Kreacher, understood that sound that Master Sirius had made - that agonizing pain that had poured out of him as a noise. Kreacher couldn't be angry with Master Sirius, not when that sound had come from out of him like that...

So Kreacher lay and cried and cried and cried until it was time to go and to make the dinner and clean the dishes... and he curled up in his little cupboard and he cried some more... he cried until he was all dried up, until his muscles ached and his body was sore and he couldn't squeeze a single tear more from his eyes.

But it was because of the pity he felt for Master Sirius and that sound that Kreacher's Master had made that day in Master Regulus's room that he obeyed the next time he was called by Master Sirius - over a decade later, on 24 June, 1994.

"KREACHER!" the cry was desperate... as desperate as a cry could be...

And Kreacher had disapparated away from Number 12 Grimmauld Place in a heartbeat, appearing in the dark of the forest on the grounds of Hogwarts, thousands of miles away, in the first rays of the sun coming through the shadows of jaggedy edged branches. Two figures were there in the dark - one bent over, the other laying prone on the ground in the bracken, rasping, barely alive...

"Help him, Kreacher, please! Please! I can't do it, I - please, help him, help him!" Master Sirius was gaunt and dirty, skinny and broken, kneeling on the ground. He was dressed in filthy striped robes, his eyes hollow and dark as they'd been the last time Kreacher had seen him, but little else resembled that time... Master Sirius was leaning over the scarred, bleeding body of Remus Lupin.

"Please!" Master Sirius wailed. "Please! Take him to Madam Pomfrey at the hospital wing at Hogwarts, Kreacher, quickly!"

And so Kreacher obeyed.