"Shorty after Tom began working for me she came into the shop looking for a few new treasures for her vast collection. She took a shine to the boy and asked him to visit with her in order to look through her collection of antiques. To my great astonishment he managed to actually do business with her, returning with a dozen items following his first visit alone.
"Never, tough, did he obtain the one item that I desired to have back - locket that had once belonged to Salazar Slytherin himself. She had purchased it from my shop a few years before, and I myself had acquired it from a poor and ignorant little witch who was desperate to make a sale.
"Anyway, one day, about a year after he started working for me, Tom came back to the shop having visited Smith. He had failed to purchase an ancient suit of goblin-made armour, but his mind was clearly elsewhere. All through the rest of that day, his mind was clearly elsewhere and the next two days were the same.
"Then old Hepzibah was found dead in her home. A search revealed that her evening cocoa had been laced with a little-known poison. There was no evidence that anyone else had been in to the house and the woman's House Elf confessed to having mistakenly added the poison to the cocoa instead of sugar. The Ministry concluded that the Elf, who was old and senile, had indeed killed her by accident and did not investigate any further."
"And how was that a coincidence?" questioned Croaker.
"The day after Hepzibah Smith died, Tom Riddle turned up three hours late for work and announced that he was quitting his job right there and then," replied Burke "It was quite a shock as he seemed to have settled in very well and appeared to greatly enjoy his job. After leaving he just seemed to disappear."
Burke sat up a little straighter before continuing "But even more strange was the fact that rather than find room for her hoarded antiques for themselves, Smith's family organised it all and held an auction, which I attended. At no point was there a mention of Salazar Slytherin's Locket."
"That's not so strange," said Croaker "They could easily have decided to keep it for themselves, or found a buyer prior to the auction."
"Perhaps," said Burke "but consider everything that I have told you about Tom Riddle. His obsession with heirlooms, his behaviour prior to Smith's death, my suspicions of his use of extremely underhanded methods in his business dealings… You do know who he became, don't you?"
"We do," replied Croaker.
"Good," said Burke "Then it will pay you to also keep in mind that Smith claimed to be a descendant of Helga Hufflepuff and, if rumours were ever true, she had a small, golden cup that was an heirloom of the Hufflepuff family."
"We'll keep that in mind," said Cyrus "Thank you, Mr Burke."
The ancient wizard nodded his head and leaned back against his pillows.
Croaker lowered the protection charms around the bed and the two men made their way towards the doors of the ward.
Just as they got there, Burke called out to them "If that boy still has those treasures, then you had better be prepared to fight in order to get them, gentlemen. Especially if even half the rumours about him are true."
Severus Snape was sitting in his quarters at Hogwarts, nursing a glass of Ogden's Finest Fire Whiskey. Classes had ended for the day and a Friday evening meant that he could drink if he wanted to, especially as he no longer had Head of House duties to attend to.
That fact caused his blood to boil. Everything had been going wrong for him lately. The Board of Governors and the Wizarding Examinations Authority has come together to demote him from his position as Head of Slytherin House, a role that he had been in since he began working at Hogwarts at the tender age of twenty one.
What was more, he was also on probation for his role as the castle's resident potions master. His every move was being monitored and if so much as one of the arrogant little bastards in his classes made a complaint about him he would likely be out on his ear.
Worse, he could not even vent his pent up frustrations by provoking that arrogant Potter brat after the insolent little whelp had had the call to file a harassment complaint and effectively gotten a restraining order against him.
Even Dumbledore could not cover for him anymore.
Snape was now wallowing in a cesspool of self-pity and loathing of the world in general. He was just wondering how in Merlin's name his life could become any more unfair when he felt a familiar burning sensation on the inside of his left forearm.
Lord Voldemort was summoning him. Fantastic!
He set his glass down and left his quarters.
All the students and other members of staff were in the Great Hall enjoying dinner as he passed the open doors. Only Dumbledore noticed him leaving.
Once he was beyond the line of wards which protected the castle and its occupants, Snape disapparated, arriving only a short moment later outside Malfoy Manor.
Black robes billowing behind him he made his way through the wrought iron gates and up the winding path that led to the front doors of the manor.
As a man who was always aware of his surroundings, Snape could not help but notice that Lucius' collection of white peacocks were looking a little thin on the ground, so to speak. This was probably a result of Lord Voldemort's beloved pet snake, Nagini.
A black robed Death Eater, Gibbon, met him at the doors and led him inside. They went through the long corridors of the ground floor until they reached the doors that led to the manor's grand ball room.
Gibbon knocked on the door and then left Snape to his fate.
"Come," instructed a high and cold voice.
Snape took a brief moment to make sure that all of his occlumency shields were in place and then pushed open the door.
The cruciatus curse struck him square in the chest and he dropped to the floor like a brick where he writhed and screamed in agony.
After two long and torturous minutes that felt more like twenty, the curse eased off.
It took a moment or two for Snape's vision to regain focus, though the spasms remained for a lot longer.
The pale face, slit-like nostrils and evil red eyes of Lord Voldemort swam into view above him.
"You have some explaining to do, Severus."
Amelia Bones listened with rapt attention as the two men told her everything that they had found out at the hospital.
Finally she said "Well, it seems that I will have to arrange a meeting with the Smith family. If they still have the locket and the cup then we can rule them out as dead end leads. If not then we've got a search on our hands."
"I'll head down to Borgin and Burkes tomorrow morning," said Cyrus "I know that Burke said that they sold the Barton brooch, but we need to find out if Voldemort tracked it down later, so knowing who they sold it to will be a good start."
"I'll begin researching the Gaunt family," said Croaker. "With any luck we'll find out what the symbol on that stone was without too much hassle."
Amelia nodded before adding "We'll give it a week or so, then we'll try questioning Burke again. That cannot possibly be all the information that he had on Voldemort."
The two men agreed to this, but unfortunately for all of them Burke passed away in his sleep during the early hours of the following morning. The Healers would put it down as being due to exhaustion from the questioning, but thankfully would not be pressing any charges. In all honestly, Chief Healer Amadeus Hopkirk believed that the sole reason for Caractacus Burke living so long was so that he could pass on all the information that he had given to Croaker and Greengrass that day.
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