Harry-Dementor

22- Summer Of Love

It took two days before the inevitable prank war started. Harry rolled his eyes and set out clear guidelines once the first prank hit Remus who took a sip of tea and turned purple. Snape smirked as Harry stood in front of the other two men and sternly told them the rules they were expected to follow on pain of having an angry dementor follow them around for a day.

The rules were: 1. Snape is off limits. No pranks can be set that he would even accidentally be subject to. Sirius pouted at this for a minute but caved quickly as Snape stared at him and spun his wand carelessly through his fingers.

2. Jamie without Harry inside was off limits. Soulless people cannot protect themselves Harry told them sternly.

And, lastly, 3. Kreacher was both off limits and could not be ordered to help in any prank. He was just starting to come around to liking Harry and was less murderous towards others, so the dementor didn't want to lose the progress they had made. Kreacher actually seemed a little sad at this rule, but that just bolstered Harry's case since any pranks set by the house elf would probably be more cruel than funny in everyone's opinion.

With these guidelines, at least Snape didn't end up viciously attacking anyone because of bad, school day flashbacks. He ended up somehow taking on the role of judge as the two older pranksters tended to look to him almost unconsciously after each prank to see his opinion. His judgements were: turning someone a color was overused and juvenile, making Sirius sound like a donkey all day was quite fitting, boggarts should never be used as prank items (as soon as Harry walked into the room, the boggart fled like the one from the summer before, so it basically did nothing), using Weasley Wheezes was cheating, potions-based pranks always got extra credit, and dementors jumping out of closets never got old.

So, the first two weeks of summer went very quickly. While, the residents of Grimmauld Place were surprisingly getting along, Dumbledore had been busy with figuring out the horcruxes. Since they had assumed (from Snape's interrogation of Slughorn) there were seven and Harry, the diary, the diadem, ring, and locket were all handled, they only had two left. Harry had filled them in on his suspicions about Nagini, so Dumbledore had been focusing on the last, non-snake horcrux. He dropped by Grimmauld one evening as everyone was eating dinner. It was no problem for Kreacher to dish up another plate for the man as he sat at the table, Harry slightly turning away from him since his robes with suns and starbursts were just a little too shiny to not be distracting.

"I think it must be Helga Hufflepuff's cup," he concluded after an appreciative bite of Kreacher's stew.

"Great, so where was the cup seen last?" Harry asked, pointedly not looking at his headmaster.

"What was the man's fascination with founder's artifacts?!" Sirius grumbled, eyes flashing to Harry's necklace.

"Albus, the cup is another artifact that has been considered lost…any ideas?" Snape drawled in an almost bored manner as he drank from a thermos that most definitely contained blood.

The elderly man hummed in thought. "I tracked it down to Helga's last remaining descendant and obtained a memory of a young Tom Riddle visiting her during his time working at Borgin and Burke's. We can easily determine that he stole both the cup and the locket from her since she owned both in the memory."

"Headmaster, that still doesn't tell us what he did with the cup though…frankly, if Kreacher hadn't been able to fill us in on the locket, I don't think we ever would have learned how it ended up here in the house. He was pretty good at hiding things," Remus prodded but with a thankful look to Kreacher who just sneered at the man he still called the Wolf-Man.

"He gave the diary to one of his followers, it may be possible that he gave the cup to another?" Harry questioned the group. "I mean…Lucius Malfoy is pretty high up, but isn't Bellatrix, Barty Crouch Jr., and even Snape, before now anyway, higher in rank than he is?"