After a long stretch of nonstop work, Tver finally helped Cynthia rally together members of the Wizengamot and Ministry officials who were openly opposed to Umbridge.
Even so, truly repealing the Anti-Werewolf Act was far from simple.
For the time being, Tver could only have Cynthia suspend the actions of the Werewolf Capture Task Force, while instructing Marvolio to have Lupin and the werewolves he'd gathered lie low for a while.
What caught him off guard was just how pleased those werewolves actually were.
A life of hiding was something they were long used to. When Marvolio showed up wearing Dawlish's face, they instinctively crouched down, reacting out of sheer habit.
For these timid yet innocent werewolves, resisting had always seemed worse than letting the Ministry search them. In the past, Aurors only cared about actual criminals, or people framed as such. Other werewolves were rarely worth their attention.
But now things were different.
They were still in hiding, yet they received advance warnings from Aurors, had a warm place to stay, and enough food to go around.
It was something they'd never even dared to imagine.
In that sense, it was an unexpected bonus.
After giving it some thought, Tver understood why.
The Anti-Werewolf Act only squeezed the living space of decent, harmless werewolves. For those werewolves who practiced Dark Magic and caused trouble everywhere, the Capture Task Force was unlikely to ever track them down anyway.
Resentment was certainly being stirred up, but Marvolio's timely warning had kept things from spiraling out of control.
To reward Marvolio—or rather, because he couldn't take the constant urging anymore—Tver took him to Grimmauld Place early the next morning.
"This place is actually quite nice. Letting it sit abandoned like this really is a shame," Marvolio said as he followed Tver toward Number Twelve.
He seemed to be in a good mood, casually looking around as they walked.
The surroundings, however, were much the same as they had been last year: old, rundown, and decaying.
Only the Black family's ancestral home looked noticeably better than the others, as if it had been repaired.
And since Dumbledore hadn't yet turned it into the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, the exterior was protected by nothing more than a few ancient anti-Muggle enchantments.
Tver reached the front door with ease.
"Knock, knock."
Creak.
"Good morning, Sirius… Harry?"
Tver stared in surprise at the grimy-faced Harry standing before him. In his hand was a rag even dirtier than his face, dripping with thick, black… ink?
"Uh, good morning, Professor," Harry said, hastily hiding the rag behind his back and offering an awkward smile. "We're cleaning."
"I'm more curious about when you got here," Tver said.
"A few days ago. I went and picked Harry up myself," Black replied.
He swung the door open wide, revealing clothes that made him look more like a cleaner than anything else. Judging by the bright smile on his face, he clearly didn't care about appearances.
"Come in. We've been cleaning since early morning. You might need to cast a few spells for us."
"Did something happen?" Tver asked as he stepped inside with Marvolio.
"It's nothing serious, just… well, there's some odd magic in the house that's interfering with our cleaning. I didn't dare use Finite Incantatem directly."
"You have no idea. Yesterday, after lifting a curse, a cabinet completely fell apart just because we wanted to see what was inside."
Sirius ran a hand through his hair, which looked shinier after some proper rest, clearing his view.
They walked down a gloomy corridor. Rows of old-fashioned gas lamps lined the walls, casting a dim, murky light that was barely any better than the sunlight filtering through the filthy curtains outside.
The wallpaper on both sides had long since peeled away, and the carpet was worn smooth and frayed. Thankfully, a spiderweb-like chandelier overhead flickered faintly, allowing Tver to make out the crooked, empty picture frames hanging on the walls.
"This one used to be my mother, Walburga Black. She never liked outsiders coming in here," Sirius said.
"Luckily, you came at the right time. She's not around for once. Otherwise, she'd be screaming her head off."
"Oh, right. This portrait seems to be under a Permanent Sticking Charm. Can you help me take it down?"
"I'm afraid not," Tver said after a brief look. "This portrait has fused with the house itself. Removing it would be no different from destroying the house."
"What does that mean?" Harry asked blankly.
"It means the house would lose the magic that maintains it and rot away in an instant," Marvolio replied, his gaze never leaving Harry.
Harry felt uncomfortable under that stare. Fortunately, Marvolio wasn't in his original form, so it wasn't enough to affect the soul inside him.
Sirius still remembered this Auror, but he didn't want his godson to be stared at like that for too long. He deliberately slowed his pace by a step, neatly blocking Marvolio's line of sight.
In truth, though, what he was really wary of was the fragment of Voldemort's soul inside Harry's mind…
"By the way, I've already found the locket you wanted." A trace of gravity crept onto Sirius's face. "That thing feels even more unsettling than all the dark magic in this house put together."
"You didn't touch it directly, did you?" Tver asked at once.
"No. Just like you told me, I put it in an empty room." Sirius led the three of them up to the third floor and pushed open the door to a bedroom.
"I cleared everything out. There was only a tall stool in the middle, with the locket placed on top."
"But where's the locket?" Marvolio said in surprise, pointing at the toppled stool.
"Damn it. It must have been Kreacher." Sirius immediately realized who had taken it.
Furious, he left Tver and the others behind and stormed down the stairs.
"Kreacher is the Black family's house-elf," Harry explained quickly as he followed along. "He seems to really like that locket and keeps sneaking into that room."
He led them downstairs with practiced familiarity, into a kitchen that looked much cleaner than the rest of the house.
Strictly speaking, it was more like a basement. Rough stone walls surrounded the space, with a long wooden table in the center lined with many chairs. At the far end, near the fireplace, were two small doors, and Sirius was standing in front of one of them.
"…I told you, you're supposed to give that locket to me!" His furious voice carried straight through the thin door.
"Kreacher gave it," came a cowering yet sly voice in reply. "But since the young master didn't want it, Kreacher naturally took it back."
Sirius's temples bulged with anger. He thrust out one hand, took a deep breath, and said coldly, "Give me the locket."
There was a burst of muttering from inside. Tver and the others couldn't make out the words clearly. A moment later, they saw Sirius snatch the locket in a rage and march back to the long table without even looking behind him.
"This is the locket you wanted. I really don't understand how Kreacher could like something like this," he said, handing it to Tver with obvious disgust.
It was, in fact, a locket. Salazar's locket.
Time had left surprisingly few traces on it. Under Marvolio's delighted gaze, Tver took it, gave it a light wipe, and its distinctive sheen immediately emerged.
"Maybe," Tver said softly, "Kreacher wanted to protect it?"
At those words, Kreacher—who had followed out out of curiosity—froze, his eyes widening in shock.