Harry burst into the house running towards the kitchen yelling, "Kreacher! I don't know what you're up to, but you better..." Harry stopped when he noticed Snape standing in front of the portrait of Mrs. Black; Kreacher in one hand his wand in the other. Snape was currently threatening the picture and trying to get the curtains closed.

"Well Potter, are you just going to stand there and stare, or are you going to help me quiet this bloody, offensively malicious, woman?" Snape snarled at the woman as he spoke.

Harry grabbed both sides of the curtains, pulling them shut, finally quieting Mrs. Black for the moment. After that nasty task was over Harry motioned for everyone to follow him to the kitchen. Once everyone was inside the kitchen Harry warily eyed Snape, who was now binding a squirming Kreacher to one of the chairs.

"Ok Snape, start explaining. I know I for one would love to know why you didn't warn us why you were there, and why did I find you here holding onto Kreacher." Harry was fuming, and was completely unsure what to do. He was wishing Remus would show up, but was doubtful he would.

"You're in no position to question my role. I have to do certain things, thing no one on our side is going to like, but they have to be done and you would do well to remember that. This...partnership will never work if you're questioning my every move. Albus understood that; you need to as well." Snape replied, not bothering to keep any of the vitriol out of his tone.

"Whatever, Snape, Dumbledore isn't here anymore is he and we haven't been working together for damn near 20 years. Not to mention...I don't care if you like how I do things or not. If I've learned anything over the years, it's that I work best with the most information possible. I've already lost Sirius because certain people wanted to keep me out of the loop. I refuse to endanger anyone else! I'm not asking you to go into great detail; I'm only asking you to answer simple questions. We will deal with how much detail I need later."

Snape raised his eyebrow while he listened to Harry, appraising the young man. The insolence was still there, but at least he was no longer raging against people. His questions were viable, and Harry was right, he did do better with more information. Snape hated to admit it, even to himself, but at least the young man was trying.

"That is adequate for now. Now to answer your questions; the Dark Lord had us gathered for the attack of Diagon Ally on the day of the Weasley wedding, and then got some news that pleased him greatly. Some how he found out that your family was going to be vulnerable as soon as you reached your maturity. He felt an attack on you could not be passed by, so he ordered everyone to stay in the Manor until just before midnight. I was ordered to lead the attack. My Lord wanted to reward me for my accomplishments, so he let me lead the group attacking you.

There was no way I could leave unnoticed. I had to spend all of the day reliving our Occlumency lessons to see if he could gather any relevant information we could use to hurt you more during the attack, so there was no possible way for me to get you the new information. I returned here to make sure you hadn't done anything rash, as well as to make sure everyone was not seriously hurt. We do have a timetable we need to stick to; I for one would like to be rid of My Lord as soon as possible. When I entered I saw that wretched house-elf carrying on about his Mistress' possessions; and noticed he had a handful of items, one of which looked to be a locket. I decided to subdue him until you returned, knowing he wouldn't take any orders from me. Now, would you like to examine the locket? Or shall we keep arguing?" Snape had kept his tone civil, while his looks were scathing.

Harry held his hand out for the locket, looking it over once he had it in his hand. "You mean to tell me that Kreacher lied to me? I thought he couldn't do that? Dumbledore was convinced, or wait maybe he wasn't as convinced as he wanted to seem. He never did have the Order meet here again after Sirius' death did he?" Harry looked up to Snape for confirmation, with a nod he continued. "So, what do we do? He can't be trusted, and I can't free him. He'd run straight to Narcissa Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange to tell them about the locket. That would lead to them telling Voldemort and then he'd know what we are up to." Harry dropped into a nearby chair and put his head into his hands.

Hermione was feeling divided. On the one hand she felt Kreacher, like all the other house-elves, should be free. But if he were freed, their mission would fail. He'd already betrayed one master, and was lying to Harry even now. She looked up to Snape; surely he would know what they needed to do.

Ron knew what wizarding tradition called for, but he wasn't sure if Snape knew or not. One thing was for sure, Hermione was going to be mad. He didn't want to speak up, but knew he had to. He might be the only one with the knowledge on how to handle the house-elf; Ron spoke up. Hopefully Hermione would forgive him, eventually.

"I know what we have to do with him," Ron started with a grimace. "Wizarding tradition states that Kreacher must answer to his House-Elf Vow. Now hear me out, Hermione," He interrupted when she started to voice her opinion on the matter. "He's done wrong now, to not one but two masters. He already should have had to do this for inadvertently causing his Sirius' death. I'm not sure what Dumbledore was thinking when he didn't demand the House-Elves Vow be enforced." Ron said shaking his head.

"Just what is this Vow, Ron?" Hermione asked.

"You know how an Unbreakable Vow works right?" Ron asked, wincing slightly when he looked at Snape. "Well all House-Elves take a vow when they attach themselves to a family. They all state different things depending on what the family's wants and needs are, but one of the fundamental requirements is that they can do no harm to any family member, to do so would forfeit their life."

"I understand your family does not have a House-Elf, Mr. Weasley. How do you know this?" Snape asked.

"Look, just because we don't have one doesn't mean we don't know anything about the subject. Weasley's are one of the older Pure-blood families; we're as old as the Blacks and the Malfoys. All of us grew up learning this stuff. Plus, the twins have a morbid streak. Mum made the mistake of mentioning an old family story on the subject, she wouldn't say anymore after she realized why they were so interested, but they tried to find out all they could. Fred told me and Ginny one night trying to freak us out," explained Ron.

Harry looked to Ron and asked, "Ok, so do you know how this has to be done? I take it I have to do it as the Black heir, and master of the house, right?" Harry looked a bit green; he wasn't sure how he felt about killing Kreacher. Sure he wanted to choke him to death when he learned just how involved Kreacher was in Sirius' death, but Dumbledore had talked him down from those feelings. He was already going to have to murder Voldemort; did he really want to add a House-Elf to his list?

"Harry, look at me." Hermione said. "You know how I feel about House-Elf Rights, but Snape and Ron are right. He's already done way too much damage; we can't have him letting Voldemort know about our mission. You have to go through with whatever it is you have to do to invoke his Vow. We just can't chance it."

Harry looked into her eyes and saw a sad sincerity there, along with determination to do what they needed to do for the mission. ‘Yeah this mission that leads me to murder, looks like it's starting early!" Harry thought to himself. Looking over to Snape and seeing he agreed, Harry put his head into his hands and asked again, "Ok Ron, explain what I need to do."

"It's rather simple; you ask the Vow to come forth and judge the Elf. I believe he will go into some sort of trance as the Vow decides; if he's broken his House-Elf Vow, if it finds him guilty, his own magic will...er take care of him." At this point Ron was looking a bit green himself.

Harry got up slowly and walked over to Kreacher. "Kreacher, I call forth your House-Elf Vow and ask that it judge you." Kreacher immediately went glassy eyed, and then there was a bright flash of white light that surrounded the Elf. When the light dissipated there was nothing left of Kreacher but a pile of ash. Suddenly, there was a series of loud crashes heard through out the house. The four looked at each other puzzled and quickly Ron, Hermione, and Harry went to investigate the noises.

As Harry got closer to the entryway he laughed. There on the ground was Mrs. Black's portrait. Hermione raced off, she came back a few minutes later carrying a large piece of cloth.

"It seems the permanent sticking charm problem has been solved. My guess is that Sirius' mum had tied it into the all the House-Elves, as they live the longest. Ron, if you'd go check on the row of heads, I bet most of the noise we heard was them falling off as well." Hermione said with a huge grin.

Harry and Ron both went to check on the row of heads, and came back carrying them all. "Ok mate, what should we do with all this junk?" Ron asked Harry once they where in front of the horrid portrait again.

Harry looked to Snape, "Any suggestions? Can we burn it all?"

"Whatever you're going to do, Mr. Potter, do it quickly. It is almost 10a.m., and I would like to get some sleep before I have to head back to My Lord's side; and we still need to deal with the locket," Snape replied.

"Fine, let's hurry and get all of the heads to the kitchen. We will burn those, but I'd like to store the portrait and the tapestry. They might be unpleasant and all, but who knows, they might come in handy." Harry turned with his armful of mounted heads and made his way to the kitchen to burn them.

Once all the heads were dispatched, Harry sank back into a chair and pulled the locket out of his pocket, looking it over. "Well, this certainly looks like Slytherin's locket from the memories." Harry looked over to Snape, "I take it you haven't had a chance to cast whatever detection spells Dumbledore taught you? Can you cast them now?" Harry asked handing the locket back to Snape. As he did so, Harry rubbed his neck with his other hand.

Snape took the locket and cast Acerbus Deprehensio Veneficus and Acerbus Deprehensio Spiritus. "It does seem to hold a Horcrux. But..." Snape said quickly when Harry went to take the locket back, "I would like to study a way to destroy the Horcruxes before we end up with someone else dying or dead. We will store it safely here until then, agreed?" Snape looked to the teens, eyebrow raised to emphasize his question.

Harry reached out for the locket, and this time took it in his hand. "I'll keep it and any other Horcruxes we find in my room, until they can be destroyed."

"Agreed, now if you three don't have any more dire questions, I would like to retire for some sleep while I'm able." Snape announced, looking to each of them in turn. "No? I will be off to my room then, do not disturb me unless someone is dying or the house is ablaze." Snape walked out of the kitchen, his robes snapping behind him in all their glory.

"Well, is there anything else we need to discuss? I'm really achy all over and I'd love to get some sleep myself." Harry declared, rubbing his neck again.

"You feeling ok, mate?" Ron asked, both of them looked a bit worried.

"Yes, I'm fine. I just think all the stress from last night and this morning is catching up to me. Plus we've been up too long. Merlin, I'm exhausted." Harry replied, as he stood up. "Let's head to bed. I don't mind spending my birthday sleeping." Harry said with a tired smile.

They laughed and went off to bed; they were all sleeping before their heads hit the pillows.