Kreacher: The Black Family House-Elf Who Changed the War

For two books, Kreacher is the elf everybody hates. He grumbles, insults, betrays. Then Harry hears his story, and the villain becomes one of the most moving characters in the series.

Who he is

Kreacher is the Black family's house-elf. He is old, wrinkled, with hairy ears and red eyes, and he lives at Grimmauld Place among rags and the remains of a world that ended. He serves the family by inheritance: the Black parents and young Regulus, whom he adored.

He is loyal to pure blood because that is what he was taught. He despises Sirius, Hermione and anything outside the old family, and says so under his breath, without shame.

Key moments

• Order of the Phoenix, ch. 4: Harry meets him at Grimmauld Place, muttering insults about Muggle-borns.
• Order of the Phoenix, ch. 37: Dumbledore explains why Kreacher betrayed Sirius: Sirius treated him like furniture and nobody had ever shown him affection.
• Deathly Hallows, ch. 10: Kreacher tells how Voldemort took him to the cave and how Regulus saved him. Harry gives him Regulus's fake locket.
• Deathly Hallows, ch. 11: he finds Mundungus Fletcher and brings him to Harry, and comes back changed: he no longer insults, he serves with pride.
• Deathly Hallows, ch. 36: he arrives at the castle leading all the Hogwarts house-elves, carrying kitchen knives, shouting for them to fight for Regulus.

Relationships

With Regulus he had an almost fatherly bond: the only Black who treated him with respect. With Sirius, a hatred fed from both sides. With Harry it starts with contempt and ends in devotion. By the final battle, Kreacher is calling him master with pride, and Harry treats him as a friend, not a servant.

What almost nobody notices

Kreacher tried to destroy the locket for years and couldn't. He tried everything he knew, and nothing was strong enough. Regulus's last order, to destroy it, stayed lodged in him his whole life.

When Harry gives him Regulus's fake locket, Kreacher cries and can't speak. It is the first time anyone in the house has shown him gratitude (Deathly Hallows, ch. 10).

To follow the story of that locket, read Regulus Black and Slytherin's Locket: The Forgotten Hero.