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Chapter Text

The black water of the lake lapped gently against the stone of the cave floor, the sound rhythmic, almost soothing. The air was still and earthy, like moss and cold water and an overturned grave.

Beneath the calm and quiet, death lay thick. Not even the dark of the water could entirely mask the stench of a thousand undead lying in wait beneath its surface.

There was a reason the lake was not still.

In the middle of the lake was a small island of stone, and from the island rose a thin pedestal with a basin atop it. The basin was, or at least recently had been, filled with a potion that emanated a sickly green glow. Now, it was almost gone, painfully choked down in heaving gulps by the man who stood hunched against the basin’s rim.

He was young, though the faint glow of the potion and the war it was waging on his mind made his face almost ageless with pain. His shaking hand scooped another gobletful of the potion and forced it down his throat. His chest jerked and he let out a dull, weak moan, but he didn’t fall.

His dark hair was lank with cold sweat, his robes still damp with the sea spray from the rough waves he’d crossed to reach the cave. It didn’t matter, though, not when he would soon be little more than bone and memory.

It was how it should be. He would finish his task, and that would be the end. A short, painful life full of cowardice and sin completed by one great act of good, even if no one ever knew it.

Regulus Black had always been a coward. The second son who hid in his brother’s shadow or bowed to his parents' wishes. The boy who sneered out the opinions he was told to have and put down those who disagreed, because that was easier and safer than striking out on his own. He’d done countless things he was ashamed of, had hurt people because he was too cowardly to defy those with power over him.

Funny how people always said your life flashed before your eyes in the moment just before you were about to die. He’d never thought it would be so literal. He’d been warned about the horrors of the potion by his family house elf Kreacher, but Regulus couldn’t have imagined just how horrible it would be.

All of his darkest moments, his worst days, relived as if he were traveling back in time. Sometimes, it was him being hurt, by weapons, or words, or curses. Other times, he was the one hurting others.

Every swallow of the potion reminded him of that. Even the best memories were corrupted by the crushing guilt that had driven him to this cave. Though at least that guilt had driven him to finally do something right.

He scraped out more of the potion and brought it to his lips. He could do this alone. Even though every drop made him want to do nothing more than hurl himself away from the potion-filled basin and the memories it brought back, he forced himself to drink more. It was his penance.

He wasn’t a good man.

Regulus had not wanted to be a bad person. When he was small, he’d been enamored by his family’s talk of being Great and Noble and saving the wizarding world from its own demise. Regulus wanted to help people. He wanted to be good and do the right thing, and oh, how he’d believed in everything his parents said.

His older brother Sirius hadn’t. He’d argued back and took blow after blow for it. He’d taken the ones meant for Regulus, too, even if there’d been fewer of those and even when Regulus just couldn’t understand why Sirius didn’t follow the rules and shut his mouth.

Regulus asked his father once why Sirius always argued about everything the family said, and he’d told him that it was because he was a fool. “You’re not like him, though, Regulus. You’re our smart little one. You’ll be great someday. Make the family proud.”

Regulus had wanted so badly to make his mother and father proud. So he did everything they told him to, always believing that this next thing would be what finally secured their pride and their love.

It had taken him so many long years to understand that he never would, but even then, he’d been too much of a coward to defy them.

He was an insect trapped in a spider’s web, being pulled ever deeper by a hundred sticky threads. Those threads had always been there, since he was born, but it was hard to really notice something that you’d never been without. The first time he’d truly felt just how tight those threads held him was when Sirius was sorted into Gryffindor, and his father had made sure Regulus knew that something like that would never be tolerated from their younger son.

The next time he’d felt the threads tighten was when Sirius left home. His mother had left no doubt in his mind that Regulus had no such freedom. He would not stray a step out of line. He would not dare to show any inkling of support for his brother's foolish ideologies. He would be the good, proud son the Black family expected.

The threads tightened as each year passed and the Dark Lord's influence grew. The family must be shown to support him. Regulus had been pledged to take the Dark Lord’s Mark before he ever learned what it was.

The threads controlled everything, in their small, subtle way that somehow amounted to every aspect of his life. His friends, his clothes, how he spent his time. Even at Hogwarts, the moments of freedom were few and far between. There was always someone whose notice might just get back to his mother if he strayed by even a hair.

His father died just before his sixth year at Hogwarts, from a long illness made worse by alcohol. The summer after, when he was seventeen, he was given the Dark Mark. He spoke the words and pledged himself. In a room full of Death Eaters with his mother’s nails digging into his shoulder, he’d had no choice.

His mother died less than a year later. She'd been fraying for years, and she unraveled ever faster once her husband died. She was convinced she would go on forever, the long-lived matriarch of the House of Black, glorious, respected and feared by all. Then one day Kreacher had appeared in the Slytherin common room, hysterical because he had found Mistress Black dead in the parlor from a strange potion gone wrong.

Regulus didn’t know what she’d been intending to do and he found he didn’t care. She was dead and that summer after he graduated was the first time in his life he had felt just a tiny bit free.

That had been the summer that changed everything.

The first thing he’d done when he’d returned to an empty home after graduating Hogwarts was to order Kreacher to change the curtains, from the heavy forest green things infested with doxies to something thinner to let in light. It showed how much of a coward he was that he waited until his parents were both dead and buried deep before he dared to rebel in even the smallest way.

He was a Death Eater already, recruited to a cause he could no longer bring himself to believe in, but couldn’t bring himself to defy it. He’d spent most of his days alone in the big, empty house with only a house elf for company, and half his nights summoned to do whatever horrible thing the Dark Lord decided. All Regulus wanted was to be away from it all. Everything around him was a nightmare or a reminder of one. Even in public he had to put on the act as the proud pureblood, looking down on everyone and acting as if he owned them all, even when all he wanted to do was disappear into the crowd and just be forgotten for once. He was so tired of feeling trapped in a life he couldn’t control.

One day he’d woken up from another night of nightmares, pulled on trousers and a nice shirt that was passably muggle, and walked into the muggle world. He’d never expected to go more than once. Part of him had almost hoped he would be horrified by the barbaric way they lived and be reinvigorated for the Death Eater cause—even though that was impossible; there was no erasing the things he’d seen, the things he’d done. Instead, he’d gone again and again, addicted to the anonymity and how foreign everything felt.

It was on one of these secret trips that he’d met her, a beautiful young witch who looked completely at home in the middle of a muggle street, who hadn’t known him or anything about him, and everything had changed.

If he’d never met her, he would have never come to this cave.

If he’d never met her, he wouldn’t be dying.

He’d expected death. He’d walked into the cave knowing he wouldn’t come out alive, and told himself he was ready.

Life would go on without him. The family estate and fortune would revert to his older brother, even if he didn’t want it. Things would be better that way.

The world would be better off without a man like Regulus Black. He wasn’t his brother, all bravery and righteousness. No, Regulus was a true Black, and had made more than his fair share of bad decisions to live up to the name. So he told himself he was ready to die.

So why was he so scared of the end?

He choked down the last of the potion and a fresh wave of horrific memories swept over him—floating bodies, spilled blood, terror and shame, a kindly smile from his beautiful witch that he had never deserved and piled the weight of his guilt too high for him to bear. But it didn’t matter now. He was dying.

He was so weak and so thirsty, his grip on reality so tenuous. He reached into the empty basin and switched the cursed locket with the duplicate he’d brought. He could feel the difference the moment he took it in his hand. The real one felt old and powerful and evil, but reached something in him and made him want to never let it go. It whispered greatness in his ear, sang belonging to his heart.

His legs gave out and his knees struck the hard rock of the tiny island. He could barely find reality through the haze of every scene the potion had forced him to relive, and with the locket whispering into his heart, it was hard to remember why he’d come.

The dark water lapped against the stone, so softly, luring him down, begging him to drink and invite the undead to feast upon his body. The locket crooned for him to slip it around his neck. He heaved one shallow breath.

He had to do something. He had to—

All was dead bodies, pain, screaming, green light and skulls in the air.

Destroy, the locket whispered. Destroy those who’ve hurt you.

No, destroy the locket, he remembered. It was still clasped in his hand.

I can make you great. I can give you power, the locket said.

His breaths were ragged. He dropped the locket onto the stone and summoned the very last of his strength and sanity. He pointed his wand at the locket and spoke an incantation.

Fire, raw and alive, ripped from his wand, clawing towards the locket. A piercing scream rose into the air—for once, not from his own throat. The locket writhed like a living thing, twisted into a blackened lump, and fell still. The fire vanished in the cave’s dead air, extinguished by the curses protecting the place a moment too late.

Slowly, trembling, he grasped the ruined locket and tucked it into his right pocket. He vanished the ash marks from the stone with the very dregs of what was in him, and then stowed his wand, as well.

He breathed. The world tumbled.

He’d fallen onto his back and rolled towards the water. He didn’t have the strength left to raise even his head, but it didn’t matter. His mind was horror and body was pain, and both were failing. It was the end.

He wasn't ready.

He was far from the cave now, so far away that he could barely register the bony hands reaching out of the water. Something sharp tore into his left hand where it lay on the water’s edge, and he jerked away. He shouldn’t. It was better this way, to be pulled down into the water and disappear beneath its depths, taking the horcrux with him, never to be found.

But he didn’t want to die.

His right hand, still in his pocket, brushed against the handle of a dagger and he wrapped his fingers tight around the hilt. It would do him no good. After all, a single dagger in the hand of one dying man was hardly a match for an army of inferi. Yet still there was something comforting about the weight of the thing in his hand. It had been in the family for centuries, and until that very morning had sat in a prized place in the library of the Black family home, cursed or blessed, depending on whom one asked, to serve as protector to the House of Black for perpetuity. It was this dagger he’d used to slice his own arm to draw the blood required to enter the cave. He’d sliced right through the Dark Mark on his left arm, the dagger of the House of Black bringing about the Dark Lord’s downfall. He had liked the symbolism.

Now, a new pain slashed into that very same arm. A rotting bony hand was tearing into his flesh, pulling wide the wound already there. He screamed, a distant, terrible sound, and tried to wrench away, but he was too weak and more hands had joined the first. They grabbed his leg, ripped at his side, tore deeper into his arm.

He fought, but it was hopeless. His body was little more than agony and a few last breaths. He clutched the dagger as tightly as he could, remembering that at least his last act was something good for a change.

He was seeing different things now, things that hurt a little less. His mind was slipping away from his ravaged body. He saw Kreacher crying, his mother, as haughty in death as in life, his stony father, his brother, wide-eyed, betrayed.

“Regulus?”

He remembered that moment. The last time he’d seen his brother, when they’d said things that couldn’t be unsaid, done things that couldn’t be undone.

“Sirius,” he whispered. Or at least he imagined himself whispering. He couldn’t tell what was real.

He wished his brother were really here. It was such a foolish, childish sentiment. He hadn’t run to his brother since he was small. But he wanted him, so badly. Even though last they’d see each other, there’d been little but hate left between them.

“Sirius,” he said. “I wish I could have seen you...before. Before I— But I had to— I—would have said so much. Too late. Sirius. I’m sorry. Make...the House of Black better.”

Everything was darkness and pain like fire. Just a glimpse in his mind of his brother, staring. The last thing he’d see, even if it was only in the last dying ember of his mind as inferi tore apart his body.

At least the last thing was the one person who might, perhaps, have once missed Regulus Black.

It all grew darker, and he could imagine stars in the starless black of the cave. Stars, as bright and far away, as the life he’d always knew he could never have.

But now…. Well, it was over now.

Chapter Text

Sirius Black woke up gasping, like he’d been pulled drowning out of cold water. He’d been dreaming of his brother. Regulus. He hadn’t seen him in too long, had honestly thought of him less than he should have.

But now his brother was the only thing on his mind.

I have to save him. He didn’t know where the thought had come from, but he just knew something was wrong and he had to do something about it. The desperate need pulled at his very soul. He had to follow the compulsion, or he would suffocate. He leapt out of bed and ran into the living room, past his friend Remus asleep on the couch. The compulsion pulled him onward, into the dark kitchen.

All he could think of was his brother as he stumbled onto the cracked linoleum, as he flicked on the paltry single-bulbed light, as the crimson blood that spilled from the dark shape on the floor soaked through his socks. He knew it was his brother, even before he’d seen his grey-white face and his vacant grey eyes.

“Regulus?” His voice was a choked whisper.

It had been so long since he’d felt anything but anger and bitterness towards Regulus Black the Death Eater, who had stolen the place of the kid brother he’d loved. But now, seeing his body broken on his kitchen floor, all he felt was terror. It looked like the boy had been eaten alive by a pack of vicious animals. His left side was a ruin, blood pouring from the shattered stump of an arm, bone showing white through the ripped shreds of his leg, blood on his face, clumping his hair, darkening his torn open side.

He had to be dead.

His eyes turned towards Sirius. His chest moved.

“Sir…s,” he rasped.

He was alive.

“Sir—”

Sirius threw himself to the ground, whipping out his wand and shooting off spells, grateful beyond anything that Lily Potter had forced them all to learn first aid.

“Remus!” he screamed.

Regulus’s glazed eyes found his. His mouth moved, just barely, but the sound that came out was barely words. “I w..I co..ve see…’fore. ‘Fore I...had to—wo’ve said…too late. Sir’s. ‘M sorry. Make…House...Black better.”

Panic gripped every part of Sirius’s body. Regulus had said he was sorry. Sorry. There was no way in hell Regulus would have done that unless he really thought this was the end. Sirius had applied tight tourniquet spells around Regulus’s arm and leg, but he was still bleeding far too fast. He started closing the wounds in his gut—a stop-gap measure. Sirius might know first aid, but was no match for ruptured organs.

Remus was there, too, firing off spells without prompting. He was relieved Remus didn’t demand he explain why they had to save this Death Eater. Remus didn’t need a justification. Not now, not when it was Regulus, not like this.

Remus knelt beside Regulus’s head, tipping back a blood replenishing potion he’d summoned. Regulus’s eyes were closed now and Remus had to use his wand to get the potion down, then do the same with the bezoar draught. Sirius wouldn’t have even thought of that.

Everything was bright and sharp and vivid in Sirius’s mind, even as he felt simultaneously far away from himself. He acted without thought, knowing only that he had to save his brother. His world was flashes of action, still scenes as he moved with wild desperation. The bleeding slowed, Regulus stopped breathing, then started again. They ran out of blood replenishing potion, the Order’s healer-on-call appeared, and Sirius must have given some sort of explanation that he never remembered later. Minutes or hours or days later, the healer stepped away from Regulus’s torn and bandaged body where he lay on a conjured cot.

“Will he live?” Sirius asked, still feeling like his feet weren’t quite touching ground.

The healer gave a sad sigh. Only then did Sirius recognize that it was Madam Pomfrey, the healer from Hogwarts. “I don’t know. The next couple of days will be crucial. I’ll come back tonight. But Mr. Black…”

Sirius turned away and fixed his eyes on the window, not wanting to deal with the judgment in the woman’s face. “He’s my brother.”

“He’s a Death Eater.”

“He’s hardly a threat right now.”

“He could be if he recovers. I’ve got to tell Dumbledore about this.”

“I wasn’t planning on hiding it.” Sirius didn’t watch as Madam Pomfrey left. He stared out the window at the grey London street until the door clicked shut, and then collapsed onto the floor beside the cot.

His brother’s body was a wreck. His left arm was a bandaged stump, his left leg was hanging on by a mixture of poultices and hope, and most of his left side was either bandaged white or the angry red of wounds healed by magic when there were really too many wounds for the body to handle.

Remus dropped to the ground beside Sirius. “You need to eat.”

Sirius nodded, but didn’t move.

“You didn’t eat breakfast or lunch. There’s food on the table.”

“I’m not going in there.”

Remus stood and retrieved a warm bowl of rice porridge he’d bought earlier from the place around the corner. “Here.”

Sirius took the bowl and began to eat. It tasted like nothing.

“Sirius,” Remus said after several long minutes. “What’s going on?”

Sirius swallowed a sticky mouthful. “I don’t know.”

“How did he get in?”

“I don’t know, I just—I woke up. It was like I’d been dreaming about him or something. Something just...pulled me into the kitchen and he was there. He was still conscious a bit at first. He said— He said he was sorry. I don’t think he even realized he was here.” Sirius dropped the spoon into the bowl and set it on the carpet.

Remus took it and placed it on a side table. “Did he apparate here in that state? Through the wards?”

Sirius shrugged. “We would have heard something, right?”

“I’m sure I would have woken, but…how else? Did he have something on him?”

Sirius glanced at the pile of blood soaked rags that had been Regulus’s clothes. They’d been stripped from him and piled on the kitchen floor. “His pockets. There might—”

“I’ll check,” Remus said. He crossed to the kitchen, bringing the bowl with him, then rummaged through Regulus’s clothes. “There’s his wand and a knife and this burnt bit of metal. That’s it.”

Remus brought the items into the living room and Sirius jumped to his feet. “The dagger.”

“What is it?”

“A Black family heirloom. It’s been in the family for centuries.” Sirius was at Remus’s side in an instant, almost lunging for the blade. Seeing it in the hand of someone who wasn’t a Black felt wrong, deep in his bones wrong, and he snatched it away from Remus so fast his friend almost dropped Regulus’s wand in surprise.

“Is it dangerous?” Remus said, taking a step back.

Sirius opened his mouth to dismiss the idea, then realized he didn’t know. “Not to me,” he said. “Not to the Blacks.”

Because even though Sirius had walked away and his name was burned from the family tapestry and he had been tossed out of the family, at his core, he was still a Black. The blade glinted in his hand, a mercurial silver with a deep black stone set in the pommel. It radiated magic so strongly his fingertips began to tingle from it. It frightened him, but he knew it wouldn’t harm him. The blade wanted him to be well. No doubt it wanted the same for his brother. Had it been what drew Regulus here? Had it woken Sirius from a dead sleep and demanded he save his brother?

“I think this...might have saved him,” Sirius said. “I don’t know how, but it feels like it did. That sounds crazy.” He looked at Remus. “Tell me that’s crazy.”

Remus only shrugged. “If it’s been in your family that long...that’s old magic and your family is the type to have all sorts of odd things. I can’t claim to understand it. It could have.”

Sirius walked to his brother’s sleeping form and tucked it against his uninjured side. He knew the blade wouldn’t hurt his brother. And it might even save him.

Regulus didn’t die that day, or the next, or the next. Dumbledore came and questioned Sirius and Remus, but there was little they could say until Regulus was well enough to be woken up. Dumbledore reinforced the wards and strictly instructed them to not let Regulus get his wand, but did not believe he would be much of a threat in his current state.

Madam Pomfrey checked in as often as she could. Dumbledore had decided that the only people who could know about Regulus were Sirius, Remus, Dumbledore himself, and Madam Pomfrey, at least until they had a better understanding of what was going on.

The days after Regulus had appeared were exhausting. Sirius and Remus dosed him with a dozen different potions and shifted him to avoid pressure sores and check for re-opened wounds. They had to make sure the bandages stayed clean and even help with toileting—not easy when Regulus was mostly unconscious.

It was hard to see him as a threatening Death Eater like this. He was too thin and too sick and looked so young. He was only nineteen. In another world he would have been fresh into his first job, harried by a gruff boss and eager to prove himself, or perhaps in university—had Regulus been a good student in his last years? Sirius realized with a fresh pang of guilt that he didn’t know.

But imagined worlds didn’t matter. In this world he was a mangled Death Eater who had probably ended up here without conscious choice. It may have mattered to Sirius that his brother loved him, but it wouldn’t matter to the Order if he still wanted to do them all in.

They wouldn’t know until they woke him. His many open wounds slowly closed up. The imminent risk of infection lessened. His breathing was steady, his heart rate was almost normal, the fever was mild. Even his leg seemed to be making slow improvements, though it would never fully recover, and really he needed treatments only available at a proper wizarding hospital like St. Mungo’s, which was far too dangerous for them to attempt.

On the fourth day after he arrived in a pool of blood, he was deemed well enough for the sleeping potions to be weaned.

He began to shift on the cot, making small noises of discomfort. His eyelids fluttered, but stayed closed.

Sirius placed a cool hand on his forehead. “I’m here, Reg. It’s okay.”

Regulus shifted again, then cracked open his eyes. He blinked drowsily at his brother. “Sir—” He coughed and Sirius helped him take a small sip of water. “Sirius?”

“I’m here,” Sirius said, smoothing back his unwashed hair.

A series of emotions flashed across his face. “Am I…” He swallowed. “Am I not dead?”

Sirius gave a weak smile. “You’re not dead. You’re in absolutely awful shape, but you’re not dead.”

Regulus closed his eyes. “I don’t understand. I died. The inferi. They had me. They were pulling me under.”

Sirius’s hand froze on his brother’s head. “Inferi? What the hell were you doing?”

Regulus winced. “I was supposed to die.”

Sirius felt the air grow very still. “What?”

“I wanted to…do something…good finally. Didn’t think I could…live. How am I…here?” He opened his eyes again and looked blearily around the room. “Am I here?”

“I don’t really know how you’re here. The going theory is it’s the dagger you had with you.”

Regulus’s gaze jerked to Sirius. “Where is it?”

“In my room.”

He looked relieved. “Don’t let Dumbledore take it.”

“I would never.”

“I was holding onto it, at the end. It hurt—” He broke off, eyes suddenly shining. “I shouldn’t be alive.”

Sirius really hoped he wouldn’t start to cry. He really didn’t know what to do with crying. “No, probably not. And you’re an absolute mess. Dagger should have taken you to a hospital, not to me. I—I did my best, though. And Remus, he helped, and we did get a proper healer here as soon as we could. But…what happened? You said you did something good?” He hated the tiny prick of hope inside him. He didn’t want to hope that Regulus had changed, because it would hurt too much when he hadn’t.

Regulus shifted and let out a groan. “I betrayed him. The Dark Lord. I don’t know if he knows it yet, but...he’ll find out. But I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t stand beside him. I was tired of feeling so guilty all the time and—I found out something and I had to stop it. I did it. But I didn’t plan to make it out. I was supposed to die.”

Sirius closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He wanted so badly to believe him. So damn badly that he thought if someone dared to contradict his half-dead baby brother that he thought he might hex them. He thought he’d hated Regulus for what he’d done, but suddenly all he felt was desperation to have him back. It was like they were children again, before Hogwarts, before he’d been sorted into Gryffindor and created a chasm in the family that couldn’t be crossed. Back then, all he’d wanted was to keep his brother from being hurt and shake him and get him to see that their parents were crazy and horrible so that he would join him in Gryffindor and see sense. But the years had proven that hope to be nothing more than a child’s fantasy.

Until now.

Some small part of his brain reminded him that dumping a hurt Regulus in front of him would be a great way for the Death Eaters to plant a spy. Maybe they knew that Sirius had never made quite as clean a break from every member of his family as he’d insisted. Maybe Regulus had offered to sacrifice himself to get back at Sirius and through him, the whole Order.

But they wouldn’t have gone so far, would they? They couldn’t have done this to him and expected him to live. Could they have possibly predicted that the weird, old Black family heirloom could get through the wards and transport Regulus to his brother? It didn’t make sense to send a probably-about-to-die Death Eater into a random Order member’s muggle flat, and without any hidden curses or tracking spells or anything.

Sirius wanted to trust his brother. He also wanted to scream at him a bit, for being a stupid git and getting himself ripped to shreds and being a Death Eater in the first place and taking so long to finally (supposedly) not be a prejudiced, bigoted, mother-worshiping idiot.

“Fuck, Reg.” His breath came out in an explosive sigh.

His brother only made a noise.

Sirius swore again. “What then? You told him off and he sicked a bunch of inferi on you? He wanted you to ship his herd of pet inferi off to attack some innocent muggles and you refused?”

Regulus snorted. “No, I…I found out he…made something. Bad. He didn’t…intend for me to find out, I’m sure. But I did and knew…that I had to destroy it. I could…finally do something about him. To help stop it all. In a way. There were inferi…in the water.”

“You’re not making sense,” Sirius said. Bloody Slytherins always being so vague and cryptic. Or maybe it was just the Blacks. Stupid Black family.

Regulus coughed again, face tightening with pain as the movement pulled on his wounds. Sirius helped him take a few sips of water, and then Regulus sank back onto the pillows, eyes closed. It took a few moments before

Sirius realized he’d fallen asleep.

He stood and let out a string of swears as he began to pace. He needed more answers. Dumbledore needed more answers, certainly. He wanted to know what was really going on, and he wanted to know if he could really trust his brother. His chest felt tight and his heart felt torn in a million different directions. He desperately wanted to get out of his flat and ride his motorbike across the night, but he needed to stay and make sure Regulus stayed alive.

He tried to satisfy himself with pacing and swearing.

A key turned in the lock and he spun around as Remus entered. The sandy haired man barely glanced at him, but stomped into the apartment and tossed his book bag onto the couch.

“Regulus woke up,” Sirius said.

Remus looked over then, eyebrows shooting up. “Is he alright?”

Sirius gestured vaguely. “No. He said he went against You-Know-Who, though. Something about inferi, but he fell back to sleep before he could clarify more.”

“Do you believe him?” Remus turned to Regulus’s cot.

“I don’t know.” He rubbed his knuckles against his forehead. “I don’t know. I want to. I mean. He can’t have expected to survive…that. He did seem pretty confused about what he was doing here.”

Remus sighed. “Well, we can question him more when we wake him over for his next dose of potions. Better to not force them down his throat when he’s actually conscious.”

“Right.”

Remus stomped into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and slammed it shut again. “You have nothing to eat.”

“There’s some bread. And beans.” There were also a few packages of biscuits in the living room and a near mountain of takeout containers, because Sirius still couldn’t bring himself to go back into the kitchen.

“The bread is moldy and I want more than a can of beans for dinner.” He stomped back into the living room, glaring at Sirius.

Sirius blinked at his friend and finally noticed that he was angry and had been since he’d entered the apartment. “Oh, I’m an idiot.”

“I already know that.”

“Are you alright? You seem upset.”

Remus kicked the sofa, then grimaced and rubbed his foot. “Just Prewett. We had an entire watch shift together and he just…kept acting like I’m going to bite him at any moment. He made more than a few insinuations that I’m the spy, too, because I keep disappearing for days or weeks on Dumbledore’s orders, but I can’t exactly tell him that, can I? It didn’t help that Greyback attacked another family recently and I happened to have been in that town weeks before. As if I would help Greyback of all people! But I’m not about to argue with a man whose twin brother was just killed.”

“I don’t know, maybe he wants to argue with someone. I’d want to if my brother had been killed. Well.”

They both glanced over at Regulus then. He was still asleep.

“I’m just so tired of it all, Sirius,” Remus said, sinking heavily onto the sofa. “Is my entire life going to be like this?”

Sirius was once again reminded that he was really awful at emotions. He reached out and patted Remus’s shoulder. “I can hex him for you if you want. Or would if make you feel better to pet Padfoot for a bit?”

Remus looked up at him and then rolled his eyes. “It’d make me feel better if you go and buy dinner. Get something your brother can eat, too. He needs something more than nutrition potions.”

Sirius stepped back, relieved to have a task to do instead of trying to make his friend feel better. He seemed to have a knack for saying the wrong thing and he really didn’t want to make anyone feel worse right now.

He summoned his leather jacket and hurried out of his flat. It was on the top floor of an old muggle tenement, which meant it was cheap and surrounded by even cheaper restaurants. At least, he assumed they were cheap. Growing up ridiculously wealthy and being more accustomed to wizarding currency even now had probably not made him the most accurate judge of these things.

He went to a Chinese restaurant where he could get a few servings of rice porridge to keep on hand for Regulus, as well as noodles for himself and Remus. It wasn’t long before he was already on his way back to his flat, but it was a relief to get out for even a bit after so many stays at his brother’s bedside.

He hefted the take out bag in his arms. “What the hell am I supposed to do?” he grumbled to the concrete.

He couldn’t forget his brother dying or his desperation to keep him alive or how Regulus had clearly not planned to survive. Did he want to die? What would Sirius do if he did? How was he supposed to help him? Should he? He was a Death Eater. He’d hurt people. He’d hurt Sirius himself. He may have even killed.

Sirius wanted to throw the takeout against the wall, but didn’t think Remus would appreciate picking bits of dirt out of his noodles.

When Sirius returned, Remus was still sitting on the sofa, head back and fingers intertwined over his eyes. Regulus was snoring softly, properly asleep instead of knocked out by potions. Sirius dropped the take out bag onto a rickety coffee table that he had transfigured out of a collection of cardboard boxes. Remus sat up and began pulling things out. He held up the stack of rice porridge and gestured towards the fridge.

Sirius nodded. “Leave one out for tonight.”

“I’ll put it in a bowl. Don’t want little Mr. Pureblood to have a conniption over styrofoam.”

Sirius snickered and stuffed a forkful of noodles into his mouth. He’d tried to use the little sticks the restaurant provided—choppicks or something—but he’d never managed it. He’d stick with good old forks, even if he chose to forgo the elaborate spread of silverware his mother had loved so much. Sometimes he even chose to eat his main course with a salad fork, if one was one hand. She would have hated it.

A bell tinkled. Potions time.

Sirius gave his brother’s shoulder a gentle shake. Regulus screwed up his face, yawned, and then opened his eyes.

“Guess I’m still not dead,” he mumbled.

Sirius snorted. “It’s only been a few hours. It’s time for your next dose of potions, and we figured you probably wouldn’t want to wake up to them being forced down your throat.”

Regulus stared at him for a moment. “Is that what you’ve been doing?”

“And changing your bandages and nappies.”

Regulus went bright red at that and jerked the blanket up to check that he wasn’t really wearing a nappy. He wasn’t, but he was stark naked except for his bandages. His eyes went distant and he dropped the blanket and jerked his head back quickly, then groaned at the pain the motion caused him. “Is one of those a pain potion?”

Sirius summoned over the tray of potions that Madam Pomfrey had carefully arranged and labeled. “One of them is, but you can’t have it until after you eat.” He levitated Regulus into a more upright position and propped a pillow behind him. Regulus accepted the potions with minimal fuss, but even that much action seemed to leave him exhausted.

“You’ve got to eat something now,” Sirius told him. “You can’t go back to sleep yet. Then you can get the pain potion.”

Regulus only groaned and closed his eyes.

“Reg, come on. We will get it into you one way or another.”

Regulus cracked one eye to glare, then jerked in surprise as Remus came up to join them. “What are you doing here?”

Remus shrugged. “Keeping you alive, ungrateful little git.”

Regulus frowned. “Sorry.”

Sirius nearly laughed in surprise. Apologizing? And not just when he was delirious from blood loss? What had happened to the boy?

Remus helped Regulus eat while Sirius tried to take the opportunity to ask him a few more questions.

“So the thing you destroyed,” Sirius asked. “Was it the burnt metal thing in your pocket?”

Regulus looked shocked. “I brought it with me?”

“I take it that’s the thing, then? It doesn’t look especially impressive.”

“That’s the point of destroying it.”

“Right. What was it?”

Regulus swallowed another bite of porridge, then glanced between Remus and Sirius. “Maybe it’s better if no one knows exactly what it was. It’s over now.”

Sirius crossed his arms. “You’re not going to get away with not saying, you know that. Dumbledore’s going to show up to question you and probably use Veritaserum if he can find some, and since he’s Dumbledore, I’m sure he can.”

Regulus scowled. “The Dark Lord made something to…prevent himself from dying.”

“Well, that’s hardly a surprise. Every time he shows up somewhere he prattles on about how he’s such a big, fancy bloke and he’s so powerful and no one can kill him and all that nonsense,” Sirius said, rolling his eyes. “So he made some fancy shield or something? How was that thing that made you change sides? You wanted to have some murdering fun, but You-Know-Who is sticking around just a bit too long?”

Regulus turned his gaze to the ceiling. “That was never why I joined. I didn’t have a choice, Sirius. I never wanted to murder people.”

“There’s always a choice.”

Regulus turned and glared at him. “Sure, I could have just let myself get imperiused or killed. It’s not like I had people to go to. Not like you.”

Sirius drew back. “You had me.”

“No, I didn’t. Not after…. You wouldn’t have given me the chance to even explain myself.”

Sirius frowned. Regulus was right. He probably wouldn’t have. He might not have attacked him like he would another Death Eater, but he would have sent him hastily on his way with a lot of angry choice words. “You’re here now,” he said. “And I’m not letting you leave. Even if I have to brew Veritaserum myself to prove that you’ve really changed sides to everyone.”

“And to yourself.”

Sirius’s eyes flicked to his brother’s. “I believe you,” he said. Somehow the words sounded weaker than he meant them.

“You’re not that much of an idiot. But I’ve got proof. I can show you. I’ll...I’ll even show Dumbledore, the manipulating buffoon.”

Sirius glared. “How can someone be intelligent enough to manipulate and be a buffoon?”

Regulus only rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Do you want to know or not?” He paused. “Can you lay me back down. I—” He’d stopped eating, and had grown pale.

“Are you okay?”

“Just tired. I can keep talking. Just want to lay down more.”

They arranged the pillows and gave him the dose of pain potion.

“Alright,” Regulus said, sounding drowsy from the potion already. “Do you two know what a horcrux is?”

Neither of them did, and so Regulus explained. Voldemort had split his soul in a gruesome, violent ritual, and sealed the split part of his soul into a metal locket, which Regulus had destroyed.

“And you just went into a literal death trap on your own to destroy it?” Sirius exploded.

“I had to. I couldn’t bring Kreacher again. That wouldn’t be fair to him and it wouldn’t do for…both of us to die. The Dark Lord always…underestimates anything…not human,” Regulus said, closing his eyes and groaning. “I just need to…rest my eyes for a bit…. ”

“Kreacher! He’s a horrible, slimy little—”

“Not at all slimy. Quite leathery actually.” Regulus’s voice was fading.

Sirius huffed. “We need to talk to him, make sure he’s going to keep your secret. Reg. Regulus, call him.”

Remus put a hand on his shoulder. “This can wait. Let him sleep.”

Sirius waved off the hand. “Fine. Fine. We need to call Dumbledore, then.”

“Tell him to come when Regulus is awake again.”

“I know that.” Sirius stomped off to the shoddily made fireplace in the kitchen—magicked into the wall of the muggle flat for Flooing purposes.

Sirius sent his message, dropped into the kitchen chair, and then realized what he was staring at. The blood was gone, but he felt like he was back there again. Images filled his mind—his brother’s body ripped apart, by a lake of inferi, he knew now.

He needed to get over this. It was his own kitchen. He couldn’t freak out by being in here.

He stomped to the counter and made tea, and told himself he was not having a panic attack about his own ugly linoleum.

Chapter Text

Regulus woke in the middle of the night and was blessedly alone this time. He was exhausted, body and soul, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t supposed to be alive at all. He wasn’t supposed to be lying bandaged and broken in his brother’s muggle flat, missing most of an arm.

How many times had he wished he could get rid of the Dark Mark? He never expected that wish to come true.

Turns out the Dark Mark isn’t so permanent, he thought. Just get your arm eaten off by inferi.

He wasn’t ready to believe it yet. It just felt like one thing too many. His sleep was already filled with ever horror the cave had brought to the surface and being awake was agony; it was too much to face the reality that he’d never really recover from this. He didn’t need a healer to tell him that his arm wouldn’t grow back and he might never even walk again.

He was supposed to be dead.

Every scenario he had imagined had ended with him dead. It was what he deserved. He was supposed to finally do something right and try to be the kind of man that she thought he was—his beautiful, good-hearted witch who deserved a man far better than him. He had known there was no way he could be that man in life, but at least he could in death, even if no one ever knew what he’d done. He and the horcrux and all of his guilt were supposed to have sunken to the bottom of that dark lake.

But he was alive and the guilt was still crushing.

What would she think if she saw him like this, in his broken body? He hoped she never would.

He wanted her to remember her as the man she had known, even if it had been a lie.

They’d met on that muggle street over a year ago now, on the day that had changed him forever. It was a blisteringly hot day and he’d ducked into an empty alley behind a tea shop to cast a few cooling charms on himself. He wanted nothing more than to roll up his sleeves, but he couldn’t dare expose his Dark Mark. He had just cast the charm when a young woman, around his age, popped out through the back door of the tea shop.

He’d been ready to obliviate her when she smiled. “It’s fine, I’m a witch, too!”

“I’m a wizard actually,” he’d replied.

She’d laughed. “I know that.” She looked at him like he could have been anyone. No fear, or expectation, or resentment. He was just a man and she was just a woman, and she was beaming at him. No one looked at him like that.

She’d invited him inside for a cold drink. He shouldn’t have accepted, but he did. She led him to a tidy little wooden table at the back of the shop and he order an iced ginger lemon tea. He was shocked to realize that the tea shop—right in the middle of a busy muggle street—was magical, or partly so, at least. His drink changed colors as he drank it, the ice didn’t melt, and when he was finished, the lemon seeds sprung from the glass all on their own and planted themselves in a tiny pot of soil in the middle of the table. A new tree had sprouted within the hour.

He stayed too long that day, talking with the witch about all sorts of mundane topics. It should have been boring, but it wasn’t. He felt free and she had a way of making even the dullest of topics feel exciting and new.

He’d returned to the shop a few days later, knowing he shouldn’t, but unable to resist. The feeling of being ordinary was addicting, and all he wanted was to make her laugh. Laugh. She thought he was funny. Him!

Over the past year, she’d changed him. She gave him the bravery to finally do something good and enough guilt to make backing down impossible. If he’d been a braver man, perhaps he would have told her the truth about who he was before he left. But he hadn’t, of course, because he was a coward and desperate for just one person to remember him as the good man he wasn’t, because in reality Regulus Black could never be the kind of man a woman like her deserved. Everyone else would remember him as a villain, but at least she would remember him as something more, even if it the name she knew was a lie. He was supposed to become a memory that day.

And then he hadn’t, and now he had to figure out how to face a great defection and somehow survive in his wreck of a body. He had given no thought to what might come next if by some insane chance he survived and had to hide from the Death Eaters and confront his brother’s friends and the other side of the war. Now he was stuck, barely able to move, having to put his trust in people who until a few days ago had been his enemies.

He hadn’t truly wanted to die, but he wasn’t ready to live either.

Albus Dumbledore came in the morning, just after Sirius and Remus had helped Regulus manage the humiliating act of using a chamberpot. If he’d come even a few minutes earlier…well, Regulus might have died then and there.

Albus Dumbledore looked absurdly out of place in Sirius’s very muggle flat with his long, white hair and long, white beard and long, flowing robes, but settled himself onto a rickety wooden chair like he came here all the time.

Maybe he did.

Regulus hated how pathetic he felt under the man’s gaze, lying there with only enough energy to keep his eyes open.

“It has been a long time, Mr. Black,” he said, fixing Regulus with a smile that made him feel even smaller.

“Hello, Professor,” he said, trying to pull himself slightly more upright and resisting the urge to start glaring at the man already. He kept his breathing even and focused on his occlumency. Even in his barely-alive state, it was second nature to keep his mind well-shielded, one rare gift from growing up with his parents. He would have long been killed by Voldemort if he’d lacked the skill.

Sirius brought him a small wrapped bundle which he opened to reveal the destroyed horcrux. Dumbledore took it from him, careful to only touch the cloth. He sat examining it for a long moment, and then tapped it with his wand. Finally, he looked up to meet Regulus’s eyes. “It is indeed a horcrux and it has been successfully destroyed. A pity that he chose this object, though I cannot say it shocks me greatly. This is Slytherin’s own locket, did you realize? A rare and ancient object. Quite tragic that there was no choice but to destroy something that should belong in a place of honor.”

Regulus blinked at the white-haired wizard. “I would have thought you would hate something of Slytherin’s, not want it honored.”

Dumbledore gave that stupid smile again. “He was one of the founders of Hogwarts. Though recent decades, even the past few centuries, I would say, have shaped the houses into something of predetermined political alliances, it was not always that way. Nor was Slytherin always so staunchly only the house of pureblood supremacists. Even now, it isn’t quite that, though few would like to believe so. It is founded on ambition and drive for bettering wizardkind. A noble purpose that has been corrupted. Perhaps in time that corruption will die.”

Regulus stared at the old man. He’d never heard anything of the like. His family had been in Slytherin forever, hadn’t they? It had been a mark of pride, even for Regulus himself, until he started to become disillusioned with the blood purist cause.

“History is nice and all,” Sirius said, “but that doesn’t mean it isn’t basically a breeding ground for baby Death Eaters in present day.”

“Doesn’t mean it always has to be that,” Regulus snapped.

Sirius looked mildly surprised. “You think it’s going to change?”

“I’m just saying it can.”

Dumbledore tucked the horcrux into a pocket in his robes and laid his wand across his lap. It was a threat disguised as an act of surrender. “Now. I need you to tell me everything you know about the horcrux and how you came to discover its existence.”

Regulus took as deep of a breath as he could manage, and then told him everything. After all, there was little left to lose. He told him about when Kreacher had apparated into the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, half out of his mind and near dead, only escaping at all because Voldemort had not thought to ward against house-elf magic. After he’d recovered, he’d told Regulus about what Voldemort had borrowed him for and what the object was that he had hid. Kreacher hadn’t known exactly what it was, but he noticed enough that Regulus made the connection. He explained that to Dumbledore now and how he’d gone about destroying it, right up until he thought he was dying, but somehow ended up in Sirius’s kitchen instead.

Dumbledore frowned in thoughtful silence for several long moments after Regulus finished his story. Then he sighed and shook his head. “Why did you go alone? Why not find someone to accompany you in order to get out alive?”

Regulus looked away and answered truthfully. “Because there wasn’t anyone I trusted.”

“You could have found someone in the Order. If you had come to me I most certainly would have gone to great lengths to see this object destroyed and would not have left you in the cave.”

“Sorry, Professor, but I don’t really trust you, either.”

Dumbledore’s expression was inscrutable. “And so you decided to sacrifice yourself to help end the war.”

He made it sound so noble. “I wasn’t brave enough to defy him any other way.”

Dumbledore placed a hand on his shoulder, which he probably meant to be comforting, but it felt rather terrifying instead. “It takes great courage to go against what one has been raised to believe and put one’s very life on the line for the sake of others, especially with nothing to gain from it all. I imagine if you had chosen to defy him openly, you would be dead and the horcrux would still remain and no one would have any idea of its existence. You did a brave thing and have helped us a great deal.” His gaze grew distant. “A horcrux. I should have realized before. I was a fool for not doing so. I did not want to believe that he would do something quite so insidious as destroy his own soul, but, alas, I should have.”

“And now what? Now that it’s destroyed—”

“We may have the chance to truly kill him and end this war. Your actions may very well be the deciding factor in the war.”

Regulus didn’t reply. Dumbledore was always so foolishly positive about everything. If he wanted to believe Regulus was brave like one of his precious Gryffindors, then fine. Maybe the sympathy would keep him out of Azkaban. “What if there’s more?

Dumbledore gave that knowing smile that Regulus hated. “There is good reason that even very few of the worst wizards and witches make one. To rend one’s very soul is no small feat and leaves both parts unstable and weak. Alive, but lesser. Less human. Perhaps that is a quality Voldemort appreciates, as he may see himself as something greater for being more inhuman than those around him, but ultimately it means that he is vulnerable and I am certain it is a weakness he can feel. To split his soul again would be folly that even he would not do. And if he did, it would truly only be an advantage for us, as he would be weak. His magic would have less to draw from and he would never sacrifice the strength of his magic.”

Regulus knew that was true.

“Am I going to Azkaban?” he asked. He was struggling to stay awake now, but he had to know that.

Dumbledore gave him another annoying, crinkly-eyed smile. “I certainly hope not, Mr. Black. I am not the entirety of the Wizengamot and I still need to question you under Veritaserum, but I do not believe that you deserve that.”

Regulus thought he did deserve it, but certainly didn’t want to. He wasn’t sure if he could survive Azkaban in his current state anyway. He let his eyes drift shut.

“Perhaps,” Dumbledore said, “I will return another day to administer the Veritaserum. I believe you need your rest.”

He couldn’t muster the energy to reply, and was asleep before the man had even left.

Chapter Text

When Regulus woke for his midday potion doses, he felt better than he had since he’d woken up—which wasn’t saying a lot. He was still in a ridiculous amount of pain, but he felt like he had enough energy to do something other than go right back to sleep after eating. Then he realized there was nothing to do, especially without his wand.

“Sirius,” he called out.

His brother looked up from the stack of takeout containers that he was…stacking or something. Regulus didn’t know why he didn’t just vanish them, but decided to leave that discussion for another time.

“Mm?”

“I’m bored.”

Sirius perked up. “Really?”

“What do you mean really? Yes. Why is that shocking? I’m bedridden, but I’ve still got a brain.”

Sirius only snorted and brought a wizard’s chess set. There were pieces missing from both sides that had been replaced with muggle chess pieces.

“Surely you can afford to buy a new set,” Regulus commented.

“I’m attached,” Sirius said, setting up the board. “They’re attached, too.”

It didn’t take long into playing for Regulus to realize that the enchanted chess pieces were indeed oddly attached to their non-magical counterparts. Sirius won the first game, and Regulus won the second. They ate lunch, and then Regulus took his potions. They started on another round, but the pain potion began to kick in and he fell asleep part way through the game.

True to his word, Dumbledore returned Monday morning to question Regulus under Veritaserum. Regulus was not looking forward to this. He didn’t know what the man would ask and Regulus knew that truthfully he had done a lot of horrible things just ripe for confession. Regulus didn’t want to lie and pretend he was innocent, and it wasn’t as if anyone would believe that, but he wasn’t ready to lay bare his soul.

Dumbledore just smiled patronizingly at him. “Do not be anxious, my boy. Even I have very little to spare.”

The destruction of Veritaserum was a Death Eater plot that Regulus had been aware of and even participated in on multiple occasions, since it generally involved little harm to any people. They’d targeted potions shops and farms where the ingredients to make Veritaserum could be found. Even the Ministry of Magic was struggling to keep a supply on hand now, but Regulus was not surprised Dumbledore still had some. The professor dropped a single drop into a few sips of cold tea in a mug beside Regulus’s cot, then held it to Regulus’s mouth for him to drink.

“I can do it myself,” Regulus grumbled, taking the mug clumsily, but not spilling a drop. He felt the potion take effect, blurring his vision and giving him a driving urge to talk.

“Tell me your name,” Dumbledore said.

“Regulus Arcturus Black.”

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“Are you loyal to Lord Voldemort or the Death Eaters?”

“No.”

“Do you have any plans or intentions, willing or unwilling, to return to Voldemort or help him?”

“No.”

“Do you plan to tell him anything you have learned here or in your investigation of the horcrux?”

“No.”

“Did you tell anyone of your plan to destroy the horcrux?”

“Only Kreacher, and I ordered him that he’s not allowed to tell anyone about it ever.”

“Are you a threat to anyone in the Order? Do you intend to harm or betray anyone in the Order to the Dark Lord?”

“I have no desire to help the Dark Lord in any way, and I wouldn’t hurt anyone unless they try to hurt someone I care about.”

Dumbledore looked satisfied with that. “Do you believe in the cause of Voldemort and the Death Eaters?”

“Not anymore,” he said, wishing the truth was that he’d never believed in the first place.

“What did you believe in?” Dumbledore asked, steepling his fingers.

“That the culture of the wizarding world is under threat. I believed we needed to strengthen it and keep muggles from influencing our way of life.”

“And what made you change your mind?” Dumbledore fixed him with that inscrutable, steady gaze.

Regulus didn’t see how this was any of Dumbledore’s business. It was irrelevant why. But his resistance was futile with the Veritaserum still forcing his tongue loose. “I—was influenced by meeting— seeing the truth about—muggles and the truth about Voldemort’s methods. It wasn’t helping anyone, not even pureblooded wizards. It was just—doing horrible, cruel things that hurt everyone and helped no one.”

“You think they hurt everyone? Even the Death Eaters themselves?”

Regulus turned to stare at the wall as the words poured out of his mouth. “Yes, I do. At least the sane ones. Some of them like it, though, hurting people.”

“And you do not?”

“No!” Regulus clenched his hand in a fist. He was tired of this. Dumbledore didn’t need to know these things. All he should need to know was that Regulus wasn’t a threat, which should have been obvious enough just by the fact that he was half-dead and torn to pieces. The silence stretched, and he glanced towards Dumbledore, who was still fixing him with his piercing blue eyes. He shivered.

“Why did you join the Death Eaters, Regulus?” Dumbledore asked.

“Because I had to.”

“Why?”

“My mother and father pledged me to him when I was thirteen. He’s not one to let go of such a promise and he needed proof of my family’s loyalty.”

Sirius looked frowned at this and looked away. Perhaps he was recalling just why the Dark Lord might have demanded such a pledge that year.

“And why did you defect?”

“I didn’t.”

Dumbledore’s brows rose. “You didn’t?”

“This wasn’t my intention.”

“What was your intention?”

“To destroy the horcrux. I didn’t expect to survive.”

Sirius made a noise and started forward, but Dumbledore stopped him with a raised hand.

“I see.” Dumbledore’s face was expressionless. “Is anyone likely to investigate your disappearance and where you went and then discover your theft of the locket?”

Regulus shook his head. “I never talked to anyone or even hinted about disappearing to any Death Eater. The only way they could discover what happened is if the Dark Lord goes through the entire process of removing the locket from the basin.”

“Do you know of any plans of the Order that Voldemort or the Death Eaters have found out?”

Regulus really wasn’t sure. “I don’t know. I can’t remember anything right now, but I was never told things very far in advance.”

He could finally feel the Veritaserum wearing off. Sharp focus was returning to his eyesight and his tongue felt a little less loose. Sirius must have noticed too, because before Dumbledore could ask another question, Sirius asked in a rush, “Why did you really go to the cave alone? Did you want to die?”

Regulus opened his mouth. He tried to bite back the words, but the last of the Veritaserum was still in his system. “I didn’t want to feel ashamed anymore. I was tired.”

“But did you really want to die?” Sirius had a desperate, terrified look in his eyes in a way that twisted something inside Regulus.

“No.”

Sirius closed his eyes and turned away, running his hands through his overgrown hair. Dumbledore glanced towards him, then peered down at Regulus.

“I believe that is all for today, Mr. Black,” Dumbledore said. “I will return again, and I think it would be helpful to us all if you try to recollect anything you know of Voldemort’s plans that may help to save a life. In the meantime, get plenty of rest.”

Sirius held himself stiffly as he showed Dumbledore out of the flat. Regulus could tell he was upset, but he didn’t know what to say and didn’t think he had the energy to be pushed down that conversational rabbit hole right now.

“I need to bathe,” he told him instead.

“You look more like you need a nap.”

“I always need a nap these days. The bandages are all coming off soon, right? I want a proper bath. Not just scourgify. My hair is horrid.”

“And you smell a bit.”

“Great.”

“Good to see you’re still vain.”

Regulus made a sound that could have been a laugh. “Me? You’re the one all decorated in fancy muggle leather who spends ages on your hair every morning, even while your brother is dying in the next room over.”

“If you die, I need to look good at your funeral.”

Regulus looked his brother pointedly up and down. “Good thing I don’t seem to be at risk of dying anymore because you wouldn’t be able to show your face looking like that.”

Sirius gave Regulus the lightest of shoves. “Get some sleep. Madam Pomfrey will be here later. Then we’ll see about a bath.”

Regulus woke in the late afternoon. Lupin had returned with food some time ago and the whole flat smelled like garlic and butter. It made Regulus feel almost hungry.

Lupin noticed him awake. “Oh, good, we were about to wake you. Madam Pomfrey is here.”

Regulus grunted and pushed himself sort of upright. “What time is it?”

“4pm,” Madam Pomfrey told him, bringing his tray of potions bottles over. “Good that you’ve been getting plenty of rest, but it’s time to get you up and on your feet.”

Regulus froze with the first potion nearly to his lips. “I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

“You’re not entirely, but the longer you lay in bed doing nothing, the weaker the rest of you will get. You need to start sitting up for as much of the day as possible and standing some, too.”

Regulus’s body wanted to refuse, but his pride would never let him. He wasn’t weak. “I suppose.”

“Good. Now, potions.”

Regulus took his potions, and then with great effort and more than a little trembling, he pushed himself into a proper sitting position—or rather attempted to, and then let Madam Pomfrey and Lupin lift him upright and turn him so that his legs dangled off the cot. Even that motion sent jolts of pain through his still-healing wounds. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to pretend there were not tears forming.

“Very good, Mr. Black,” Madam Pomfrey said. “Now stay still while I check your bandages.”

She checked and changed his bandages, declared that he was healing nicely and that the bandages could come off for good tomorrow, and then she told him he needed to stand.

“Mr. Lupin, come here.”

He came, giving Regulus a somewhat wary look.

Explaining each step of the way, they eased Regulus’s injured leg out straight in front of him. Then Madam Pomfrey had Regulus wrap his arm around Lupin’s shoulders while he put an arm around the uninjured side of Regulus’s waist. It was awkward and he hated it. Lupin didn’t seem too pleased, either, but neither of them protested.

“Now, Mr. Black, try to stand up. Weight on your good leg.”

It was horribly, embarrassingly difficult. In only a few days, he’d weakened so much that he could barely support his own weight. He managed to stay up for forty seconds. The second time he stayed up for forty-two. Then he was too tired to stand up again at all.

Damn was he pathetic.

Once he was half-collapsed back into bed, Madam Pomfrey explained different exercises he had to do to rebuild his strength, including bending his injured leg, or having someone else bend and stretch it for him, because he wasn’t even able to do that himself.

“Tomorrow will be the last day I’ll be able to check in regularly, though,” she told him. “As school year nears, I have more work to do to prepare, and besides, you’re healing well. I’ll still come in about once a week, but until you’re able to get to St. Mungo’s and get properly treated, the most we can do is work on building your strength back and let the wounds heal as best they can. Keep taking the potions to speed that along.”

Madam Pomfrey left and he pointedly did not lay all the way back down again. Every moment sitting upright, even propped up by a mound of pillows, hurt like hell, but he could do this. He was strong enough to sit up, for heaven’s sake.

“You look like you’re about to pass out,” Lupin said.

“I’m fine,” he ground out.

“Sure,” Lupin said. “You don’t have anything to prove, you know.”

Regulus scowled. “I have everything to prove.” But he lay back down anyway and promptly fell asleep.

The last of the bandages did come off the next day and he got his first blessed bath. Propped up in the hot water by charmed towels, of course, after being lowered into the tub by his brother and Lupin. At least they’d left him to finally confront the ruin of his body alone.

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from his body. It was so much worse without bandages or clothes or blankets to hide it. His mother would have been so ashamed for a Black to have such a horrendous appearance. It would be so unseemly for someone in the family to be in such a state that they may never walk properly again. If it had been his parents, instead of Sirius, they wouldn’t have saved him. And if he had ended up like this anyway, they would have hidden him away. A sad story of the invalid who needed perpetual rest, far from prying eyes.

It had only been a bit over a week since he’d been ripped apart and already even the deepest wounds had closed over, leaving only red, angry scars in their place. That was the beauty of magic, he supposed. It had kept him alive when by all rights he should be dead, but still, it felt unnatural to see his body so quickly changed so drastically. So permanently.

His side was a map of scars. His arm was a short, lumpy thing, ending a bit above where his elbow had been. He hated it. He hated how it looked, and how it hurt, and how his brain still thought it was whole, and he hated the feeling of it beneath his fingers as he gingerly washed it clean.

He wanted his arm back. For good measure, he wanted his leg whole again, too.

His leg looked like more scar tissue than healthy flesh. His hip joint was damaged and his knee would need a massive repair operation that couldn’t be done until it was safe to go to St. Mungo’s, whenever the war was over.
Which meant if Dumbledore’s side didn’t win the war, he’d never get his knee repaired and never be able to walk properly. Though if they didn’t win, that would mean Voldemort had, and Regulus would be dead anyway, so how well he’d be able to walk wouldn’t matter so much.

Madam Pomfrey had said he would probably be able to walk without the repair, but it would be painful and slow and he’d need a brace and a crutch and lots of exercises to be able to use the limb again.

Though at the moment, even the smallest of movements was painful. Shifting to an angle where he could properly wash his hair—one handed, without even a wand to help—meant tugging at his burning side and putting pressure on his bad leg. But he’d been through worse and he was not going to ask for help to wash his bloody hair.

He thought of her then, the woman who’d been the best friend he’d ever had—all while he’d lied to her at every turn. He wondered what she would think of him like this. He missed her desperately, but just as fervently hoped to never see her again. It was better this way. She would think “Reynold White” was a bit of an arse for so suddenly “leaving the country” with only a brief goodbye, but at least she would remember him as a better man then he was. She would never see how pathetic he had become or know he had lied or that he was a disgusting Death Eater.
Former Death Eater.

He stayed in the water until his fingers pruned and the water was cold. Sirius just levitated him out, since Lupin had gone home, and spelled him dry and into clean clothes. Then Sirius spelled the left sleeve off of the flannel pajamas and closed the end up over what remained of Regulus’s arm, which reminded him all over again that his arm was gone.

Getting back to the cot was painful, too, and he felt so useless and helpless, being levitated about and changed like an infant, and his arm bumped the wall as Sirius lowered him onto the mattress and it hurt so bloody much and he was so mad.

It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. Why did he have to be the brother that suffered? Why did Sirius get to run away and have friends and freedom while he’d become the branded Death Eater, the good-little-son to everyone outside and the inferior spare at home. Even when he decided to finally make his own choices, he had to suffer while Sirius got to reap the benefits.

Oblivious to his anger, Sirius smiled down at him. “You smell much better.”

“Great,” Regulus muttered.

“Do you need anything? Another dose of pain potion?”

“I’m fine! Leave me alone!”

Sirius took a step back, looking bewildered, then cross. “Fine! No need to be an arse. I’m going to take my own shower then.”

Regulus just glared at the ceiling in response.

Chapter Text

Regulus was unhappy and Sirius had no idea what to do about it. He didn’t help people through their emotions—he made jokes to distract from those emotions and avoided them when the jokes didn’t work. He’d showered with the hope that Regulus would feel better by the time he was out, and when he came out to find him reading a book, he was hopeful he’d made the right call.

“What’s that?” he asked.

Regulus tossed it down. “I don’t know, some stupid muggle book you’ve got lying around.”

Sirius thought he’d looked rather engrossed for it to be stupid.

“You’re the one whose reading it. And it’s Remus’s book, not mine. He left it here. You might as well read it, though.” He picked up the book and folded down the corner of the page to mark his brother’s spot. “Not like you’ve got anything better to do.”

Regulus scowled.

Sirius pointed his wand at his hair and sent out a stream of hot air. “Speaking of, eventually we’ve got to figure out what to do with you.”

Regulus’s scowl only deepened. “What to do with me? Going to send me off to some other hideout? Or turn me into a spy or something?”

Sirius paused in his hair-drying. “What? Of course not. You can’t even walk. We’re not sending you into a death trap.”

“So shoving me off to hide somewhere, then?”

Sirius frowned and put his wand away. “I want you to stay with me, and you will for a while, but it could get to the point where it’s not as safe to stay in this flat. There’s still a war on. I can’t promise you that you won’t have to leave here.”

Regulus snorted. “Well, doesn’t matter anyway. When have I ever had any choice about literally anything in my life?”

“Oh, come on. Don’t be like that.”

Regulus smiled suddenly, which made Sirius more concerned then if he’d kept scowling. “Yeah, you can say that. You get to do whatever the hell you want. You always have. Me? I do whatever I’m told like the good little boy I am.” Then he started to laugh. “You know what’s funny? I thought—I thought I was finally taking control of my life. And instead, look at me! I’m so fucking helpless!”

He laughed even harder, to the point that he was nearly hysterical and gasping for air, eyes screwed tight with pain.

“Regulus—”

“It’s hilarious, isn’t it? Me, think that I could ever do what I wanted.” He let out a shrill, keening sound.

“Reg, are you okay?”

“Am I—” He wheezed. “Am I okay? I don’t think I’ve been okay in a long time. No, actually I’ve probably never been okay. But honestly, me, have a choice about my life? You know the only choice I ever made for myself? It was to die. Steal the horcrux, destroy it, die. And look how that turned out. Here I am, alive, in this wreck of a body. The House of Black still keeping me around.”

At some point his laughter had turned to tears. Sirius gulped.

“You said you didn’t want to die. Regulus. You can’t mean that you—”

But Regulus wasn’t listening. “I’ve never had a say in my life. Do you know when I really, truly realized that? It was when I had to decide my OWL classes. Slughorn started talking about different career paths with me, asking what I wanted to do with my life. I just laughed. What I want has never mattered. I was already slotted to get the Dark Mark. I had to be the Black heir and represent the family after you ran off. You got to leave. I couldn’t. The heir and the spare. Imagine if the spare tried to leave, too. They would have hunted me to the ends of the Earth. They would have just imperiused me if I tried to refuse. They made me do—so much.”

Regulus turned angry eyes on his brother and Sirius felt something twist painfully inside of him.

“Why did it have to be me?” he hissed. “Why did you have to leave me?”

Sirius didn’t know what to say. He’d had to leave because he couldn’t be the good one like Regulus could. He couldn’t pretend and he wasn’t about to let himself be the one to get imperiused. No one would have bought it with him, anyway, if he’d suddenly gone all baby Death Eater. Also, he’d been selfish. He’d wanted an out and he took it when it came. He’d told himself there was nothing he could do for Regulus and maybe that was true. But maybe it wasn’t.

“I’m sorry, Reg,” he said.

Regulus looked at him like an angry wounded animal. “You told me that I had a choice! Lupin said that, too, that there’s always a choice. People always say that. But I didn’t! You did. You were different. You had people. You had Potter and Lupin and Pettigrew and everyone loved you, while I just had—our parents. Who wanted me only so long as I was exactly what they wanted me to be. And now what the hell am I supposed to do?”

He let out a choked sob and twisted his head to wipe his tears on his shoulder. “I don’t have a place. I’ll never have a place. I’ll never be accepted by the family’s circles now, and I’ll never be accepted by yours either. No one will ever trust me, I’ll never have friends, I’ll never have anyone on my side. You should have just—I’m supposed to be dead right now. Why did you have to—”

“You will never make me regret saving your life. Ever.” Sirius dropped to his knees beside his brother’s cot. “And don’t you dare try to convince me otherwise.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” he whispered. “I didn’t want to be evil.”

Sirius hadn’t hugged his brother in at least a decade. That wasn’t something the Black family did and Sirius had no bloody clue what he was supposed to do to help his brother, but a hug felt like the right thing, so he gingerly pulled his brother into his arms. He was sure Regulus would pull away or protest, but he didn’t. If anything, he leaned in more, letting out tiny, choked sobs.

“You’re not evil, Reg.”

Regulus’s nails dug into Sirius’s shirt as he held on tighter, sobbing into his neck.

“I hate you,” he said, clinging to Sirius. “I hate you.”

“I’m sorry,” Sirius said.

His chest heaved. “I want my arm back.”

“Oh, Reggie,” Sirius said, rubbing his head.

“I want it back.” The words faded into a quiet wail. Sirius held him for several minutes until his sobs had quieted and he finally pulled away, avoiding his Sirius’s eyes and settling back onto his cot.

“It’s going to be alright,” Sirius said.

Regulus just closed his eyes and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Sure. Sure it is. Look at me. Wandless, armless, crippled, alone. Having stupid emotional breakdowns. Sure I’m going to be alright.”

Sirius looked at his brother, with his pale, blotchy face and skinny limbs, and felt again that desperate need to do something to fix this. Acting on an impulse that would probably get him in trouble later, Sirius stood up and went to his bedroom. He unlocked the drawer charmed to only open to his touch, removed the wand inside, and went back to Regulus.

“Here.” Sirius put the wand in his hand.

Regulus’s fingers curled around it on instinct and his eyes shot open. He stared at the wand with wide eyes. “You shouldn’t give this back to me."

“You’re not going to hurt me or anyone else who comes in here. I trust you. We’ve already given you Veritaserum and your actions have more than proved your words. Besides, if there was ever a time you needed magic, it’s now.” Sirius gave him a gentle nudge.

“You shouldn’t do this,” he said again, but he clutched his wand so tightly that his knuckles were white.

“I don’t care.”

“You realize you’re disobeying your precious Dumbledore.”

“I’ve never been good at following rules.”

“No, you haven’t,” Regulus muttered. He waved his wand and smoothed his blanket, as if just to prove that he could. “At least it wasn’t my wand arm.”

Sirius watched his brother sleep, struck again by how painfully young he was. He seemed more a boy than a man, not even twenty, with only the barest smattering of facial hair in desperate need of being shaved. It didn’t look great, but he figured Regulus wouldn’t appreciate waking up to Sirius performing a shaving charm on him.

When Regulus was awake, glaring at everyone and pretending he was in less pain than he really was, it was easier to remember that he was a Death Eater who’d tortured and maybe even murdered people. When he was asleep, he looked like a kid who hadn’t eaten enough in a long time. He looked so much more like the child he’d been when Sirius left home.

He hadn’t been so bad then. Oh, sure, he’d stood by their parents’ ideals and proclaimed Slytherin pride, but he’d been soft. Malleable. Desperate to win their favor and love. Maybe that’s why their parents picked Regulus to be the one to follow in their footsteps. Sirius had always been defiant and outspoken. He’d wanted to do whatever he wasn’t supposed to, and that had turned out to mean secretly talking to muggle children like they were some sort of forbidden treat and befriending the first blood-traitor he met on the Hogwarts Express.

Regulus had never been like that. He had wanted to follow the rules even if those rules just happened to be set by abusive, pureblood supremacists who would punish their children if they dared step out of line.

Sirius stepped over the line anyway, wearing the bruises like a badge of pride. Regulus decided the pain was his fault and did everything he could to avoid getting hurt again. He’d tried harder and harder match their impossible, psychopathic standards, and hadn’t listened to Sirius when he tried to talk some reason into him, and eventually it seemed like Regulus had succeeded. He was everything their parents wanted.

So Sirius had just left. He had been sure he was making the right choice, but now he wondered if maybe he shouldn’t have left his brother there alone. He’d thought Regulus would be fine—he was the golden child, after all. But maybe being the golden child came with more pain than Sirius had realized.

Sirius paced around the small flat, full of pent up energy with nowhere to go. He wasn’t used to this, talking about emotions and trying to say the right thing and worrying that his little brother might not ever really be okay. He didn’t like the nagging guilt that was building up, too, which wasn’t fair because he’d been abused by their parents just as much—maybe even more. Except he had gotten out. He wasn’t the one forced to commit atrocities.

He was going crazy stuck inside.

He needed to ride on his motorbike or his broom or anything to get out of this flat. Mostly, he wanted to talk to James. Dumbledore had expressly forbid going anywhere but out for food and essentials in the muggle shops nearby, and that definitely included the Potters, but…no—he would already get in trouble for giving Regulus his wand and needed whatever capital he had with Dumbledore at the moment for that.

He would just…go out. Wander a bit. Maybe kick a few stray beer bottles. Go for a sprint in the park like the muggles did.

He left a quick note for Regulus and slipped out the door.

Sirius had been out of work for over a week on the cover of “Order business.” He supposed it was technically true and was glad that Dumbledore’s penchant for secrecy meant that no one would ask him any questions. But after two weeks stuck at home, he was glad to finally be returning to work. It got him out of the house and even meant he just might get to hex some people. He hoped so. He needed a good battle.

Working as an auror, and especially during war time, it wasn’t too unusual to arrive back to work on a Thursday, or to work through the weekend, which Sirius was sure he would be doing. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement, located in the Ministry of Magic, was as busy as ever when Sirius arrived. Kingsley Shacklebolt waved to him as he came into the office. “Good to see you made it back alive, Black.”

Sirius grinned. “‘Course I did. Nothing can get me. Anything wild happen while I was gone?”

Kingsley grimaced. “Your nightmare cousin and her husband went on another rampage, this time in a little wizarding neighborhood in a mostly muggle town. Didn’t even try to hide it. Broad daylight, no masks, middle of the street. Luckily most people were at work so there were far fewer casualties than there could have been, but over a dozen homes burned down. They even activated an auror call pole themselves, and I don’t know if it was on purpose to give us a show or an accident. Three reported deaths, and several serious injuries. One muggle got severe burns, but his son’s a wizard so he’ll be able to get treatment at St. Mungo’s without it being too messy.” Kingsley shook his head. “They evaded capture again, though. It’s looking bad for us.”

Sirius scowled. “I wish I’d been there. I’m going to kill her one day.”

Kingsley gave him a look.

“Proverbially, I mean,” Sirius said with a wink. “She needs to be kissed by the Dementors, though. Not just Azkaban. She’s the worst of the Black family. Worse than my own mother and father even. Anyway, anything happening now? I need to get out on the field.”

“Dumbledore’s mission wasn’t enough then?”

“You know I can’t answer that.”

Kingsley gave a rumbling chuckle. “There might be something for you. After you catch up on your paperwork.”

“Kingsley,” Sirius groaned.

Kingsley only waved his hand toward Sirius’s desk where a tidy stack of paperwork sat, and grinned.

“You’re not even my supervisor,” Sirius said, trudging over to his desk.

“I am two years your senior though and might be your supervisor someday. Got to make sure our department has all its paperwork in order.”

“I thought we were friends,” Sirius grumbled, pulling the first sheet off the stack.

“We are,” Kingsley said, walking away. “Which is why I’m looking after your future career by making sure you’ve got everything in order.”

How was it possibly that Kingsley Shacklebolt reminded him of Remus of all people?

Remus was at Sirius’s flat when he got home, watching over Regulus, who was sitting up in bed reading with a flat expression on his face.

“How was work?” Remus asked.

Sirius pulled a face. “Paperwork.”

He could have sworn Remus looked wistful. The man liked paperwork, as if anything could be more insane. It really was a shame the ministry was full of discriminatory bigots who refused to hire a werewolf.

“Nothing blew up, I take it?” he asked Remus.

Remus grinned. “Regulus did blow up a teapot, actually.”

“I did not!” Regulus protested, finally looking up from his book and glaring. “It’s not my fault you were brewing some weird potion in it! You’re not supposed to brew combustive potions in teapots! Or any potions!”

“You also don’t heat a teapot with incendio.”

Regulus turned back to his book. “How should I know? I’m not a house-elf.”

“Missing Kreacher already?” Sirius asked.

Regulus ignored him.
Sirius wasn’t sure how things stood between them. They hadn’t fought the other day—in fact it had been more of a…bonding moment? That felt like far too mushy of a term, but it seemed accurate. But they didn’t do things like that and now neither of them had any idea how to act.

Which meant they pretended it had never happened.

Sirius followed Remus into the kitchen, which bore faint scorch marks on the counter. He tried to keep his eyes from drifting towards the cracks in the linoleum that he could swear were still tinged red. He wasn’t going to think about that.

He searched for something to make for supper instead. There wasn’t much to eat, so they settled for a breakfast-for-supper of eggs, beans, and toast, a meal they ate more often than they probably should.

“And green beans,” Remus said, pulling out a bundle of fresh green beans from his bag, no doubt straight from his parents’ garden. “We’ve got to have our vegetables, too. Regulus especially.”

The Lupin family was obsessive about eating vegetables at every meal. It was like they’d taken all of the old wizarding family passion for blood purity and dedicated it towards having a well-balanced diet instead. Sometimes James would joke that it seemed like Remus’s mum thought if her son just ate enough spinach, his lycanthropy would be cured.

Unfortunately, despite maintaining his parents’ devotion for healthy eating as well as any adolescent boy could at Hogwarts, and even now living half at home and half on his friends’ sofas, Remus was still very definitely a werewolf.

“How was Regulus today?” Sirius asked. He pulled out one of their only two pans to scramble the eggs. He couldn’t ever manage to fry them right—they were always burnt or too runny or both somehow, so scrambled was the only option.

Remus, drying the freshly washed green beans, shrugged. “The same, I suppose. Quiet. Trying to push himself a bit too much physically, I think. Felt like his mum nagging him to sleep more.”

Sirius didn’t mention Regulus crying the other day. His brother might murder him for that. “Did he seem like he was in too much pain?”

“Probably always is,” Remus said. He set a knife to cutting off the ends of the green beans.

Sirius sighed. “Is there something else I’m supposed to be doing? To help him?”

Remus glanced over to where Regulus lay, the book open on his chest and his eyes closed. “I don’t know. Talk about things?”

Sirius frowned into the white and yellow mass in the pan. “That sounds like a great way to start another argument.”

“Maybe it’d be good for the two of you to argue.”

“Oh, like it was such a good idea for you and Peter to argue?”

Remus winced. Sirius knew he’d gone too far and apologized, but Remus shook his head. “No, you’re right, I was a dunce. I just—Peter kept saying all those little comments and it got to me. You know how he is. But I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

Sirius stirred the eggs. “I’m sure he’ll get over it soon enough. He always does. He never stays mad about anything for long, and he really shouldn’t be making those jokes. If even I know when he’s crossing a line….”

Remus sighed and shook his head, then dropped the green beans into the other pan with a flick of his wand. “I almost wish we were back at school sometimes. Things felt easier then.”

“Even if James and Lily didn’t have to be in hiding, it would be better,” Sirius said gloomily. They’d been in hiding for three months now, with no end in sight, after Lily had gotten on You-Know-Who’s bad side by getting in a few hits against him in a rather public duel. It was a slight for which he would accept nothing less than the death of the entire Potter family, and after one too many close calls, they had hidden themselves away with very few people able to visit.

Sirius finished the eggs and portioned them onto three plates, then realized they probably should have been cooked last as they would quickly grow cold. He cast a warming charm, hoped for the best, and started on the toast. Remus added broth to the green beans.

“It was nice, being at Hogwarts,” Remus said. “Sometimes it’s like everyday there’s a new thing going wrong, a new way we might die or the people we care about might, and if we make just one tiny mistake, slip up just a bit, someone might get hurt and it could be all our fault. At Hogwarts…well, there was never a problem so big that a professor couldn’t fix it. Now, every problem feels like it might be the thing that destroys us all.”

Sirius stared at the slowly browning toast and swallowed. "Yeah. I know what you mean."

Chapter Text

Regulus tried to be optimistic about his situation, but his version of optimism looked like what everyone else would call “morosely fixated on reality” at best. (That’s what she had told him once, when they’d been having a long and spirited conversation about traveling to the moon, of all things. He just couldn’t believe that muggles had actually done it. And that no one in the wizarding world seemed aware of it.) He really was trying, but realistically he was still stuck barely mobile and hidden away in a dingy, old flat, regularly being forced to participate in “conversations” (interrogations) with the leader of the organization that had been his greatest enemy until not very long ago.

Sometimes before, he’d tried to imagine what his life could be like if he was free of the Dark Lord. He’d never really succeeded, because he couldn’t imagine a future where Regulus Black got a happy ending.

In his happiest fantasies, he was Reynold White, because that was the name he’d told his beautiful witch in the tea shop and when he was Reynold, he could be whoever he wanted. Reynold White didn’t bear a cursed Mark on his arm or live in a house so Dark it bled from the walls. He wasn’t forced to hurt people to carry out a madman’s plans.

Reynold White was free to do as he liked, the youngest son of late parents who were perhaps not kind, but certainly not evil. Reynold White was the kind of man who could befriend a funny, beautiful young witch who co-owned a tea shop in muggle London. Regulus Black could never.

He’d known it was a risk to go into that shop the first time, and the next, and the next, but he could never bring himself to stop. He was so careful every time, apparating to several random locations first to ensure he wouldn’t be followed. He used notice-me-not and disillusionment spells when he needed to. He might not care about risking his own life, but he wouldn’t risk hers.

Maggie. Marguerite Tessier was her full name, but she went by Maggie. She was the younger daughter of a French father and English mother who had grown up half in London and half in Paris, and then had attended Beauxbatons. He told the truth that he had attended Hogwarts, but lied and said he was a Ravenclaw. She answered all of Regulus’s questions about her school and asked dozens of her own questions about his.

She made him laugh, and remarkably, he made her laugh, too. He’d never been the type to make anyone laugh, but with her, it was easy. He felt more freedom in that tea shop than he ever had in his life.

“This tea shop is the best place I’ve ever been,” he had told her, the third or fourth time he’d come. It had taken him that long to work up the nerve to admit it. It seemed a ridiculous statement to make, but it was true. He loved it there.

Her whole face had lit up and she’d sunk into the empty chair at his table. “You like it, then? I’m glad. My sister and I started this place, you know. Well, she started it a few years before I graduated and then I added a...magical touch.” She had blushed then. “I’m actually rather proud of it, even if I have to hide those bits from most of the customers.”

Regulus wasn't sure he'd even quite noticed the magical elements as being anything out of the ordinary, but once she had mentioned it, he began to notice the artistry that had gone into creating those tiny details and the differences the muggle side had. Real, tiny clouds that never rained, vines that crawled along the ledge high up near the ceiling, wooden birds that chirped and fluttered around the room, and—at night when all the lights were off—little stars that twinkled on the ceiling. "It feels hopeful."

“I wish I could take all the credit for that, but Colette did some of that, too. It already had that feeling before I graduated. I don’t know how she does it, but I think we need places like this even more so in darker times, I think. My grandfather was in the war,” she said.

Regulus nearly had a heart attack. Had her grandfather been killed by Death Eaters? Had he been part of the Order?

“I mean the muggle side of it all. The Second World War.” She gave Regulus a look. “You’re from a wizard family, right? I still get mixed up with who knows what references sometimes. Even more confusing going between France and here!”

He couldn’t keep the shock off his face. “You’re muggle-born?”

She raised an eyebrow and gestured around. “Clearly," she said. "Is that a problem?”

“Of—of course not,” he stammered. It was incredibly obvious now that she mentioned it. Why else would she be in muggle London? And she hadn’t mentioned her older sister going to Beauxbatons. He’d been incredibly dense for it to not even occur to him. He nearly burst out laughing. If only his mother could have seen him.

He hadn’t realized it quite yet, but the moment he stepped into the shop had been the breaking of him. The more he talked to Maggie over the course of the last year, and sometimes others at the shop, the harder it was to keep telling himself everything he’d always known to be true about muggle-borns and even muggles.

Sometimes, while Maggie was busy (it was her work place, after all), he would watch the muggles come in through the gauzy veil that separated the tiny magical area from the rest of the shop and even listen to their conversations. Quite often he didn’t understand what they were talking about, but the more he listened, the harder it was to convince himself that his lack of understanding was rooted in their stupidity, no matter how much he tried.

He’d met Maggie’s older sister, Colette, too. A real, living muggle. She was a pastry chef, trained in Paris, who’d come back to London to open up a shop. She was intelligent and pleasant and appreciated magic for what it could do, but was still clearly (deliciously) competent without it. She was smart and sharp and precise and eloquent in two languages. All of which were not what muggles were supposed to be.

“You haven’t met many muggles, have you?” Maggie had asked him once.

“How can you tell?” He’d thought he was doing a good job of acting like anything other than what he’d been raised to be.

“You have that distinctly wizard way about you. Staring at the muggles like they’re aliens, all wide-eyed and excited.”

He would take excited. Excited was better than horrified or disgusted or like-he-wanted-to-murder-them-all or any word that might be used to describe how anyone from his circles might look at them.

“What’s an alien?”

She laughed. “Beings from outer space.”

He’d choked on his tea. “There’s beings in outer space?! Have they come to earth? Why don’t we know about them? Are they dangerous? Are the muggles hiding them?”

She’d laughed so hard it took her minutes until she could answer. “They’re not real. Well, they might be. Theoretically, there might be aliens living on some planet out there, but no one really knows. Sometimes muggles make up conspiracy theories that different governments are secretly hiding the aliens and just don’t want anyone to know, but at the moment it seems like aliens really live only in stories. There’s quite a popular television show about aliens and a time traveling man in a police box.”

Regulus didn’t know what a television was. Or a police box. He hadn’t admitted so then, but a few weeks later Maggie had told him all about this show anyway.

Now, sitting on his brother’s sofa trying to convince himself he wasn’t really in that much pain, he wanted nothing more than to talk to her. He wished he could become Reynold White again, make up some story about what had happened to him, and sit down with her and talk. She would know what he should do. She would have some sensible words that would make him feel a little less hopeless about having a future at all.

But when he imagined meeting her now, all he could picture was her face twisting in shock and disgust and hatred over the truth of what he’d been. He wasn’t sure he could survive that. No, she was better left in the past, especially now that seeking her out could put her in even more danger than she was already in from being a muggle-born. It was for the best that he was gone from her life. For all the fun moments they’d shared, he wasn’t good for her. They were so different in so many ways, just two lonely people who never should have met and never should have become friends, but couldn’t let the other go until it was too late for no one to get hurt.

The trouble with letting her go, though, was that everything reminded him of her because he was in a muggle flat filled with a mixture of magical and muggle things, and the only introduction he’d ever had to anything muggle was through her. The takeout boxes reminded him of when she’d taken him to her favorite restaurant. The electrical sockets reminded him of her highly amused, but patient explanation of electricity. Sirius’s muggle band tee—that Sirius had thought was a government logo of all things—reminded Regulus of listening to music together on something called casettes.

A pair of knit socks reminded him of the pair he’d bought her that were charmed to bring her comfort after spending so much time on her feet all day.

God, Regulus, he thought to himself. They’re socks. Socks. You’re getting emotional over socks, you absolute moronic fool.

He figured the best way to distract himself was pain, and so he began to push himself through the workout regimen that Madam Pomfrey had set for him. It hadn't been long since he’d been well enough to start, but he was slowly building his strength back up.

Last Thursday, Madam Pomfrey had arrived bearing gifts. The first was a simple crutch with a closed ring to slip his arm through and a handle. The second was a complicated mess of wood and metal and leather straps that he had been skeptical of, but quickly grew to appreciate.

“This will allow you to walk, Mr. Black,” Madam Pomfrey had said in a business-like tone, gesturing for Regulus to undress. “You are recovering well.”

He used his wand to strip down to his skivvies. “Everything still hurts though. I still can barely move my leg and I really don’t think I can put weight on it.”

Madam Pomfrey waved her wand and a pale blue light traveled over the scarred side of his body—a diagnostic spell to check how he was healing. “Good. You still need to get into a hospital when you can, but for now, this leg brace should help considerably. Stretch out your left leg.”

He did, biting back a groan. Madam Pomfrey brought out the contraption and began to explain how it worked. It looked slightly less intimidating as the mess of straps resolved into something that did vaguely resemble the general shape of his leg. “It has quite a number of charms on it. It will compensate for weakness, prevent improper movements, such as subluxation or hyperextension, give pain relief, and bear much of the weight you aren’t able to on your own.”

Then she put it on. He braced himself for the straps to aggravate the wounds on his leg, but instead a blessed coolness swept over the limb. He couldn’t quite stifle an audible sigh.

“Feels better, Mr. Black?”

He nodded.

“Good. That was the hope. Some pain is important to keep you from moving your leg in a way that will cause further damage, but it is important to get you up and walking again. Now, take this crutch and try to push up to standing. Will it hurt if I place my hand on your left side to stabilize you?”

“Not terribly,” he grunted and pushed himself up. Most of his weight went onto his good leg, but slowly he shifted his weight to the other. It was far less excruciating than it would have been without the brace. Madam Pomfrey placed a hand on his ribs when he wobbled, but he was mostly able to stand on his own.

“Very good, Mr. Black. Now I want you to try and shift your weight to your left leg and the crutch and then step forward with your right. I won’t let you fall.” Madam Pomfrey gave a small, encouraging smile. Regulus himself was not especially large—average height and skinny as a beanpole—but Madam Pomfrey was tiny. He was fairly sure if he fell, they both would. He took a deep breath and firmly resolved to not fall.

The first step was taken with Herculean effort. But he did it. Then he took another, and another, and then Madam Pomfrey stepped back and watched as he made a slow, limping circuit of the room.

After ten minutes—which was several minutes longer than Madam Pomfrey advised—he collapsed onto the sofa, absolutely exhausted.

“Do not push yourself too much, Mr. Black,” she said firmly.

“I need to be mobile,” he insisted. “What’s going to happen if the Death Eaters find me and I’m stuck lying on a cot like a child?”

“You’ll be more stuck if you push yourself too far and dislocate your knee.”

“That’s what the brace is for, isn’t it?”

She gave him a look and shook her head. “You would think after a decade of this I would be used to the stubbornness of teenagers, but somehow I never am.”

“I am not a teenager,” he retorted.

“You are nineteen. Seventeen might be the age of legality, but you are very much still a teenager in my book.”

Regulus made quite the effort to not pout, as he was rather certain that would not help his case.

“Now, I cannot stay much longer. I’ve also brought the next week’s doses of your potions. I want you to exercise often, but do not over exert yourself.”

Regulus eyed the small living space. “Am I just supposed to walk in circles around the flat?”

Madam Pomfrey eyed him. “I have gotten permission from Dumbledore for you to take limited walks outside, since this is a muggle area and you’re unlikely to be recognized. This flat is on the fifth floor, but the west stairwell has muggle repelling spells on it so you can apparate from there. I suggest apparating to and from the ground floor as it seems…unwise to try and navigate the stairs just yet.”

Regulus tried to not show just how much the news excited him. He was absolutely losing his mind being stuck inside. He'd spent most of the past weeks either on the cot or the sofa, which must have come secondhand from someone who used to have a dog with an exceptionally bad shedding problem. Not only would he finally get to go out, but this also meant that somehow he was trusted enough to leave. He just nodded as Madam Pomfrey finished checking him over and giving her parting admonitions to take care of himself.

When she was gone, he slowly limped into the kitchen to prepare himself food—reveling in the feeling of being able to do so again. He ate canned beans with some sauce that Sirius had that was probably not meant to go with beans, but it was, well, sufficiently edible, at least. He really missed good food. Now he could finally go out to get some.

However, that had been a week ago, and in the week since he had received the leg brace, he had yet to leave the flat. He’d been far too nervous. He said it was because he wasn’t strong enough, but he knew it was more than that. He was scared.

Right now, in this weird alternate world of the tiny flat, it was okay that he was so changed. But outside, in the real world, where everything would be the same except himself— He wasn’t sure he was ready to face that yet.

Tomorrow, he told himself. Today he would just work on his exercises.

He did finally leave the flat the next day.

He went in search of lunch, because Sirius had only brought enough takeout for dinner the day before, and the kitchen was again woefully understocked. Regulus briefly entertained the thought of going to the supermarket himself, but then recalled that he had never been to any supermarket and would have no idea what to buy. He would probably do something stupid like bring home a basket full of only rutabagas and rhubarb.

When he had told Sirius of his plans to walk to the nearest muggle restaurant and buy food, Sirius had been rather dismayed, half convinced that a Death Eater would surely pop out of any and every corner and attack him. Regulus was glad that his brother cared enough to be so concerned, but also desperate to get out.

“It’s a muggle area,” Sirius reminded him. “You’re not going to know what to do.”

Regulus raised an eyebrow. “I’ll be fine. Ask for food. Give money. Take food. Eat.”

“Do you know how muggle money works?” Sirius crossed his arms.

“Do you?” Regulus retorted.

“Yes!”

“Good. It’s a base-ten system. I’d be more concerned if you couldn’t. Have you got any I can have?”

Sirius scowled.

“It’s all from the family vault anyway. Can’t exactly fetch more myself at the moment.”

Sirius scowled harder, clearly not pleased that the fact that he still very much took money from the Black family fund was known, but handed over a rather ridiculous wad of cash.

Regulus fumbled with getting it into his pocket one-handed, then thought better of it and carefully selected a more reasonable amount that he could handle with more ease. “Glad to know that the apparently impoverished state of your living situation is by choice rather than necessity.”

Sirius ignored him and pulled something else from his pocket. “Take this.”

Regulus held out his hand and Sirius dropped a ring into it. Regulus raised an eyebrow. “Is it cursed?”

“No,” Sirius scoffed. “It’s got a Protean charm on it. Nothing complex as I’m rubbish at them, but we can send a warning to the other if something’s wrong. Like if you step into the middle of the street and get hit by a car.”

“And what does it do?”

“Bit of heat, different color or light based on what it means. Yours is just for telling me if you’re in danger or me telling you the same. Mine’s got a few other things.” Sirius moved forward, then stopped. “Do you need help putting it on?”

Regulus rolled his eyes. “I can manage that much.” He nearly dropped the ring, but did actually manage to get it on his finger.

“Don’t die,” Sirius said, looking a bit worried despite the jovial tone.

Regulus gave a wry smile. “I’ll be fine. I’m still a wizard. I can handle myself.”

He wasn’t actually sure if he could, since getting out his wand meant that he had to let go of his crutch and try not to fall, but he wasn’t about to tell Sirius that.

Sirius frowned at him, then left for work.

By the time Regulus reached the edge of the complex, he was exhausted. He was, perhaps, biting off more than he could chew, considering he had previously only walked so far as the kitchen. Still, he might be a coward, but he wasn’t lazy.

The closest restaurant ended up being a chain that he’d seen quite frequently scattered across muggle London. Maggie had said it wasn’t especially good, but Regulus already felt in need of a nap by the time he reached it, and he still had to walk back. He ordered food, managed to not drop any of the coins while he paid, and then collapsed into a chair. Despite the pain relief charms on the leg brace, his leg was steadily throbbing. The pain must have distracted him from a very obvious problem he encountered once his number was called—he only had one arm.

He hadn’t forgotten this, of course. That was impossible. It was glaringly, painfully obvious at every moment of the day that his arm was gone.

But he was constantly finding new ways that this made his life hard.

He needed a crutch to walk and he needed a hand to hold the bag and he couldn’t do both at the same time.

The teenage worker had obviously realized the problem as well, and was staring at him and biting her lip. “Er, I can take it to your table for you.”

“I’m supposed to be taking it home,” he said flatly. He stared at the paper bag, but it offered no solutions.

The teenager started casting about behind the counter, as if she might find something. Regulus was starting to feel really stupid, and several customers were giving him pitying looks that made him want to apparate away on the spot. A middle aged man approached him.

“Here,” he said, and held out a black sack with straps. “I was out shopping for a new backpack for my son and there just happened to be a two-for-one sale! Didn’t need more than one, but figured it was free. I don’t need the spare, so here you are!”

Regulus eyed the thing and stammered. “I—I really couldn’t—”

“Nonsense! You’d be doing me a favor! My wife hates having the house so crowded with things we don’t need. It’s a solution for everyone.”

Before Regulus could protest further, the food was loaded into the backpack and handed to him. He had to lean his crutch against the counter to get the thing over his shoulders, but to his relief, he didn’t lose his balance and embarrass himself further. He thanked the man, though he couldn’t quite meet his eye, and hurried out of the restaurant. He did, however, notice that the man’s shopping bag was suspiciously empty of a second backpack.

Maggie had been right about the restaurant. It wasn’t very good.

Regulus went out more and more in the next few weeks. Sometimes Sirius even came with him, and Remus Lupin did once, too. Despite being very outspokenly pro-muggle, they both came across as suspiciously out of place and confused by quite a number of rather ordinary muggle contraptions. Lupin, upon accompanying Regulus to the supermarket, was flummoxed by the shopping cart. Regulus hadn’t ever used a shopping cart before either, but he did make a point of not proclaiming about how wonderful and practical it was. By the end of the trip, he had rather decided that Lupin’s entire purpose for going to the store was to educate his friend’s former-Death-Eater baby brother about just how practical and intelligent muggle inventions could be. He was neither subtle nor particularly well-informed on the subject, considering he told Regulus that a whisk was a muggle tool for separating lettuce leaves in a salad.

Regulus pointedly turned away to hide his laughter and did not explain that was most definitely not the point of a whisk and that wizards and witches used whisks, too. Or at least house-elves did, but he assumed poor wizards without house-elves probably used similar tools. Maybe, Regulus told himself, it was just that Lupin was not well informed about baking since the only thing he ever cooked was underdone vegetables and too rare cuts of meat.

Once Regulus realized that Lupin didn’t actually entirely know what he was talking about, it was almost enjoyable to listen to the man incorrectly lecture on about various muggle tools in a tone of absolute certainty. If Maggie had been there, she would have been howling on the floor with laughter.

It was a late afternoon in mid-September and Regulus was in the kitchen and trying to figure out what food items they could buy to properly stock a kitchen for two and sometimes three men who had little idea how to cook. A key turned in the lock of the front door and Lupin slipped in, looking weary and anxious.

They confirmed each other’s identities—something Sirius had become hyper-vigilant about enforcing—and then Lupin beelined for the table.

“Regulus, I need your help with something,” he said.

Regulus limped over the chair opposite him, but didn’t sit. “With what?”

“Watch in case I die after taking this potion.” He pulled a bottle out of his threadbare coat. It was filled with a potion of a color that made Regulus nauseous just looking at it.

“What’s it supposed to do?”

“Nothing right now. Unless it was made wrong, then I might die.” Lupin stared at the bottle with a strange expression on his face.

Regulus shook his head. “I am not having you die in front of me and get blamed for it. Wait until Sirius gets back.”

Lupin didn’t look at him. “Sorry, but I have to take it now.” Then before Regulus could protest further, he downed the bottle in three large gulps. He slammed the bottle onto the table top and then clapped both hands over his mouth. He shuddered, paused, then shuddered again, but didn’t vomit. “That was truly the worst potion I have ever tasted.”

Regulus watched nervously to see what happened, but Lupin appeared as healthy as ever. Which wasn’t saying a lot, since he looked perpetually too thin and tired, but he certainly didn’t look worse.

An hour later, Sirius came home from work with half his face swollen. Regulus, who was still trying to scrape together something edible for dinner, only realized something was wrong with Sirius because Lupin, who had been reading a massive book on rare magical plants in Oceania, immediately started yelling at him.

“Why didn’t you go to St. Mungo’s?!”

“I didn’t have time!”

“You look horrible! Can you even see? You need to go get treatment.”

“It’s almost dark!”

“I don’t care.”

“Don’t be daft. Padfoot will be fine.”

“Padfoot will look like he ate an entire beehive.”

At this point Regulus cautiously poked his head out of the kitchen. Lupin was standing in the middle of the living room with his arms crossed and an almost feral glare. Sirius stood slouched by the door with the left side of his face swollen up like a balloon and splotchy red. He did look awful, but Regulus decided to not get in the middle of it.

“Sirius, you can’t sacrifice your health.”

“It’s not even a bad hex. Just mildly unpleasant. I can get it sorted out tomorrow. After. I’m not missing tonight, especially when Prongs is unavailable.”

Lupin tried to protest further, but Sirius talked over him and kept talking, not letting him get a word in edgewise. Eventually Sirius strode into the kitchen, still talking, to greet Regulus.

“How are you doing, dear baby brother?”

Regulus glared at him. “Shut up. You really do look awful.”

“It’s so I can’t attend your funeral, which means you aren’t allowed to get yourself killed.”

Regulus was not amused.

“Remus and I will be out tonight,” he said by way of explanation. “Think you can keep yourself alive? Take all your potions and whatnot? If not, Dumbledore seemed rather eager to babysit.”

Regulus almost choked. “You wouldn’t dare stick me with him.”

Sirius grinned, or attempted to. It didn’t work well with his face in its current state. “Now, if you really want to be a loving and kind baby brother, you might even have two steaming cups of hot chocolate waiting for us in the morning. We’ll be back just after dawn.”

Regulus raised an eyebrow. “What the hell are you doing out all night?”

Sirius tutted. “That would be telling.” And then he snatched up a sleeve of crackers and marched back into the living room.

Regulus looked between the two other men, who seemed to have some sort of silent attempts at communication going on, and decided he would probably rather not know.

Chapter Text

Sirius and Remus apparated to a familiar patch of the Forbidden Forest. They’d come here dozens of times for full moons, but today, Remus was so on edge Sirius was worried he might hurt himself even before the transformation.

Sirius understood why. It was the same reason he hadn’t dared the chance of getting held up at St. Mungo’s. This night might change everything. Remus had gone through a decade and a half of painful, terrifying transformations every full moon with no hope for a cure or even an improvement. Then a few weeks ago, Dumbledore had come to him and told him that he had managed to procure a new potion that had the hope of allowing a werewolf to keep their own mind during the transformation and not lose control. Now, Remus was getting the chance to try it.

Remus had hated himself ever since he’d been bitten as a child because of what he was, and even though he’d never hurt anyone, he was terrified of it every time the full moon came. The first thing he always did after changing back was frantically demand to know if he’d hurt anyone. It never helped that he was usually covered in some amount of blood. So far it had always belonged to an animal or some non-sentient creature or had been his own, but he spent his life in constant dread of killing someone or destroying their life like his own had been destroyed by Fenrir Greyback.

The chance to keep his own mind while he transformed was about more than regaining control. It also meant that he could lose the fear of becoming a murderer.

The forest air held a chill that promised a cold night, but birds still chirped in the distance, animals still rustled in the underbrush. They would grow silent soon, when Remus transformed.

“It’s going to be fine,” Sirius said.

“What if it doesn’t work?” Remus paced in circles, glancing anxiously at his watch. The sun was still well above the horizon, but the moon was set to rise in mere minutes.

“Then nothing changes.”

“What if it makes it worse?”

“How could it do that?”

“It could—I don’t know. I don’t know! And what if it does work? What do we do then?” He tugged at his hair.

“Then we have fun.”

Remus gave him a look absolutely dripping with incredulity. “This isn’t fun.”

“It might be.”

Remus shook his head.

“Just think of how stupid Padfoot is going to look with my face all swollen like this.”

Remus gave him a long-suffering look, and then cringed in pain. “It’s starting.”

Sirius took several steps back to give him space and then changed into his animagus form, a large black dog. Even as a dog, he could feel that his face was uncomfortably swollen, but at least it wasn’t affecting his eyesight.

Remus was curling in on himself now, moaning in pain. His bones creaked and snapped as his body stretched into a large, grey wolf with scars along its muzzle. Sirius stood tense, ears perked up. It always took a bit for the wolf to adjust, and then he was up and growling and snapping, ready to run all night long chasing any prey he could find. If things would be different now…well, this was the moment they would find out.

Sirius gave a low whine. Slowly, the wolf pushed itself to its feet and met Padfoot’s eyes. Sirius tilted his head to the side in the dog version of a question. The wolf nodded. It was such a strange motion to see on him. Sirius had been with that wolf on more full moons than not, but Remus had always been gone. Now, if the Wolfsbane potion had really worked, he was still here, still in control.

Sirius let out a soft bark and Remus replied with an awkward shuffling sound and took a few hesitant steps forward. This was him alright. On a normal night, the wolf would have been snarling and leaping already. Now, he looked like he didn’t know what to do with his own giant paws. Sirius supposed he didn’t. Remus wasn’t actually used to being the wolf and being in control of it.

That meant it was up to Sirius to show him how to have fun.

Sirius changed back into a man, and immediately the wolf’s ears flew back and he took several stumbling steps backwards, tripping over his own paws in his hurry to get away from Sirius.

“Remus, it’s okay!”

Remus the wolf shook his head furiously and gave a low growl.

“I just want to check if you’re okay,” Sirius said quickly. “You’re not going to hurt me and I could change back before you could get close, even if you lose control. You know that.”

Remus whined and made a batting motion with his paws that Sirius couldn’t interpret. It was probably something along the lines of you’re-an-idiot-and-change-back-right-now-because-I-don’t-trust-myself-and-I’m-going-to-kill-you-later. However, it looked more like a baby, or a puppy, batting at a butterfly in the air. It was honestly adorable to see him in this clumsy, confused state, not knowing how to manage his new paws, and Sirius was definitely going to tell him so, but not right now.

“You’re in control, right?” Sirius asked.

Remus nodded.

“Any pain? Anything wrong?”

Remus shook his head and whined again. Sirius transformed back into a dog, and Remus visibly relaxed, though he still shied away as Sirius tried to approach him. It took a while to get him to do more than putter about awkwardly on his massive legs, more from nervousness than inability, but finally Remus began to trot alongside Sirius as they loped through forest. Sirius nosed a pinecone at him and he snapped at it. Soon they were playing, leaping at each other and bounding away, though Sirius kept himself from getting too close to Remus. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust him, but anytime he got too close, Remus would freeze up or run away with his tail tucked. Even with the potion, he was so scared of harming his friend, and as much as Sirius wanted Remus to trust himself that he would never hurt anyone—even when he wasn’t in control, he’d never bitten Sirius—he wasn’t going to push him when he was clearly so uncomfortable with it. As long as he didn’t get in biting range, Remus managed to actually relax in his lupine form for the first time since he’d been bitten as a child.

Remus caught the scent of a rabbit and started after it, Sirius hot on his heels. This was the fun part—chasing actual prey. But then Remus froze. Sirius was afraid something was wrong, but then he noticed the way Remus’s head drooped and his ears went back and he curled in on himself. He was ashamed. Chasing rabbits was what animals did, not humans. He’d let the wolf instincts lead him.

Sirius whined gently at him. He wanted to change back into his human form and explain that even he liked chasing after rabbits when he was Padfoot. He was still a human, but in an animal’s body and brain. It was fun . Even the perpetually composed, stiff-upper-lipped Professor McGonagall chased mice as a cat! They’d seen her doing so once at Hogwarts and had howled with laughter in the privacy of their own dorm, but knew that she would put them in detention for a week if they dared mention it publicly. Sirius didn’t transform, though, as he was sure that would send Remus running.

After a good deal of encouragement from Padfoot, Remus slowly relaxed again. They found a stream and splashed in it and then splashed each other and rolled in the mud. Remus then spent nearly half an hour trying to get himself clean without giving into the impulse to lick himself clean. It was hilarious to watch the wolf try to rub against a tree or splash water on himself in a very un-wolf-like manner. By the time he gave up, he was sopping wet—which was also adorable—while Sirius, only damp after shaking off and happily grooming himself, lounged on a nearby rock.

They ran around a bit before finding themselves in a clearing at the edge of the forest. They could see Hogwarts looming through the trees. Remus flopped onto the ground panting. Sirius dropped into a soft looking clump of leaves and curled up. He was tired, which was nothing new for full moons, and didn’t mind the rest. Remus whuffed into the grass and dropped his head to his paws. They ended up passing the remaining hours of the night laying there and even dozed a bit.

The birds had started to wake and there was a hint of grey to the air when Remus began to whimper. Sirius shook off the last of his sleepiness and stood at attention. The transformation back was always the hardest on Remus, and they didn’t know how things would be different with the Wolfsbane potion. Remus curled up on the grass and let out a groan that was somewhere between human and wolf. Sirius hated watching this. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t so different from being an animagus, but Sirius never felt pain when he transformed. It had been disorienting and uncomfortable at first, but never painful. For Remus, and every werewolf probably, it had never gotten better and left him exhausted and in pain after.

Finally, Remus’s limbs settled into their usual form and he rolled onto his back in the grass. He groaned and rubbed his hands over his face. Sirius trotted over and shifted back to human form.

“Are you alright?”

Remus dropped his hands from his face. He opened his eyes and stared up at the sliver of lightening sky visible between the trees. “I’m exhausted and everything hurts.” He looked at Sirius and broke out in a grin. “But that was the best bloody full moon I’ve ever had.” 

Sirius felt a smile split his own face and rocked back on his heels. “What was it like?”

Remus shook his head. “So bizarre. I felt…like myself. My mind felt like my own, but still a bit…wolfy, I suppose. And being in the wolf’s body felt weird. It wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t as bad as without the potion. I knew I wouldn’t hurt anyone the whole time. I could make sure I didn’t. If I can take the potion every time, I can make sure I never become more of a monster than I already am.”

Sirius shoved him. “Don’t—”

“I know, I know, you don’t think I’m a monster, I’ve heard.” He pushed himself to a sitting position, rubbing his arms and legs. “I think this is the first time I’ve felt…not good, but anything but pure hatred about being a werewolf since Greyback bit me.”

“The rest of us have always had so much fun on the full moons. It’s never been fair that you don’t even get to remember it.”

Remus shook his head. “That would be worse, I think. Having no control, but being aware of it the whole time. Like being imperiused.”

Sirius shivered. “Right.” 

The imperius curse wasn’t something he ever wanted to experience again. His parents had tried it on him, but eventually he had learned to resist. Still, the memories of that feeling of being powerless to stop his own body from acting against his will were horrible, even if it wasn’t until after he broke through it that the weight of what had happened fully struck. He wouldn’t wish that on—he couldn’t say anyone because that would be a lie. He’d wish it on any of the Death Eaters. All of them. But not anyone he cared about.

Remus was staring longingly at Hogwarts, which was slowly resolving into more than a dark shadow as the sun rose.

Sirius bumped his shoulder against Remus’s. “You’ll get to visit soon.”

“I know.”

“Hogsmeade weekend is next weekend right?”

Remus nodded. “I wish the war was over. I wish it was all over.”

“Me, too.”

“I can’t even imagine what it’ll be like.”

“Neither can I.” Sirius rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you think you’ve ever felt safe, outside of Hogwarts?”

Remus frowned. “I don’t know if I ever felt safe even at Hogwarts. I did sometimes, and I was happy there because of you lot, but I was always so scared of someone finding out about—”

“Your furry little problem?”

Remus rolled his eyes, but smiled. “Several of her friends are fully convinced that I have a very misbehaved rabbit.”

Sirius laughed. “We could get you one. Now that you know you wouldn’t eat it.”

Remus snorted and they lapsed into silence. The overcast sky was lighter now, casting a silver light across the dewy Hogwarts grounds. A few streams of sunlight broke through the clouds and turned the tops of the castle towers to gold. Owls, dark winged specks against the dawn, swooped towards the castle, full from their hunts or laden with mail.

“Do you think Regulus will be okay?” Sirius asked after a few minutes.

Remus let out a breath. “Well, he’s prickly as a porcupine, but for a Black, he’s practically a bundle of cuddles.”

Sirius thought back to the day Regulus had cried. It had been weeks now, and he hadn’t cried once since. He hadn’t even acknowledged that breakdown had even happened, but Sirius hadn’t either. It wasn’t the kind of thing either of them had been raised knowing how to bring up.

“He’s changed,” Remus said. “He isn’t how he used to be. I mean, he was a kid then, but still.”

“Yeah,” Sirius said.

“Most wizards never get permanent injuries, and he’s got multiple, and he’s only nineteen. Plus, you know, all the other issues. I’m sure he’s having a harder time than he’s letting on, but I think he’ll manage. I think he’ll be alright.”

“I hope so,” Sirius said. “Think he actually prepared hot chocolate for us?”

Remus laughed. “Definitely not.” He climbed to his feet with a groan. “Let’s go. I’m ready to apparate now.”

Regulus did have hot chocolate waiting for them. Three paper to-go cups sat steaming on the kitchen table, with Regulus asleep beside them. The unpleasant smell of burnt chocolate filled the small flat and a pan sat used on the stove. Had he tried to make hot chocolate? Remus glanced at the stove, too, then took a tentative sip.

“Definitely from a shop,” he said, sounding relieved.

Sirius nudged his brother, who jerked awake with wide eyes and messy hair. He blinked at the two of them. “You’re back.”

“Yep,” Sirius said. “You survived a night all on your own?”

Regulus rolled his eyes. “I’m not an infant.”

“Thanks for the hot chocolate.”

His brother’s cheeks turned red and he shrugged.

“How did you manage to get them all here?” Remus asked.

Regulus gave him a that’s-a-stupid-question look and pointed to that muggle backpack he taken to toting everywhere. When Sirius had first seen it, he’d teased him for it, until he’d realized why Regulus needed it and felt guilty. Sirius was sure he’d rather have something nicer and more polished, but he’d adopted it without complaining. Really, he’d adopted all his new muggle garments without complaining.

“How’d you keep them all from spilling?” Remus asked again.

“I lost my arm, not my magic,” Regulus pointed out.

“Right,” Remus said. “Those were dumb questions. I’m not feeling my best after…last night.”

Regulus’s face screwed up and he glanced towards his own cup, looking rather uncomfortable. Sirius wondered if he’d made the full moon connection.

“You’re up early, Reg,” Sirius said. “You should go back to sleep.”

“I was sleeping.”

“On the table.”

“Nightmares?” Remus asked sympathetically.

Regulus hunched his shoulders. “I’m fine.”

“There’s no shame in having nightmares. And speaking of, I need some sleep.” Remus stood and drained the last of his hot chocolate. “Sirius, I’m taking your bed.”

“Where am I supposed to sleep?” Sirius grumbled, but he didn’t mind. Remus was doing better than he normally did after a full moon, but he would probably sleep the rest of the day and Sirius only had a couple of hours to nap on the couch before needing to be at work.

Regulus was sipping his own hot chocolate more slowly. “Are you going to St. Mungo’s today?” he asked his brother.

Sirius put his hand to his face. “Right. Forgot about that.” Feeling a bit rough after a full moon was normal, but his face was still tight and uncomfortable. Definitely needed to get that sorted out.

Regulus raised an eyebrow, then shook his head. “I really don’t understand you sometimes.”

Sirius grinned and took his hot chocolate to the couch for a quick nap.

Chapter Text

Regulus was growing bored, and that made him foolish. He could walk around the area near Sirius’s flat at a moderate pace, but it was quickly growing old. There were a few cheap restaurants and other shops, some apartment structures like the one Sirius lived in, and some houses. He had read through everything Sirius had, which wasn’t much. He was spending too much time stuck with only his own thoughts for company and he needed something else to do.

He couldn’t stop thinking about Maggie. He dreamed about her sometimes, which was always painful, but at least painful in a different way than the nightmares of the things he’d seen and done with the Death Eaters or the terrible ones where he was being drowned and torn apart by the inferi all over again. He would rather dream of her, even though it always heaped on a tremendous pile of guilt and made him miss her so much he could feel it in his chest.

He needed more books.

That was the only reason he decided to go to the bookstore, he told himself. It was not at all that it reminded him of Maggie because of the times she’d taken him there to marvel at the odd and innumerable things muggles came up with to put in books. It was just conveniently a place he knew he could apparate to and was a muggle establishment, meaning it wouldn’t violate Dumbledore’s rules for him to go there. He needed books and that’s where he could get them. A sensible part of himself said that thinking about her so constantly wasn’t a good idea and going to places that would only conjure up memories wasn’t helpful in moving on, but he dutifully ignored that part of his mind.

It was a Tuesday afternoon. She would be busy at work serving afternoon tea. They had only ever gone together late, after the tea shop had closed.

He gave himself every reason why it was fine to go, but really, he knew better. He shouldn’t have gone.

It started out with a close call when a muggle stumbled into the alley beside the store the moment he apparated there. He was ready to pull out his wand to obliviate him if necessary, but the man didn’t even glance at Regulus. He just stumbled towards a dumpster and began to— Regulus turned and hurried away.

He entered the store. The air was filled with the sweet, dusty smell of old books. It was different than the smell of wizarding bookstores—softer, less leather and polish, more paper and glue. It reminded him of her. She always took a huge breath the moment she stepped in, inhaling the scent as if it were freshly baked bread.

Regulus tried to focus just on finding books. He wandered through the shelves, trying to find something that caught his eye. All of the volumes were bizarrely colorful and the synopses made little sense. It didn’t help that they referenced things that he didn’t have the context for. There were a lot of references to wizards and magic, but Maggie had told him they weren’t real, all written by muggles who just imagined what they thought magic might be like. They called it fantasy, like a dream of perfection. He wondered what muggles imagined a perfect magical world would be like, and grabbed a few of them at random.

He’d developed a system of dropping things into his backpack since he couldn’t hold things and walk, and dropped each book over his shoulder into the open slit at the top. He moved from the “Fantasy” section to one labeled “Self-Help.” He browsed through several absurd titles about getting rich or talking to babies or learning how to capture a man, before noticing one about finding inner peace. He almost laughed. Such a ridiculous concept. The only people with inner peace were infants and imbeciles. Still, he couldn’t help but be a little bit curious about it, and dropped it in his backpack, too.

Unfortunately, that choice ended up ruining whatever inner peace he might have had. A woman appeared at his elbow and began hollering at him. He was so startled that it took him a moment to understand what she was saying. She was accusing him of being a thief.

He stiffened. “I am not stealing—” 

“I saw you put that book in your bag! Don’t you lie to me, you thug!” She pointed a finger very close to his face.

He drew himself up as tall as he could and glared down at her. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’m going to tell a worker!” she shrieked.

“If you don’t even work here, then how is it any of your business how I carry books around!”

The woman yelled for help. Moments later, a balding, round man with red cheeks and a bewildered expression ran over.

“What’s going on here?” he asked.

The woman jammed her finger in Regulus’s face again. “This low-life is stealing! I saw him with my own eyes! He put a book in his backpack!”

The man’s brow knitted and he looked at Regulus. He looked him up and down, clearly taking in his missing arm, the brace on his leg, and the crutch propped against the shelf. “Did you put a book in your bag?”

Regulus felt his cheeks heat. “Yes, but only because I cannot carry something and walk at the same time. I was going to buy them.”

The woman stared at Regulus’s missing arm with a poorly veiled sneer of disgust. “That’s a lie. No doubt you’re a beggar, coming in here to steal and using your nasty deformity to try and get pity.” She turned back to the man. “I demand you have him arrested.”

Nasty deformity . Regulus felt cold and nauseous. He couldn’t find the words to say. He couldn’t move.

The man was staring at the woman, then at Regulus, and then at the woman again. “Leave my store.”

“He has your books!” the woman shrieked. “You’ll just let him leave?”

“No,” the man said. “You. Leave. Put your books back. You are no longer welcome in my store. Get out.”

The woman gasped. “How dare you!”

“Happily,” the man said. “Leave.”

The woman huffed, dropped her pile of books on the ground, and stormed out. The man shook his head and bent to gather the books. “Sorry about that, lad. Ignore people like her. They accuse others of horrible things hoping to distract everyone from how horrible they are themselves. I don’t mind you carrying your purchases in that backpack of yours, but a warning for going into others stores, you might want to tell the people who work there up front what you’re doing or they really might believe you’re stealing.”

Regulus couldn’t meet the man’s eyes, but nodded. He gave Regulus a pat on the shoulder and walked away. Regulus stayed where he was for several minutes, shaking with anger and humiliation. He just wanted to evaporate. He didn’t want to have to see a single other person or face the man who worked there to check out. He should have just left, but he had put in all of the effort into finding his books and leaving without them would mean being forced to sit at home with nothing to distract him from his thoughts. He tried to get his breathing under control, grabbed two more books at random, and made his way to the checkout counter with as much dignity as he could muster.

A few people glanced his way—of course they did, he was a one-armed kid with a bad limp who’d just been involved in a loud, public incident—but he refused to make eye contact and held his head high. He was above this. He was fine. He just needed to buy the books and apparate home. He leaned his crutch against the counter and slung the backpack off his shoulders. The red-cheeked man took it from him and pulled the books out one at a time, rang them up, and put them back in. He got to a floppy paperback with a colorfully illustrated cover that Regulus couldn’t quite make sense of and held it up.

“Do you like this series? My daughter reads them.”

Regulus raised a shoulder. “I don’t know. I haven’t read it yet.”

The man paused. “Oh, well, this is the fourth book in the series. Do you want me to get you the first?”

Before Regulus could respond, the man jogged away. Regulus repressed a sigh and forced himself to stand as straight and tall as he could while he waited, pretending that no one else was in the store. He hated that he could feel eyes on him. It made him want to hex someone, and he absolutely could not hex muggles. That was never permitted generally and it would be especially bad coming from a former Death Eater. The man just needed to come back, so Regulus could leave already. Finally, he did, holding up the exchanged book with a smile and slipping it into Regulus’s bag without scanning it.

“It’s on me, for your trouble earlier,” the man said with a smile.

“I don’t need charity. I’m not poor,” Regulus replied stiffly.

The man only laughed. “I didn’t assume you were. With how posh you sound, you could be the Queen of England. It’s a gift.”

Regulus pulled the money out of his pocket, nearly dropping it he was in such a rush to get away. He shoved the change carelessly into his bag, zipped it (and hoped the muggle didn’t question his uncanny prowess at zipping it one handed), and swung his backpack back over his shoulders. He grabbed his crutch, turned to leave, and froze.

He was hallucinating.

It couldn’t be her. It was a woman who just happened to look like her standing between the shelves.

“Reynold?” the woman said.

His heart hammered in his chest and it felt like his throat was closing. “Maggie…” he whispered. Then he got a grip on himself. What was he doing? What was he saying? He needed to leave now more than ever. He broke away from her gaze and walked as fast as he could toward the door.

“Reynold!” She was following him. “What’s going on? What happened to you? Why are you here?”

He didn’t answer, but he couldn’t outrun her.

“Answer me,” she said.

“You’re mistaken,” he replied woodenly. “I’m not Reynold.”

“You said my name.”

“You misheard.” He was at the door now and shoved through it. She followed.

“Don’t be absurd. I know it’s you. Are you okay? You said you were moving to Vienna and then suddenly you’re back and you’re—”

He wouldn’t look at her. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I’m fine. Just forget you ever saw me, alright?”

“Don’t be like this. Just talk to me. Was it your arm? Is that why you disappeared? I told you that you really needed to get your arm looked at, with all those pains you kept having. But I don’t know why you wouldn’t tell me! You shouldn’t be ashamed of losing your arm, if that’s what it was.” Regulus glanced at her, and she looked at him with such earnest care.

He dropped his gaze to the dirty concrete, the guilt flaring hot in his gut. She was exactly right and entirely wrong all at once. He was more ashamed than he could put into words, but not about his arm.

“That’s not what happened,” he said quietly.

“Then what did happen?”

He almost told her. Right then and there, ignoring everything Dumbledore had told him about the importance of secrecy, he almost spilled everything to her about the cave, the inferi, the horcrux, the locket, waking up with half his body ruined. He wanted to so desperately. He needed it.

But he shook his head. “Nothing. Please.” He needed her to leave. He couldn’t take this. Not today. He was almost to the deserted part of the alley where he could get away. A few more steps.

“I just—”

He reached it. There were no muggles around. He pivoted, pushing himself through space, but right as he turned, her hand landed on his arm. She was yanked through, too, and they both landed in the west stairwell at Sirius’s flat. She let go and stumbled back.

“I didn’t mean to—” She started, blinking around at the new environment. Her surprise was just enough time for Regulus to get away. He rushed to the door as fast as he could, glad he didn’t need to bother with a key as it was charmed to only open to a few people’s touch. He got through the door and slammed it behind him.

She followed, though, and now she knew where he was staying. She banged on the door. “Reynold!”

Maybe she’d just go away.

The banging continued. “Reynold, I just want to talk!”

He flung his backpack onto the sofa and then himself, burying his face in a pillow. He would ignore it. She couldn’t stay there forever.

She kept knocking. “Honestly, open up this door! I’m not leaving without some sort of explanation!”

Sirius’s door opened and he stumbled into the living room, wand in hand. He had pillow creases on his face and his hair was a mess. “Who’s at the door?”

“You’re supposed to be at work.”

Sirius gave him an incredulous look. “I had a night shift! Hardly the most pressing issue! What is going on?”

Regulus looked away. “Nothing. It’s no one. Just ignore her.”

“Reynold!”

“Reynold?” Sirius asked.

“She’s—she’s confused! Wrong door. Just a confused muggle.” Regulus squeezed the pillow.

Sirius frowned at him. “There’s muggle repelling charms.”

Before Regulus could come up with any more satisfactory explanation, Sirius had thrown back the bolt, swung the door open, and pulled Maggie back inside with his wand jammed under her chin in one well-trained motion. He shoved the door shut with his foot. Maggie was frozen, but she was glaring between the brothers.

“Who the hell are you?” he growled.

“Sirius!” Regulus yelled, pulling himself to his feet.

“What?” Maggie said, looking from Sirius to Regulus with wide eyes.

“Who are you?” Sirius demanded. “What are you doing here?”

“I—I’m Maggie Tessier,” she said. “I didn’t mean to follow him, but I grabbed his arm and then he apparated!”

Sirius didn’t move his wand. “So you were trying to capture him? Pull up your left sleeve.”

“She’s not a Death Eater, Sirius!” Regulus stepped forward.

But Sirius made her show her arm anyway. Once he was satisfied that her arm was tattoo free, he took a step back, but kept his wand pointed at her. “Then why did you try to capture my brother?”

“Brother?” She looked between Sirius and Regulus with dawning comprehension in her eyes, then shook her head slightly. “I wasn’t trying to capture him. I just wanted an explanation as to why he disappeared so suddenly and then all of a sudden I find him with an injured leg and his arm—gone.”

“And how did you find him?”

“I just saw him at the bookstore!”

Sirius turned to Regulus, livid. “You went to Diagon Alley?” he asked.

“Of course not,” Regulus said. “It was a muggle bookstore.”

Sirius turned his attention back to Maggie. “So you tracked him then.”

“No! It was a coincidence! I just went in to buy a book! I was the one who showed him that store in the first place.” She glared at Sirius. “Now stop pointing your wand at me! I’m not going to hurt anyone!”

Regulus pulled his brother back. “Honestly. You’re scaring her.”

“He’s not!”

Regulus looked at her pleadingly. She made a face. “Fine, you’re terrifying me. Please put the wand down so my delicate feminine mind doesn’t succumb to the terror.”

Sirius snorted, but lowered his wand, though Regulus had no doubt he could have it up in a flash if necessary. “So you know Regulus.”

Confusion flashed on Maggie’s face. “Er, no. I don’t know Regulus. I know him.” She gestured.

Sirius raised an eyebrow. “Yes, my brother. Regulus. His name is Regulus Black. Were you calling him, what was it, Reynold?”

“He told me his name was Reynold White,” Maggie said slowly.

He turned to Regulus, who quailed. Sirius sighed. “Well, I suppose neither of us got the creative genes, then. Reg, you sure she’s definitely not going to hurt you?”

“I might now!” she said. “Your name really isn’t Reynold?”

Slowly Regulus shook his head.

“So. You lied to me. For over a year.” She gave a bitter laugh. “Why?”

Regulus dropped his eyes to the floor. “I had to.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied, his voice tinged with desperation. “It’s best you just pretend you never saw me. Forget about me. I—I can even obliviate you, if you want. That would be easier for you.”

She gave him a look of utter incredulity. “That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said. Why would that even cross your mind?”

“It would be safer for you that way! You don’t understand. I’m not who you think I am,” Regulus said, his voice already cracking.

“Yes, I’m realizing that! Why did you lie to me? What reason could you possibly have for giving a fake name?”

He drew in a shaky breath. His left leg was burning, but he wouldn’t sit down. Not yet. He took a halting step back, though, and leaned against the arm of the sofa, gripping the back as if the threadbare corduroy could somehow protect him from the truth. The guilt swelled into something hot and visceral, so strong he thought he might throw up. He didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want to see the shock and hurt and hatred on her face. That’s why he’d lied and run and hoped to never see her. It was better for everyone if she didn’t know. Except now she was here, demanding an answer that he had no choice but to give. He really should have never gone to the bookstore.

“Because,” he said, “I’m a Death Eater.”

She stared, unmoving. “That’s a horrible joke.”

“It’s not a joke,” he said, words barely more than a whisper.

She was motionless for several long moments, then slowly horrified comprehension spread across her face. She stared at him with open disgust, backing up until she hit the wall. 

“What?” she hissed. Her eyes darted to Sirius and she whipped out her wand. “Both of you? What is this, some sort of trap? Did you lure me here to kill me?!”

“No!” Regulus said, throwing his arms up. “I swear, I would never hurt you! Never!”

“And I’m definitely not a Death Eater and never have been,” Sirius said quickly. “I’m an auror. Very much not on the bad side. Look, I’ll show you my badge!” He summoned it from the other room, but even that small spell made Maggie flinch.

Her eyes darted between them, breath coming in ragged gasps. “And all of your—coming to the tea shop, getting close with me, what was that, some plot to—to hand me and my family over to the rest of your Death Eater friends? Some sick game to gawk at how muggles live and fraternize with a dirty mudblood? I let you in! I introduced you to my family! You put protective charms up at the shop! Are those really spells to bring the Death Eaters down on my head?!”

“No!” Regulus yelled, pushing away from the sofa. “Maggie! I swear it was never that! Never! I don’t want them to get hurt either. I swear I never spent time with you for any nefarious purposes. I knew it was a risk to even go to your tea shop in the first place, but then I met you and I told myself I shouldn’t go back, but I just couldn’t stop myself. I liked spending time with you and I promise you it was never for any reason besides that. I know I lied and I’m not going to make excuses about that, but you’re not in any danger from me. Maggie, I promise. I promise.”

He needed her to believe that. More than he needed to breathe, he needed her to believe that he wouldn’t hurt her. He was suffocating.

“You’re a Death Eater! Your whole thing is murdering people like me! How am I supposed to believe that I’m safe?! And why me? Why become friends with a muggle-born when you hate us! What’s wrong with you?!”

Regulus dared to meet her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Maggie. I’m sorry. I’m not going to ask for your forgiveness or understanding because I don’t deserve it, but I swear I would never hurt you. I never did any of it to hurt you and that’s why I wanted you to never find out.”

“I don’t know if I can believe that,” she said in a trembling voice.

Regulus dropped his eyes to the ground, overwhelmed and unable to think of words to say. She was right to not believe him and he couldn’t bring himself to make paltry excuses when there were none good enough to excuse what he had been. He really thought he might throw up.

The world was beginning to feel rather far away and even his aching scars felt less real. He shouldn’t have survived. He didn’t want to face this. There had been one person in the world who thought he was someone worth existing, but now she hated him, too.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” she said.

“Just leave then,” Regulus said, eyes fixed on the carpet.

“You won’t tie me up and kill me, then?”

Sirius stepped forward. “Regulus wouldn’t do that. He’s not like that.”

“He’s a Death Eater!”

“He was a Death Eater, but defected,” Sirius said. “That’s why he’s all torn up. And him joining the Death Eaters in the first place wasn’t exactly voluntary.”

“I still was one, though,” Regulus said.

Sirius gave an exasperated sigh. “Reg, are you really not going to try and defend yourself?”

“I don’t deserve to be defended,” he said hoarsely. At least not to her. If he were being tried in court or questioned by some self-righteous snob, it would be different. But Maggie mattered. He’d spent far too long lying to her, the person he cared for more than anyone in the world, and hating himself every moment for it, and he couldn’t do it anymore.

Sirius let out a noise of frustration. “Why are you so melodramatic?”

“I’m not,” Regulus grumbled automatically.

“Look,” Sirius said, turning towards Maggie. “I don’t really know what’s going on, and I’m relieved this is some sort of lover’s spat instead of a Death Eater attack, but my brother isn’t a horrible person. I mean— No, I stand by that. He’s not. He was forced into things far bigger than him when he was only a kid.”

Regulus didn’t speak.

“Our family are truly awful. Old money, prejudiced, blood purists, abusive, and just generally unpleasant. I was sorted into Gryffindor when I went to Hogwarts and they basically disowned me from that point forward. I mean, they hated me even before then, but that made it worse. They’re the ones who pledged Regulus to You-Know-Who and that isn’t exactly the kind of commitment someone gets out of, and even once he was older, defecting isn’t so simple. You-Know-Who brands his followers with a cursed tattoo on their arm that he can use to summon them or find them or hurt them.”

Regulus looked up at Sirius, startled. He wasn’t aware that anyone outside of the Dark Lord’s circles knew the details of the Dark Mark.

Maggie met his eyes then. She glanced quickly at his left side, then back to his face. “So you…cut off your arm?”

Regulus blinked. “What? No, this wasn’t…part of the plan. It just— I was—hurt. And…just lucky it was my left side, I suppose.” 

Her eyes flicked to his absent arm again. “What happened?” 

Regulus glanced at his brother. “I…can’t say.”

Sirius bit his lip. “Well, he’s not supposed to give any details. But we can say that he is definitely no longer a Death Eater. He did something really important and brave.”

“I wasn’t brave.”

“Shut it,” Sirius told him. “It was brave, and he went in knowing that he was probably sacrificing his life to do it and that no one would ever know about it. He did survive, though, barely. Showed up in my kitchen in a pool of blood, torn to pieces…. We managed to keep him around, though.”

Maggie looked nauseous, then turned towards Regulus again. “Is that…why you went to Vienna?”

His shoulders slumped. Another lie caught. “It wasn’t Vienna. I just told you that. I didn’t want you to find out the truth. I thought it would be better for you to think I was an arse for leaving the country so suddenly.” His voice had dropped to a whisper. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have found out. It would have been better for you that way.”

She shook her head slowly. “You could have just tried to explain everything to me. Why never tell me the truth? You had over a year.”

The guilt surged.

“Because I was selfish,” he said quietly. “I never meant to lie, at the beginning. But then you asked my name and I knew I couldn’t give you my real name and so I just made one up. It was never supposed to matter. I didn’t intend to come back, but then I did and then we became friends and I hated that I was lying every day, but I couldn’t tell you the truth and I swear I felt so guilty and I knew I’d never even begin to be the sort of man that you thought I was, and I’m so sorry. I won’t ever ask your forgiveness. I know I don’t deserve it.”

She didn’t say anything.

“You’re better off just forgetting all about this. Pretend you’ve never met me and you don’t know anything,” Regulus said.

She took a deep breath. “So you lied to me and pretended to be someone else for…escapism? Tea time in the afternoon and fun murder sprees in the evening?” She was still angry, but the words were a little flatter than before.

Regulus stiffened. “I’ve never murdered anyone. I’m not trying to say I’m a good person—I’m not—but I never murdered.”

“Well,” Maggie said. “That’s. That’s a relief to know, at least.” She tugged at her jumper. “I think I need—I need some space. I—I want to go home.”

“Wait.” Sirius stepped forward. “I’m not going to stop you, but…please. Regulus isn’t a bad person. He’s a kid who was trapped in something too big for him to handle. And it’s really, really essential that no one know he’s here.”

She seemed reluctant, but nodded. “I won’t tell,” she said, and then reached for the front door. Her eyes locked with Regulus’s. Her expression was flat and unreadable. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but then closed it and shook her head. She left without another word.

Chapter Text

It was mid-September now, and the attacks were getting worse. It seemed with the Death Eaters’ children safe at Hogwarts, they could go about their murdering unimpeded. At least, that was Sirius’s theory. On top of having to worry about near-constant attacks, Sirius was even more worried about Regulus than he had been before.

He hadn’t left the flat once in the days since Maggie had found him.

Sirius was still shocked about it all. His little brother, the one he’d not so long ago assumed was too far gone into pureblood ideologies to be saved, had secretly befriended a muggle-born almost right out of Hogwarts. Regulus seemed to think that it was Maggie who had made him really change, but it couldn’t have only been her. The kind of person Regulus had seemed to be would never have snuck off to the muggle world to get away from everything in the first place.

Who was Regulus Black?

Were the two brothers really more alike than Sirius had believed?

But now, Regulus wouldn’t talk to him, or anyone for that matter. Remus had been staying over more to make sure he ate while Sirius was working so much. Sirius had half-considered asking Dumbledore to let Regulus go over to the Lupins’ house, if he could get the hyper-cautious witch and wizard to agree. The country air, and being around a sane family, might do him some good.

Of course, when he did get a message from Dumbledore to meet, he entirely forgot to bring it up. It was a Friday afternoon when Sirius received a message summoning him to his office for an urgent matter. It came through a plain metal bracelet that Dumbledore had given everyone in the Order, charmed to be invisible to all but the wearer. The bracelet would vibrate and a coded message would flash across it.

This time it told Sirius to come to Dumbledore’s office. As soon as he was able to get away from work, he apparated to the gates of Hogwarts, the closest point that a person could apparate to, and made the long trek across the grounds and through the castle. The students he passed glanced his way, but he was hardly the only auror who showed up from time to time, especially with things as they were.

Dumbledore, seated behind his large mahogany desk, greeted Sirius with a warm smile when he stepped into the office.

“Ah, Sirius,” he said, gesturing for Sirius to take the chair in front of his desk. “How are you?”

“Good as I can be these days,” he said.

“And Regulus?”

“Recovering well.” Dumbledore knew about Maggie, but suddenly Sirius didn’t want to share more about how Regulus was doing. He didn’t think Regulus would appreciate it.

Dumbledore folded his hands, niceties dispensed with. “Another safe house was compromised,” Dumbledore informed him. “The secret keeper was found and killed, causing the fidelius to fail. I have reason to believe that the source of the woman’s identity leaking is the same as previously.”

Sirius swallowed. The news was unwelcome, but not a surprise.

“I have also received a report that Voldemort is growing increasingly angry that he has yet to find the Potters. He was driven back rather publicly recently and the Daily Prophet made the mistake of comparing the battle to the, and I quote, ‘devastating humiliation He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named faced at the hands of the muggle-born Lily Potter, one of the best witches of an age.’ His pride is not taking that well.”

Sirius swore. “That reporter had better be well hidden or they’re going to find themselves dead, too.”

“Yes,” Dumbledore agreed. “Additionally, I would like Regulus’s assistance with a matter.”

Sirius stilled. “With what sort of matter?”

Dumbledore adjusted a gold instrument on his desk. “I believe it is time we re-evaluate Regulus’s role.”

Sirius didn’t like the sound of that. “He won’t join the Order. He’s stubborn and he doesn’t trust you. I’ve tried to convince him otherwise, but he won’t listen.”

Dumbledore said nothing.

Sirius crossed and uncrossed his arms. “What is it you want him to do?”

Dumbledore paused. “It is nothing that will put him in physical danger, but it will be hard. We are at a crucial moment in the war and any detail could have a profound impact. In my conversations with Regulus, there is not much of use that he remembers.”

“I don’t think he’s lying.”

Dumbledore inclined his head. “Nor do I. It is often hard to remember much beyond oneself when trying to stay alive. Which is why I would like to review some key memories he may have. Not so many years ago, I came into possession of a pensieve. Do you know what that is?”

Sirius nodded. He’d never seen one, but his father had had a jealous desire to get his hands on one. He never had.

“I would like to use it to get a firsthand look at the meetings with Voldemort’s most loyal followers, a direct look into some of his most private moments. While Regulus may not consciously recollect what was said or done, there may be details of crucial importance in his memories. Furthermore, either you or I may recognize the voices of those he cannot place or find a detail more significant than he would.”

“So you want us to watch along with him?”

“Yes, I think that would be best. The only other people who know of Regulus’s position would not be as likely to be useful in this matter.”

Sirius sat back in his chair. He could imagine the kind of scenes they would have to watch. Regulus would have to watch them, too, when he was already such a mess in more ways than one.

“I don’t think he’s ready for that. I don’t know if he can handle that,” Sirius said. “He’s…not doing so well right now.”

Dumbledore gave him a kind, but firm smile. “It will be hard for him, no doubt. But there is much at stake. And your brother is not an innocent in this matter, regardless of your affections for him. He may have been forced into many of his actions through circumstances beyond his control, but he is not purely a victim. The path of his life has been hard and unfortunate, but he cannot escape the consequences of that past just yet.”

The professor sat tall in the high-backed chair, a tall satin gray hat on his head making him even taller, and his expression was solemn behind his white beard, despite the softness in his eyes. Sirius trusted Dumbledore with his life. He trusted him to make life and death decisions, to send him on missions that he had a hope of surviving, to do what it took to win the war. He also trusted him to care.

Sirius had never talked to Dumbledore before his fifth year of school. He had just been disowned by his family, and he was scared. He never admitted that, not to anyone, but he had been. He had the Potters, who were wonderful and welcomed him with open arms, and he considered them family as much as anyone could be to him. But he wasn’t family. He technically no longer had a family.

No matter how much he tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter and nothing important had changed and everything was actually better now since his parents were awful, the true, official loss of his family left a ragged hole.

He didn’t discover until later that the proper papers had never been signed and the goblins still allowed him access to the family’s money. At fifteen, he thought he had nothing, penniless and practically an orphan. No matter how much the Potters assured him that they would take care of him and loved him, he couldn’t believe it.

Deep down, he just couldn’t convince himself the offer would last. A summer was different than forever. It turned out that the summer hadn’t become forever; it had turned into four years before Mr. and Mrs. Potter had died of a disease outbreak two years ago.

But that first autumn on his own, Sirius had gone back to Hogwarts and he couldn’t sleep. He snuck out using James’s invisibility cloak and their finally-perfected map that showed where all the students were and found quiet corridors to walk along. He went up to the astronomy tower and watched the stars. He crept out onto the grounds.

He was good at not being discovered, except sometimes by Remus when it was near the full moon and he was having trouble sleeping, too.

Then one day Dumbledore walked by him on the stairs up to the fourth floor and casually began to talk to him. He still didn’t know how the man had even figured out he was there.

He had been absolutely certain he was in for a month’s worth of detentions for not only being out but being caught by the headmaster himself. He was even more certain of it when Dumbledore invited Sirius to his office. But then he’d only offered him candy, and asked him some mundane question. Sirius didn’t even remember what about. Mostly, though, Dumbledore had listened.

He had sat there behind the sweeping mahogany desk covered in parchment and quills and tiny moving instruments and watched Sirius over his half-moon glasses.

He had listened, and Sirius had talked.

He’d talked about his family and their unhealthy obsession with the Dark Arts. He’d told him about Regulus and how much more James and Remus and Peter felt like brothers than Regulus ever had. He told him about the Potters taking him in and how it felt so different and strange to see parents who actually loved their son.

Dumbledore always listened, even though he should have been bored to death by the sad ramblings of a teenage boy. He hadn’t been. He had cared instead.

Those nights hadn’t lasted long. It had helped Sirius to spill all of that to someone, and his nighttime wanderings ceased.

The trust he had for Dumbledore hadn’t, though. When Sirius had been asked to join the organization Dumbledore led to help defeat You-Know-Who, called the Order of the Phoenix, he’d agreed without hesitation. He wanted to fight more than anything, and he was more than happy to offer any knowledge he might have from his upbringing. It wasn’t a lot, but it was something.

Now, Dumbledore needed the same from Regulus, only far more invasive. Regulus didn’t trust Dumbledore. He’d made that clear countless times. He thought the man was manipulative and conniving and power-hungry in his own right. Clever, sure, and powerful, undoubtedly, but Regulus apparently couldn’t comprehend that not all smart and powerful men would turn out like You-Know-Who.

Sirius sighed. Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled.

“Only if Regulus agrees.”

“I would not force him.”

Sirius frowned, but nodded. There was a knock at the door.

“Ah, that would be my next appointment. Please inform your brother of my request and that I will be by Wednesday evening to go over the details. It was good to see you, Sirius,” Dumbledore said in a way that meant Sirius was clearly dismissed.

When Sirius arrived home, Regulus was sitting at the kitchen table snapping the ends of green beans with his wand while Remus peeled potatoes. By hand, because he said it was relaxing. He had come over again for dinner, bringing fresh loaves of bread that his father had baked.

Sirius threw himself into the chair opposite his brother, picked up a snapped green bean end, and chucked it at his brother’s face. “Do anything interesting today, Reg?”

“Cut it out,” he said, throwing an entire, unsnapped green bean back. “This is my interesting thing for the day.”

“This doesn’t count. You need to leave the flat sometimes!”

Regulus scowled and snapped a bean clean in half. “It’s safer to stay in anyway.”

“You’re the one who pointed out that you’re not going to run into Death Eaters in a muggle area as long as you don’t draw attention to yourself.”

Remus turned to Sirius and scowled. “Oh, yes, we really shouldn’t be drawing attention to ourselves. Like, you know, riding a giant flying motorbike , perhaps? That has been tracked by Death Eaters on multiple occasions?”

Oh, right. That . Apparently he was still upset about the latest incident.

“It’s fine!” Sirius said.

“It’s reckless!”

“I need to let out my energy!”

“Then don’t ride it in London! There’s a million people here to notice!”

Sirius made a noise and turned his attention pointedly back to Regulus. “Reg. I need to ask you something.”

Regulus jabbed his wand at another bean, making it snap with a tiny spark of light. “What.”

“I was meeting with Dumbledore today. He wants to see your memories.”

Regulus looked up at that. “My memories.”

Regulus found Sirius that night after Remus had left. Sirius was lying on his bed reading that morning’s Daily Prophet when Regulus knocked on the frame of his open door.

“I’ll do it.”

Sirius folded the paper and dropped it to the floor. “You don’t have to. If you’re not ready.”

Regulus crossed his arm over his chest, gripping his left upper arm. “By the time I’m ready for that, it’ll be too late. I owe it to them to help if I can.”

“To who?”

Regulus raised a shoulder. “Everyone, I suppose.”

“You don’t owe anyone if it means making yourself miserable. You shouldn’t have to face all of that!”

Regulus’s face went hard. “I already did face that. They’re my memories. I survived two years of it, I can handle re-living a few hazy memories.”

Sirius looked at his brother. His dark hair, straighter than Sirius’s, had grown long enough to fall in his eyes. The deathly pallor had left his skin, and he held himself more loosely than he had when he was younger. In the muggle clothes that he wore daily now, he could have been another person. Suddenly, Sirius didn’t see Regulus Black, the prized son, Death Eater. He saw the boy Maggie had befriended, the troubled boy who hoped to be something other than that which he was raised to be.

It was like there were two different Regulus Blacks—the depressed one in Sirius’s flat who had once been a scared little boy abandoned by his big brother and the one who had become a hardened, angry Death Eater. But there was only one. Regulus was not one or the other. He was both. 

He was who his parents had made him and who he had made himself to be. He was a Slytherin, and adaptable, and a survivor, and brave.

“Alright,” Sirius said. “Tomorrow, then.”

It was worse than he’d imagined, getting a front row seat to the Death Eaters’ world. Dumbledore brought the pensieve to Sirius’s flat. It was a large stone basin filled with cloudy opalescent liquid. Dumbledore gave Regulus criteria for the memories—meetings where other Death Eaters were present who might be identified, times when hiding places or details might have been shared.

The first memory plunged them into a dark, echoing room filled with black robed figures in gleaming silver masks shaped like skulls. Even knowing it was a memory, adrenaline shot through his veins. He turned and a white, serpentine face appeared before him. He screamed and stumbled back, despite himself.

He had never seen You-Know-Who in person before, and somehow the reality was worse than the tales. His face was so distorted it was hardly human. Cold, beady eyes, taut white skin, and a nose so flat his nostrils were mere slits.

He was a monster as much in appearance as in deed.

In that memory, they watched him instruct his followers to kill a family. In memory after memory, they watched him and his followers scheme, plot, and torture. Muggles were dragged in and killed for no reason beyond enjoyment. Death Eaters who displeased You-Know-Who were hurt too, by him or by others.

They watched Regulus, robed and masked himself, crumble to the ground writhing in pain. They watched him hit another man with the Cruciatus curse and listened to the man scream.

The real Regulus, present day Regulus, watched with cold stillness. At first, Sirius thought he was handling it well. It took him too long to realize that it was actually destroying him.

Each new memory took more of him away. His expressions flattened, his eyes became empty, and the person Sirius had come to know slowly disappeared. He was stiff, did what he was asked, answered questions, but did no more than that. He barely spoke, or ate, or slept. Even when he was only despondent about Maggie, he’d seemed more alive.

The first night was hard.

The second was even worse. The third…

Sirius stepped in. “Professor, just you and I can watch the memories. I don’t think there’s anything more Regulus can tell us that would be helpful at this point.”

After a pensive moment, Dumbledore assented. He bottled several of Regulus’s memories and told Sirius he would send a message to arrange a time to review them.

Regulus slipped away without a word, locking himself in the bathroom.

As awful as it was, they did gain some valuable pieces of information. They identified a few key players that either Sirius or Dumbledore had had suspicions of, but no real proof. Dumbledore recognized one location that Regulus said You-Know-Who frequently used to hold people he captured. Hopefully, the bottled memories could help them further.

Even though he’d stopped reliving the memories, Regulus didn’t bounce back. He moved through the motions of his day mechanically. He bathed and dressed and ate, but did little more than slowly limp around the flat. He’d abandoned his crutch to keep his wand in hand, and every step looked excruciating.

“Let’s go for a walk.” Sirius had a rare Sunday off, but Regulus was still refusing to go anywhere.

Regulus, lying on his back on the sofa and staring blankly at the ceiling, didn’t even glance his way. “No, thank you.”

“You haven’t left in days.”

Regulus said nothing.

Sirius sighed. “You shouldn’t have seen those memories in the pensieve.”

“No, I’m glad I did. We all needed the reminder.”

“Of what?”

“Of what I am. I’m not a good person and you’ve fallen into some delusion that I am. Got tricked by the pathetic injured boy and forgotten that I’m still the same person who was in those memories.”

“That’s not fair to yourself, Regulus.”

Regulus laughed and sat up. “It’s plenty fair! I hurt people! I hurt you!”

“Regulus—”

“Oh, have you forgotten the last time we saw each other before all of this?” Regulus’s voice was like ice. 

Sirius was silent for a moment. “I haven’t.”

It was a moonlit night in April when he’d last seen Regulus. A group of Death Eaters had attacked a muggle farm and Sirius had been sent to fight them. He’d ended up cornered beneath a sprawling oak tree by two masked Death Eaters when one had cackled in a voice that unmistakably belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange, his cousin.

“What a wonderful family reunion,” she’d said. “The two brothers together again. It will be fun to see who survives.”

That’s when Sirius had realized that it was Regulus beneath the mask. A real, full-fledged Death Eater now that he was out of Hogwarts. Sirius had known it, but he had never faced him quite like that before and or since. Regulus had remained silent, but shoved his wand into Sirius’s gut.

He was so close that Sirius could see the grey of his eyes, so similar to Sirius’s own, gleaming beneath the mask.

Bellatrix was egging them on, wanting to see some grand fight, but Regulus had only stood there with his wand pressing so hard into Sirius’s side that there was a bruise there the next day.

“If you don’t, I will!” Bellatrix had yelled, patience running thin.

At last Regulus had spoken. “This is between us.” He pushed the wand harder. A moment passed, a breath too long, and then Regulus spoke again. “Crucio .”

Sirius had screamed.

Now miles and months away from that night, Regulus stared straight into Sirius’s eyes. “I used the cruciatus curse on you. That means I wanted to hurt you. I wanted you to suffer tremendous pain, or it wouldn’t have worked. On my own brother. That’s—” Regulus’s jaw was clenched, but his expression was like stone. “That’s not redeemable.”

“You didn’t,” Sirius said, matching his brother’s stare. “You didn’t.”

“You can’t lie about that,” Regulus said flatly.

“I’m not.”

“I heard you scream. Everyone did.”

“Exactly. You’ve seen me really hit by that curse before. I wouldn’t scream like that.”

Regulus blinked several times.

“It didn’t work,” Sirius said. “I knew Bellatrix would hurt me and you if she knew that you were getting soft over me, so I pretended. I thought you knew.”

Regulus finally broke Sirius’s gaze and turned to stare towards the dark kitchen. “I hurt you.”

“Sure,” Sirius said. “But not with crucio. Not in ways that I hadn’t hurt you.”

Regulus curled his fingers into the edge of the sofa.

“You are redeemable. Look at everything you’re doing. You’re trying to make things right.”

“But it’s not enough! It can’t be! You saw those memories! You saw what I did.”

“I never saw you use the Cruciatus Curse on someone who wasn’t a Death Eater. And in the other memories, well, it was hard to keep track of which masked figure was you all the time. When I could, honestly, your aim is shit. You could be charged with numerous counts of destruction to property but that’s most of what I saw.”

Regulus shook his head. “You haven’t seen it all. I couldn’t always miss.”

Sirius’s eyebrows rose. “It was on purpose.”

Regulus gave the tiniest shrug. “If I didn’t correct them when they assumed I’d followed after Father’s love of the bottle, well. Incompetence is more forgivable than rebellion.”

“And haven’t you yourself said that you were forced into it all?”

“It was still my hand casting those spells.”

“The alternative was dying.”

“Maybe I should have taken that option.”

Sirius stepped forward and took his brother’s shoulders, shaking him until he met his eyes. “No. No, you fucking should not have. You’re supposed to be alive right now. We wouldn’t have any chance of stopping this war if you hadn’t done what you had to to stay alive. Some bad for the greater good and your own life. You did the right thing, Reg. Even if it wasn’t good.”

Regulus’s eyes filled with tears and he pulled out of Sirius’s grasp. “Fine. Fine. Just—I want to be alone right now, okay?”

Sirius gazed at his brother’s trembling form for a long moment, then gave his shoulder a final squeeze and left him alone. 

Sirius stole an arm holster from work to give to Regulus. With a few charmed modifications, done by Amelia Bones, who was much better at those sorts of things than he was, the holster would strap itself on automatically and prevent Regulus’s wand from being dropped. Regulus did seem to appreciate it. At least, he thanked Sirius for it and something that might have been an emotion flashed across his face. He flicked his wand from hand to holster a few times and found that he could do so even with the loop of his crutch dangling from his arm—a much better solution than leaving his crutch entirely. 

If something happened, Regulus needed to be able to get away.

Though with him still not leaving the flat (he had at least begun to read again), it seemed unlikely that anything would happen. Sirius didn’t want him to be so cooped up and isolated, but between the DMLE and the Order of the Phoenix, Sirius barely had time to be home. There was always someone he needed to meet, some attack that needed to be stopped or cleaned up when it was too late, paperwork and investigations.

Nothing had felt safe for a long time, but the sense that something terrible was about to happen kept growing. Everyone was tense and wary, jumping at every sound. Kingsley had snapped at a new trainee auror recently, who had the very next day burst into tears and nearly set a stray cat on fire for startling him.

After spending most of his day in Derby, investigating a disturbance that seemed to have been caused by someone releasing several grindylows into a muggle park, Sirius went to Hogwarts to watch more of Regulus’s memories, a sure promise of another sleepless night.

He was just leaving Dumbledore’s office when the thin band on his little finger flashed hot and blue. A spike of terror shot through him. Someone who shouldn’t be was in his home.

He ran.

Chapter Text

Regulus was miserable. He couldn’t muster interest in any of the books he’d bought or any of the games Sirius and Lupin tried to get him to play. He didn’t even want to eat, but it only took one skipped meal for Lupin to threaten to force nutrition potions down his throat if he didn’t eat because he’d put way too much effort into keeping Regulus alive to let him starve himself now.

So Regulus ate, and stomped around the room when he was forced to move, but mostly lay around, hating himself and his life and his absolutely awful luck that had ruined the one good thing he had in life. Which he knew was a stupid way to think about it, since he’d ruined it already anyway—whether that was at the beginning when he’d met her and lied or when he’d told her he was leaving for a foreign country and lied. He was such a liar. Stupid, lying, cowardly idiot who couldn’t even die properly.

“Regulus,” Sirius said basically every time he saw him. “You need to stop moping around.”

“I’m not moping!” Regulus would inevitably protest.

“We’ve established this already. You are. Get out of the flat for a bit. Go buy more of those nasty chips from down the street.”

“I don’t want nasty chips.”

“I do. I’m off for a spin on my bike. I expect nasty chips when I get back.”

Regulus never got the nasty chips.

Dumbledore had been told about Maggie, of course, and Regulus had been questioned. Dumbledore had finally arrived at some conclusion about what to do that Regulus didn’t really listen to since it didn’t matter to him because he wasn’t planning to do much anyway. He was never going to see her again, which he knew was for the best because she was a thousand times safer away from him, but some foolish part of himself still clung to the vain hope that he would.

Now when he thought of her, all he could remember was the way she had looked when she learned he had been a Death Eater—horror, disgust, fear, all aimed at him. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. It had even joined his nightmares, which had only grown worse since watching his memories afresh through the pensieve. 

Sometimes, in the darkest part of the night when he was only half awake from his latest nightmare, he was overwhelmed by how pointless it was for him to be alive. In the past few weeks, some small hope that he might be able to have some sort of future had crept in, but seeing Maggie had wiped away any notion that he could be accepted despite what he’d done. He would never have a life free of his past.

He was lying on the sofa, reading the same page over and over, when someone knocked on the door. Probably Lupin, who knocked whenever his arms were full of groceries that Sirius convinced him to pick up while Regulus was refusing to even go outside. He dropped the book, checked that the cut-off sleeve of Sirius’s long-sleeve t-shirt was fully covering the stump of his arm, and limped to the door. A small benefit of spending so much time inside was that he was now managing to get around the flat without the crutch, as long as no one cared how fast he was.

He swung the door open and froze. It wasn’t Lupin.

“Hi,” Maggie said. She stood framed in the doorway, hair in a braid with baby hairs curling away and catching the light of the sun.

“Hi,” he said, blinking at her stupidly.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

“Oh, er, yeah, yeah, of course,” he said, taking a few clumsy steps back. His heart was racing. Maybe he wasn’t awake. Maybe it wasn’t her.

She paused on the threshold. “You’re supposed to ask me questions, right? To verify my identity.”

He stared. “Right. Er, what dish does your sister absolutely hate?”

“Orange marmalade and salmon croissants. What did you think about seeing the Tardis for the first time?”

Regulus rubbed his knuckles, fidgeting. “I asked what police were and why they lived in such tiny houses.”

Maggie nodded and stepped inside. “I wanted to talk.”

That terrified him. There was surely no good outcome to this. She wasn’t yelling yet, but he was sure that would come. That must be it. She had anger she needed to vent at him. But he didn’t know if he could do this. He wasn’t sure he could handle the rejection again, or resist the urge to beg her for her forgiveness.

He locked the door behind her and limped into the living room.

“Er,” Regulus said, unsure of what to do. “Would you…like some tea?”

“Alright.” She followed him into the bare kitchen.

He filled the kettle with water and pulled the box of Earl Grey tea bags from the cabinet, then fetched two mugs, both blue striped with chipped edges.

“I needed time to think,” she said as he made the tea. “I’m sure you understand that it was really shocking to learn that you’d lied to me.”

“I know,” he mumbled, using the tea as an excuse to not meet her eyes. He was having trouble figuring out how to open the tea sachets with one hand. Eventually he put one end of the packet in his teeth and ripped it that way. “I swear that I hated it. I tried to tell the truth where I could. But…I know what I did lie about was so huge that it really doesn’t matter.”

He pulled out his wand to start heating the water.

She stepped closer. “What are you doing?”

He looked up. She was so close that he could see a trace of flour in her hair. “What?”

She pointed to the kettle. “What are you doing?”

He blinked. “Making…tea?”

She bit her lip in an expression that he could have sworn was a smile if he didn’t know better. “Wow. You really are a pampered rich kid.”

He straightened up, affronted. “What does that have to do with anything?”

She rolled her eyes, but she really did seem to be amused rather than angry. “Okay, sit. I’ll make the tea.”

“No!” He looked between her and the kettle. “What was I doing wrong? Water. Tea bags. Heat.”

She laughed. Actually laughed. It didn’t even seem mocking. This was a dream, wasn’t it? “Reyn—Regulus. You don’t put the tea bags in the kettle.”

“But that’s where the water is.”

She opened the top of the kettle and fished out the five tea bags he’d dropped in. “These go in the cups. One each. Then you add the water after it’s hot and let it steep.”

He felt his face grow hot. “Oh. Right.”

She gestured towards the table. “Sit, and I’ll finish this up.”

He sat, feeling more than a little abashed at having Maggie fixing the tea in his own home. Or rather his brother’s home, but still. Like he needed a fresh new way to be an idiot.

She set the kettle to heating and turned to him, leaning against the counter. Her sharp golden eyes met his and held his gaze, her expression slowly shifting to something somber. “I need to ask you something.”

Regulus resisted the urge to look away. “Ask anything.”

 “Why did you come to my tea shop? Why were you on that street in the first place? It was a muggle area. Why would someone who’d been raised to be such a staunch blood purist that you joined a murder cult go there?”

Regulus tried to not flinch at the rising anger in her voice. “Because it was somewhere that no one knew me. And it was…a bit of rebellion against my parents. My mother had just died and I finally felt like I could do whatever I wanted, at least when… he didn’t require anything of me.” The memories rose in his mind, so sharp that he could almost smell the dark room, feel the sting of the Cruciatus. He closed his eyes for a moment to get a grip on himself. This was not the time. “That wasn’t the first time I went to a muggle area, the day I met you. It was just so…freeing to be in a crowd of people who didn’t even glance my way. And then I met you, and it was the same and you were a witch and kind and beautiful and—you were a friend to me. One of the only ones I’ve ever really had, if I’m being honest. So I kept coming back, even though I knew I shouldn’t, and then you showed me so much about the muggle world and it was…fascinating. I enjoyed something besides Quidditch for the first time in so long. It’s like my entire life I’ve had to fill a specific role because of my family name, but with you, I didn’t have to. I felt guilty for lying, honestly, but it was so hard to give up who I could be with you. That’s why even at the end, I didn’t want you to know the truth. I wanted Reynold White to still exist, even if he was only in your memory.”

There was silence. He stared at his hand, fisted on the tabletop. The kettle began to whistle.

Maggie tapped it with her wand and then poured the water into the mugs waiting with a single teabag each. She floated them onto the table with a flick of her wand, but didn’t approach. “Wait three minutes for it to steep.”

Regulus fixed his gaze on the mug in front of him, watching the steam rise and the color slowly seep into the water. “I don’t understand why you aren’t angry.”

Maggie snorted. “I am angry. I was angry when you ran off suddenly and angry when I learned you’d been lying to me and really angry that I’d been tricked by a Death Eater and put my family in danger. I’m angry that knowing all of that about you actually makes sense. I’m angry at you and angry at myself and angry at this stupid bloody war.”

Regulus wrapped the string of his teabag around the handle of his mug.

Maggie continued, expression pained. “I know I shouldn’t be here. I should be angrier and I should run away from you because this should all be way too much for me to trust you ever again, but I’m—I’m so stupid. And—I’m so lonely . You said I was your only friend, but you were my only friend, too. You know that. All my friends are in France, but I can’t leave this stupid, awful country until my father retires because they’re all so stubborn and refuse to leave and refuse to hear anything about this stupid magic war and you were the only person I had!” She closed her eyes. “I almost died the other day in Diagon Alley.”

Regulus’s heart skipped a beat.

“There was a fight in the street. I was at the apothecary picking up potions ingredients and I was just about to leave, literally had my hand on the door, when there was a burst of light and yelling right in front of the shop. I jumped back and hid behind a shelf and then the door where I’d been standing exploded. If I’d been just a few moments slower…. It didn’t even last long before aurors showed up and one of the Death Eaters was caught, but it was terrifying. It all happened so quick and I was so close to getting killed, just like that. I haven’t told anyone about that. I haven’t had anyone to tell. Do you know how that feels? And I just kept wanting to tell you , no matter how much I tell myself I shouldn’t. There’s been so many things that I’ve wanted to tell you these past two months. But I can’t even tell anyone about you, not even Colette! I don’t have anyone to talk me out of being here, and so—” She stopped, eyes gleaming with gathering tears.

“So I came back, because I’m stupid, and I’m lonely. And I miss you.” Her freckled cheeks were flushed, golden eyes red-rimmed and shining. “Who are you?” she said, voice hoarse. “Are you the person I know? Please tell me you are. Please. Who are you?”

Regulus watched her face, very still. Something was growing inside of him, some desperate, foolish hope that he had no business feeling. He took a deep breath, trying to gather the thoughts that were scattering away like startled birds.

“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t know who I am. I want to tell you that I’m the same person as Reynold White, but I…I swore to myself that I wouldn’t lie to you again, and I don’t know. I’ve spent nearly my entire life having to pretend to be what everyone expected me to be so I didn’t get killed, and now—I don’t know. You’re the only person I ever felt like I could just exist around, but now? After—after all of this?” He gestured vaguely to his left side, then let his hand thump down on the table with a humorless laugh. “I have no idea who I am anymore.”

She was fully crying now, tears pouring silently down her cheeks. “Fine. Fine . I just—Then I don’t care. I just don’t care, okay?”

She stood in the middle of the old kitchen, hair glowing beneath the golden light of the single bulb, eyes red and cheeks wet with tears, and she was beautiful. She was staring at him with heartbreak in her eyes, and she was going to leave.

It’s for the best, he told himself, blinking his stinging eyes. She’s better off without you.

She stepped forward, and wrapped her arms around him. “I’m so bloody glad you didn’t die.”

He froze. “What are you doing?”

“It’s called a hug, you idiot.”

“You’re supposed to be leaving.”

“And I said I don’t care. I know it’s stupid, but I don’t care.” She didn’t let go. “I’m stupid and lonely and I just miss you, and right now, I just don’t care who you are.”

Regulus couldn’t see. Tears were blurring his vision and his face was pressed to her shoulder. It didn’t matter. She was right here, not running. He lifted his arm and wrapped it around her back, holding as tight as he could. She was warm and thin and smelled of apple tarts. He could feel her shaking as she sobbed into his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. I want to be the person you need. I’m going to be, if you’ll let me. I swear it. I’ll do anything. And I—I don’t care either. I don’t think I could let you go. It was so hard the first time, and now, I just—I miss you too much, too. I can’t let you go.”

They held each other for several moments too long, and even though the position made Regulus’s side burn like hell, he waited until she pulled away. She sat in the chair to his right, letting her knee brush his. They stared at each other, then each glanced away, suddenly awkward and unsure what to say next.

“I think we oversteeped the tea,” Maggie said, and he wasn’t sure if she sounded so sad because she’d been crying or because of the tea.

“It can’t be worse than I would have done,” he said. His voice came out shakier than he’d have liked, but she gave a weak laugh and vanished the tea bags.

Regulus added cream, and drank. Maggie took a sip of the tea, grimaced, and added three lumps of sugar and a helping of cream, but didn’t lift the mug.

“I kept thinking about what your brother said. About you in a pool of blood.” She glanced wearily askance at the floor. “That was here, wasn’t it?”

Regulus took in a shaky breath. “But it’s alright. I’m alright. I survived.”

“You thought you were going to die. You knew, didn’t you? When you were putting those protective spells on the tea shop. It was because you already knew what you were planning, right?” Her eyes were wide with concern and he just…didn’t know how to handle this.

“Yes,” he said, his voice choked.

“But you didn’t. You got out. You got away from—from him.”

Regulus curved his hand around the mug. It was almost too hot to touch, but the heat grounded him. “Maybe not in one piece, but…I’m alive.”

Maggie’s eyes went to his arm, but this time she didn’t flinch. “You lost an arm.”

“Yeah,” he said. The acknowledgment brought a strange relief that she’d just said it, instead of dancing around it like the reminder would set him over the edge, like it wasn’t something he thought of every day. His arm was gone. He knew it. She knew it. Everyone knew it the moment they saw him.

“That really sucks.”

He almost laughed. “Yeah, it does. It really, really does. You’ve no idea how many little things are harder because of it.”

“Does it hurt?”

He brought his hand up to wrap around his arm without thinking. “Sometimes. My leg hurts more though, so I almost don’t notice my arm hurting most of the time. I—”

With a sudden, tremendous bang, the front door burst open.

Chapter Text

Sirius sprinted across the Hogwarts grounds. He had never before hated so much the vastness of the lawn and the distance to the gate. He was panting and sweaty despite the early fall chill, but he couldn’t afford to slow. Something was wrong. Someone was in his flat.

Regulus was in danger.

He spun on his heel and apparated to the west stairwell the moment he passed beyond the anti-apparition wards.

Chest heaving, he sprinted the short distance to his front door and threw it open, wand out and aimed.

For the briefest moment, he thought the flat was empty, or that the intruder was hiding out of sight. Then his eyes fell on the door to the kitchen, which stood slightly ajar.

Two pairs of wide eyes and two drawn wands were trained on him through the gap.

“Oh,” he said.

He suddenly felt incredibly silly.

“Oh,” he said again. “It’s just you.”

Regulus lowered his wand, then flicked it into his arm holster. The girl, Maggie, Sirius thought her name was, was slower to lower hers and didn’t put it entirely away.

“What the hell, Sirius?” Regulus stood from the table, glaring. “What was that about?”

Sirius crossed to the kitchen, embarrassment turning to anger. “ What was that about? It’s about you inviting an intruder over! How was I supposed to know who was invading our home?”

Regulus scowled. “She’s not an intruder if she’s invited! How did you even know?”

Sirius crossed his arms. “I have systems in place to know if someone who isn’t supposed to be here enters my home.”

Regulus seemed surprised at that. “That sounds complicated. Are you good enough at magic for that?”

“Am I good enough?” Sirius made an affronted noise. “I’m plenty good! I got an O on my Transfiguration N.E.W.T., you know.”

“This isn’t Transfiguration,” Regulus pointed out.

Sirius stuck out his tongue. Despite his protests, the spell was not actually very complex. It recognized Regulus, Remus, and himself at the moment, and would be handily fooled by Polyjuice. Still, he wasn’t about to admit that to Regulus, and it was certainly more protection than not having it at all.

“What is she doing here?” Sirius said, eyeing Maggie, who still had her wand clutched in her hand.

“She came to talk,” Regulus said. “It’s fine.”

She did seem rather abashed. “I figured it would be fine since I’ve already been here before. I didn’t tell anyone that I was coming.”

That struck Sirius as being either untrue or rather foolish on her part after learning that Regulus was a former Death Eater. Surely there was something more than friendship between them if she was willing to ignore that. “Are you here to hurt Regulus?”

Her eyes widened slightly. “I don’t think he needs more of that. Pretty sure if I needed to, though, a good shove would do it.”

Sirius was shocked at her words, and turned to see Regulus—laugh? Did he really just laugh at that? Bloody hell, there really was something going on. Sirius stowed his wand and pushed his hands through his hair. “Honestly. I don’t need to be dealing with this right now. Reg. You’re supposed to be hiding from other wizards and witches, not inviting them for tea.”

“I didn’t invite her, and she already knows I’m still alive, so it really doesn’t matter,” he said with a stubborn edge to his voice.

“No one even knows you’re alive?” Maggie asked, surprised.

Regulus shrugged. “Well, at this point people have definitely noticed I’ve vanished. With the war, I’m sure they think I’m dead or dying.”

Maggie looked rather taken aback. “Oh. Why not just tell everyone you changed sides?”

“Because,” Sirius interjected, “it might lead to people asking questions about what Regulus did that are really better left unasked right now.”

That undoubtedly only made Maggie more curious, but she didn’t ask more.

Sirius sighed. “I suppose….” He pushed his hair back again. “I suppose it’s fine for you to come over, as long as Dumbledore is okay with it. Since you already know. And since it will keep Regulus from moping all the time.”

Regulus went red. “I haven’t been moping!”

Sirius had never seen his brother so happy. It was extraordinarily bizarre to come home after work and see him chatting with Maggie or smiling vaguely to himself as he read a book when she wasn’t there. He still had more than a few moments when a quiet despair would keep him on the couch for hours, but life was slowly leeching back into him. It was a weight off Sirius’s shoulders. 

He had really thought the girl would never talk to Regulus again after learning that he was a bloody Death Eater , but wonders would never cease, it seemed.

Sirius’s own romantic life (though Regulus still claimed there was nothing romantic between him and Maggie, as if anyone would believe that) was not going so well. The girl he had been seeing before the Regulus-bleeding-out-in-the-kitchen incident had not been pleased that he hadn’t contacted her for weeks—he’d forgotten about her with everything else going on, honestly—and had refused to go on another date with him. It had been weeks now since he’d done anything interesting and he was getting…not bored, exactly. But he needed something that wasn’t sitting around at home or work. Especially since Remus had finally followed through on his plan and gotten Dumbledore to ban Sirius from riding his motorbike with the sensible reminder that it could easily draw attention to Regulus’s location.

With great reluctance, and more than a few threats about what he would do if the bike was damaged, Sirius had turned it over to Rubeus Hagrid, the half-giant groundskeeper at Hogwarts who had been bugging Sirius about borrowing his bike for ages. Sirius got a bit teary leaving his baby behind.

It made him even more desperate to spend a good evening at a bar, but evil knew no bounds and had been ramping up the frequency of its attacks and cruelly leaving him no time for fun. There were houses destroyed, shops vandalized, people disappearing. It was all important for him to attend obviously, especially because of his unexpected break acting as Regulus’s nurse, and so no one had any sympathy for his complaints.

He cared about it all, of course, but sometimes it wore at him, the constancy of one hard thing after another, with barely a break in between. He was twenty-one, for heaven’s sake. He was supposed to be enjoying his life, not fighting for it every other day!

After leaving the bike, Sirius made his way to Dumbledore’s office for what would hopefully be a brief meeting. The Lupins had invited Sirius to dinner, and Sirius needed a moment of normalcy desperately.

After a perfunctory offer of tea, Dumbledore fixed Sirius with his almost sparkling gaze and gave him a firm warning. “I believe that increased efforts are being made by Voldemort and his followers to capture you, as the Potters’ Secret Keeper. You must be careful. I might even suggest using Polyjuice potion when doing field work as an auror.”

Sirius felt a flash of guilt at that, but stifled it and crossed his arms. “I won’t crack, even if they capture and torture me. I won’t betray the Potters.”

Dumbledore looked at him, eyes twinkling. “I have no doubt of that. But I want you captured or dead no more than I want the Potters hurt.” He steepled his fingers on his desk. “Additionally, the spy within the Order is still working towards finding the Potters’ location or finding a way to work around the fidelius.”

“Is that possible?”

“Not directly, but if the Secret Keeper is compromised….” Dumbledore’s blue eyes bore into Sirius.

“I can resist the imperius curse, sir,” he said. But despite the confidence of his words, his heart was hammering. He could resist it, but Peter most certainly couldn’t. He hadn’t seen Peter much in recent weeks beyond Order meetings or assignments they’d both been on, and even before Regulus had provided a very valid reason for Sirius’s neglect, they had seen each other less and less each month, and Peter must surely have begun to resent that.

He’d often felt that way when they were at Hogwarts, ending up jealous over Sirius and James getting more notice, or Remus getting more attention around a full moon, or any of them getting better marks than him. Sirius had tried to make him feel better, but honestly, anything involving feelings usually meant Sirius would do it wrong. He tried , but he had a pretty poor success rate. Though, if he thought about everything since Regulus had shown up, he was possibly getting better. Slightly.

He pushed Peter out of his mind as Dumbledore continued.

“I trust, Sirius, that you are doing all you can to take no unnecessary risks,” Dumbledore said rather pointedly.

Sirius grimaced. “I will. I swear it. I won’t risk my family.”

Dumbledore gave him a long piercing look, then nodded. “Then I need your help in securing new safehouses. We need additional options in places Voldemort will not think to look for anyone who should need sudden shelter.” He passed a slip of parchment across the desk.

Sirius read it. It contained a name and an address, and burst into flames the moment Sirius had it committed to memory.

“There is a woman there who will help us. This will persuade her. Do not open it.”

Dumbledore passed another parcel across the table, and Sirius slipped it into his coat. Meetings with Dumbledore were often like this. Something to deliver, a person to meet, a person to sneak out of a compromised situation. No one ever had more details than Dumbledore thought they needed. It was exhausting and frustrating, but Sirius trusted the man. He’d helped him get out of more than one tight spot.

“When should I go?”

“Within the week. Early morning, preferably, in this case.”

Sirius nodded.

The Lupins lived on a small, beautiful farm on an isolated stretch of land with ridiculous security measures. After Remus had been attacked and turned into a werewolf by Fenrir Greyback as a child, the family had done everything they could to keep Remus and his older sister safe from any future danger. Their house had been under a fidelius charm for a decade and a half, and almost no one visited.

During all of their years at Hogwarts, Sirius and the others had only come to the Lupin home twice. Things had changed, though, after Mr. and Mrs. Potter had passed away from Dragon Pox two years back. The four of them—Sirius, James, Remus, and Peter—had always had a place to go to for safety and family and a good meal with the Potters. They were the closest thing Sirius had to parents, and losing them had been worse than being disowned by his own family.

It had felt like the four of them were untethered without a place to go, and, year after year, the war was slowly pulling them farther away from each other.

Sensing their need, the Lupins had cautiously opened their home. Dinner at their little, quiet farm was nothing like that at the Potters’ place, but it was still safety and a home-cooked meal.

Sirius apparated to the farm after work. The day was dreary with rain, but too warm to find solace in the weather’s gloom. Peter was already there, sitting at the kitchen table with hair still damp from outside. Remus carried in a bowl filled with bread rolls from the kitchen.

“It’s a shame James can’t come,” Mrs. Lupin said. “It really would be perfectly safe here. Dumbledore is a bit extreme with his safety measures at times, it seems.”

Sirius only gave a small, noncommittal nod. They’d had this conversation many times and didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole. Mrs. Lupin was kind and fiercely protective, but also rather stubborn and more than a little proud of just how safe this farm was. If pressed, Sirius might have admitted that Dumbledore could have listened to Mrs. Lupin on matters of safe-keeping, but giving Dumbledore advice on how to do magic was not quite something he was willing to do.

The mood at dinner didn’t get better from there. Peter was absent-minded, Remus was quiet, and Sirius was tired from work, which made him irritable. The Lupins tried to make conversation, but Sirius found himself unable to really answer much without mentioning Regulus. Before long, Mr. Lupin was single-handedly carrying the conversation by describing every detail from their daughter Julia’s recent letters. She’d married last spring and moved to Bath with her husband, where he ran an aviary for elderly owls.

They ate a hearty, vegetable filled dinner, followed by a remarkably healthy dessert, and learned more about the care of elderly owls than they’d ever cared to know.

“Owls and I have just never quite gotten along,” Peter said, poking at his dessert.

It was the opening for a round of inside jokes, subtle hints towards their animagi forms that would leave the three young men laughing and the parents confused. Sirius should have said something, but he just couldn’t quite muster anything more than a half-hearted, “That’s true.”

Remus and Peter exchanged a few lines back and forth, but Remus had never been the best at banter, and Peter’s response was always to grow more sarcastic, which tended to grate against Remus. The conversation ended quickly.

After perfunctory thanks and several offers to help with dishes that were all refused, Peter left with a tired wave. After finishing off their desserts, Sirius followed Remus out into the yard. The rain had stopped, and the arrival of night had dropped the temperature. There was a tiny shed with a pair of ancient brooms, and they took them out to turn slow circles around the yard.

Sirius would have preferred fast circles, of course, but slow was the only option for those brooms.

“Really, Remus, it’s no wonder you found Quidditch boring if these were the brooms you learned on.”

But Remus only shrugged, staring off into the dark night.

Sirius flew closer to him. “What’s wrong?”

Remus looked over at him, then sighed. “Nothing new. Just another job I couldn’t quite get.”

Sirius grimaced. “What was it this time?”

“There’s a herbologist who runs a nursery in Darbyshire who wanted to hire me. He even knew about my…furry little problem. Everything finally seemed like it would work out! He’s not too friendly, but good at his work and grows all sorts of rare and interesting plants, even some used to make the Wolfsbane potion, and so I would be able to get them more cheaply.” He rubbed a hand over his chin. “But then two days ago, he was attacked. And by Greyback of all people. No chance of me, another werewolf, working for him now.”

Sirius had heard about that attack. He hadn’t been on that case, but the news had circulated quickly. It hadn’t even been a full moon, but Greyback had still attacked the man like an animal, not even bothering with his wand. “He survived, then?”

Remus nodded.

“You’re not Greyback. You’re nothing like him, lycanthropy aside.”

“And yet no one seems able to comprehend that.”

“It’s still worth a shot to see—”

Remus’s face darkened. “No, it’s not. Too much risk. He might expose me, or his family might. I’ll find something else. Besides, Dumbledore’s been trying to convince me to go on another mission and—” Remus broke off and turned away.

Sirius flew to him and gripped his elbow. He didn’t know what Dumbledore had been sending Remus to do, but he knew it was breaking him a bit more each time. He always returned with fresh scars and hollow eyes and it often took a few days to coax him out of his room afterward. He’d had a merciful break recently, but with Regulus no longer needing constant care and Remus still out of steady employment, Dumbledore was asking again. “Just say no.”

Remus tensed. “How can I?”

“Delay, then.”

“It’s important.”

“So are you. I’ve just got one brother back. I’m not losing another.”

Remus’s face crumpled at that, and he pulled away and flew back to the barn. Sirius followed at a meandering pace, knowing how private Remus was with any emotion. By the time he landed, Remus had stowed his broom and dried his eyes. “I’ll tell him I’ve caught wolf-pox,” he said, attempting to smile at his own lame joke. “New disease, just discovered, can only affect werewolves. Wouldn’t dare spreading it.”

Sirius thumped his shoulder. “Someone as responsible and conscientious as you? You’d never dare. Have to stay home. And it’s contagious for a good few months, isn’t it?”

Remus smiled properly then. “That’s what I’ve heard.”

Chapter Text

None of the days felt real. This wasn’t his life. It could not possibly be his life.

Since that impossible, magical day when Maggie had come back and foolishly, beautifully forgiven him, they had seen each other as often as possible.

Some evenings she would come over after work and they would end up sitting on the couch and talking for hours. Often, she would do most of the talking, and he could just listen, and when he did have something to share, she never pushed him to say more than he wanted to.

It was a relief to be able to be honest about his own life, though he found that most of the stories he wanted to share were not so far from things he could have shared before. He didn’t volunteer details about the things the Dark Lord had ordered him to do and she didn’t ask, which he was grateful for. It was hard enough having to relive those moments with Dumbledore and Sirius through the pensieve. He wasn’t ready to talk about it with her. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready to talk about those things with anyone.

They were still on the sofa, laughing—laughing—about ridiculous things their classmates had done (more than a few of Regulus’s stories involved Sirius) when the front door opened and Sirius himself walked in, followed by Lupin. 

“We come bearing gifts!” Sirius yelled, barreling through the door. Both he and Lupin had their arms full with paper grocery bags with a fancy looking logo printed on them. “Oh, Maggie! You’re back!”

Maggie stared at the bags. “Is that where you normally buy groceries? It’s one of the nicest grocers in London!”

“We normally just eat takeout or things from cans,” Regulus admitted. He pointed to a hideous little set of drawers against the wall. “That used to be takeout containers. We had so many my brother started turning them into furniture.”

She looked at Sirius. “That’s a clever way to recycle.”

“I don’t know what recycle is,” Sirius said, taking the bags into the kitchen. “But I do like the sound of clever. Anyway, groceries! Figured we should take advantage of our psycho parents’ vaults.”

Lupin had deposited his groceries and returned to the living room. “Is this the reason you’ve been moping around so much lately, Regulus?”

“I wasn’t moping!” He felt his cheeks heat.

Sirius poked his head out of the kitchen. “You were. And yep, she’s Regulus’s friend . A muggle-born from Beauxbaton, if you can believe it.”

Lupin’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure it’s alright for her to be here?”

“I’ve already spoken with Dumbledore,” Sirius said. “He said she could visit again since she already came here once. Which is good, because Reg needs something to stop his moping.”

“I already said I wasn’t moping!” Regulus protested.

Maggie, meanwhile, had drifted into the kitchen, mesmerized by the food they were putting away. She adored food. Regulus never understood how she could spend all day cooking and making fancy beverages and not be tired of it, but she wasn’t. Her sister Colette, a muggle five years older than herself, had gone to culinary school in Paris before moving back to London to open a tea shop that also served pastries and lunch food. She’d been in school in Paris while Maggie attended Beauxbatons, and since their parents had moved back to London for their father’s job, they’d spent most of the shorter holidays together cooking. Colette had taught Maggie the things she’d learned and passed on her passion for all things food.

Maggie had dragged Regulus to several restaurants around the UK that she’d wanted to visit and he’d tried more cuisines in that one year than he had in all his life before.

So he wasn’t surprised to see her staring at a cut of meat like it was made of gold. “This looks incredible,” she said in awe.

“Doesn’t it?” Lupin asked. “I thought it looked nice. I was going to cook it for supper, since I’m the only one here who knows anything about cooking.”

“How do you plan to cook it?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Probably just pop it in the oven for a bit. Add some salt.”

Regulus couldn’t see her face, but from the way she stiffened and pulled the meat away from Lupin, he knew she was aghast. “Just…pop it in the oven with salt? This? You would ruin it! You need to—” She started poking around in cabinets for something, and didn’t find it. “Were you going to eat it with nothing but salt?”

“There’s some bread in the refrigerator,” Sirius said.

She looked in and pulled out a loaf of rather soggy looking white bread. She wrinkled her nose and tossed it in the rubbish bin. “No, I will not let you abuse food like this. If you’re going to buy meat that’s more than my grocery bill for a week, you will cook it properly.” She turned to Lupin. “I’ll cook. You just need to get me these things.” She conjured a scrap of paper and pencil and scribbled a list. She handed it to Lupin, who handed it to Sirius.

“We just did the shopping!” he said with a bit of a whine.

“Yes, but you don’t have anything you need to actually cook. No oil, no butter, no spices, no vinegar. Buy those things, and I’ll make you something that tastes decent so you don’t waste what you’ve just spent a small fortune on. You can get those things at any store.”

Regulus smirked as Sirius gave in and left. It seemed that this affront to a fine cut of beef was all the invitation Maggie needed to begin taking over the kitchen. Regulus moved from the sofa to the kitchen table to watch her. Lupin actually seemed to have some interest in what she was saying and kept asking her questions.

“Why are you moving things?” he asked.

“Because it makes no sense to store bowls, spoons, cereal, and condensed milk on the same shelf!”

“You eat them together?”

She stared at him. “People do not eat condensed milk with cereal. And spoons should be with the rest of the silverware. How do you three manage to stay alive?”

“Takeout, like Regulus said. And I live with my parents most of the time, so I eat what my mother cooks,” Lupin said.

She planted her hands on her hips. “Surely she does more than throw things in the oven with salt.”

Lupin shrugged. “Cooking is basically just take food, heat it up, done.”

She looked pained. “I hate that you’re not wrong. But to actually enjoy what you eat, it’s so much more. Okay, pay attention.”

To his credit, Lupin actually did.

Regulus was returning from the bathroom when he overheard Lupin and Maggie talking about him. He paused.

“—trust Regulus?” Lupin was saying.

Maggie took an agonizingly long moment to answer. “Because his actions have already proven where he stands. He didn’t do something flashy and public, but did something that he thought no one would ever know, even though it meant his death.” The pan scraped against the burner. “And I missed him.”

“But you didn’t really know him.”

“I think I did.”

Regulus’s throat felt suddenly tight.

Maggie had continued talking. “The tea shop my sister and I own, it’s mostly for muggles, but we use a bit of magic and sometimes we have magical customers. We have a special little section for them. Usually it’s people I know from France or the occasional muggle-born or squib. This one woman who comes in a lot, Helen, she’s a squib. One time, Helen burned her hand, badly, because a charm failed. She’s old, she’s a squib, and lots of wizards and witches would just say it was her own fault or not really care. But Reyn—Regulus ran over to help and healed her hand and restored the charm before anyone else could. And one time a muggle customer cut her hand because she dropped a glass and my sister Colette and I had to convince Regulus that there really wasn’t a way to heal her hand without breaking the International Statute of Secrecy and he still ended up slipping her a charmed cloth anyway. I don’t really think those are things he would have done if he was just pretending to be a decent person.”

If the conversation continued, Regulus didn’t know. He went back to the bathroom, as quietly as he could.

With Maggie back in his life, Regulus began venturing out into the muggle world once more. Mostly on Wednesdays and Thursdays, when the tea shop closed. They tried restaurants or visited small villages or took very short walks through parks to a spot with a nice view where they could sit.

If Maggie was bothered by his disabilities, she never let on. He hated how slow he was and felt guilty for preventing them from being able to do more, but she never said a word other than to be concerned. She always seemed to notice when he was struggling, even though he tried to hide it.

The days out helped with the nightmares. They’d been awful since the cave, but pensieve made them worse. Mostly, just Sirius and Dumbledore watched the memories now, but occasionally, when it was one he thought might have a detail that only he would find significant, he would watch them, too.

He hadn’t thought it would be easy, but he hadn’t imagined it would feel quite like this.

Almost worse than having the memories brought back fresh and sharp was knowing that Sirius and Dumbledore were seeing them, too. The shame almost choked him some nights.

The worst things he would never show, would never admit under anything less than Veritaserum, but even the lesser moments were things he wished he could erase from his past.

He’d hoped that bottling the memories would make them easier to bear, but it made them no more distant and watching them again just made it worse.

“Hey.” There was a touch at his elbow. Maggie looked up at him with knitted brows.

“Sorry, what?”

“Where were you?”

He blinked and shook his head. “I’m fine. Sorry. Just—thinking. A bit tired.”

She wrapped her hand around right arm. “Should we go to the thrift store?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Do you need to buy clothes?”

“No, but it always made you laugh on days when you were tired before.”

The thrift store she had taken him to in the past seemed to be filled with some of the worst of what muggles had decided to call clothing. If he hadn’t seen more muggles beforehand, the store would have made him write off all muggles as utterly barmy. But it was amusing to see the things she pulled off the rack. She even tried to make him wear some of them, but had yet to succeed.

“Another day, perhaps,” he said. “Let’s get those pies you wanted to try.”

“Even better.”

They bought two little pies, one savory and one sweet, packed tightly in a little paper bag and took them to a nearby park. The path they strolled down was lined by trees with leaves slowly fading to yellow and busier than they had expected. They ended up walking far longer than they had intended. The pie shop had been a block farther than Maggie had remembered, and the park too crowded to find an open bench near the entrance and the area was too filled with muggles to dare apparate. Regulus got steadily slower, his limp more pronounced.

Maggie moved to his left side, quietly slipping an arm around his back for support. It left him with nowhere to put his short arm but leave it pressed against her back, but she didn’t flinch away from it. He wanted to mind the help, but he didn’t. His leg hurt, and her support got them to a vacant bench.

The pies had grown cold. Maggie hunched over, cast furtive glances towards every muggle in the area, and cast a heating charm on the pies with her wand up her sleeve. Regulus burst out laughing.

“What?” Maggie said, glaring.

“You have no subtlety.”

She snorted, grabbed a freshly warmed pie, and yelped. “Hot!”

Biting back his smile, Regulus pulled out his handkerchief, applied a cooling charm far more discreetly, and passed it to Maggie. She wrapped it around her burnt fingertips.

“You would have thought a professional baker would be better at not burning herself on pastries.”

“It’s the opposite,” she said. “I’ve gotten cocky.”

More carefully, she split the savory pie in half and passed one part to Regulus. They ate in silence, knees so close to touching, but that inch could have been a mile.

The pie was amazing. It was filled with potato and sausage with all sorts of spices that Regulus couldn’t name, all wrapped in a perfectly crisped pastry. A lone piece of sausage tumbled from the pie onto Regulus’s coat, leaving a greasy smear. With his hand occupied with half a crumbling pastry left, he couldn’t clean it up, but before he could decide between setting the pastry down and risking it collapsing into pieces or leaving the sausage be, Maggie had swiped it away with Regulus’s own handkerchief and vanished the grease stain.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Mhm.” 

They continued eating, gazing out at the people walking by. A group of kids still in uniforms ran by, kicking a ball. They couldn’t have been older than eleven.

“What were you like as a kid?” he asked Maggie.

She took a moment to polish off her half of the sausage pie. “Far more energetic than I am now. My theory is it was pent up magic, but I just always needed to run around. Always imagining myself in some other place, always a little bit lonely because we kept moving between London and Paris. I read a lot, too, which was basically the only time I could sit still.” She snapped the second pie—cinnamon apple—in half, and once Regulus had finished his portion of the first pie, passed it to him. “What about you?”

“Not so different from how I am now, I suppose. But quieter. I was scared all the time, though I didn’t realize that until I was much older.” Regulus took a bite of pie. He didn’t much want to think of his childhood. “How was the shop this week?”

Maggie lit up. “We’ve been doing quite well lately. It’s been busy. I got to make so many magical desserts since we’ve had more magical people coming—a bunch of squibs actually. I hadn’t met so many squibs before.”

“I haven’t either, honestly, before Helen, except the caretaker at Hogwarts and he was just a miserable human.”

“Are there any squibs in your family?”

Regulus took a bite. “I’m not sure. Not in the recent generations, but I’m sure there were some a few generations back. They’re, ah, not mentioned in any family records, though. You have to read between the lines to figure it out. Mentions of children that suddenly stop around ten or eleven without a death record, missing birth records, strangely spaced names in the family tree.” He didn’t look up to see Maggie’s reaction.

“That’s awful.”

“I know.”

“It’s really not fair for squibs. They just…never have a place in the world. They’re raised in the magical world until they aren’t accepted into a magical school, and then suddenly they’re abandoned by their family or hidden away, and they often don’t get a proper muggle education either, so when they grow up they can’t find a real job or fit in in either world.”

Regulus felt the familiar weight of guilt creep up, and this wasn’t even something that was his fault. At least not directly. Still, he didn’t know what to say and filled his mouth with pie instead.

Maggie kicked at a pebble. “I feel the same way, sometimes.”

“Like a squib?”

He felt her settle back against the bench beside him. “Like I don’t have a place in the world. Too muggle for the wizards, too magical to be satisfied in the muggle world. I have to hide part of myself in either place. No matter what I do, there will just…never be a spot for me. It’s frustrating.”

Regulus finished off his pie and wiped his hand clean on the handkerchief, then turned to Maggie. “You have a spot with me.”

She looked up at him. “I’m scared sometimes.” The breeze caught the strands of hair that had come loose from her braid. “That you’ll disappear again. Or that I’m being tricked again, and you’ll turn out to be someone else.”

The wind felt awfully cold. “I won’t,” he promised, in words that felt hollow. “This is me. I’m not a great person and I don’t know how to be a good friend because I’ve never really had someone in my life to be a good friend to and I have a messed up past and I’m from a messed up family. But I won’t ever lie to you if you ask me anything about it. And I can swear I never want to be how I was before. I’m going to work every day to be a better person. And you don’t—have to stick around, if it all becomes too much for you. But I swear I’ll do everything I can to be good to you.”

Her face softened. “I know you will. I’m not scared of you . I’m scared of losing you.”

He swallowed, and blinked. Perhaps the wind was drying out his eyes. “I still don’t understand why you aren’t scared of me.”

She pushed her braid over her shoulder. “Because I’ve seen you trip over your own two feet and pretend you wanted to look at a spot on the pavement, and I’ve seen you fall asleep at lunch and keep holding your teacup with perfect posh poise for half an hour, and I’ve seen you get so overwhelmed by a tiny puppy that you nearly cried.”

“I did not!”

“You definitely did. And let’s not even mention the ducks,” she said with a smirk, then her expression softened. “And it hurts to know that that person didn’t have a place to exist in the world, either.”

Regulus’s throat felt suddenly dry. “I don’t deserve you.”

She brought her arms around his neck, and he pulled her close. The wind picked up as the night air crept in and street lights came on, but he had all the warmth he needed.

Chapter Text

The day was a perfect autumn day. The trees lining the street that Regulus and Maggie walked along were shades of red and orange and yellow, rustling beneath a startling blue sky. 

“Autumn was always my favorite season,” said Regulus. The leaves reminded him of Hogwarts. There was this one window that looked out on the forest that turned the color of fire when the weather turned cold. It had always felt like finally feeling safe in the castle again, with several long months left before he had to go home.

“Mine’s spring,” Maggie said. “It always feels hopeful.”

“That’s how autumn feels to me, I think.”

They had ice cream from a small shop in the south of London, then went for a short walk down the road as the woman at the ice cream shop had told them about an antique shop that Maggie wanted to visit. She was always looking for items for the tea shop.

The area they were in was old and many of the buildings looked as if they’d had only the most essential repairs in the past century. 

They turned into an alley to cut through to the next street over. It was dark and smelled rather unpleasant, and Regulus didn’t like how the dull clunk of his crutch echoed in the small space.

The soft sound of a door sliding open came from the shadowed recess of a doorway. “If it isn’t Regulus Black,” a slimy voice leered.

Regulus stiffened, turning to see the pockmarked face of Gregor Dolohov, with his slicked back hair and dark velvet cloak the color of old, dried blood.

Regulus silently cursed himself. They must have stumbled unknowingly into a Shadow Alley, the small pockets of shops and slums reserved for things too shady for even Knockturn Alley. He should have noticed. There were always signs, small and subtle, but present when one knew what to look for. He’d gotten far too complacent in this new life.

Dolohov eyed Regulus with raised eyebrows and a slimy grin on his face. “Where the bloody hell have you been?”

Regulus forced his shoulders to relax and let a lazy grin appear on his face while he did some very quick thinking. “Oh, you know, doing what needs to be done.”

Dolohov sneered and dragged his gaze slowly over Maggie. “Is this what needs to be done then? For nearly two months?”

Regulus could have murdered him right then and there, but if it came down to it, he was not the better duelist and he did not have the advantage of surprise.

Regulus matched his expression. “Don’t underestimate a Black , Dolohov. You think I’d skive off without a plan? I’ve been occupied with something, but I’m quite certain my disappearance will be forgiven once the Dark Lord hears of my plan.”

Dolohov gave a bark of laughter. “He’s not too pleased that you’ve failed to answer his call for the past two months. We all figured you finally got skewered on the end of some blood traitor’s wand.”

Regulus shrugged. “Not so far off. I was captured.”

Dolohov’s eyes acquired a nasty glint and he seemed to notice Regulus’s missing arm for the first time. “Were you now? And they did that? Those self-righteous bastards. Quite brutal when it suits them, aren’t they?”

Regulus scowled. He didn’t have to pretend the emotion. “A bunch of wretched fools. My traitor brother was so torn up by sentiment that he insisted they try to rehabilitate me instead of throwing me in Azkaban. Like I would ever consider going to their side after they did this to me. Can’t respond to the Dark Lord’s summons if I don’t have a Mark any more.”

“The Dark Lord won’t like that.”

He straightened himself as much as he could. “Why do you think I’m here? I’ve managed to trick them, the fools. They truly believe that my brother can dredge up some sentimental memories from when we were children and expect that to change my mind. It wasn’t hard to make them believe I had. I’ve got a plan that will get me back in the Dark Lord’s good graces and then some.” He said it with all the superiority that growing up in the Black family had taught him.

Dolohov’s eyes narrowed. 

“And what is this something?” he asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Dolohov ran a finger along his wand in a disturbingly Voldemort-like gesture. “I would think that one would like to have an ally in the Dark Lord’s most trusted circle after your little disappearing act.”

Regulus scoffed. “Most trusted? You’re a glorified recruiter, Dolohov. I’m a Black. You think I need your help?”

“Don’t get too full of yourself,” Dolohov said, smoothing his cloak. “I’ve only just got back from the continent and the Dark Lord has already put me on the most important mission.” He gave a nasty grin and winked.

Regulus shrugged. “If you think that’s enough.”

“Are you sure your plan is enough?” Dolohov sneered back.

“Would you like to find out?”

Dolohov raised one greasy eyebrow, but said nothing.

Regulus gave a little laugh. “Oh, of course not. I’ll be going then.” His leg gave a painful twinge and he nearly lost his balance.

Dolohov laughed. “Can’t believe you’re trying to earn back the Dark Lord’s favor and yet you’re going around piss drunk. You’re getting weak, Black,” Dolohov said. “But I’m a caring man. I want our cause to succeed. I want you to succeed. I’ll help you out. Toughen you up a bit.”

Without warning, yellow light streamed from Dolohov’s wand, striking Regulus squarely in the abdomen. Stabbing pain erupted in his gut and he crumpled to his knees. He felt something give in his left knee and couldn’t quite suppress a scream as white pain shot through the limb. It wasn’t the worst pain he’d ever felt, but it was bad enough that his vision filled with stars and he was fairly sure he was about to vomit.

Dolohov was laughing, and Regulus needed to get a grip on himself, but he couldn’t move without sending a fresh wave of pain through his leg, not to mention the curse slowly running its course in his gut. He managed to flick his wand into his hand and shot off a skin-rotting curse at Dolohov. He aimed for his arm, but Dolohov dodged and it just barely brushed his ear. He growled and kicked Regulus in the gut. Regulus grabbed his foot and tripped him, which only served to anger him further. He snarled, but climbed to his feet and gave Regulus a menacing grin.

“Just remember, Black, that this is your place now. Looks like your family isn’t so superior after all. I’ll help you out. But the Dark Lord will know that I’m —”

He didn’t get to finish. A streak of red light struck him square in the face and he crumpled to the ground, his nose cracking beneath him.

Maggie leapt towards him, kicked him over, and hit him with another stunning spell to the chest. Satisfied he was truly out, she crouched beside Regulus, who was trying to slowly shift his weight to the right. His cheeks were wet, he realized to his great embarrassment. Had Dolohov seen him cry?

“Are you okay?”

He took a few deep breaths. “My leg. My knee bent when I fell. Hasn’t been able to bend all the way since I got hurt. Something gave.”

Her brows knit. “So we need to get your leg straight?”

“Wait.” He pressed his wand to his stomach and muttered the counter-curse to Dolohov’s spell. He felt marginally better, but the relief in his gut only emphasized the pain in his leg. “Okay, I think I need you to help me stand.”

She looped her arm around his bad side and somehow they managed to get him standing without the use of his injured leg. The pain immediately began to subside once his leg was straight, but it still hurt more than the charms on the brace could handle.

They stood like that for several moments, Maggie’s arms around his waist, his head on her shoulder as he struggled to get his breathing under control.

“Can you stand on your own?”

He nodded, shifting his weight to his crutch. He could barely stay upright. If someone else came, he wouldn’t have a chance. “We need to get out of here.”

“We need to do something about him.” She jerked her head towards Dolohov. She tried to sound confident, but he could see her shaking.

“Right,” he grunted.

“I’ll obliviate him.” 

“Sure.” He didn’t know if that was a good plan or not. He couldn’t really think of any plan at all right at that moment, and he just needed both them to get away from here, and get to safety. “I’m no good at that, though.”

Maggie bit her lip. “I’m alright at it. And honestly, if I erase more of his memories and scramble his brain a bit, it will hardly be a loss.”

Really, they should just kill him. That would be better for everyone. He would no doubt go on to hurt more people if they didn’t. But he had never killed, and to do it now, in front of her—he couldn’t.

He was a coward.

And she was too good.

“I’ll obliviate him,” Maggie said, “and then make a portkey and send him off somewhere. I’m good with those.”

Regulus wished Sirius were here, because he was an auror and he would deal with this and arrest the man, but no. There was no way to contact the DMLE and it wasn’t like he—Regulus Black, supposed Death Eater—could contact them for help, anyway.

“Okay,” he said. He didn’t have a better idea.

Maggie did just that. Obliviated Dolohov, turned a pebble into a portkey, and then sent him spinning off to the middle of a forest she’d visited once. Maybe he’d get eaten by a giant.  

“I’ll help us apparate back away from here.”

She wrapped her arms around his waist again, and apparated back to Sirius’s building. The short walk to the front door was awful, and he was shaking by the time she lowered him to the sofa. He cursed the fact that the balcony was in full view of muggles, or she could have just levitated him.

“Are you okay?”

He nodded.

“You’re not.”

“Just need to rest a bit.”

He closed his eyes and let his head fall back. He heard her walk to the kitchen and start tea, then return.

“Your arm’s bleeding.”

He lifted his head. “Is it?”

“Other arm.” Maggie settled onto the sofa beside him to examine his amputated arm. There was a darker spot on the grey fabric of his sleeve. He must have hit his arm when he fell and not even noticed. His breath caught as she gingerly rolled up his sleeve to reveal the mangled limb.

She summoned a cool, wet cloth and wiped the blood away. There was a particular gash from the inferi that had struggled to heal and it had torn open again. She pointed her wand and spoke a simple healing spell over the wound, which closed up into a pink scar in the midst of a mass of slightly more faded pink scars. She vanished the blood from his sleeve and gently rolled the sleeve back down, but left her hand lingering on his arm.

She looked up to meet his gaze. Her brown eyes met his. “How are you doing? With losing your arm, I mean.”

He swallowed. “I—I don’t know.”

“That’s okay,” she said and slipped her hand to his waist. “I imagine it’s a really hard thing to adjust to.”

He let out a breath. “There’s just always…some new thing that shouldn’t be hard, but is.”

She made a noise of understanding and rubbed small circles on his back.

“Are you alright, Maggie? With what just happened?”

She tried to smile, but her eyes filled with tears. “Yeah. Of course I am. It’s just—it’s tiring. I always feel like there’s no one to turn to for help. And that just proves it, doesn’t it? Didn’t even know there’d be wizards there. And then we get attacked and it’s not like there’s police boxes for aurors. If you’re not in one of the few spots where they have sensors or whatever it is they use, you’re out of luck unless you manage to find a floo or you can send an owl and hope someone comes the next day. I don’t even want to be here . I didn’t ask to be a witch. I love it, but I can’t even enjoy it anymore when people want to kill me just for existing, and I don’t have anyone to help me!”

Her tears spilled over.

“Come to my other side,” he said. She did, and he pulled her into his embrace. Guilt rose in his chest. He should have been the one to protect her, but instead he’d been helpless on the ground from one simple spell, and she’d been the one to save him. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time. I swear it.”

She stiffened, then held him tighter. “I don’t mean you. You didn’t do anything wrong. I just mean—all of it. I’m so tired sometimes. I just want to be safe.”

He ran his hand through her hair. “I’ll protect you. Any way I can. I’m not going to let you get hurt. We’ll talk to Sirius. There’s got to be a better way.” 

He held her against him, stroking her hair over and over, trying to get Dolohov’s face out of his mind. He’d led her straight into danger, and then hadn’t even been able to protect her. Next time, would she be quick enough? What if there was more than one person? What if it had been someone quicker to the attack and less willing to get distracted by conversation?

He hated the person he’d slipped back into in that alley. He hated that Maggie had seen that. “You know I was lying to him, right? The things I said, I mean.”

She leaned back and looked at him, surprised. “Of course I know that.”

“Good.”

“I mean, obviously you were. It’s not like your brother cut off your arm. That’s—” She shook her head, looking disturbed. “You said what you had to.”

“Yeah.”

“How is your leg feeling?

“It’s alright, I think.” It wasn’t, but it would sort itself out, he was sure.

He turned to meet her eyes and found himself unable to pull his eyes away. He could see every fleck of color in her irises, browns and greens and gold all mixed together. She felt so warm in his embrace and smiled at him like everything would be okay, even though it wouldn’t and it couldn’t, but right now, with her, for this one small moment, the downpour of troubles felt more like the distant rumble of a thunderstorm on the far horizon.

He leaned closer and she stretched up towards him, eyes closing. He brought his mouth to hers. Her arms snaked around his back. Her lips were soft against his, tasted like chocolate ice cream, brought him away from this world and to somewhere that hope lived. He sighed into the kiss and her lips parted.

It was a moment he wished could never end.

When it did, he leaned his forehead against hers, not yet ready to let her go, not yet ready to lose that feeling that something in his world might be okay after all.

It was the second time they had kissed. The first time had been when he was Reynold White, and it had shown him that he was in too far and had to stop before he hurt her even more. This time, he was Regulus Black, coward and traitor, and she had kissed him anyway.

He rubbed the small of her back. “I want to do that every day.”

“Me, too,” she said, and didn’t move.

There was a noise from the front door, and both of them nearly jumped out of their skin as Sirius appeared.

“Oh, hello, Maggie,” he said, eyeing both of them. “Is everything alright?”

Regulus felt his face grow hot. “Of course it is.”

“No, we ran into a Death Eater today,” Maggie said at the same time.

Sirius’s eyes grew wide. “What? Regulus, who?”

“Gregor Dolohov,” he said, feeling strangely guilty. “I didn’t expect it. I think we accidentally ended up passing a Shadow Alley.”

Sirius locked the door and, after a moment’s pause, activated a few extra security spells. “Did you get hurt?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Sirius looked between them. “Maggie, you’re hurt?”

“No, Regulus is.”

“I’m fine.”

“You can barely stand.”

Sirius leaned over Regulus, brows drawn in concern. “Where are you hurt?”

Regulus scowled. “He hit me with a curse, but I already did the counter-curse for it. But I just fell and hurt my leg. It’ll be fine.”

Sirius glanced at his leg, which obviously looked exactly the same when he was wearing trousers, and then gave an exasperated sigh. “We need to get someone here to look at it.”

“Fine.” Regulus didn’t feel like arguing.

An owl appeared at the flat’s single window with a tiny scroll tied to its leg. Sirius let it in, fed it some bacon scraps, and sent it off.

“What is it?” Regulus asked.

“Just a note from work,” Sirius said in a tight voice. He strode out of the kitchen and a moment later the door to his room slammed shut.

Maggie and Regulus exchanged a look.

“Is he alright?” she asked.

Regulus shrugged. “Yeah, he’s fine. He’s always had a bit of a temper. They probably just want him to work an extra shift.”

“Want me to help with dinner?” Maggie asked Regulus, placing a hand on his shoulder.

He squeezed her hand in response. “You really don’t have to.”

“I don’t mind. If you’ll help.”

Regulus didn’t think he was particularly helpful, but he tried his best.

Sirius was still tense and upset when they sat down for dinner, a simple meal of peas and roast chicken with potatoes, but insisted it was just an annoying message from Kingsley at work and mumbled something about paperwork filed wrong. Regulus had just finished off his chicken—after cutting it with his wand, as proper dinner etiquette was apparently another thing he couldn’t do with one hand—when his skin began to tingle. It was a subtle feeling, wrong, uncomfortable, and familiar. He stiffened, trying to place it.

“Something’s wrong,” he said.

Sirius and Maggie looked at him, forks frozen in midair. “What do you mean?” Sirius asked.

“I feel something, like a tingling. It’s…” He remembered and rose clumsily from his chair. “Someone’s breaking through the wards. It’s a slow spell, more subtle, but the Dark Lord taught all of the Death Eaters how to use it.”

Sirius was on his feet already, charging through the house. “Reg, grab your potions. Maggie, get your wand out, help Regulus.”

Regulus summoned his backpack with his wand and with another flick, sent all of his potions into it in a rush, followed by the entire pile of clothing on the floor, then his pile of books. Maggie cast an expansion charm on his bag so it would zip closed and helped him sling it over his shoulders.

Regulus could feel the effects of the Death Eater’s spell growing stronger.

“Can we apparate out of here?” Maggie asked.

“No,” Sirius said, charging back into the room with his own hastily packed bag and an entire locked drawer under his arm. A shudder passed through the flat, a rush of magic that left them feeling both hot and cold at once. Sirius swore. “The wards are down. Reg, cloak up, cover your face!”

Regulus pulled his hood up and cast a shadowing charm to keep it there. He didn’t know who had come or why. Had the obliviation not worked properly? Maybe there’d been someone else that they hadn’t noticed. It hadn’t even occurred to him that there could be someone else in that alley besides Dolohov. But how had they found Sirius’s home? Perhaps they’d known about it for a while, but were waiting on the right time. Maybe someone had tracked him or Sirius back here.

Sirius dropped the drawer onto the tabletop, pulled out a stone, and then relocked and shrunk the entire thing to shove into his satchel. “I’ve got a portkey.”

There was a bang at the door, then another. Sirius glanced up from where he was frantically trying to activate the portkey. “Reg, got your crutch?”

“Pocket.”

Sirius swore. “The dagger!” He sprinted to his room and made it back just as the door caved in.

A masked Death Eater stormed through. “Living like a pathetic dirty muggle, aren’t you Black?” The voice was a man’s, but strangely distorted to avoid recognition.

“Don’t you dare insult muggles, you uneducated brutish fool!” Maggie yelled.

The Death Eater shot off a curse, straight for Maggie’s head, but she blocked it with a downward cut of her wand and fired one back, which he sent crashing into the wall. Regulus followed up with a stupefy that missed, then cast a shield to block his return shot.

“Trapped like a bug,” the man growled.

“Now!” Sirius yelled. Maggie covered them with a powerful shield charm, grunting with each impact the Death Eater’s spells made, so Regulus could slip his wand back into the wrist holster and grab the stone. The moment that all three hands were on it, Sirius activated the portkey and the magic pulled them away.

Chapter Text

They landed hard on dusty wooden planks. Sirius kept his balance, but Regulus pitched over, landing hard on his right side. Maggie stumbled into an old, dust-ridden table, and then dropped down to help Regulus up.

Sirius immediately started casting detection and security spells, but all came up clear. Still, he cast a few unnecessary spells just as something to do. He was burning with anger and pent-up energy. They’d attacked his home. They’d found it and attacked it and he didn’t even know how, but he had a strong suspicion and it made him furious.

“Where are we?” Maggie asked.

Sirius turned. Regulus looked a bit rumpled, expression strained as he leaned against Maggie.

“The Shrieking Shack,” Sirius said.

Regulus gave him a look of surprise. “Why?”

“No one will look for us here.” He clenched his fist, hoping that was true. “Well, not right away, at least. We’re safe for a bit, and close to Hogwarts. I need to contact someone for help.”

Regulus limped across the room and leaned against the rickety table. “What about the ghouls this place is infested with?”

Sirius shook his head. That was the rumor he and his friends had started to cover the fact that Remus spent his full moons locked in here. “There’s no ghouls. It’s abandoned. Expecto patronum .” A silver dog shot out of his wand. He murmured a message to it and sent it to go find Dumbledore.

“What do we do now?” Maggie asked.

“We wait.” Sirius started pacing, barely resisting the urge to start blasting things around him to bits. He was so, so bloody mad and he was supposed to keep himself together and be patient, which was the stupidest fucking thing to do right now. He wished that Regulus and Maggie hadn’t been at his flat when the Death Eater showed up, because then he could have stayed and blasted the man to bits. He needed a good battle right now.

“Agh!” he screamed and stabbed his wand at an empty frame, causing it to explode into a thousand splinters.

Maggie yelped and Regulus had his wand up in a flash. “What the hell was that?”

“Sorry,” Sirius ground out. “Temper tantrum.”

Regulus snorted and lowered his wand.

Several minutes later Sirius’s patronus returned. Dumbledore wasn’t in Hogwarts then. Damn it. There was only one other person at Hogwarts he could ask for help right now, but it was going to require some explaining. He really was not in the mood to explain things in a calm and rational manner, which was never really his strong suit, but he didn’t have a choice, did he?

He cast his patronus again and watched as it ran off towards the castle.

A tense half hour later, footsteps approached. Everyone drew their wands at once, relaxing only slightly when Professor McGonagall’s voice rang out.

“McGonagall?” Regulus asked.

“She’s in the Order. Reg, make yourself look…vulnerable.”

“What?” Regulus spluttered.

“I mean non-threatening. So she doesn’t hex you on sight. Put your wand away.”

“I’m not putting it away if she’s going to hex me!”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Suit yourself.” Sirius went to the front door of the shack and wrenched it open. It felt like it hadn’t been opened in decades, and in fairness, probably hadn’t. Whenever he and his friends had come here on full moons during their Hogwarts days, they’d always come through the secret tunnel that let out under the Whomping Willow on Hogwarts grounds.

“Mr. Black,” McGonagall said, peering at him over her wire-rimmed glasses. “I received your message. Was anyone hurt?”

“No,” he said. They exchanged a few identifying questions each, and then he stepped aside. “Come in.”

“And who is with you now?” She stepped gingerly into the dilapidated shack.

“You remember my brother,” he said, gesturing towards his brother, still slouched against the table with his left leg outstretched. His wand was in his hand, but that hand was pressed against the table and seemed to be holding most of his weight.

He nodded stiffly to her. “Hello, Professor.”

She gave him a piercing look that made even Regulus in all his haughtiness quail slightly. Her eyes raked over his form, clearly taking in his hunched posture and missing arm. “Hello, Mr. Black. I assume there is an explanation for your presence here?”

“Yes, there is.” He shifted his weight off his arm and gestured towards Maggie. “This is my friend, Maggie Tessier.”

“Pleased to meet you, Madame,” she said with a smile that didn’t quite hide her nerves.

“Likewise,” she said, before turning back to Sirius. “Now, please tell me what exactly you are doing with a known Death Eater after being on the run from Death Eaters attacking your home.”

“Regulus defected,” he said. “Several weeks ago. He’s been…helping out how he can, but mostly just recovering.”

She eyed his brother, before turning back to Sirius. “And why does no one know?”

“Dumbledore decided it was best to keep it a secret for now due to…the importance of what Regulus did when he defected. I can guarantee you he’s on our side, though. He’s already been questioned under Veritaserum.”

McGonagall’s mouth formed a thin line as she looked between the three of them, before shaking her head. “Well, you can’t all stay the night here, and you can’t go back to Hogwarts or…elsewhere. Heavens, where is Albus when you need him?”

By elsewhere she no doubt meant the Order Headquarters, which Maggie and Regulus definitely couldn’t be brought to. The problem was Regulus couldn’t exactly be brought anywhere. Perhaps to the Lupins’ house? But Mr. and Mrs. Lupin were beyond adamant about wanting nothing to do with the war at all. They would never agree to anything that might compromise the safety of their home.

“What are we going to do then?” Maggie asked.

McGonagall only looked at her flatly. “I can’t say I have any idea, as until minutes ago I was under the impression that the younger Mr. Black here was an ardent supporter of You-Know-Who. I am sure Albus will have some idea, but I haven’t a clue what nor do I know where Sirius and Regulus will go from here.” McGonagall conjured a stool and sat. “I have sent a message to him informing him of your whereabouts so he should arrive to tell you where to go once he is able. For now, I would like to hear more of what has transpired.”

Regulus glanced at Sirius. “Are you sure we’re allowed to?”

“Professor McGonagall is as trustworthy as anyone.”

“Tell me no more than you believe I need to know,” she said. “If Albus wishes some information to remain secret, then we ought to do as he thinks best.”

Sirius nodded and began to explain what had happened over the past few weeks. At some point, Regulus’s watch chimed and he rummaged through his bag to take his night-time potions doses. He added to the story in a few places, but mostly left it up to his brother. Sirius noticed him drooping onto Maggie as the evening stretched on. He was clearly in more pain than he was letting on, but had skipped his usual dose of pain potion, likely to be more alert. It was cold in the shack, too, which certainly wasn’t helping.

It seemed like they had waited hours when Dumbledore arrived with a crack. He strode into the Shrieking Shack and smiled at them all as if nothing was wrong. This frankly aggravated Sirius more than anything, but he stuffed that emotion away and answered Dumbledore’s questions—first to confirm their identities, then to explain what had happened.

Dumbledore frowned. “And Regulus, you do not know who the attacker was?”

Regulus had moved from leaning on the table to sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and his legs out straight in front of him, face pale and tight. “No, he was using some sort of voice distortion spell. I don’t think it was Dolohov, though. Too short. Someone else might have seen us this afternoon, though.”

“Or it may have been someone after Sirius and it was simply coincidental timing.” Dumbledore stroked his long beard.

“Do you think it could have been because of—” Sirius fidgeted with his wand and gave Dumbledore a pointed look. “I got a letter from Alice just a bit before….”

Dumbledore hummed thoughtfully. “Perhaps. I have received no other reports of anything happening today, though, so I cannot say with certainty.”

“I should have sent them away and stayed to fight,” Sirius grumbled.

“No, you should not have,” McGonagall snapped. “There is no point putting your life on the line in an unnecessary fight that would only bring more danger on the muggles that lived there.”

Sirius hadn’t even thought of that. “Was anyone hurt?” He’d activated the auror alert button he had before leaving, but it wouldn’t take more than a few moments for a wizard with bad intentions to destroy the building or set it ablaze.

Dumbledore shook his head. “I received a report from Kingsley that by the time the aurors arrived, no one was there. Your flat is in quite a state of disrepair, however, and a few muggles did have to be obliviated.”

Sirius closed his eyes. He’d taken what he could, including all of the most important things, but still. He’d put work into that flat, even if it might not look like it to others. He was attached to his cheap kitchen furniture and the random collection of art he’d filled his bedroom walls with. But compared to everything else that could have gone wrong, he knew it wasn’t a big deal. At least he was wearing his leather jacket and Hagrid had his bike. Had it been the damn bike that got him found after all? If it was, Remus would never let him hear the end of it.

“Now, I do not know if Regulus was recognized or who was being sought out in the attack. Still, I think it is best that Regulus stay in hiding from now on, including avoiding muggle areas, as well. You will be going to stay with the Potters, as they—”

“Absolutely not,” Regulus said. “James Potter hates me. He’d murder me just for fun.”

“He would not!” Sirius retorted. “Don’t speak about him that way.”

Regulus glared at him. “He does hate me. He wouldn’t let me stay there.”

“Both of the Potters have already agreed to the arrangement,” Dumbledore said placidly.

“Are you sure?” Regulus said, eyes narrowed. “This could be a trap for them to string me up.”

“It is not. I explained the situation to them, and while it did take some convincing, they ultimately came to agree that this was for the best. They will not hurt you.” Dumbledore intertwined his fingers and peered down at Regulus, who was still on the floor.

Regulus crossed his arm across his chest. “I’m not going to stay with James Potter. I don’t care what you say.”

Dumbledore let out a sigh. “I am afraid there is no choice, Regulus.”

“So once again, I’m left with no bloody choice in my life,” Regulus said, glaring at everyone.

Maggie looked uncomfortable, but placed a comforting hand on his good leg.

Dumbledore stayed admirably calm in the face of his little brother’s anger. “There is simply nowhere else for you to safely go at the present moment. I have already had a talk with Mr. Potter.”

Sirius crouched to help his brother stand. “Come on, it’ll be alright. I won’t let them do anything to you.”

Regulus grumbled under his breath, then hissed through his teeth as they maneuvered him upright. Definitely not okay.

“Are you well, Mr. Black?” Dumbledore asked.

“Perfectly so. Why ever would I not be?” Regulus said, clearly still angry.

Dumbledore didn’t rise to the bait. “Then we should be off. Ms. Tessier, I believe it is best if you return home and act as if nothing is amiss. I’m afraid you may not get to see much of Regulus for a bit.” 

“That’s not fair!” Regulus protested.

“Any extra guests are a liability, unfortunately, no matter how trustworthy they are,” Dumbledore said.

Maggie squeezed Regulus’s hand, then pulled him into a hug. “I don’t like it either, but it’ll be alright. I’m sure it won’t be for too long.”

Regulus hugged her back. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve nothing to apologize for.”

“I just swore I’d protect you and now I’m abandoning you.”

She pulled back and met his gaze. “You aren’t.” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “I’d best be going now, then.”

Once she was gone, and Regulus was once again being almost entirely supported by Sirius, Dumbledore turned his attention to him. “Sirius, you will come with us for tonight, and then I believe it would be best if you arrange to stay with the Lupins or your cousin Andromeda’s family. They both have well protected homes.”

Sirius nodded, excited to see James after so long, even if it was only for a night. He would owl Remus to stay there. Without a former Death Eater in tow, it would be a much easier sell to have him as a guest. And less to have to explain than staying with Andromeda. He pulled his bag over his shoulder and then grabbed Regulus’s before he could protest. He looked like he could barely hold himself up even with the crutch, much less with any added weight. Regulus glared, but didn’t say anything.

“Minerva, thank you for helping. I’m sure this has been a surprising night for you,” Dumbledore said.

She looked over at Regulus again. “In a good way. The war has taken many good people. It is always good to see another one of them come back.”

Regulus swallowed and nodded. “Er, thanks for not hexing me.”

She gave a wry smile. “I might still be quick in battle, but I am not so impulsive as I once was.”

She turned into a cat and ran out the door.

“Well,” Dumbledore said with a smile. “Shall we go?”

Chapter Text

Regulus did not want to be here. Really, he didn’t want to be anywhere unless it was a quiet bed with no one around him where he could take a good dose of pain potion and pass out. He really did not want to deal with James Potter right now.

He paid little attention to his surroundings as he dragged himself through the garden behind Sirius, up the two stairs to the back door, and into the kitchen of the house the Potters were staying at while in hiding. Every movement sent stabbing pain from his ankle to his hip, and he had to clench his teeth to keep from crying out. If this was how bad it was with the brace on, it was going to be awful when he took it off. Maybe he’d just sleep with it on tonight.

“Regulus needs to sit,” Sirius said.

There was a scraping sound, and then a chair was in front of him. He sat and tried to keep his eyes open. Lily Potter was there, with her long red hair in a ponytail, and James Potter stood beside her, wand pointed right at Regulus. He couldn’t even bring himself to muster the energy to raise his own wand, or argue. Sirius wouldn’t let him get killed.

Dumbledore exchanged some words with Lily or Sirius, or someone. Regulus couldn’t sort out who was talking to who. The door opened and shut and when Regulus opened his eyes—when had he closed them?—Dumbledore was gone. Lily set a kettle on the stove and James and Sirius joined Regulus at the table. Things were peaceful for nearly an entire ten seconds, and then James Potter took offense that Regulus had his very injured leg stretched out taking up too much space and kicked it.

Pain flared hot and red and he had to clench his jaw hard to keep from crying out.

“Such a dramatic Slytherin,” James scoffed.

“You,” Regulus said, “are such an arsehole.”

James made an affronted noise. “You’re taking up too much space!”

“Screw off.”

“Oh, leave off, James. He’s injured,” Sirius said. “It’s getting worse, isn’t it, Reg?”

“I’m fine.”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “You’re definitely not. You can barely walk.”

“I haven’t been able to walk properly since I got injured.”

“And just a couple of days ago you were walking all over muggle London with Maggie. Now you could barely get inside from the apparition point.”

Regulus grunted.

“I can take a look.”

Lily Potter stood over him. He scowled.

“I’m a healer. Or I almost am. I was in the last year of my training before we had to go into hiding.”

He really, really, really wanted just about anyone to help him besides one of the Potters. But if his leg felt this bad with the brace’s pain-relief spells going, it might actually be something serious.

“Fine,” he muttered. “But if your husband makes a single stupid comment I’m hexing his hair off.”

James protested, but Sirius shut him up. Lily helped Regulus over to a sofa in the next room, gently lifting his leg onto the cushions. He carefully removed the brace, and as soon as the spells released, the pain tripled. Regulus couldn’t fight the tears that sprung to his eyes. He swore.

Lily crouched beside the sofa, expression growing concerned. “I’m going to charm your trousers off, alright?”

James made a loud fuss about this comment, too, and so Regulus just did it himself because there was no way he would be able to undress the normal way and he still had boxers on, at least.

His trousers fell into a pile on the floor and a silence fell over the room as everyone stared at his wreck of a leg. Regulus had almost gotten used to the appearance of the thing, but he looked at it now how they would see it—a mass of mangled scars and skinnier than his other leg by at least a third with how much muscle he’d lost. There was also a half-dried bloody patch on his knee where something had ripped open.

Lily looked his leg up and down with wide eyes. “I assume this did not all happen today, correct?”

He grunted. “Most of it’s from summer.”

She bit her lip and cast a few diagnostic spells, then cast the most blessed numbing spell on his leg. The relief was so dramatic that he sagged against the couch and needed a few moments to just breathe. Honestly, he wasn’t sure his leg had been this pain-free since before he’d been hurt.

He opened his eyes to see Lily peering at him with more than a little concern. “Can you explain what happened?”

“I fell.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “All of this is from falling?”

“No, today, I mean. I fell.”

“What are the rest of the injuries from?”

Regulus glanced at Sirius. “We’re…not supposed to say.”

Lily looked between the two Blacks. “Well, I need to know what did this to you to know how to help. If this was from a curse, I could end up using spells that can make it worse.”

Sirius looked unsure. “Dumbledore doesn’t want us to give any details that might tip You-Know-Who off as to what Regulus really did.”

Lily rocked back on her heels. “If James and I end up facing You-Know-Who, there won’t be time to share secrets what with him trying to blast us with the Killing Curse.”

This was a valid point. And Regulus cared more about not losing another limb than Dumbledore’s wishes at the moment.

“It was inferi,” Regulus told her.

Lily choked. “Inferi. This summer?”

“Yes. They…. Well. Ripped me to shreds, I suppose.” He glanced away and tried to think about other things. He didn’t want to end up trapped in a spiral of those memories right now.

Lily made a noise and examined his leg again. “That explains the trace of Dark. Not quite enough for a curse, but didn’t make sense that this could just be an animal attack. There shouldn’t be this much scar tissue, though, if you were healed with magic. The healing was done rather clumsily.”

Regulus looked over to see Sirius’s face grow red and guilty. “It was more important to keep me from bleeding out than make sure I looked pretty. They saved my life the only way they could.”

She followed his gaze. “Sirius, you did this?”

He frowned. “And Remus. And Pomfrey once she arrived.”

“Ah, well, it’s quite impressive for being untrained, then.”

Sirius turned to clear the tea things off the table. “Couldn’t let him die, could I?”

Lily turned back to Regulus. “And you said you fell today? How?”

“Got hit with a gut cramping curse. I was already off balance and fell forward and my knees bent like this.” He demonstrated with his uninjured leg. “I haven’t been able to bend my leg very far since getting hurt.”

She nodded. “There’s a large knot of scar tissue that tore. It’s intersecting a ligament on the side of your knee that I think was already torn. I could just close it all up, but that wouldn’t help solve much and if you fall again, it will tear again and cause more damage. I think the better option would be for me to clear out some of this scar tissue and actually get the ligament to reattach properly and close healthy muscle and skin over the top. Obviously, you need much more extensive treatment than that, but for now, I think that will help.”

He shrugged. He just wanted it to not hurt. “That’s fine. Do what you think is best.”

She looked surprised. “Are you sure?”

He scowled at her. “Are you planning to actually chop my leg off or something?”

She gave him a deeply affronted look and crossed her arms. “Of course not! I’m not evil.”

“Then I trust you. You Potters are too self-righteous to do anything that will hurt people directly.”

James glared. “What the hell does that mean?”

“An hour ago you were certain that James was going to murder you,” Sirius pointed out.

Regulus ignored them both.

To everyone’s relief, she cast an obscuring charm over his knee so they wouldn’t have to watch the procedure, and then set the proper spells to work.

Regulus let the exhaustion finally win. Too much had happened, and his body was done for the day. He dropped back onto his pillows and let his eyes close. He was asleep in minutes.

He awoke sometime later to find the house dark except for a thin line of light streaming out from the door to the kitchen. His leg was still numb, but he could see a dim glow of the spells running their course beneath the blanket someone had covered him with. A chair squeaked in the kitchen, and he heard James and Sirius’s quiet voices drifting through the cracked door.

“How was the last two months, with Remus?” James was asking. “Did it work?”

“It did. It was incredible. He felt way better afterward than normal, and honestly he was kind of—and he absolutely hates me saying this—adorable when he changed. Didn’t know what to do with himself, kept tripping over his own feet.”

James laughed. “I can’t wait to see it. I’m so bloody tired of being in hiding away from you all. I just need this all to end. I haven’t seen Remus or—anyone in ages. I miss running with you all like that, and for Remus to finally be able to enjoy it, too….”

Sirius grunted. “I just can’t believe that—”

Regulus must have fallen asleep then, because the next thing he remembered was being whacked in the face by something warm and slightly sticky. He shot up, wand in hand before he was fully awake, to see a dark haired toddler tumbling back onto his bum with wide eyes.

“Eehhh,” the baby said. He sounded more confused than scared and didn’t start to cry, which relieved Regulus as it would be just his luck to be killed first thing in the morning for scaring the Potters’ baby.

“Hello, Harry,” he said. “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

The baby seemed to recognize his name and climbed back to his feet and rattled off an excitable sentence that Regulus couldn’t understand a word of.

“Erm, yes, very nice to meet you, too,” Regulus said stiffly. “Do you normally attack guests first things in the morning?”

The baby took wobbly steps forward and grabbed Regulus’s shirt, as if to confirm that yes, of course he attacked every guest with all due haste.

“It isn’t first thing in the morning.” Lily appeared in the kitchen doorway. “It’s nearly ten. Healing spells like that are exhausting though.”

Regulus grunted. The spells had ended, but his leg was still numb. Lily scooped Harry onto her hip and Regulus cautiously pulled the blanket back. His leg looked…okay. It was mostly the same, but the outside of his knee did look a bit better. Lily tapped his hip with her wand and the numbing spell lifted.

He grunted as the usual discomfort rushed back, but the acute pain from the day before was gone.

“How is it?”

“It feels a lot better. My leg still aches a bit, but just the usual.”

“Hmm.” Lily put Harry down and crouched beside Regulus’s knee. Harry immediately pulled himself onto the sofa and climbed onto Regulus’s lap. “Harry!”

“It’s alright,” Regulus mumbled. Harry shoved his hand at Regulus’s face again. “Stop that.”

He found it rather difficult to wrangle the toddler with only one arm, but at least it distracted him from how awkward it was to have Lily Potter massaging his knee. 

“Does that help?” he asked.

“Yes, magic isn’t the answer to everything, you know. It’s important for me to feel how your knee has been repaired and feel where the ligaments are connected, where the scar tissue is, all of that.” She pressed her thumb against a tender spot and he hissed in pain and jerked back. “And to see what hurts,” she smirked.

He scoffed and dropped his leg back like nothing had happened. “Well, I’m sure it’s fine now.” He pulled Harry’s hand out of his hair.

“Let’s see how it is when you bend it. Just do as much as you can without it hurting.” She stood up and placed her hands on her hips in a way that reminded Regulus of a sharp-eyed Quidditch captain.

He did as he was told and found that though he couldn’t easily bend his knee much farther than before, the movement felt a lot smoother. And this was without the brace, too. He maneuvered Harry onto the floor—half-dropping him, but that was really the boy’s fault as he decided to pitch himself head first over the side and only giggled about it. Once Harry had toddled out of the way, Regulus swung his feet to the ground and stood, keeping most of his weight on his good leg.

Lily pointed her wand at his leg and performed a few diagnostic spells. “Hmm, definitely better. Can you walk on it?”

“I need the brace still, I think.”

She nodded and he strapped it on. Even the first few hesitant steps felt much better than before. Clearly something that needed to be reconnected had been. It was still hard to walk and slow and he had a terrible limp, but it was loads better.

“I greatly appreciate your help,” he said, declining his head towards her.

She laughed. “You Blacks and your overly proper manners.”

“Sirius isn’t proper at all.”

She shook her head. “Oh, he tries not to be. But get him on edge and out of his depth and it comes out. Speaking of, Sirius already left for work. He’ll be back in a couple days.”

He looked at Lily, dressed in jeans and a faded jumper, hair down around her shoulders, a child bouncing at her legs. He’d liked Lily Potter once, back when she’d been Evans. She’d been more decent to him than the rest of the Gryffindors and had gotten James Potter to stop harassing him. Things had changed once it had become clear that he was firmly in with the future Death Eater crowd. Regulus had thought she’d been disappointed that he wasn’t secretly like Sirius, or at least a sad little abused boy she could win over to the good side if she smiled at him enough. Perhaps he had been a sad little abused boy, but things were never so simple. She was watching him watching her now, a contemplative look in her eye. It was certainly better than loathing.

Regulus cleared his throat. “I appreciate you allowing me to stay here, as well. I can assure you I will do nothing to harm you or your family. Though I may still hex your husband’s hair off.”

“Oh, I don’t mind if you do that,” she said. “But only if he really deserves it.”

Regulus gave a small smile. “Agreed.”

“Hungry?”

He nodded. “Just need to take my potions.”

Lily gave him a plate of toast with eggs and a mug of tea, then slung Harry into a high chair and plopped a small bowl filled with banana slices in front of him.

“Are you not eating?” Regulus asked her.

“I already ate. Just giving Harry a snack or he’ll get cranky.” She sat beside Regulus and gave him another long, evaluative look. “So what made you leave?”

Regulus took his time chewing. He took a few sips of tea, then replaced the cup on its saucer. “I suppose I finally found a way I could do something meaningful to go against him.”

“So you’d been wanting an out for a while then? Why wait so long? Or did you just decide you didn’t like getting your hands dirty and would rather others carry out your precious Dark Lord’s plans?” Her voice had quickly turned hard.

He scowled at his toast. He’d hoped he would get off easy with one of the Potters, but apparently that was too much to hope for. “It’s more complicated than that. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh, because I’m a muggle-born?”

“Because you weren’t raised with Walburga and Orion Black deciding your life for you. Even at school I was surrounded by people who would report back to them, or to someone who would report to them, if I acted in a way different from how I was expected to. You wouldn’t understand because no one understands what it’s like to never have a choice in anything unless you’ve lived it.”

She shook her head. “There’s always a choice.”

He stabbed at his toast. “People sure like to say that, don’t they? But if there were choices, then I certainly never found them.”

Lily’s voice softened—just slightly, but that was progress. “Why didn’t you ask for help?”

“It wasn’t an option,” he said. It was complicated and he didn’t particularly feel like he owed her an explanation. “And Dumbledore’s already questioned me with Veritaserum, so you don’t have to trust me and I don’t expect you to, but I am sure you have a ridiculously unwavering loyalty to the man so trust him instead.”

She was silent for a long moment before speaking. “I trust that you’ve truly changed sides and don’t intend to harm anyone here, but you must understand that you were part of a group whose entire ideology centered around denying people like me and my child the right to exist. That is what you were raised to believe and even if you have decided to no longer participate in their side of the war, that doesn’t mean you don’t believe they’re right.”

Lily made an entirely fair point, as much as Regulus hated to admit it. He grimaced, but met her eyes. “I don’t believe they’re right. I won’t lie and say that I never did or that I’m a wonderful person. But my opinions about muggle-borns are no longer what they were.”

“Why?”

He swallowed. He hadn’t really expected to be pressed on that and he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to explain Maggie and didn’t want to. No doubt someone as sensible as Lily Potter would think someone with Regulus’s past had no business dating someone like Maggie, and rightly so. He still didn’t believe for a second that he deserved to be with her, but that didn’t mean he was ready to hear it from someone else.

“I started venturing into muggle areas after my mother died to avoid meeting anyone I might know and just…pretend I was someone else, I suppose. I met a few people. It was hard to believe what I’d been told when the evidence against it was everywhere around me.” He turned back to his plate and the task of eating his eggs one-handed without just pushing them off the plate on accident. Harry threw a banana slice at him and he gratefully took the distraction.

Later in the afternoon, he was reading a book—one of the muggle ones about their odd interpretation of wizards—when he felt pressure on his left arm. He glanced over to see Harry clinging to the stump of his arm and grinning at him.

“Er, hello again,” he said.

“Haaaiiiii,” the baby shrieked.

“Harry!” James Potter jumped up.

Harry started to cry.

“It’s fine!” Regulus said, putting down the book and reaching his good arm across to tousle the boy’s hair. “He’s not hurting me.” Then his brain woke up and he remembered that Potter obviously cared far more that Regulus might hurt Harry than Harry hurt him. Whatever.

“Paaa!” Harry yelled, ignoring his dad and tugging on Regulus.

“Er,” Regulus said, glancing between the two Potters.

“That means play,” James said.

Regulus got the sudden and contradictory feeling that if he didn’t play with Harry satisfactorily, James would be angry for a fresh new reason, but he would also be angry at him for daring to touch his son at all. Regulus really hated James Potter.

“James!” Lily’s voice came from upstairs. “I need your help finding Harry’s lion jumper in this bag!”

“I’m busy!” James yelled back.

“Doing what?”

“Keeping the Death Eater from murdering our son!”

“JAMES! Leave Harry and come here.”

“Lily!” He practically whined it.

“Come. Here!”

Shockingly, he actually did. Glaring fiercely, James left Harry to Regulus. Regulus wasn’t going to survive the night. Harry had not picked up his father’s attitude and had stolen one of the sofa pillows Regulus had been leaning on, then dropped it because the pillow was too big for him.

“Paaa!” he shrieked again. He reached out and fastened himself around Regulus’s left arm. It was distinctly odd to have someone touch the arm at all, but he couldn’t deny that it was refreshing for someone to not give any thought to whether Regulus had one arm or three, even if the someone in question was not even two-years-old. Still, Harry had an uncomfortably tight grip. Regulus shook his arm, lightly bumping him in the belly. Harry fell straight back onto the floor and started to yell.

Regulus had a heart-stopping moment of panic that he’d hurt him already and was absolutely about to be murdered before realizing that Harry was happy-yelling. And he’d fallen onto the pillow. A second later, he was back on his feet.

“Geehn!” Harry shrieked.

So Regulus poked him again, with his index finger, and he toppled onto the pillow. Then they did it again, and again, and again. They were still doing that when James returned, standing in the doorway with his arms crossed.

“He likes it,” Regulus said defensively.

James snorted. “He likes anything with the potential of getting hurt. Falling, jumping off furniture, getting tossed in the air, throwing himself headfirst down the stairs. He’s going to be a brilliant Quidditch player when he gets older, a chaser like his dad, no doubt.”

“Seekers are more the type for daring moves and diving, though, so he might very well go for seeker instead.”

“Well, no matter what position he plays, I have no doubt he’ll be the best Hogwarts has seen in a decade, won’t you, Harry?” he said, scooping his son up onto his shoulders.

Harry shrieked in response. He was so loud . Admittedly adorable, but loud.

James left Regulus to his reading. Regulus was too shocked he’d managed to get through a conversation with James that was something like civil to get much reading done.

Of course, the peace was short-lived.

Chapter Text

The days Regulus spent staying with the Potters passed even more slowly than the weeks in Sirius’s flat had. At least there he’d been able to go to nearby shops. Here they were stuck inside with only each other for company, and Sirius on rare occasion. Regulus could only send an occasional letter to Maggie through Sirius out of fear that if someone were to spot an owl darting into an unusual area, it could tip off someone that there were wizards hiding nearby.

Everyone was tense with little to do but wait and worry, and James and Regulus ended up bickering more often than not. Regulus had not grown to like James any more, despite the proximity. Whenever Sirius visited, Regulus could see how the two of them could get along—over-the-top, always cracking stupid jokes, a little too reckless—but all of that had a distinctly different flavor when it was at one’s own expense.

Despite the animosity with her husband, though, Lily had somehow decided that she liked Regulus. He didn’t entirely understand it as he hadn’t done a very thorough job of defending himself to her, but Regulus suspected it had something to do with her seeing him as a patient and the fact that her toddler had decided they were best friends. She still asked rather pointed questions that he could tell were meant to test him, but at least it felt a bit safer than talking with her husband.

She also decided Regulus needed to spend more time on “therapy,” which was basically doing difficult things without magic. He protested that he didn’t need to because he would get a prosthetic someday and he was a wizard, after all. She insisted that he needed to be able to do things even if his wand was in the other room and he wouldn’t be able to wear a prosthetic all the time.

The things she made him do (or attempt to do, since he usually failed) were massively embarrassing. Despite that, though he would never admit it, they actually did help. A lot of the tasks made him simultaneously hate the loss of his arm all over again, but also start to hate the shortened limb a little less.

Harry probably helped with that, as anytime it was close enough for him to reach, the baby insisted on cuddling it. Lily’s theory was that Harry knew it made Regulus sad and wanted to make Regulus feel better. Regulus insisted he was not sad and besides, he didn’t think babies had that much emotional depth. He told her there were studies on it. (He had never heard about any studies on baby emotions, but muggles seemed to do studies on everything, so he was sure there was something relevant somewhere.)

But whatever the reason, Harry really liked cuddling up to Regulus. He’d taken more than one accidental nap on the sofa only to wake up with Harry climbing onto him. Harry really was a cute baby. He had chubby cheeks and adorably large green eyes and a perpetually tangled mess of dark curls. Regulus had never imagined himself the type of person who would like a baby, but it was hard to not fall in love with the child.

The problem was that Harry was beginning to appear in Regulus’s nightmares. Those were always the worst ones. With Lily’s advisement, his dose of pain potion and sleeping draught had been lowered, which meant he was more alert, but also more prone to nightmares. Sometimes it seemed that he rarely got a night without them. Watching helplessly as Harry died in a dozen different, horrible ways seemed a particularly cruel punishment for his past transgressions.

The frequency of his nightmares also didn’t help his temper, which in turn, didn’t help his ability to handle James Potter. The man was apparently finding it harder to resist bothering Regulus as his own boredom grew.

It was a week and a half into their cohabitation and Regulus was reading on the old, sagging sofa, minding his own business, when James sidled up to him like they were old friends. Who hated each other.

“What are you reading?” James asked.

Regulus held the book up so James could see the title.

“What’s it about?”

“People.”

James scoffed. “I’m trying to be friendly.”

“Lovely.”

“You realize that’s a muggle book, right?”

“Yes, Potter, I am aware that the book I bought from a muggle bookstore is a muggle book.”

“You went to a muggle bookstore?”

Regulus let out a long-suffering sigh and looked up. “Yes. I did.”

“What did you think of it?”

“It had a lot of books.”

James gave him a look. “I am trying here, okay?”

“It was a bookstore. It had shelves. It smelled like old books. And can you not sit so close?” 

James moved a few inches farther away. “Compared to a wizarding store, I mean, obviously.” 

Regulus rolled his eyes. “The books are smaller than magical books typically are, as you can see, and cheaper because they’re bound with cheaper materials which I am not saying as a bad thing. The people were people, except they didn’t do magic and they had to actually climb to get books off high shelves instead of summoning them. What else do you want me to say?”

James shrugged. “Well, I guess you could have said worse.”

Regulus was losing his patience. “I described the store! It’s a perfectly fine used bookstore! Are you trying to trick me into saying something bad against muggles or something?”

“No,” James said, but he looked a bit put out, like he had definitely been wanting to pick a fight. “Why don’t we just…play cards or something?”

Regulus turned back to his book. “Cards are a bit hard with one hand.”

“Oh. Right. Er, chess?”

They played chess because James made it clear he wouldn’t stop bugging Regulus. They were surprisingly evenly matched, but that wasn’t saying much as neither of them were any good. Harry loudly woke from his nap and Lily brought him into the living room. It only took her a few minutes to grow thoroughly exasperated with their moves.

“I have decided,” she declared, “that I will be the one teaching Harry chess. Both of you have missed at least three chances to put the other person in checkmate each!”

James gave her a lazy grin. “We can’t both be the brains in the relationship.”

“I pity you, Lily,” Regulus said.

“Oi!” James protested. “I’ve got plenty of redeeming qualities.”

Lily patted his hand placatingly. “Yes, you do, love, but your chess skills are definitely not one of them.”

James moved a knight forward. Regulus couldn’t figure out why or if it was a trap, and took it out with his pawn.

“So Regulus,” James said, studying the board. “Any little Death Eater girlfriends for you?”

Regulus glared at him. “My relationships are none of your concern.”

“Oh, so you do have a Death Eater girlfriend?!” James guffawed obnoxiously.

“I would never date a Death Eater. The only women Death Eaters at the moment are absolute psychopaths anyway. Or my cousins, but also still psychopaths.” He put James’s king in check. James tried to take out his bishop, but that wasn’t the piece that was putting Regulus’s king in danger—only it actually was, and apparently James had accidentally put himself in check several turns ago and neither had noticed. That did explain why their chess pieces were insulting their intelligence so vehemently, though.

Several minutes of discussion later (between Regulus, James, and their chess pieces), they sorted out how to move the game forward.

“So, Regulus,” James said.

“What?”

“About your psychopath-cousin-definitely-not-girlfriends—”

“Shut up.”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say!”

“I don’t care.”

“Did your mother ever try to marry you off to one of them?”

Regulus recoiled and glared at him. “Urgh, no! That’s—no. Absolutely not.”

“Because Sirius sure had some stories—”

Regulus moved a pawn. “My mother’s dead and her memory is really better left in the past.”

“Can’t disagree with you there,” James muttered. “Did you know we’re actually distant cousins?”

Regulus ordered his rook to take out his feelings about that for him. “Unfortunately. Dorea Black.”

“Dorea Potter.”

“Sure.”

“She married! Changed her name! Do you still call Narcissa Mrs. Black then?”

“She’s my cousin. I call her Narcissa. Don’t exactly talk to her much though.”

“Didn’t catch up with her at your little Death Eater meetings?”

“She was pregnant and now has a child. And everyone wears masks, anyway.” 

James looked uncomfortable. “Right.”

Then Harry decided he was bored with his little elephant plushy and plowed himself onto the chess board and tried to shove the pieces in his mouth. Regulus attempted to get the irate chess pieces out of Harry’s way, but one of the pawns decided to leap into the baby’s hair. Luckily, Harry thought this was funny. James scooped the baby up and began to coax the piece into releasing his child’s hair, and when he finally succeeded, Harry began to wail.

Regulus figured it was a miracle he and James had gotten through nearly an hour in proximity to each other and not done more than bicker.

Sirius came by that evening to drop off groceries, pick up outgoing letters, and have a cryptic conversation with James about something that Regulus could only assume was related to the Order of the Phoenix.

Regulus was able to deduce that something was happening in two weeks, and someone they didn’t like very much was still unaware of something, and that everything was being prepared, but that was all. He hated the feeling of being left in the dark and utterly unable to help.

His role in the war was to be missing.

When he and Maggie had run into Dolohov and Sirius’s flat had been attacked, despite the fear of someone he cared about getting hurt, he’d had a small hope that being revealed could mean that he could do something meaningful. He knew it would cause far more problems that it would solve if anyone started asking questions about where he’d been or what had happened to him, but he was so tired of being useless. However, there seemed to be no indications that Regulus had been identified. It appeared that Maggie’s memory charm had held and whoever had attacked Sirius’s flat hadn’t recognized him either. 

They still didn’t know what had provoked that attack. Or at least, if someone did know, Regulus wasn’t being told, just like he wasn’t being told anything now.

It was some small, petty solace that James Potter was as stuck as Regulus and twice as frustrated. He was far more the type to need to be in the center of things than Regulus was and every day in hiding was killing him.

James and Sirius finished their conversation on that very topic. James was desperate for things to be over. Was that part of their plan? To somehow make it safe for the Potters to resume normal life?

Regulus wondered what would happen to him, always shuttled around out of sight without a place to be. It seemed that could only change when the Dark Lord was gone, and the very idea of that seemed so utterly outrageous.

The thought of years of his life spent hidden away swelled into a sudden, overwhelming fear. He closed his eyes.

“Alright, Reg?” Sirius touched his shoulder.

He nodded. “Fine, fine.”

He was fine, he told himself. He pushed the thought of the future away. It was useless to dwell on, and depressing. He had the present. That had to be enough.

“Finished your letter?”

Regulus pointed. “Left it in the kitchen.”

Sirius summoned it.

“Have you seen her?” Regulus asked, hating the tiny note of desperation that had crept in.

Sirius shook his head. “I’ve been busy. Things have been hectic. A lot of attacks. A lot of other things I’ve had to take care of, too.”

Regulus wasn’t surprised, and he knew, too, that it was better for Maggie to stay as far from anyone associated with the Order as possible. But, damn, he missed her, and he was scared. “Make sure she’s okay.”

Sirius bumped his arm. “Sure. I will.”

But Regulus couldn’t shake the fear that something was going to happen. That night when he fell asleep, the world of his nightmares was murky and dark, and there wasn’t a star in the sky.

Chapter Text

Sirius took a deep breath, and then swung open the door to the interrogation room. The scruffy looking man inside looked up and grinned. It took everything in his power for Sirius to keep himself from rolling his eyes. He would be professional. He would prove to his boss that he was fully capable of handling even the more annoying detainees without losing his temper. He could certainly manage with a mangy criminal. He could do this.

The man reached under his greasy, scraggly ponytail and scratched. Something fell out onto the ground. Sirius did not look to see what it was. He didn’t want to know. He would control his expression and be professional, Merlin help him.

“Hello, Fletcher,” Sirius said, pulling out the chair on his side of the table and sitting down. “It’s good to see you again.”

Mundungus Fletcher grinned at him with stained teeth. He was only a handful of years older than Sirius, not even thirty, but he looked awful. In the decade since the man had managed to graduate from Hogwarts, he’d had countless run-ins with the aurors office and was undoubtedly destined for many more. He’d had a few short stints in Azkaban, but none of his crimes were considered serious enough for any sort of prolonged stay. Really, the wizarding world needed something in between fines and wand-removal and the absolute horror that was a prison run by joy-sucking Dementors. Sirius could acknowledge that it was unethical to stick low-level scum like Fletcher into a prison that would literally make people lose their minds, but he also thought it was unethical to force the aurors to have to deal with him every few weeks.

“Good to see you, too, Black. I’ve missed you. Care for some tea?” The man pulled an actual teapot out of his coat.

“I ought to confiscate that,” Sirius said tiredly. “What is that one cursed to do?”

Fletcher’s eyes widened in a look of pure innocence. “Why would I ever do something like that?”

Sirius pulled a Safe-bag made of curse-resistant dragonhide out of his pocket and, with a flick of his wand, sent the teapot from Fletcher’s hand straight into the bag. The dragonhide instantly sealed around it, indicating that it was indeed cursed in some way. Sirius stowed the bag by the door for later.

“Fletcher, you do realize there is a war going on and people are dying,” Sirius told him. “Every time you pull some new ridiculous scheme, you take our time away from trying to actually save lives.”

“I’m trying to save my own life,” Fletcher said loftily.

“Right. And how exactly are you doing that?”

“Got to make money to buy food and shelter to stay alive.”

“Then get a proper job. Don’t scam muggles or sell cursed objects to people or steal things from innocents!”

Fletcher flashed his nasty teeth. “So I can steal things from the un-innocents, then? I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”

Sirius clenched his fists. He would not yell that there shouldn’t be a next time. He wouldn’t. He would at least wait until he knew his boss wasn’t watching. “What can you tell me about where you acquired the blood stones from?”

Fletcher scratched at his hair again, and more of something fell out. Sirius couldn’t suppress his shudder. “That would depend,” Fletcher said, “on what I might get out of it.”

“Three people nearly died , Fletcher,” Sirius said. “You’re likely to end up in Azkaban for this.”

That began to get through to him. His eyes widened. “I didn’t know!” Fletcher shrieked. “They were just rocks! I was just told to sell some nice rocks. Didn’t know they were sucking out people’s blood for the vampires until you lot showed up and nabbed me! Selling rocks ain’t a crime!”

Sirius scowled at him. “You say that about everything. Now, who told you to sell the nice rocks?”

The conversation wasted a lot of Sirius’s time and went nearly nowhere. He got no more than a vague description of who had paid Fletcher to sell the rocks, because the man really didn’t care what he was selling to whom or on whose behalf, as long as he got money and alcohol for it. Sometimes Sirius wondered if the Death Eaters were intentionally paying him to commit all sorts of low-level crimes that he didn’t really know much about just to waste the aurors’ time. At least this time he’d be off the streets for at least a month after conviction, which was all but guaranteed since he’d confessed easily to having sold the stones.

The day’s shift seemed like it would never end. There was so much paperwork to keep up with and all he wanted to do was leave to go and visit his family. He could have sworn someone had enchanted the clock to move slower.

It was silly that Sirius missed his brother after less than two weeks apart, especially considering that up until a few months ago they hadn’t spoken in years. It didn’t make sense for a few months together to change all of that, especially when his brother was so perpetually prickly.

Somehow he did miss him, though, and worried about him, too, which was honestly silly. Regulus had been running around muggle Britain with his girlfriend for weeks without anything going wrong, but now that he was safely tucked away with the Potters—Sirius’s best friends—Sirius was worried? It was absurd.

When, at long last, the clock struck the hour, he fled the ministry as quickly as possible. There was a good chance that if he lingered too long he’d get sucked into the next big crisis and he needed at least one night off. He apparated to the back garden of the little cottage. Lily let him into the kitchen where she was making dinner and Regulus was doing…something with carrots that looked a lot like mangling them. 

“What are you doing, Reg?”

Regulus looked up and scowled. “This is therapy, apparently.”

“Making carrot mush? Can’t you just use a spell to do that? Or, I don’t know, a hammer?”

“Exactly!” he flung the peeler down and moved his short arm off the carrot he was mangling. “Except I’m supposed to be peeling them. It’s not like I ever needed to peel carrots before I lost my arm, and I certainly don’t need to do so now.”

Lily took the cutting board from him and placed it on the counter, expertly peeling the rest of the carrots with a flick of her wand. “That isn’t the point. It’s not about the carrots, it’s about developing your fine motor skills.”

Regulus folded his good arm across his chest and grumbled in a way that showed he wasn’t actually upset at all. Sirius dropped into the chair beside him. “So aside from destroying carrots, how are things going here?”

“Oh, fine. I’ve managed to get two of the three Potters to not want to murder me in my sleep,” he replied.

Sirius had no concerns on that front, but still studied his brother carefully. He didn’t seem more exhausted than normal. He was pale, but nothing out of the ordinary for a Black, and the dark circles beneath his grey eyes were to be expected for anyone living through the war as they were now. He was as tidy as always, his dark hair growing past his ears, but clean and carefully styled. Even his muggle clothing looked as if he’d applied ironing charms to it. He was fine.

“As long as you’re really alright,” Sirius said. “You know, I could kill for some tea.”

Regulus stood. “I’ll make it.”

He looked steadier on his feet than he’d been since getting injured, especially without his crutch. He deftly fetched the necessary items to make tea, using his wand as much as he did things manually—which seemed to be mostly for Lily’s approval.

James entered the kitchen. He happily slapped Sirius on the back and asked as many questions as he could think of about what was going on in the outside world.

“Tea,” Regulus said, bringing the pot over.

James groaned. “I’m not drinking that. It’s probably poisoned.”

Regulus rolled his eyes, his hand full of teapot, and carefully poured the tea into three of the four teacups. “You can cook your own supper then, too, since I helped with that, as well.”

James grunted. “Fine, whatever. I’ll drink the blasted tea.”

“Say please.”

James slouched in his chair and looked at Sirius helplessly, but Sirius only slung an arm over James’s shoulders. “Seems a reasonable request to me.”

James gave him a betrayed look and tossed his arm off. “Fine, Regulus. Please may I have some of your probably-poisoned-tea.”

Regulus poured the tea. “I look forward to serving you a bezoar potion next.”

Sirius watched his brother and the man who was as good as glaring at each other and laughed. “Good Godric, how are the walls still standing in this place?”

James took a sip of the tea and grimaced. “It’s oversteeped.”

“It’s perfectly fine!” Regulus protested. “I made it just how Maggie showed me.”

Sirius took a sip. “It is a bit oversteeped.”

“It is not.” Regulus picked up his cup and took a small sip. “It’s barely oversteeped.”

Sirius loaded his tea with sugar and cream. “You’re definitely improving.”

James added a sugar lump to his own tea. “So who is this Maggie? A house-elf? The little Death Eater bitch you got yourself?”

Sirius saw the sparks strike the tinder, but was too slow to stop them. Regulus’s shoulders stiffened and his face became a cold, haughty mask. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, you imbecilic blood traitor.”

James nearly launched himself across the table, but Sirius grabbed him around the waist and pulled him back. “James, shut up. That was a shitty thing to say.”

“I was just asking and he called me a blood traitor!”

Lily had turned down the heat and stepped away from the soup simmering on the stove, planting herself between Regulus and James. “We’re all blood traitors here at this point. Both of you, behave. James, please stop antagonizing Regulus. Regulus, stop insulting my husband. You’re here to be under our protection.”

James scoffed. “He’s more likely to be what we need protecting from. All I did was state the truth. Who else would be teaching him to make tea? He’s spent the last several years surrounded by no one but Death Eaters and house elves. Who else would teach someone like him to make tea?”

Regulus jumped up. “Shut the hell up. You know nothing about me! You’re a complete arsehole acting like you’re a wonderful person just because you were sorted into Gryffindor as a child! You were a bully then and you’re a bully now! You want to blame me for being a Death Eater? Sure! But you’re the one who turned my own BROTHER against me for things out of my control! So SHUT UP!”

James scoffed.

Sirius stared at his brother. Was that what he thought? That Sirius had hated him just because they were sorted into different houses, and all because of James? That hadn’t been it, surely. And James was certainly not a bully. He was anything but. He had befriended Sirius when he’d had no one else and had been there for him through the worst parts of Sirius’s life. He wasn’t a bully, even if he could be a bit harsh when it came to defending his friends.

James turned to Sirius now, a mix of anger and hurt on his face.

Sirius didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure if he could really say that Regulus was entirely wrong about James’s influence in the two of them becoming so divided, but he wasn’t going to disparage James or discount how much he had helped him either. He looked between the two of them, mouth open, but no words came out.

“Your family were horrible to you, Sirius,” James said. “I was only keeping you safe from them. I know the things they did to you.”

“I know,” Sirius said.

“I was a child ,” Regulus said in a hoarse voice. “I was nine years old.”

“I know, Reg,” Sirius said, guilt welling up again. “It’s not James’s fault, though. It was mine. I should have been better to you. Don’t blame him.”

“I can still blame for what he did and said when we were young. And I’m not letting him insult Maggie.”

“I don’t even know who Maggie is!” James yelled.

Lily put her hands on her husband’s shoulders and pushed him into his chair. “She’s Regulus’s friend. She’s not a Death Eater. And all of you, sit.”

Sirius sat. Regulus didn’t.

“No,” he said with a sneer. “I’m not here to talk about feelings and hash out who the better person is. I don’t care, frankly. I know I’ve done what I’ve done and there are plenty of people I have to prove myself to, but frankly, Potter, I don’t care what you think of me. I know you’re so good and noble to plenty of people and I know quite well why I’m not one of them. What was it you told me just before you left Hogwarts? Oh, that I was a snake and my rightful place was in the dirt.”

James’s face turned red. “You had just sent a girl falling down the stairs because she’d bumped into you!”

Sirius remembered that day. Regulus had been walking to class after lunch with a group of Slytherins and a younger girl, a Hufflepuff he thought, had tried to rush past them and had rammed into Regulus on accident. He’d whirled around and sent her flying down the stairs with a concussive spell. She could have gotten seriously hurt had James not cast a hasty cushioning charm to stop her fall, and she still had needed to go to the Hospital Wing to have several bruises healed. He remembered being disgusted that his own brother had done something so cruel over something so small.

He’d decided to confront his brother and tell him exactly what he thought about just who he was becoming, and James came with him. It was a practical choice. More than a few of the Slytherins were openly following Voldemort already and wouldn’t have hesitated to hurt him. He didn’t believe that Regulus would seriously harm him, but he had no shortage of nasty friends.

The conversation had gone south quickly. Practically from the moment it started. Sirius didn’t remember any of the words exchanged so many years later, but he remembered storming out to the Quidditch pitch with stinging eyes after and flying for hours until James physically dragged him back to the castle.

Today felt painfully similar to that day. Sirius needed to say something to make things better, smooth everything between the two men he counted as brothers, but he couldn’t find the words. Regulus met his eyes, angry and hurt, silently begging him to take his side. 

Sirius opened his mouth again, but no words came out. What could he say?

Regulus’s expression went still as stone. He turned and walked away without so much as backward glance, and something rather like dread settled heavy in Sirius’s chest.

Chapter Text

The situation at the Potter house only got worse after Sirius left and it was barely a day later when the next fight erupted. It started because of Harry. It wasn’t Harry’s fault—it was James’ obviously—but it started because of a poorly drawn baby book that Regulus found sitting on the kitchen table, which he quickly realized was hand drawn by James Potter himself. 

The book was set at Hogwarts and featured four characters—a dog, a goat, a wolf, and a mouse—and all of the enemies were snakes. There were occasional appearances by self-important birds or dopey, clueless striped things that Regulus assumed were meant to be badgers, but mostly all of the other characters were ugly, glaring snakes.

James saw him flipping through it and gave a cocky grin. “Pretty good, isn’t it?”

Regulus tossed it onto the kitchen table. “I think you’re a bigot.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Regulus knew it immediately, and knew that bigot was probably too strong a word, but the book had brought up a dozen painful memories of finally getting to go to Hogwarts at eleven-years-old only to be bullied by his own brother and his friends for the simple reason that he was a “nasty, slimy Slytherin.” He wasn’t about to back down.

James’s face went red. “A bigot. Oh, that’s rich coming from you, you nasty Death Eater.”

“How dare you make this book,” Regulus hissed.

“It’s a children’s book about animals. Calm down.”

“That’s teaching your son to hate everyone in Slytherin for no reason!”

“Teaching him to rightly avoid the evil venomous snakes!”

“They’re children!”

“Who grow up to be monsters! Just look at you!”

Regulus saw red. “Don’t act like you only suddenly started hating me after I joined the Death Eaters. You hated me from the very first day, just because I’d been sorted into Slytherin.”

“Because I knew you’d grow up evil like the rest! I mean, look at your family!”

Regulus stepped right up to James, glad for the inch he had over him. “I am not evil! I was forced to join the Death Eaters and forced to hurt people because YOU took away the only person who might have helped me! I was a CHILD. But all anyone ever saw was that I was in Slytherin. And now you’re already perpetuating your same prejudices with Harry. Not just with this book, either. I hear you when you play with those little animal toys. Brave Gryffindor, boring Ravenclaw, loser Hufflepuff, and evil little Slytherin gits. You realize you’re teaching him to hate eleven-year-olds, right? To think that anyone who isn’t sorted into Gryffindor is automatically worse for something they can’t control? And if you swap Gryffindor with pureblood…well, sounds an awful lot like bigotry to me.”

James was practically frothing at the mouth. “Don’t compare me to a Death Eater. I don’t go around murdering people for fun. I don’t go around thinking muggle-borns deserve to be killed.”

“I’m not saying that! I’m saying that people like you are the reason children like the boy I was end up with no one to turn to. The only people that I could ever rely on were the exact people you lot blamed me for associating with! You keep going on about how I should have made a different choice, but how?! If you have some great idea, TELL ME!”

James scoffed and stepped back. “So what? You’re blaming me for you becoming a Death Eater?”

Regulus dug his nails into his palm. “No. You are hardly that important. But I am saying that it’s your fault that my own brother pretended we weren’t related and you were one who never even let me talk to him!”

James looked like he was seconds away from strangling Regulus. His face was red and his hands were clenched tight. He opened his mouth to retort, but Regulus didn’t want to hear it. He snatched up his crutch and stomped into the messy back garden.

He was so sick of James Potter’s constant badgering and self-righteousness. He acted like he could do no wrong, but he really had taken away the one person that had loved little Regulus Black.

Maybe he had Sirius back now, but none of that could erase the pain of realizing his adored older brother suddenly hated him and then being confronted viciously with that fact again and again and again. The few times he’d been so desperate and scared that he’d worked up the courage to ask Sirius for help anyway, James had always shown up and ruined it all. He’d never once got the chance to even really speak.

And then Regulus had only been thirteen when James Potter had taken Sirius away for good, and Sirius hadn’t once looked back.

In the year that followed Sirius permanently leaving home, the few times Regulus had tried to talk to him, James had sent him away on the assumption that Regulus was only going to spout out things his parents had told him to, as if he wasn’t his own person who couldn’t quite let go of the stupid, desperate hope that maybe his brother might still care.

It was at the end of his fourth year that he’d overheard Sirius say that he only had one brother—James.

 Sirius had eventually spoken to Regulus again, only thanks to Remus Lupin, but it hadn’t taken long for things to head south. After so many years, neither brother really knew the other, and Regulus had already given up on ever fighting free of the web of control his parents had on his life. He became what he had to be—a cocky, proud, and self-assured Slytherin. It had been the only way to survive.

That was all Sirius had seen and all Regulus could let Sirius see, and they’d exchanged words that cut both brothers deep, and Regulus knew he wasn’t innocent in all of that. He’d never gone to Sirius for a way out because he didn’t think those wounds could be looked past, but somehow fate had arranged other plans.

Though how long that would last if James turned against Regulus again, he didn’t know. 

Lily came out to find him an hour or so later and deposited Harry into his arms. Or arm. Arm and a half, he figured, since trying to wrangle the baby forced him to actually try and use his left arm to keep Harry from throwing himself headfirst into a bush. He suspected that Lily was using Harry as part of Regulus’s “therapy.”

“Do you want to talk?” she asked.

“Are you here to yell at me?”

“I wouldn’t have given you my son if I was going to yell at you.”

He grunted and tugged a leaf out of Harry’s hand before he could eat it. “I yelled at your husband.”

Lily sighed and settled into the grass in front of him. “I love him to death, but sometimes he deserves it. Especially related to Hogwarts house things.”

Regulus didn’t say anything.

“You know Severus Snape, right?”

Regulus nodded.

“He and I were friends when we were children. I did accidental magic around him once and I was so confused and terrified, but he just got so excited and explained all about magic and Hogwarts to me. We were both so happy to be going to Hogwarts together, but then we were sorted into different houses, and Slytherin and Gryffindor at that, and it was harder and harder every year to stay friends. James and Sirius certainly didn’t make it any easier. They were bullies at times, and James and I have had a lot of long discussions about that.” She reached over to swipe a ladybug off Harry’s head.

“Eventually, though, Severus and I stopped talking because of the things he chose to do. I don’t like who he’s become. He’s said and done a lot of horrible things and it’s really hard to even imagine forgiving him for choosing to become a Death Eater. I know you feel like you didn’t have a choice and I’m not sure I understand that, but I know your circumstances are different from his. He chose it. He didn’t have to do it and he wasn’t even raised believing those things. But he decided to become the sort of person who believes people like me should die, even though I am somehow an exception to him.”

Regulus didn’t know what to say, so he settled for bouncing Harry instead. There was a distinct comfort in holding a happy, squishy baby, even if he had gotten drool on Regulus’s shoulder.

“I need to know that the people you met aren’t the exception. You don’t think muggles and muggle-borns should die or be enslaved except them.”

Regulus jerked his head up to look at her. She tucked a strand of vibrant red hair behind her ear, but held his gaze with a stern expression.

“I don’t,” he said. “I don’t want anyone to die, except—the Dark Lord and some of his followers, I suppose. I would kill them if I had to. Not that I’m a particularly skilled duelist, but…no, I don’t want to hurt muggles or muggle-borns or anything of the sort. I’m so tired of having to hate people that I frankly could care less about. I don’t care what a random muggle-born wizard in Yorkshire is doing. I don’t care if there’s muggle-borns in the bloody Wizengamot. I just want—all of it to end.”

“Do you think you could ever befriend a muggle-born?” she asked.

He pulled Harry back from the bush he was trying to climb into. “I already have.”

“Are we friends?” she asked, the corner of her mouth lifting.

His face heated. “Er, well, I—I suppose we could be, but I actually meant…er, I have a…friend. Maggie.”

“Ah. This Maggie…. The friend Sirius mentioned when you first arrived?” She grinned at him.

He felt his blush deepen. “Yes, that would be the same Maggie.”

Harry decided it was time for a snack. He climbed off Regulus and demanded his mum pick him up. She did, then turned back to Regulus, “I’ll talk to James. And I’ll get rid of that book. You were right about that, at least. It’s not fair to be teaching Harry to hate other children.”

Harry happily waved at Regulus over Lily’s shoulder as she carried him inside. Regulus waved back and couldn’t help but smile. He wondered if Maggie wanted children.

Though things were better between himself and Lily, James ignored Regulus completely. The tension in the house over the next few days was palpable, and even Harry was beginning to grow fussy from it. Regulus’s nightmares were growing worse, too. 

They were each just slightly different, but always some horrible combination of what had happened at the cave and the things he’d seen as a Death Eater and watching people he loved suffer.

Tonight he was drowning in that green potion from the cave that tasted like death and woke up the worst parts of his imagination. The inferi surrounded him, pouring potion over his face in such a deluge that he couldn’t breathe or scream. They were clawing at his legs, ripping off his arms. Harry was there, too, staring at Regulus with teary, frightened eyes, reaching desperately towards him for help. There was a wand in Regulus’s hand, and he lifted it to help, but instead a stream of harsh light burst out and hit Harry, who screamed and flew backwards onto the stone. Regulus tried to stop it, to shout or cry for help, to get his own arm to listen, but it was no longer connected to him, even though it was his and he was the one hurting Harry and Regulus begged for it to end, but all he heard was Voldemort’s high, cruel laugh as the dark water of the lake surged over him and pulled him down and down and down.

James Potter was there now, floating in the murky water—or was it Harry, grown up and coming back for vengeance?

He was sorry, really. He hadn’t meant to hurt Harry. He hadn’t wanted to. He’d tried to stop. He needed Harry or James or anyone to know that, but his lungs were still choked and the words wouldn’t come.

He heard something distantly. Someone yelling.

He tried to tell them he was sorry, but he still couldn’t speak.

“Lily, he’s not breathing right!”

His eyes stung and everything looked fuzzy. He was so tired. Darkness was tugging. He let it come. Then it would end. The guilt would go away. He hadn’t meant to hurt Harry…. 

Something hard jabbed into his ribs and all at once air flooded in. He took a deep breath, and then another, and another, and slowly his senses came back to him.

He was awake, lying sweaty and shirtless on the worn blue rug on his guest room floor. The Potters were crouched over him, watching him with wide eyes.

It took several more moments before he was able to choke out any words. “I’m fine.”

“You weren’t breathing,” James said. He stood with his hands shoved into the pockets of his plaid pajamas.

“It was just a nightmare.”

He pushed himself into a seated position and Lily pressed a glass of cold water into his hand. “Drink.”

He took several long drinks, feeling slowly revived. He wanted to close his eyes, but that made it far too easy for the images to return, so he stared at a stack of old paperbacks instead, trying to fill his mind with every little detail—the cracks in the binding, a folded corner, a torn page. “I’m fine, now, honestly. Sorry if I woke you. You can go back to bed.”

“Does this happen often?” Lily asked. Her hair, half out of a messy bun, tumbled over her face.

“I have nightmares all the time.” He drank more water.

“I suppose you’ve seen plenty of things to have nightmares about,” James said, but for once, it didn’t sound mocking. The man had no idea.

“Is this the first time you’ve stopped breathing from a nightmare?” Lily still looked concerned.

He shrugged. He'd had nightmares like this before, plenty of times. He usually fell back to sleep after he reached the worst parts of it—that half-lucid state where the nightmare seemed to bleed into the present. Perhaps he'd been falling unconscious after all.

“I can’t exactly just let you die, Regulus,” Lily said.

He snorted. “There’d be exactly two people who wouldn’t be pleased to hear that Regulus Black was dead. Oh, maybe, three people if I count your kid.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

He didn’t look at her. “It’s true. But hey, not so long ago I would have said there weren’t any people, so things are looking up.”

James was still standing in the middle of the room, hands awkwardly shoved in his pockets. “Sirius will kill me if I let you die.”

“I’m fine,” Regulus said again. “Doubt your wife will let that happen. You noticed this time, didn’t you?”

“Well, that’s because you fell off the bed.”

He did feel a bit more sore than normal.

“Maybe I should put monitoring spells on you,” Lily said.

Regulus glared. “Absolutely not. I’m fine. I’m not about to die from sleeping.”

“I think you’re having panic attacks while you’re sleeping,” she told him.

“Is that even possible? And anyway, if I die, I die.”

Lily sat down in front of him and met his gaze with a stern look that reminded him alarmingly of McGonagall. “Do you actually want to die?”

He wilted. “No, I don’t.”

“Then we need to keep you breathing at night. You probably won’t die, but you’re under my care right now, so I’m going to put a monitoring spell on you—it will only alert me if you stop breathing at night, so don’t whine. I’m going to start brewing a low dosage version of a Dreamless Draught in the morning. It should help for now.” She was already pulling out her wand to cast the monitoring spell.

“I don’t want to get hooked onto sleep aids.” He might have let the Death Eaters believe he was a hopeless alcoholic like his father, but in reality he had refused to touch a drop of alcohol that wasn’t forced on him. He wasn’t looking to fill that hole with other addictive substances.

“It’s just temporary, mostly to eliminate nightmares and see if that helps.”

Regulus wasn’t sure if he wanted to take it, but he didn’t feel up to arguing with Lily about it at the moment. He pulled himself back onto the bed. “Let’s just all go back to sleep now. I’m tired.”

Lily swooped in to fix a ribbon around his ankle. “I’ve charmed it to alarm if you stop breathing again.”

Regulus rolled his eyes, but didn’t take it off.

“Goodnight,” Lily said as she left the room. James met his eyes, his expression flat and unreadable. Then he nodded, and followed his wife.

Regulus didn’t die in his sleep, but woke up feeling even more exhausted than usual. He made himself bread with marmalade for breakfast and poured himself a cup of coffee. He used magic for all of it because that was easier and he just didn’t care at all about therapy at the moment.

He heard James’s loud footsteps approach, but he didn’t look up from his toast. The newspaper dropped onto the table in front of him.

“I just finished,” James said. “Just some attack on a bakery in a muggle area.”

Regulus’s blood went cold. “Where?”

“Er, somewhere in London?”

“No, where in the paper!” He began clumsily flipping the pages, skimming as fast as he could.

James seemed a bit confused by his reaction, but only showed him the article, then left the room. 

DEATH EATER ATTACK ON BAKERY IN MUGGLE LONDON, 1 DEAD

“No.” His voice was a choked whisper.

He read as quick as he could, desperately searching for a name. It had happened only that morning and the article was vague in details. An attack, fire, curses, unknown assailant, details not yet released.

— the body of an unnamed muggle woman was found —

Not Maggie. It wasn’t Maggie. Right? It could be. What if they didn’t know who she was and just assumed she was a muggle? Were there ways to detect magic after death? It felt like something he should know, but he didn’t. What if the body couldn’t be identified because— 

“Regulus!”

Lily was shaking him by the shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

He stood. “I have to go.”

She stared at him like he’d lost his mind. “You can’t go anywhere.”

“I have to. I promised—” He shoved the paper towards her, unable to explain. 

She read it quickly. “I don’t understand.” 

“Maggie.”

“This was an attack on muggles, Regulus.”

“She works at a muggle tea shop and bakery. Her sister’s. The body— It’s my fault. They were attacked because of me.” His fingers felt bloodless.

Lily shook her head. “You don’t even know if that was the same shop—”

“How many muggle tea shops would Death Eaters even know to attack?! And just after she got the attention of the Death Eaters because of me! I was so careful all these months and now—”

Lily crossed her arms, glaring at the article again. “Fair, but still. They said it was a muggle and you can’t go. The aurors were already there. Either she’s fine and there’s nothing you can do, or…she’s not and there’s nothing you can do.”

The brutal frankness struck Regulus in the gut and he dropped hard into his chair. “I owe her. I’ve done nothing but make her life worse. I’ve put her in danger, lied to her, and she’s done so much for me. I swore I would protect her, and now I can’t even see her and then she’s attacked and I just sit here? ”

Lily gave his shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. “I know how hard it is to sit by while your friends suffer. That’s how I’ve been feeling for weeks as we’ve been in hiding. But you’re more good to her and to everyone not going out and attracting attention. Imagine what would happen if you, a known Death Eater, show up at an active crime scene where a Death Eater attack just happened? Even if you have us to confirm you weren’t there—which frankly, you don’t have because we were all sleeping—you’ll be arrested, thrown in prison, and have to prove your innocence later! All that will do is make her worry more.”

Regulus scowled at the wall. “Stop being logical.”

“Write her. Contact Sirius. He’ll know. He knows her and he’s an auror.”

They didn’t have an owl, and there was no promise of when the owl Sirius had been using would arrive. Regulus was of half a mind to march over to the muggle neighbor’s and ask them to post a letter for him. Or use the telephone. He’d heard there was a book with everyone’s phone addresses and so maybe he’d be able to find hers.

He’d do it. If Sirius didn’t show up in the next hour, he would. He needed to know that she was alright.

Then the ring on his finger began to burn.

Chapter Text

Sirius had spent the past week having nothing but bad days. Two members of the Order had been killed—the other Prewett brother and an older woman named Georgia Penhallow. Sirius wasn’t close with either of them personally, but it was hard on everyone.

On top of that, the day that Dumbledore had been planning was drawing nearer—the day that the war might finally end. It was all a gamble, built on a hundred little pieces with no one knowing more than they absolutely must and far too much riding on spit and hope for anyone’s liking.

If the traitor in the Order found out the wrong detail, it could all collapse. They needed to know something, but the balance was fine. And if they put too many pieces together…well, too much was riding on hope.

Maybe the stress of this was why Sirius hadn’t gone back to see Regulus, James, and Lily since the fight. He’d hardly had the time, but he also hadn’t even written and he knew that he was once again avoiding anything related to emotions by avoiding people altogether. He was going to regret it. He just knew it.

But still he didn’t write.

Sirius closed his eyes. Just for one moment. Surely he had one bloody moment.

He was about to collapse with exhaustion. Not only had the full moon been the night before, but then the single extra hour he’d been asked to stay Thursday evening had turned into three, and then an entire night shift, and now it was the nearing morning and he was being called to the field again to collect evidence while another set of aurors were interviewing witnesses. At least Kingsley was as exhausted as him.

“Here.” Kingsley handed him a cup of black coffee with an unusually blue cloud of steam rising from it, spiked, no doubt, with extra energy potion.

Sirius downed it in two gulps. He swore. “That burns.”

Kingsley snorted. “How are you an adult? Can’t even wait for things to cool down.”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Got the location?”

Kingsley nodded, keyed it into the portkey, and they were gone.

They landed roughly in an alley off of a muggle thoroughfare lined with shops, blue and red lights flashing, smoke heavy in the air.

With a discreet flick of their wands, they transfigured their clothes into more muggle-looking attire and strode out to meet the police. They flashed their charmed badges, gave the usual explanation of their division that always seemed like something the police had definitely heard of before but couldn’t quite place, and were led to the burned out building.

“Unusual case, this,” the man said. His gaze raked over the ruined storefront, not even noticing the glowing green skull and serpent that hung in the air above him. Sirius counted this as a small mercy. Sometimes the Death Eaters cast the Dark Mark in a way that muggles did see them, and in a spot this busy, it would have been a nightmare to do damage control. 

The muggle had continued forward, notepad in hand. “Signs point towards arson over accident so far. Could be for insurance money, of course, don’t have any of the details on that yet, but something just seems odd about it. Can’t put my finger on it, but it feels…malicious somehow. Intentional, but not in the need-insurance-money way. Like someone really wanted to destroy the place, but I can’t for the life of me imagine why. It’s just a quaint little tea shop.”

Sirius froze. “A…tea shop?”

“Yes, sir. Tea and baked goods. Owned by two sisters, I heard. Young, too. Tragedy.”

Sirius clutched his wand, hidden in his pocket. “Are there any victims?”

The man clucked. “One. Body’s inside.”

Sirius murmured a quiet prayer, and stepped inside.

Sirius left the shop with heavy steps. He just needed to go home. He didn’t remember the last time he’d felt so weary. He hated this—the war, the death, the constancy of something else terrible happening.

He just needed a break.

But of course, that didn’t happen. Instead, a warm pressure grew on his left wrist. Biting back a curse, he ducked out of the sight of any muggles and pulled up his sleeve. He tapped his wand on his wrist and a silver band appeared—the bracelet enchanted with a Protean charm that Dumbledore used to communicate with the Order. It was glowing red—an active attack. A moment later, a coded location shimmered into view.

Sirius took a full step back in shock.

No.

This was all wrong. Not there. Not now. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Dumbledore had sworn it. He’d promised he had a plan for everything, and an attack happening there, right now—that wasn’t it.

Kingsley appeared in front of him, face grave.

“You saw?” Sirius asked.

Kingsley nodded. “Go. I’ll wrap up here and be there in a minute.”

Sirius apparated on the spot.

A Dark Mark hung in the air over the house, a twin to the one he’d only just seen over the tea shop. Sirius felt his heart seize in his chest and he had to grip the tree beside him. The tidy cottage in Godric’s Hollow, the one Lily and James had been so excited to move into to start their own family, was in shambles, washed over by a creeping green smoke.

Peter had really done it.

He’d betrayed them all.

One of their best friends, and he’d fucking sold them to Voldemort to be murdered. Oh, they’d began to suspect weeks ago, and what he’d done to Frank Longbottom had confirmed it. But Sirius couldn’t let go of some small hope that they were wrong.

But now they knew. Peter had betrayed them all.

Sirius screamed and sent a blasting hex at the tree, not caring as shards of wood blasted in all directions and scratched across his skin. He was going to kill that rat. If he was still in the house—

A sharp pop sounded behind him and Sirius spun, but it was Kingsley. The man eyed the house with quiet despair. “This is the Potter’s home, isn’t it? I’ve been here once, I think.”

“Yes.”

Kingsley let out a long, deep sigh. “Dumbledore’s plan to ambush He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is ruined then, isn’t it?” There was a resigned despair in his voice.

“Yes,” Sirius said hoarsely. “Peter. He—he did this. It was supposed to happen later. We were supposed to be ready for it, have a fucking chance to actually end all of this, but now….”

Kingsley let out a string of sympathetic swearing and began to pick his way through the rubble, clearing the doorway and casting stabilizing spells where necessary. Sirius followed, breathing heavy through barely suppressed rage.

“He isn’t still here, is he?” Sirius asked. He didn’t have to say who. They both knew they weren’t talking about Peter anymore.

“I don’t think so,” Kingsley said. “Cast the Mark, then left, I think. We just missed him.”

Sirius growled. “I should have been faster. I could have murdered him myself.”

“You’re no match for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Sirius,” Kingsley said with infuriating calm.

“I don’t care! I don’t bloody care!” He stormed in through the just-cleared front door, terrified of what he might find but desperate, too. The living room was just how he’d last seen it—Harry’s toys piled on the floor, an old knit afghan messily tossed on the couch, long-wilted flowers in a vase on the shelf that was just out of Harry’s reach. The only thing different was the green smoke suffusing the room and the layer of dust from the half-collapsed walls that coated everything.

Kingsley stepped through and took Sirius’s back as they approached the kitchen, which was equally as empty, and the dining room, bathrooms. The door to the guest room hung off its hinges and the room beyond was filled with sheetrock and wood. The ceiling had collapsed, bringing the room above—Harry’s nursery—with it. Sirius spotted a bit of green-painted lattice work that he knew was Harry’s crib.

His feet felt rooted to the ground. How many times had Sirius seen Harry in that crib, happily peering through the slats or pulling himself up, nearly tumbling over the side once he’d learned to climb—

A gold light appeared, drifting through the room, over and through the rubble, before returning to Kingsley’s wand.

“There’s no one here,” Kingsley said quietly. “We need to check upstairs.”

Sirius took a deep breath and nodded, following Kingsley without saying a word. The railing had crumbled, but the stairs themselves were sound. The upstairs rooms were even less stable than the lower floor, and it was slow progress to check each room.

The study, the bathrooms, James and Lily’s bedroom all turned up empty. Neither Sirius or Kingsley found any trace of life or bodies, and Sirius didn’t know what he would have done if they had. He could imagine it, all too horribly—Harry in the ruins of his crib, Lily and James sprawled lifeless in the hall. But the house was deserted. 

The smoke was slowly fading as they stepped back out onto the streets. The other houses nearby shimmered with heavy wards, though more than a few curtains moved as people peaked out to watch. More of the DMLE popped into existence further down the street and Kingsley strode purposefully to meet them. 

Sirius let him go alone. Kingsley could report. Sirius turned back to stare at the house, one he’d visited countless times, had spent so many happy afternoons inside, now a crumbling heap of stone with the Dark Mark in putrid green glowing high above it.

Sirius wished Peter was there, just so he could kill him with his own bare hands. How could he? How dare he? They’d been friends! They had years of history together, and he’d thrown it all away for…what? There was nothing, nothing Sirius could imagine being worth betraying their friends for. Why the hell would Peter join a group of evil, psycho terrorists? Even his indoctrinated brother had left, but Peter—who they laughed with and trusted and cared about and even become animagi with—he’d just run straight to Voldemort.

Sirius was going to kill him. Shake him first, demand answers, and then kill him.

He heard the other aurors approaching as Kingsley filled them in in his rumbling baritone. He heard Dumbledore, too, informing them in his ever-calm voice that he was most sorry to have misjudged and that what had happened was most unfortunate and Sirius just couldn’t stand it.

Unfortunate? All of this was just unfortunate? The Potters and his own brother were in danger, their house was destroyed, their one small hope of finally killing the bastard thwarted and he said it was just unfortunate?

Sirius stomped back towards the garden, not ready to face the aurors or Dumbledore. He raised his wand so it would look like he was checking for something or casting more stabilizing spells, but he wasn’t doing anything really. He just wasn’t ready to talk.

He stepped between two bushes that Lily had so carefully cared for because she loved the way the flowers smelled in springtime. Now they were overgrown and the leaves were turning brown from the autumn air. He moved farther into the garden—and a hand grabbed his arm.

He couldn’t even shout before he was apparated away.

He was somewhere dark and smelly, with a hand clamped around his upper arm. He whipped around, broke the hold, and shot a stunning spell towards where he knew the person would be. They dodged with a cackle.

“Oh, what a way to greet me after so long, dear cousin.”

Sirius snarled. “Bella. I could kill you.”

“Please try. I’d love to laugh as you fail.”

Sirius roared out a cutting curse that struck stone in the darkness.

Bellatrix laughed behind him. “Oooh, you’ll have to do better, Sirius. You must not truly want to kill me after all, if you must resort to something so bloody as that. All talk and no bite,” she said in a disgusting purr.

He tried and failed to apparate away. Sure an attack was coming, he cast a shield charm around himself, then sent a light into the air, illuminating her pale face and wild dark eyes. “What are you doing with me?”

“Oh, I just wanted to…have some fun.” She sent a curse that bounced off his shield charm, then another, and another, and another until the shield was wearing thin. With a grunt, Sirius ended the charm, jumped to the side, and shot a stunning spell at her that she dodged.

He conjured a brick wall and sent it slamming into her, but she cast a feather-light charm just in time to lighten the blow. She transfigured it into a flock of birds that promptly exploded in a gruesome mess.

Bellatrix sneered. “Oh, dear little cousin Sirius. Do you really think we're so foolish? Do you think the Dark Lord wouldn't know the Potters had been moved?”

Sirius glared. “Well, then he knows he can't find them.”

She cackled. “Did you know what keeps a fidelius charm secure? The secret keeper, of course. But if you can't get the secret, you just have to lure out what's being kept. Wasn't so hard, really. Just a few illusions, the right screams, oh, and you know how it goes. It will all be over soon.”

Sirius yelled, and deflected a hex. It hit the wall of wherever they were—a cellar it seemed like—and coated the old bricks with a black sludge. He sent a volley of curses at Bellatrix in such quick succession that even her insanity couldn’t quite keep up. Finally, he got a stupefy through her defenses and she slumped to the ground in a position that Sirius hoped would give her terrible muscle cramps.

They’d messed up. They’d been lured into thinking they were a step ahead and all along, Voldemort had figured them out. He pressed his hand to the ring on his finger and sent a burst of magic through to Regulus as a warning, hoping it wasn’t too late.

Then he froze. Regulus was the only other person who’d gone to the Potters’ new hiding place. He was perfectly set up to lure them out or even knock them out and toss them over the edge of the wards.

Had he betrayed them? Had they all fallen for his sad little hurt boy act? Really, when Sirius thought about it, it was all too much. Falling in love with a muggle-born, who just so happened to find him again after he’d changed sides? And her shop being burned on the very night that the Potters’ house was attacked?

All of it was meant as a distraction to keep them exhausted and not thinking clearly, to keep them away from where the Potters were really hiding—which Voldemort had somehow found. 

Sirius had been such a fool.

He tried to apparate, but the wards were still holding him in place.

He sprinted towards what looked like the door of the cellar. It burst open easily, revealing a splintered staircase leading to a room almost as shadowed as the cellar itself. He ran up the stairs and into the room, feeling the anti-apparition wards dropping away. He took a few steps further from the cellar and began to spin on his heel. Just as he did, a long-fingered, white hand shot out of the shadows and fixed itself around his neck.

He realized his mistake at once, but it was already too late to stop the apparition. He was tugged and squeezed through space, the cold, spidery hand still firmly around his neck, bringing Voldemort right to where he wanted to be.

Sirius really and truly was a fool. He’d failed them all.

He hit the hard ground of the overgrown garden of the safe-house and his knees buckled. He couldn't pull in air around the hand gripping his throat.

Voldemort leered at him, red eyes glinting, then tossed him into the low brick wall.

Green light flashed in his eyes.

Chapter Text

Regulus had almost forgotten about the ring. Really, if it hadn’t been so thin and unobtrusive, and if it hadn’t been annoyingly difficult to remove a ring one-handed, he might have left it in his bag and forgotten it entirely. Still, it startled him when it suddenly sent a glowing pulse of heat across his finger and he yelped, nearly toppling from his chair.

Lily Potter was still staring at him as if he might bolt after Maggie despite all logic, Harry on her hip. James gave Regulus a withering look from where he was heaping sugar into his black coffee.

“Something’s wrong,” Regulus said.

That got their attention.

“Sirius,” he said. “He gave me this ring to send a signal if there was an emergency.”

And they all knew Sirius wasn’t going to be calling Regulus to come to him. There were a dozen others Sirius would call for help first. No, it was a warning.

Lily and James met each other’s eyes, fear and resignation on their faces. No doubt they’d discussed this, what they would do if something happened, if their location was compromised, if he came. They had a plan. A bad one, a last resort, little more than a wish and a prayer, but it was a plan. Lily nodded.

“I’ll hide with Harry,” she said. “James—”

He crossed to her and wrapped both Lily and Harry in a hug. “I love you both. So much.”

 The perimeter alarm rang out.

Perhaps it wasn’t him. Perhaps it was just Sirius coming to explain everything away, or Dumbledore coming to spirit them to yet another safe-house. Perhaps all would be well.

But they all knew it wasn’t.

Lily took Harry and ran.

“You should hide, too,” Regulus said, already facing the door to the back garden, where the apparition point was, wand in hand. He knew James wouldn’t. James would never back down from a fight. He’d protect his family with all he had, but Regulus knew it wasn’t right that one of the few happy families that still existed in the midst of the war should be broken. However much he disliked James personally, he shouldn’t be the one to die.

“I’m not hiding,” James said.

“Second line of defense, then,” Regulus said quickly. 

“No,” James said, already putting up shields around the kitchen door. “You’re injured. Let’s be honest here. We’ve no time to argue. Regulus, get in position there—” He pointed to the dining room, where a wall protruded. “—since he might not know you’re here, we can use that as an advantage.”  

Regulus wanted to protest, but James was right. 

Regulus moved into a position that would allow him to be mostly hidden behind the wall. If someone came in from the back garden they would have to turn nearly all the way around to see Regulus. He dragged a chair over to the corner from the dining room table. It felt rather pathetic to go into battle sitting down, but he had to be practical. This was no time for pride and posturing, and there was no point in being ready to run when he could barely walk. 

James stood tall in the middle of the kitchen, silent and strong and brave. He looked every bit a fearless Gryffindor in that moment, ready to sacrifice all to save his wife and son. And Regulus was a Slytherin snake, hiding in the shadows like a coward, waiting to strike.

Green light flashed so brightly that it colored the gauzy curtains. Someone laughed. He laughed, cold, high, and horrible.

And then all was very, very silent.

Voldemort was here.

Regulus was going to die. James Potter was going to die. So were Lily and Harry. They were no match for the Dark Lord.

But Regulus would fight until the last breath.

Voldemort struck before he even breached the house. It took him short moments to break through the defenses that James had layered over the door. A spell struck and blasted it to splinters, filling the air with dust and shards of wood. James fired off curses without hesitation, but Voldemort was ready. Stepping through the shattered doorway, he deflected them with a lazy flick of his wand and laughed.

“Do you dare defy me again, Potter? Lay down your wand and accept your death.”

“Never!” James yelled. He struck Voldemort with a curse that managed to graze his arm. His inhuman eyes widened in anger and surprise, but it didn’t slow down his relentless attack, and truly only spurred him further. Moments later James’s wand was sent spinning from his hand.

James yelled, grabbed a piece of the broken ceiling, and hurled it at Voldemort.

He laughed. “Foolish child. You will pay for your defiance.” A beam of orange light shot from Voldemort’s wand and struck James in the face. He reeled back and struck the kitchen wall, blood pouring from a gash already festering from the curse.

Voldemort strode forward, leaning over James with a gloating smile on his face. He wanted to watch the life leave James’s eyes. Regulus had seen it too many times. The Dark Lord was not pragmatic. He did not kill to eliminate enemies, but to revel in it. There was a particular joy for him in watching someone who so openly defied him know they were defeated. He needed to see the terror, watch the hope drain away.

He was the most powerful wizard this century had seen. He was untouchable. He could afford the dramatics because who could ever hope to confront him and live? Perhaps it was hubris, but it was a hubris borne from truth.

Still, in the end, it was the hubris that made all the difference.

Regulus Black was not a brave man or a good one. He didn’t declare himself or make it an honorable fight. There was no honor in this war, not if one wanted to live.

He didn’t let himself think. He didn’t think of Maggie. He didn’t think of who he knew lay in the garden outside. He didn’t think of Lily or Harry or even James dying in front of him. He had one short, precious moment that was his only chance to act.

He needed to want this, truly, deeply, in his heart and soul want this—and, for the first time, he did. Wand steady, gaze set, he spoke the words. Softly, because all the spell needed was intent.

“Avada kedavra.” His arm didn't waver as the green light shot from the tip of his wand, through the dust that still hung in the air, and silently struck.

Voldemort fell.

It was inelegant and anticlimactic. After so much death and sorrow and fear, he died like a mortal man and lay in a crumpled heap on the floor of the ruined kitchen.

James dragged himself away from the body, gasping as blood from his face soaked his clothes, but Regulus didn’t stand. He kept his wand fixed on the body and spoke the words again and again and again, sending off blast after blast of green light.

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. It was impossible, foolish to even imagine, foolish to even have attempted. Regulus must have killed someone else. Regulus could not have killed him.

But the face sneering up at the crumbling ceiling was his—pale and strange and snake-like. Voldemort was dead.

Dead.

A shudder went through Regulus’s body.

Was it some kind of trick? Was he waiting for him to get close only to slaughter him from the ground? Perhaps polyjuice—but that would have faded with death, and Voldemort would have never let someone impersonate him.

“Regulus,” James gasped. “Stop. He’s dead.”

The body still didn’t move. Regulus sent off a killing curse again.

Dead. Truly dead.

Regulus stopped and finally stood. It was like time rushed back in at that moment, and with it the world beyond Voldemort’s dead body. He heard birds, and dry leaves rustling in the autumn wind, and muggle cars driving by. James was badly hurt, and outside in the garden—

There was only one person who Voldemort could have used to find this place. The only person who could have, willingly or not, given the secret away.

“No,” Regulus gasped. He wouldn’t believe it. He wouldn’t.

It wasn’t possible that they’d been reunited and that Regulus had survived the impossible twice over, only for Sirius to be killed now. Regulus ran through the ruined back door, dragging his bad leg behind him.

Sirius lay in the bushes in his scuffed leather jacket, one leg twisted at an awkward angle. His head was turned away, crimson blood staining the blasted apart brickwork of the wall he lay against. He was so very still.

“No,” Regulus moaned. He dropped to the ground beside Sirius. “Sirius, no. You can’t be dead.” He grabbed his shoulders and turned his brother towards him. His eyes were half-closed and his face was pale beneath the blood. He must have been hit by the curse and then fallen, or perhaps, given the amount of blood, been first thrown against the bricks and then hit by the curse.

Sirius’s body slipped lower in Regulus’s grip. Regulus stilled. Had his brother actually moved, or was he just imagining it?

He pressed his fingers against his brother’s neck. It was still warm, but he couldn’t feel a pulse. How long did it take for a body to grow cold? He cupped his hand over Sirius’s nose, but he couldn’t tell if he was feeling breath or the breeze or simply hope. He plucked a blade of grass and pressed that over his open mouth. It fluttered. That had to be Sirius’s breathing. Not the wind, not Regulus’s trembling.

“Sirius, please, please be alive,” Regulus whispered. There were healing spells, or—or diagnostic spells, to check. Something. But he couldn’t think of anything. His mind was blank of anything useful except the desperate need to not lose Sirius now, not when they’d come so far, not when Voldemort was finally, impossibly dead.

Regulus raised his wand to the gash on Sirius’s forehead. “Episkey.” The wound closed up. That—that had to mean he was alive. Wounds didn’t heal on dead people, right?

“En— Enervate.”

Sirius shifted, then groaned, and then opened his eyes. Regulus began to cry.

It was a pathetic scene, really, Regulus sitting in the dirt, clutching his brother with tears and snot pouring down his face, while Sirius, confused and concussed, hugged him back and got his blood all over his brother’s jumper.

“You’re supposed to be dead, Sirius,” Regulus sobbed. “I saw the green light.”

“I did, too,” Sirius said in a hazy voice. “Must have missed.”

Sirius was alive. The absurdity that Voldemort had missed, had failed at killing someone, was almost more impossible than the fact that Regulus— Regulus!—had killed Voldemort.

“That—that would explain the crater in the wall beside your head. And all the rubble all over you,” Regulus managed with a shaky laugh. He cried more and held his brother in the tightest one-armed hug he could manage.  “But I don’t understand how it’s possible.”

Sirius shook his head, then winced. “My head feels awful enough. I don’t—” Sirius lurched out of Regulus’s grip. “Oh, shit! He’s here!” 

“Sirius—” 

But Sirius shook off Regulus and wobbled himself upright. “I led him here. I was an idiot, he tricked me, I’m so stupid—”

“He’s dead,” Regulus said, standing with marginally more success and reaching out a hand to keep Sirius from falling again.

“Who?” Sirius looked around with wide eyes. “James? Harry?”

“The Dark Lord,” Regulus choked out. “I—I think I killed him.”

“You—killed—You-Know-Who.” Sirius stared at him.

Regulus nodded. “I hid. Hit him with the killing curse. Then again, about a dozen times.”

Sirius gaped, then shook his head. “Reg, that’s not—” 

Whatever he was going to say was cut off by Lily Potter’s screams.

Sirius jerked his gaze towards the house, then took off running. He swerved into a bush, but righted himself and made it to the back door. Lily was in the kitchen tending to James with a crying Harry strapped on her back.

“Is James going to be okay?” Sirius asked.

Lily looked stricken. “I hope so. Sirius, are you okay?”

Sirius looked wildly between Voldemort’s body and James and Regulus, and then stumbled and fell to the ground. “Shit. My head hurts. Is this real? Am I unconscious? What is happening? James, you’ve got to be okay. You can’t die now.”

“Sirius hit his head,” Regulus said.

A crack rang through the garden and everyone had their wands out and pointed toward the apparition point in an instant. It was Dumbledore. His eyes lit upon Voldemort’s body and he froze.

After what felt like an eternity, he spoke. “Is he truly dead?”

“Yes,” James said in a tight voice. “Regulus killed him.”

Dumbledore looked genuinely shocked and stared at Regulus with wide, blue eyes. “Please, tell me what happened. From the beginning.”

Chapter Text

The hours after Regulus killed the Dark Lord passed in a blur. Dumbledore lifted the fidelius and brought in aurors and ministry officials to confirm the scene. Reporters showed up, too, of course, and Regulus was sure Dumbledore must have some reason to think it was best to invite them all to the scene but did not have the mental capacity to try and figure it out. No doubt there would be special editions of the Daily Prophet delivered all over the country within hours.

There were people swarming in and out of the house and all over the yard, talking to Dumbledore, talking to the Potters, talking to the Black brothers, too. Regulus mostly tried to not say much because everything still felt unreal and it seemed far too easy to accidentally say something that would land him straight in Azkaban. He answered only what Dumbledore indicated he should, and was grateful when Dumbledore demanded everyone be seen by a healer at St. Mungo’s.

The healers took one look at James and whisked him away. Lily—who, Regulus remembered, had worked there until they had gone into hiding—followed close on their heels. From their expressions, it wasn’t good.

Sirius and Regulus were escorted back with much less urgency. Their escort—Kingsley Shacklebolt—instructed the healers to put them in a private room and not let any reporters in. This led to a lot of confused glances as the news had not quite reached them, but they were given a private room away from prying eyes. The room had bright white walls and white curtains and white bedding and all of this blinding white-ness did nothing to help Regulus’s persistent feeling of unreality.

Sirius was checked over first. He was diagnosed with a concussion, bruising on his neck, and a lot of tiny cuts, and was told that he could be healed up without much fuss.

Regulus tried to refuse any help, but the healer assigned to him—Helene Greenwich, according to her name badge—insisted. It took only a cursory diagnostic spell for her to grow alarmed.

“I’m not about to keel over,” Regulus grumbled. “This happened months ago.”

“It’s still a serious matter,” Healer Greenwich informed him. She didn’t let him off the bed.

Then the news arrived. Regulus could tell because there was suddenly a lot of excited yelling and running around in the halls outside and hospital staff kept darting into the room to stare at Regulus with teary eyes and some even clasped his hand and earnestly thanked him. He wanted to leave the hospital more than ever, but now they definitely weren’t about to let him leave.

Healer Greenwich informed him that it wouldn’t do to let the Hero of Wizarding Britain be sent off without any sort of proper treatment.

The Hero of Wizarding Britain.

That had to be some sort of joke. That was not what he was being called. Surely, not.

The moniker distracted him enough that Healer Greenwich managed to get him into his underpants and stick him with a very thorough and clingy diagnostic spell that set off cataloging all of his injuries in great detail. It glowed blue, felt like tickly, cool water, and purred like a cat. It seemed a tad too sentient for Regulus’s liking.

The only relief the news brought was that the healers took their patients’ privacy quite seriously, and set up charms so that no one could get in just to stare at them, which would have been especially horrible with all of his scars outlined in glowing blue detail. Thankfully, he’d been allowed to keep his jumper on after complaining of the cold, at least once he’d magically expanded it to give the spell room to work and cleaned off Sirius’s blood.

Once he was satisfied that they would be left alone, Kingsley had left. Sirius lay on the bed beside Regulus. His superficial cuts and bruising had been healed almost straight away and now he was waiting as a neuroprotective potion did its work to ensure the concussion had no lasting effects.

“I don’t know how I’m alive,” Sirius muttered sleepily, not for the first time.

“I don’t either,” Regulus said.

“We should both be dead.”

“Looks like the Black family will be around for a while longer. For better or worse.”

“Better,” Sirius said emphatically. “Definitely better. I do not want to be dead.”

“Mother would be so furious at us.”

“I am so glad I’ll never have to face her again.”

“The option’s still there if you change your mind. She left a portrait of herself. It’s horrid and impossible to get off the wall.”

“Just remove the wall then. I’ll do it for you. It’d be therapeutic.”

Raised voices drifted in from the hall. “I’m sorry, but we can’t let you in—”

“I told you, I’m not a reporter, I’m a friend!”

“We can’t prove that—”

“Just ask him!”

Regulus sat straight up and slid half off the bed. “Maggie!” he yelled.

“See!” she said loudly. “He knows me!”

Regulus pushed himself off the bed, ignoring the protests of the whirring blue spell. Maggie burst through the door, took one look at him, and ran straight into his embrace. 

“Are you okay?”

“Please tell me you’re not hurt—”

“I’ve been so worried—”

“What happened—”

“I heard about the shop, I wanted to come, I swear, just please tell me you’re okay—”

She pulled back then, just enough to see his face and gave him a teary smile. “I can’t believe you’re the one in the hospital after fighting You-Know-Who and all you can do is ask if I’m alright.”

He almost laughed, but she still hadn’t answered. “Were you hurt? Colette? The body—”

Her expression sombered. “I don’t know who she was. Perhaps some muggle on the street in the wrong place at the wrong time—” Her voice caught, and he pulled her close again.

“It’s my fault,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I knew—”

“Don’t. Don’t you dare do that. Not right now. You didn’t do anything. The Death Eaters did. You’re not them. Not anymore, okay?” She buried her face in his shoulder.

“Okay,” he said. He tightened his grip on her waist and she snaked her hands under his jumper. They stood that way for several long moments, each clinging to the other.

“I missed you,” she whispered.

“I thought I’d never see you again. This morning, when he came—” His throat felt tight.

“But you did the impossible. Again.” She stared into his eyes, and then leaned forward and kissed him. He let his eyes close. She tasted like honey, lips soft against his. She was here, alive, in his arms, when so many things seemed like they should have killed them both. They had made it.

He deepened the kiss, pouring all of his fear and hope and relief and desperation into it. Her lips parted and her tongue brushed his. He slipped his hand up her back, reveling in the feeling of her, here, alive, with him.

He might have never stopped. He might have kissed her until the sun had long set if it weren’t for a loudly cleared throat right beside him.

He broke away, reluctantly, to see Lily Potter eyeing them with a raised brow. “More than a friend, then.”

“Er, yes,” Regulus said.

Lily gave a weak smile and crossed the room to where Sirius was just now blinking himself awake from where he’d been half-dozing. “I came to tell you that James is going to be alright. There will be bad scarring, and they can’t save the eye, but he’s going to be okay.”

Sirius wilted in relief. “Oh, thank God. I swear. I would have murdered him if he died. As soon as they let me, I’ll go see him. Tell him to not do anything stupid until we can do it together.”

“He’s not doing anything stupid again ever,” she said, and then promptly burst into tears.

Maggie had the good sense to pull Regulus out of the way, and after a few moments too long of awkwardly gaping, Sirius jumped up to hug her.

“It’s okay, Lily,” he said, patting her back. “It’s okay. Don’t cry.”

“I want to cry,” she sniffled.

Sirius blinked several times. “That’s—that’s fine, then. You can cry. That’s okay.”

It took Lily several moments to calm down. “I’m sorry, everyone. I know I’m being so silly. It’s just—everything.”

“I think everyone has more than enough reason to cry right now,” Maggie said. “I know I’ve done my fair share. 

Lily gave her a grateful smile. “I think I like her,” she told Regulus.

After drying her tears, Lily left and Regulus made his way back to his bed, much to the relief of the diagnostic spell still clinging to him. Maggie crawled into the space beside him, nestling against his good side, mindful to not trap his arm.

“Don’t get out of hand,” Sirius said, waggling his eyebrows.

Regulus felt his cheeks heat. “Shut up.”

Remus came a few hours later, and after being reassured that everyone was alright, demanded to know exactly what had happened.

Regulus told the story. He was losing track of how many times he’d told it, and it hadn’t even been a day. It was not a long story, for how dramatic it all felt, and Remus just stared at him and shook his head in disbelief.

“Who would have imagined that you would be the one to end him?” He pushed his hair back. “Good thing I didn’t let you die back then.”

Maggie, sitting on a stool beside Regulus’s bed, looked over at that. “Can you tell me? What happened. Since it’s all over now.”

It’s all over now. Regulus turned the words over in his head, but they still didn’t ring true. He wondered if they ever would. Over. He knew this wasn’t the end of the conflict. The Death Eaters had to be caught and sent to Azkaban. Peace had to be found. But the war was over, even if not all the players were ready to accept it.

“I want to know what really happened,” Maggie said softly.

Regulus nodded and settled back onto the hospital bed pillow. Maggie wound her fingers through his.

At long last, he told her about the cave and the locket and how he went in knowing he wouldn’t make it out. Maggie grew pale as he described the effects of the potion and using the very last of his strength and sanity to destroy the locket.

“And then the inferi began to grab me,” he said. “My arm first, and they pulled me towards the water, grabbed my leg, my side. Ripped me apart.” He swallowed heavily.

Maggie sucked in a shuddering breath. “Oh, God, Reg. How did you get out?”

“A miracle,” Regulus said. “I’d brought this dagger that’s been in the family for centuries. Old magic. We think it saved me somehow—I really don’t know how and Dumbledore even doesn’t know—and apparated me to Sirius’s kitchen. He and Remus did the rest of saving me.”

 “The dagger!” Sirius burst out, sitting straight up.

Everyone turned to look at him. He reached into the waistband of his jeans and pulled out the dagger.

“Yes, that’s the one,” Regulus said. “You’ve kept it with you?”

Sirius nodded. “Didn’t seem right to leave it some place that wasn’t home.”

Regulus knew what he meant. It wouldn’t feel right until the dagger was back in the library at Grimmauld Place. For as many horrid memories as the house held, it was his home, the place where the Black family belonged.

Sirius turned the dagger over in his hands. “I’ve been carrying this around since my flat got attacked. And today, when You-Know-Who tried to kill me…maybe it was my turn to be saved.”

Regulus stared at the dagger, gleaming mercurially in the bright white room. “It managed to apparate me past all sorts of wards and keep me from bleeding out. It…isn’t unreasonable to think it moved you just out the way.”

Sirius laughed. “Finally something good came from being a Black! What do you think? Do we only get one go each? Like if I—”

Whatever horrible example Sirius was going to give was cut off by Remus, insisting it was far too soon to start planning death-defying nonsense yet.

Healer Greenwich came by just as they were finishing dinner. “Looks like your little friend is done!”

Regulus blinked at her. “What?” Was that her way of telling Maggie to leave?

She pointed her wand at the blue spell, which seemed to cling to him even tighter. It ended up taking her several minutes to coax the thing off of him and into a jar. “It quite likes you!”

Regulus wasn’t sure he was happy about that, but she didn’t notice and performed a complicated series of spells to retrieve the information from the blue spell. It was actually rather interesting to watch as streams of blue traveled out of the jar, spread across sheets of parchment, and transformed into words.

Once she was done, she took a seat beside Regulus’s bed, her face growing somber. Maggie drew closer to Regulus on the other side of the bed, one hand on his bent knee.

“I am sorry to inform you that we will not be able to regrow your arm.” She met Regulus’s gaze with a look of deep sadness, as if he’d been seriously hoping it was a possibility.

He nearly burst out laughing, but somehow managed to keep a straight face. “I see.”

“But there’s definite hope for improving your leg and abdominal musculature! Tomorrow—”

“Tomorrow?” he asked, surprised.

“Well, there’s no point in waiting!” she said.

Regulus supposed that was true.

Healer Greenwich gave him a kind smile. “And it might be good to keep you out of the public eye for a few days.”

Regulus didn’t point out that him going home to Grimmauld Place would be even more out of the public eye. “It certainly would be nice to be able to walk a bit more easily.”

The next morning Regulus was moved into a room two floors up filled with a rather alarming array of instruments. Sirius had followed along. He had been cleared for discharge that morning, and Regulus had told him he’d be best off leaving, but Sirius had insisted on staying. Regulus did not admit that he was rather relieved, especially upon seeing the instruments laid out.

Seeing his wary look, the healer who would be in charge of the procedure, a man named Garrett or something like it, gave him a reassuring smile. “Oh, don’t worry. They might look like a lot but most of them won’t be used. A lot of them are just here in case something goes wrong.”

That didn’t make him feel better.

He was ordered to change into only a hospital gown, and then directed onto the bed. A new cluster of healers arrived, prepping potions and doing assessments and prodding his leg. He was beginning to feel rather overwhelmed by it all.

Sirius nudged his shoulder. “Hey, last time you had Remus and I working on you. This can’t be worse than that.”

“Well, I was unconscious that time.”

Sirius twirled his wand. “I can knock you out if you’d like.”

A healer glared at him. “Please don’t stun our patient.”

“Hard to help when I look this stunningly handsome all the time,” Sirius said, flashing a grin.

“I’m going to vomit,” Regulus told him.

Half the healers looked at him in alarm.

“Not literally! I’m fine!” he assured them. “Sirius, honestly.”

It did help distract him, though, and before he knew it, his leg had been numbed and an obscuring shield placed over it. They explained how they would be resecting scar tissue in several places in order to reconnect parts of the muscle or regrow the muscle where necessary, and regrowing or reattaching different ligaments, as well.

“It won’t be a full repair,” the healer in charge told him, “but it should greatly improve your hip and knee and allow you to walk without as much pain and even run short distances.”

“Run?” That had been beyond what he’d hoped for.

“Short distances.”

He wasn’t particularly athletic, so that didn’t matter much, but it was reassuring to know that he would be a bit more able to defend himself in case of an attack.

“Now even once the procedure is done, and the one on your side, as well, that doesn’t mean the work is over. You’ve got a lot of muscle and strength to rebuild, and you’re going to have to re-learn how to walk properly without the support charms on that brace or favoring your bad leg. That means a good bit of therapy for at least a few months.”

Therapy. Regulus stifled a groan.

“Lily Potter made me do therapy,” he muttered.

The healer chuckled.

For all the intimidating array of instruments, once the spells were set up, it was really quite boring. At least one healer stayed to monitor it, and things got switched up every so often, but Regulus couldn’t see or feel any of it. He just had to lay in bed.

It was going to be a long few days.

The repairs on his leg went without complication. The next day was spent mostly working on his abdomen, repairing his abdominal muscles, some damage to his organs, and clearing away scar tissue. He hadn’t even realized how hard sitting up had become until it wasn’t anymore.

He wasn’t back to where he’d been before his injuries. He had no doubt that without a charmed knee brace walking would still be hard and that a long stretch of walking would leave him in pain, but he felt better than he had in months.

On the morning he was set to be discharged, he was visited by a prosthetist named Edison Sandover. The man had been by a few times to take moldings and scans of the stump of his left arm, and had apparently been working around the clock to prepare an arm for Regulus in record time. Despite his eagerness to produce something so quickly for the wizarding world’s new hero, he was surprisingly level-headed when speaking with Regulus, for which he was enormously grateful.

“Hello, Mr. Black,” he said, entering the room with a large box. “How are you today?”

“I’m doing quite well. How are you?”

“Splendid! Ready to see how this fits you. There will definitely need to be some fine-tuning of it before all is said and done and we’ll see what options work best for you.”

Regulus hadn’t even known there were options.

Mr. Sandover opened the box to reveal an arm expertly carved from wood. It looked like it could have been lopped off a sculpture and fixed with an attachment at one end. Without thinking, Regulus reached over to feel it. It was polished smooth and oddly warm.

“It has a charm to raise the temperature a bit. Unusual feature, but it just helps it to feel a bit more…real, I suppose. My wife always likes that her arms are both warm when she holds the baby. A small thing, you know, but still. It’s the details.” The man gave a small smile. “I’m a rambler. You’ll have to pardon me. Now, first, I’d like to take a look at your residual limb, if that’s alright. I want to make sure we can get the best fit so as to not cause any discomfort.”

Regulus slipped the top of the hospital gown off, giving the man a full view of his left arm. It was less red now than it had been when he’d first been injured and the scars where the inferi had gashed it were not quite so harsh, but it was still uncomfortable for him to look at, and more uncomfortable still to have another person touch. But the man was gentle and professional, confirming any places that still caused pain and casting a few charms.

“Good news for you,” he said after several minutes of examination, “is that there’s no nerve damage. That will make it far easier to be able to control your prosthetic’s hand. But the skin is still a bit sensitive, so you’ll need to not wear it for longer than a few hours at first. There will be a few layers that go between your arm and the prosthetic socket, and they’ll have some charms on them for heat and sweat and to prevent blistering and such, but you should still be gentle on your arm.”

He moved to the prosthetic and did some work on the socket part with his wand, then pulled something like socks out of the box. He helped Regulus figure out how to slip them on his arm on his own and then lifted the prosthetic. “Ready to try it on?”

Regulus nodded.

Mr. Sandover slipped the socket over Regulus’s arm. There was a momentary tingling sensation as it attached itself, but a second later it felt not unlike the sensation of wearing a comfortable shoe. It was far lighter than he’d expected.

“How does it feel?”

He lifted his arm and rolled his shoulder a bit. “Good.”

The man wrapped his hand around the prosthetic and attempted to shift its position. “Any pain?”

Regulus shook his head. The prosthetic stayed in position.

“That’s good. Try swinging your arm around a bit.”

Regulus did so. The arm was bent at the elbow, and he leaned over slightly to keep it from hitting the side of the bed. It was a strange sensation to see it swinging and only feel it in his upper arm. Nothing pulled, but a more vigorous shaking did make it feel a bit loose. He told Mr. Sandover, who assessed the arm with his wand and then made some chalk marks on it.

“Alright,” he said. “Lets see how responsive it is to your magic. Sometimes it takes a bit of tweaking to get the responsiveness right to each individual. Try and close your fingers, like so.” He closed his hand in a pincer grip.

“How?”

“Just like you’re opening your flesh hand. You still feel it, yes?”

Regulus nodded. He hated that he could still feel his arm like he’d never lost it. Sometimes he’d wake up and feel his arm lying across his chest and reach up to rub his face without thinking. He hated that, though it was definitely far worse when it felt like he had a stabbing muscle cramp and couldn’t massage it away.

He stared at the wooden hand, but it wasn’t his hand, and he couldn’t get it to move.

“You’re thinking too much.”

“I can’t not think about it,” Regulus grumbled.

“Close your eyes.”

Regulus did so.

“Now, move your fingers. Doesn’t have to be the grip I showed you. Just move them.”

Regulus did. He moved his long-gone fingers and closed his hand into a fist.

“Very good! Open your eyes!”

The prosthetic hand was clenched in a fist. Eyes fixed on it, Regulus slowly opened his fingers and watched the prosthetic follow the movement. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

They spent about another hour working through different movements, discussing different options and potential problems. Sometimes Regulus would do something and Mr. Sandover would tut and make a series of chalk marks without Regulus ever knowing what the issue was. The thing was nearly white by the time they were done.

Mr. Sandover slipped the prosthetic off of Regulus’s arm and laid it carefully in its box. “I should have it ready to give back to you by next Friday. Then you’ll be able to keep it and use it for a week, and we’ll meet again the Friday after to see if further adjustments need to be made.” He packed up the box and left with a parting smile.

Regulus felt a sharp pang of loss when the arm was taken away. It was silly. It wasn’t even his arm. His real arm had been gone for over three months now, and seeing a wooden imitation attached to himself was nothing like having it back. Why did it hurt to see the thing go?

He imagined charming the prosthetic to look like flesh and blood, seeing himself whole again—he shook himself. No, he wouldn’t do that. His arm was gone. It seemed like a dangerous path to try and pretend it wasn’t.

Regulus wasn’t the same person he’d been a year ago, or even four  months ago. He was down an arm, but he was alive. He had people in his life. He had Maggie.

He might be a little bit broken, but he was putting himself back together piece by piece, and he wasn’t going to cover up the cracks.

Chapter Text

The war was over. Everyone was celebrating, throwing parties and shooting off fireworks and generally creating a lot of work for the DMLE’s Muggle Obliviation unit, which Sirius was glad to not be a part of. 

Every day felt surreal.

Sirius returned to work three days after Voldemort was killed. St. Mungo’s had fixed him up easily, and he couldn’t bear sitting still.  A number of Voldemort’s followers had been caught and transported to high security holding cells awaiting trial, but many more were free or claiming that they had been under the imperius curse. It was a mess to sort out, and Sirius knew there was already dirty money exchanging hands that someone would have to deal with later.

Regulus had already provided as much information as he could about the Death Eaters’ identities, but that was currently being kept under high confidentiality to prevent certain figures from hastily changing their stories.

Peter Pettigrew was among those who had fled. He hadn’t been seen since before Voldemort was killed, and Sirius had no doubt that he was hiding in rat form. It seemed unlikely that any of Voldemort’s other followers would stick their neck out to shelter him, or for Peter to go abroad or find a place amongst the muggles.

The betrayal had made Sirius and his friends question everything they’d known about Peter. All the small comments he made that had seemed insignificant now seemed far less innocent. But they had been friends. They’d gone through hell together. They’d become animagi together to support Remus. How were they to have ever guessed he would go over to the other side?

Every time Sirius remembered, he became furious all over again. He really thought he might kill Peter if he got the chance. He hated himself for missing the signs, but mostly hated Peter for his betrayal. The Potters could have died, Sirius himself could have died, and Regulus, too, and all for what? How could he have cared so little about them all?

A vindictive part of Sirius was glad each day no other team brought Peter in. He wanted to be the one to find him. He wanted to personally see the fear in his eyes when he knew he was caught. He wasn’t afraid to discreetly use his animagus form to try and catch Peter’s scent, and if Kingsley thought Sirius had an odd hunch for detecting other hiding Death Eaters, he never said anything.

There was still no sign of Peter on the day of Regulus’s trial.

It was held only a week after the day he killed Voldemort. The Ministry was impatient to see their new hero officially pardoned. Regulus, though, didn’t seem convinced that the trial would be easy.

They’d been escorted to a small waiting room beside the Wizengamot chamber—Regulus, Sirius, Maggie, and Regulus’s barrister. Regulus was dressed in fine dark robes, hair trimmed to perfection, holding himself stiff as a rod. They had spent so much time together at home, away from prying eyes, that Sirius had almost forgotten just how much of a haughty Slytherin Regulus could look like.

Sirius stepped up to his brother and shook his shoulder a bit. “Relax. It’s going to be fine.”

Regulus only scowled harder.

“Try to smile,” Sirius told him. “Really. It will get people more on your side to look a little less…like a Slytherin.”

“And you have a nice smile,” Maggie added.

That got him to relax by a fraction.

“It won’t be bad, Reg,” Sirius said. “They just want to be able to fully tout you as a hero without the used-to-be-a-Death-Eater issue.”

“Or they want to trick me into saying the wrong thing and stick me in Azkaban,” Regulus muttered.

The barrister glanced over. “Just say what we’ve prepared and there will be no issue.”

The door to the chamber of the wizengamot opened. Maggie quickly pulled Regulus into a hug, whispering something in his ear that made him blush, and then they were escorted into the massive shadowed chamber. Sirius and Maggie were led to the small observation section. The members of the wizengamot filled the tiers of seats that soared to the high ceiling, peering stonily down towards the small pool of light in the middle of the chamber, where a single wooden chair sat, wrapped in chains.

Regulus walked steadily towards the chair on his newly repaired leg. He looked calm and confident, but Sirius could tell his steely demeanor belied his true feelings. Regulus cast a wary glance towards the chains before sitting, but they remained still. He caught his brother’s eye, and Sirius gave him what he hoped was an encouraging smile.

The trial was not long. They focused on the bare bones facts of when and how Regulus had been recruited and when he had defected. There was a good deal of emphasis on the nature of coercion and Regulus’s defection, injuries, and his defeat of Voldemort. No one asked any particularly hard questions, and within two hours, Regulus was granted both a full pardon and an Order of Merlin, First Class.

Despite the result being a foregone conclusion, Regulus seemed shocked to hear it. He stared straight ahead with a dazed expression on his face as he rose from his seat and was led towards the exit. Sirius and Maggie rushed to meet him, battling through the throngs of reporters eager to get the perfect shot of their newest hero.

It took nearly an hour for the three of them to battle their way through the crowds and get out of the ministry. Regulus looked overwhelmed, and was clearly exhausted to have been on his feet for so long. They apparated straight to the Lupins’ countryside home to celebrate.

The Potters were staying there now, in the guestroom that Sirius had recently vacated to return to his flat, while their home was rebuilt. James had recently been released from St. Mungo’s with the left half of his face still bandaged.

Lily and Remus greeted them on the porch.

“How did it go, Regulus?” Lily asked eagerly.

He let out a shaky laugh. “Well, if it went poorly, I wouldn’t be here right now, would I?”

She gave him a tight hug.

Remus only clapped him on the shoulder. “I didn’t put in all that effort to save your life for you to end up in Azkaban.”

Mr. and Mrs. Lupin had prepared a meal for them all and greeted Regulus warmly enough when they entered the house. Regulus stuck to the edges of the room, though, and mostly chatted with Maggie or played with Harry. Sirius realized he’d probably never spent much time around a family that wasn’t psychopathic.

Or friends, for that matter.

He looked like a confused duck out of water.

Mrs. Lupin did her best to ask him polite questions and make conversation, but Sirius could tell she couldn’t quite forget Regulus’s past. Still, she brought him an extra buttered roll when she ran out of things to say and Regulus seemed pleased enough by this.

Harry was far more pleased to see Regulus, and Sirius realized he hadn’t noticed before how attached the child had grown to his brother. Harry grabbed his hair, poked his face, clung to his legs, and generally made a nuisance of himself, but Regulus only pretended to be stern and poked Harry in the belly in a way that made him laugh and go for more.

Maggie seemed nearly as enamored by Harry as Regulus.

Sirius really needed to have a talk with his brother. Too young, by far.

There had still not been any sign of Peter when December’s full moon arrived, and Remus wanted to take advantage of his new-found control over his lupine form and put his sensitive nose to good use. Finally get something good out of being a werewolf.

Early in the evening, Sirius met James and Remus just outside a small wizarding village where they planned to start the night’s search. The weather was cold but dry, and they settled onto a hillock to wait for the moon to rise. It was only afternoon, but the moon would rise early today. James conjured a blanket for them and Remus pulled out a few bottles of butterbeer.

They dropped onto the blanket and cracked open the bottles, taking large swigs as the sun climbed steadily downward.

It was the first time James had left the house to go anywhere but St. Mungo’s. A mass of barely healed over red scar tissue stretched from his left eyebrow to the corner of his mouth. He’d darkened the left lens of his glasses, but beneath it, the eye socket was empty. After he healed more, there was a chance that he would be able to get a prosthetic eye, but that was some months away.

“How does it feel?” Sirius asked.

“Like hell,” James said, taking a large swig of butterbeer. “Harry hit it the other day…. I nearly dropped him and screamed loud enough to wake the dead. I’m sure I’ve traumatized the poor kid, but at least he’s not likely to touch it again. I’m clumsy as hell right now, though. Prongs isn’t much better. I’m going to end up tangled in a tree before the night’s over.”

James had hoped that his animagus form of a large stag, nicknamed Prongs, might have escaped the worst of the injuries, but it had lost its eye, too, and the wound was just as sensitive. He’d decided to cast a bubblehead charm over himself before he transformed to keep twigs from brushing against it.

They finished the butterbeers in silence. None of them could forget why they were here, though none wanted to mention it.

“It’s starting,” Remus said, letting out a groan.

James vanished the blanket and the rest of the bottles, and he and Sirius changed into their animagi forms.

The Wolfsbane potion made the transformation no less painful, even if it left Remus in possession of his mind. Once it was complete, they waited several minutes while Remus adjusted and let the worst of the pain pass. Finally, they set off along the forest that bordered the village, hoping to catch a scent that could put them on Peter’s trail.

They made their way with slow, careful precision around the perimeter of the village. A few times Sirius crept closer to the buildings, crouched low in the shadows, nose pressed to the ground. It was too hard to hide Prongs’s massive form and Remus would never risk going near a person, even under the control of Wolfsbane, so that left it to Sirius to undertake any forays into inhabited areas. No one would think much of a friendly dog sniffing around.

The village itself yielded nothing. They ventured out towards more remote hamlets, one after another, miles and exhaustion piling up as the hours ticked by, but they were going to take advantage of every moment of the full moon that they could.

It was nearing early morning when Remus froze, nose twitching. Sirius detected nothing out of the ordinary, but in werewolf form, Remus had the better nose. Sirius let out a small whine, and Remus responded with a very un-wolf-like nod. They set off again as quietly as possible, following the scent down an unpaved road dotted by small farms.

The frost crunched beneath their feet, and Prongs’s breath left soft puffs of steam in the air. There was a scattering of clouds out tonight, and they smelled the farm before they saw it. Sirius had no doubt that wizards lived there—he could smell a small patch of garden where common potions ingredients were being grown and the sharp scent of gnomes, and when the clouds parted momentarily, he saw that the tall, unusual house was something that only could have stayed upright with magic.

Peter’s scent was strong, and Sirius tracked it through the garden and to the home’s back door. The rat was inside.

He wanted to charge straight in and blast everything to bits in an effort to find Peter, but he held himself back. He had made promises to many people to not do something that would land him in jail, and so they would do this properly. Besides, judging by the large pile of tiny wellingtons, there were children here. No family would look kindly on their house being invaded in the middle of the night, especially so soon after the war.

They found cover behind an overgrown hedgerow to wait for Remus to shift back, glad that it had been an early rising moon that night.

By Sirius’s watch, it was barely past five in the morning when they knocked on the front door. Sirius took the lead, auror badge out, with James and an exhausted Remus behind him—he hadn’t wanted to wait until he felt more steady on his feet. A red-haired man answered it a few minutes later, sleep rumpled, but wand out. Sirius had seen him at the ministry.

“How can I help you?” the man said in a less than friendly tone.

Sirius slipped into his auror persona, reassuring, but assertive. “Arthur Weasley, isn’t it? My name is Sirius Black. I’m an auror with the DMLE. I have reason to believe someone we are looking for has taken residence in your home.”

Mr. Weasley’s eyes widened, but he shook his head. “The only adults are my wife and I. My oldest child is only nine!”

“The man in question is an animagus, a rat.”

Mr. Weasley stepped back at that. “I—my son, he likes animals. He found a rat the other day, it seemed so friendly—” He looked around frantically, as if the Death Eater might leap out at any moment.

“Don’t worry. That’s why we’re here,” Sirius said firmly.

The man nodded, wand gripped tight in his hand.

“Can you lead us to where he is? It would be best if we keep quiet and take him unawares.”

Mr. Weasley nodded, took a deep breath, and led them through the house to a door just off the second floor landing. They had to move slowly to avoid knocking over anything and causing a commotion that might alert Peter that they were there. Mr. Weasley opened the door to reveal a small, but tidy room. A red-haired child was curled up in a pile of patchwork blankets on a bed against the far wall and a fat, grey rat lay asleep on the foot of the bed. 

There he was, the traitor. Living like a coward, hiding as a rat in the midst of an innocent family. No qualms about the danger he might be putting the child in.

James lifted his wand and hit the rat with a silent stunning spell, then levitated him to his hand.

Once out of the house, they apparated to the Shrieking Shack. 

They locked the doors and sealed any hole Peter could try to escape through, and then James tossed Peter none-too-gently to the floor. He pointed his wand. “Enervate.”

Peter awoke with a jerk, ratty gaze darting between the three wizards looming over him, and then leapt up with a squeak. He didn’t get far before James pulled him back with a spell. Peter transformed back to human form and stared up at them with watery, frightened eyes.

“Hel—hello,” he said. “I—I didn’t expect to see you all—”

“Of course you didn’t,” James spat. “Hiding out as a rat. Not even the decency to turn yourself in, you coward.”

Anger flashed across Peter’s face, before being clouded by fear. “I did what I had to!”

“What, betraying your friends?!” James yelled. “Trying to get me and my family killed? How dare you! What the hell did we ever do to you?!”

“It wasn’t personal!” Peter yelled. “You don’t understand!”

“Damn right I don’t understand! You went over to him. Were you under the imperius curse and we missed it? Were you tortured? How could you?!”

Peter made a noise and lunged towards the door, but Remus grabbed him and threw him back against the wall with a growl, the werewolf anger still rolling through him. “Don’t even think about trying to run.”

James lunged forward and kicked him in the knee. Peter howled.

“How dare you!” James screamed again. “How dare you betray us like that? Just throw away Lily and Harry like they’re nothing? Just send him to murder me like we haven’t been friends for ten years! What is wrong with you?!” He kicked him again.

“It’s not like any of you ever really cared about me!” Peter yelled. “I was there when you needed something, but none of you cared! You three were the ones everyone loved. You’re the special ones. I’m stupid, boring Peter and even you three barely cared what I’ve been doing since we left school!”

“Oh, fuck off, Peter!” Remus said. “There’s been a war! You felt neglected so you skipped off to the Dark Lord? Do you have any idea what I’ve had to do for Dumbledore?! Just because we couldn’t spend as much time together…and it’s not like you couldn’t have come to visit us!”

Sirius shoved him. “And where are your Death Eaters now? Are they here to save you? What’s left for you now? You threw everything away! Don’t you dare make yourself out to be the victim!”

“I did what I had to!”

“By giving up our secret to You-Know-Who?” James demanded. “So he could kill my wife, my baby, me?! Even if you’d decided to become a fucking Death Eater, how dare you just…” James broke off in an angry yell and slammed his hand against a half-collapsed table.

“You can’t understand what it’s like to be in front of him, when he wants something—”

“I CAN’T UNDERSTAND?! Look at my face! Look at it!” He ripped his glasses off to reveal the scarred red eye socket. “I don’t know what it’s like to face him? And look at Regulus Black! He had to face him plenty, and he didn’t betray the people he cared about! He put his life on the line to go against him multiple times!”

“Regulus is a traitor!” Peter yelled.

Sirius lunged forward, grabbed his shirt, and thrust him against the wall. “Shut up, rat. I guess there’s a really good reason why that’s your animagus form, huh? That’s what you really are. A dirty fucking rat.”

Peter cowered in Sirius’s grasp, shielding his face, but still glaring between his fingers.

“We’re losing our culture! It’s survived for centuries, but now we’re losing ourselves! Think of how many old families have died out, the state of the Sacred 28—”

Sirius barked out a laugh. “The Sacred 28? You’ve been spending too much time around the Notts. You believe that rubbish? Come on, Peter. What the hell went wrong with you?” 

“It’s not rubbish! You of all people should know this! Magic runs in blood, passed down from the founders, in the old families, but if other blood mixes, it weakens! Within a few generations, we could lose magic entirely, become no better than squibs—”

Remus pointed his wand and cast a silencing charm on Peter. His mouth worked in furious silence for several moments before he spat at them. 

“We don’t need to hear your drivel,” Remus said. “If you believe that, there’s no helping you. If you’ve been around Lily and still manage to think that only purebloods have strong magic…bloody hell, Peter. Why do you think You-Know-Who wanted to kill her? Because she was too good of a witch and it embarrassed him. And what do you think of me, then? You think my magic is corrupted because I’m a werewolf? After everything we’ve gone through together!”

Peter gave a silent growl.

Sirius felt nauseated. How could those words be coming from someone he’d counted as one of his closest friends? Peter really believed those things. Suddenly the years of jokes he’d always made—about the silly things muggles did, or foreigners, or about doing things for the glorious wizarding Britain—were cast in a different light. He’d always been so sarcastic, but Sirius had thought he was making fun of the Slytherins and purebloods who thought that way. It seemed he had actually agreed with them all along.

“You’re going to Azkaban,” Sirius spat. “A special cell where a rat can’t slip away. You’re going to pay for what you’ve done. Everyone will know that you’re the traitor, not my brother. They’re going to know that you hid like a slimy, little rat, not even brave enough to fight for the stupid things you apparently believe in.”

Sirius bound Peter and clamped a band around his arm that would keep him from transforming. He turned to Remus and James. “Go home. I’ll take him in.”

James nodded. “I’ll get Remus some chocolate in him.”

Sirius apparated Peter to the Ministry of Magic and marched him to the high security holding cells. He was exhausted, and after ensuring that Peter was turned over and the proper processes were started, Sirius called in the rest of the day. Peter would be questioned by more senior aurors, and there would be a trial eventually, but Sirius had done what he needed to.

He wasn’t satisfied with what he’d gotten from Peter. He was sickened and furious and angry at himself for being duped by him for so long. But he was done with him.

Chapter Text

The reality of being a hero was not something Regulus’s brain had ever been prepared to process. The moments when he was able to accept that it was real were far fewer than the days when he was half-convinced this was all a grand joke or possibly a mass hallucination.

Regulus Black. A hero.

Apparently being a hero didn’t stop him from doing stupid things. If he were smart, he would have sent a message ahead to Kreacher before he went back to Grimmauld Place. 

After getting released from St. Mungo’s, he had stayed with Sirius again for a couple of weeks. They both said it was to help Sirius get his flat in order, but really Regulus was not yet ready to confront his home. Now, he’d decided that it was time.

But he really, really should have told Kreacher that he was alive beforehand. It was, in fact, utter idiocy that he hadn’t, because as soon as he walked through the door, Kreacher apparated to him at once, confirmed that he really and truly was Master Regulus, and burst into loud, messy tears.

Regulus spent an hour—an entire hour!—trying to calm the elf and explain what had happened. Each new revelation or each time Kreacher noticed a new way that Regulus was hurt set off a fresh round of tears. He spent ten minutes lamenting Regulus’s missing arm and how tragic and awful it was for the heir to the Black family to be so marred in such a nasty, tragic, and unsightly way.

It took all of Regulus’s self-control and a continual stream of silent reminders about how much Kreacher had suffered for Regulus’s sake to not show his anger at that comment.

  After convincing Kreacher that what he really needed was a hot lunch and tea, Regulus finally managed to extricate himself. By some miracle, the curtains and sound barriers he’d placed over his mother’s portrait many months ago had held and she had not noticed his arrival. He couldn’t bear to deal with her today, too. That was a confrontation for another time.

It was strange walking through the house as such a different person while the house had changed so little. He had forgotten just how heavy and dark it felt, even without the oppressive presence of his parents. As a child, he had sometimes felt like the house itself was out to get him. It seemed the shadowed corners of every room had eyes reporting back to his parents, like the walls themselves might close in and trap him if he dared to try and leave.

The place had wanted him broken down into what the Black family was supposed to be, and should he refuse, there would be hell to pay.

Now, the house was his. Could he make it into something different from what it had been? Could he do more than small changes to the curtains and make this house into a place where he could actually feel at peace?

He wasn’t even sure what it meant to come home and feel peace. Home had never been that for him, even during the year when it was just him there alone.

But now…perhaps it could become that, someday.

After climbing up too many flights of stairs, he paused at the door to his bedroom. The last time he’d left his bedroom, he’d believed he was going to his death. Now he was returning, alive while the Dark Lord was dead.

He lit the lamps to reveal it precisely how he had left it—everything tidily put away and not a mote of dust. His eyes landed on the news clippings tacked to the far wall, a morbid collection of the Death Eater’s darkest deeds.

The very first one he had ever hung was a story of a Ravenclaw muggle-born boy named Eithan Collins who had vanished. Regulus had sat next to the boy in class, copied off his notes at times, perfected his technique on a few spells with his advice. In fifth year, he hadn’t returned from Easter holiday. His body had been found three months later.

When Regulus had seen the article in the morning paper during the summer, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Before that, the attacks had seemed impersonal, and if unpleasant, still bold and brave and daring to fight back for the good of wizard-kind.

But Eithan had been a good wizard, smart and skilled and friendly enough, even to a Slytherin like him. To read the details of what had happened to him….

Suddenly the Death Eaters hadn’t seemed quite so valiant, and he had read the article over and over, as if the words might change.

His mother had interpreted his fixation as admiration, and he’d let her think so. When he pinned it to the wall, to remind himself of the truth and to not let his peers’ words and Mother’s manipulations sway him, he’d let her think it was inspiration.

He knew the truth.

A truth that no longer needed a place on his wall. He crossed to the collection and tore them all down with a sweep of his wand. He vanished the articles and tacks, and then repaired each individual tack hole.

Perhaps he would fill that wall with pictures of himself and Maggie. Or maybe all the new articles about how he had helped to end the war.

Oh, if his mother could see that.

He met Maggie in a little muggle cafe filled with overstuffed corduroy chairs and the warmth of two crackling fireplaces. Colette had recommended it to them. Going anywhere magical ensured no privacy at all for them at the moment, Maggie’s home was filled with her family, and Regulus wasn’t yet ready to introduce her to Grimmauld Place.

Luckily the muggle world was no less cozy at Christmas time than the wizarding world was.

It was snowing beyond the frosted windows. Though not yet cold enough for the snow to stick on the ground, the gleaming white of falling snow felt like the promise of redemption. The seasons were turning, the world was settling in, the darkness was slowly being washed away.

Maggie settled into Regulus’s side, head on his shoulder. He lifted his arm—his new, perfectly fitted prosthetic arm—and wrapped it around her shoulder. It wasn’t the same as holding her with his real arm. He couldn’t feel her touch, and the wood was nowhere as welcoming, but he was still able to hold her close and have his real hand free to eat the steaming apple tart in front of him.

“It’s good,” he said. “But of course Colette would never dare suggest any place that was less than incredible.”

Maggie took a bite, but only nodded.

“Is everything alright?” He shifted so he could see her face.

She sighed, and then her face crumbled. “We can’t rebuild.”

“What?”

“The tea shop. Insurance won’t cover enough of the damage. Some of the shop is hidden by magic so the muggles can’t see obviously, and there’s only muggle insurance and we were so stupid and never even thought we might need both. We wouldn’t have been able to afford it anyway. I think—” She started to cry and it took a few moments to get the rest of the words out. “I think we might have to give up the tea shop.”

She stared down at her uneaten quiche, slowly skewering it with her fork. Her eyelashes were dark with tears, her freckles stark against her pale face. He reached out and gently lifted her chin so that her eyes met his.

“No, you won’t,” he said. “I won’t let that happen. I swore I would protect you, and that didn’t end just because the war has.”

She gave a weak smile, but shook her head. “It’s alright. We’ll sort something out. This isn’t the same thing and you know it.”

“No, Maggie, you can’t lose the tea shop. I know how much you care about it, and Colette.” Regulus took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking about it already, and…I would like to invest in your shop and even perhaps a second location in Diagon Alley where you can really showcase all of your ideas.”

Maggie pulled away and stared at him. “I couldn’t ask that of you.”

He reached for her arm. “I want to do it. And it’s an investment. There’s no doubt you’ll do incredibly and we can negotiate exactly what percent of equity I’ll have. That’s what the Black family does, invest in things, and I’d certainly rather use our stupid amounts of money to invest in something that’s actually good for the world instead of…well, honestly you’d probably rather not know how my ancestors got the money.” He gave her a sheepish look.

She stared, wide eyed. “I—I don’t know what to say.”

He smiled. “Say you’ll at least consider it and talk to Colette. It’s your choice, but I think this could be great. You’ve got so many incredible ideas, and we need something more joyful after the war. People would love it and I’ve no doubt you’d make back whatever I invest in no time.” He desperately hoped she would agree. He would have just given her the money, but she would never accept that. She had done so much for him, and he wanted to give her something back. Needed to.

She smiled back. “Then I promise to at least consider it and talk to Colette.” Her eyes filled with fresh tears. Regulus wrapped her tight in his arms. 

They stayed curled together for several minutes. Finally once they’d gotten their threadbare emotions back under control, they surreptitiously warmed their food back up and settled into more light-hearted conversation about their friends and the changing world and changing seasons and watched the snow falling outside.

As December crept on and Christmas crept closer, Regulus slowly began to transform the house at Grimmauld Place. He moved Darker artifacts to the attic or storage rooms at the top of the house, opened up the sitting rooms on the lower floors by clearing out some of the heavy cluttering of furniture, and moved all of the stuffed House Elf heads from the main hall. Kreacher had been furious about this, but Regulus had compromised by setting up a room dedicated to all of the heads. He’d even added some shrunken-down, elf-sized furniture. It was incredibly morbid and possibly the worst room in the house. Kreacher loved it.

While he was working on the house, The Daily Prophet was taking great pleasure in printing an overabundance of articles about him. Last weekend, the Sunday edition had featured a front page spread about himself and Sirius.

HOW THE BLACKEST HOUSE WENT LIGHT, the title read. A photograph of the two of them, looking stoically into the distance, was below. Sirius had a trace of blood on his forehead and Regulus had dust in his hair. They looked elegant, dramatic, and heroic. It must have been taken the day that he’d killed the Dark Lord.

Regulus framed it and hung it on his wall where the articles about the Death Eaters had once been.

Then he took an extra copy and made his way to the front hall. He had a sudden and perverse desire to read a copy to his mother’s portrait. He would just need to get Kreacher out of the way long enough.

Any time Regulus referenced his change in sides, Kreacher’s face took on a strained expression. The house elf had loved Walburga Black, regardless of how little love he’d been given back, and had absorbed every word she spoke like it was gospel truth. He’d loved Regulus, too, though, and Regulus had actually cared for him back. It had been easy for Kreacher when Regulus outwardly supported all that his mother did, but now that he had so starkly changed sides and even killed the Dark Lord, Kreacher was caught between loyalties. He loved Regulus, but Regulus was on the wrong side, and the people supporting Regulus were blood traitors and half-breeds and muggle-borns.

Regulus almost felt bad for the elf.

The doorbell rang and Kreacher popped away to answer it. Regulus wasn’t expecting anyone.

Sirius and James stood in the hallway with sledge hammers.

“What are you two doing here?”

Sirius hefted the hammer. “I told you we were going to get rid of our dear mother.”

“Right.”

They stepped further into the house, taking in Regulus and the paper.

“I was planning on reading it to her,” Regulus said.

Sirius grinned at that. “Oh, please, let’s do that. And then we smash the wall to bits.”

James had wandered farther inside, taking in the house. “Not as gloomy as I’d imagined it would be, but definitely a lot of dark green walls.” In fact, all the walls were dark green, except for Sirius’s childhood bedroom, which was bright red.

“I’ve gotten rid of some things since my mother died,” Regulus said. “I actually have to live here.”

“So where’s this mother of yours?” James asked, swinging the hammer.

“No!” Kreacher shrieked, throwing himself against the curtain covering Walburga’s portrait. “Nasty traitors will not destroy mistress!”

At the impact of Kreacher slamming against the curtains, Walburga Black began to scream obscenities. It had become a constant battle of Regulus applying the heaviest silencing charms he could and Kreacher seeking to undo them. It was his less-than-subtle way of protesting Regulus’s change in sides.

“Kreacher, go into the kitchen and stay there until James and Sirius leave,” Regulus said.

Kreacher gave him the most utterly betrayed look, tears welling in his eyes. “Master cannot. Master cannot dare to harm wonderful mistress, his kind and loving mother.”

“Our mother was an abusive piece of shit,” Sirius cut in. “She’s dead and we don’t need her portrait around screaming, either.”

Before Kreacher could launch into a full tirade against Sirius, Regulus pointed towards the small stairwell that led to the kitchen. “Go, Kreacher. That’s an order.” 

Kreacher vanished with a resentful pop.

Walburga was still screaming. “How dare you defile my house with your filth! Half-breed! Traitors! Disgusting vermin! Regulus, get them out at once!”

“I invited them, Mother.” It wasn’t true, but it felt nice to see her anger.

She gasped. “You are bringing disgrace to our family name! What has happened to you!” She seemed to really notice Regulus then, her contemptful, shocked expression a flat mirror of what she’d looked like in real life. “What disgusting thing have you done with your arm?”

It was so characteristic of his mother to take so long to even notice that her child’s arm was missing, all while caring so much about the quality of the company.

Regulus felt anger grip his throat. “Disgusting? Want to see just how disgusting I am now?” He pulled off his shirt to show the scars wrapping the left side of his body. “Goes all the way down to my ankle. Guess how I got them? I betrayed the Dark Lord. And then a couple months later, I killed him. He’s dead. Gone. I went over to the other side.”

Walburga’s livid shock lasted only a few short seconds, before the ensuing shriek was so loud Sirius had to cast a hasty muffliato spell to save their hearing. Regulus hadn’t known portraits could be that loud or that angry. She looked like she might shake the portrait straight off the wall.

“I am so glad I never met your mother when she was alive,” James said.

“She was different when she was alive,” Regulus said. “A bit. Same horrible ideas, but more hexing, less shrieking.”

“That’s not better,” James pointed out. “Let’s get rid of this wall. You can read to her later.” He hefted the hammer and swung it into the wall a good foot from the portrait.

“Couldn’t we just…use magic?” Regulus pointed out.

“That’s—not as—cathartic.” Sirius punctuated each word with a slam of his hammer.

Regulus lacked both a hammer and the strength to wield one one-armed. Even if he put his prosthetic on, he was fairly certain heaving a sledge hammer with it wasn’t a good idea yet. He used his wand instead and blasted a sizable hole in the plaster over the painting. In Regulus’s opinion, that was just as cathartic. He blasted another beside it, and another. Sirius continued on the wall to the right of the frame and James took the left. They made short work of the wall and soon the enormous gilt frame crashed to the floor. It broke through the narrow confines of the muffliato, and Walburga’s screams were so incoherent that Regulus wasn’t sure if it was actually words at all or just pure screeching.

“What the hell do we do with it now?!” James yelled over the din.

“We should just lock it up in Azkaban!” Sirius yelled back.

Regulus cast a new muffliato spell in a bubble around the section of wall. “Not even the dementors deserve that.”

“I’ll take it to the attic,” Sirius said. “It’ll be fun to lock her up somewhere she used to lock me.” Sirius levitated the portrait into the air and Regulus was left alone with James in the hall.

“Why did you come with Sirius?” Since the battle, the worst of the animosity between Regulus and James had evaporated, but he hadn’t expected him to show up at his home.

“You did save my life,” James said. “And saved my family in more ways than one, it seems. And if Sirius and Lily can like you…you can’t be that bad.”

“I suppose you might have some redeeming qualities, too,” Regulus muttered. “At least one.”

“How do you deal with looking so different?”

Regulus jerked his gaze to James at the sudden question, his eyes landing on James’s scar, then looking down at his own scarred torso. “I don’t know. It still surprises me when I see it sometimes. The pain doesn’t anymore, but seeing everything…I don’t know. I just…have to pretend I don’t care, I suppose.”

“I was afraid Harry would be frightened of me.”

“Was he?”

“No. He just points and says owie.”

“He’s a good kid.”

“He is.”

James nudged a bit of plaster with his toe and the wall crumbled further. “Oops.”

“The front hall looks truly terrible from here.” Sirius appeared at the top of the first landing, then came down two at a time.

Regulus snorted. “It’ll give Kreacher something to do while I’m ransacking the house. He’s been fighting me on everything.”

“Mind if we look around?” Sirius asked.

Regulus raised an eyebrow. “It’s your house, too.”

Sirius looked shocked at that reminder. “Not exactly.”

“Technically, it’s more yours than mine. Honestly, we need to go to the bank and get all of that sorted out if you really don’t want to be head of the family.”

“I don’t,” Sirius said, looking panicked. “Definitely don’t. That’s all you.”

Regulus shrugged, slightly relieved, but not wanting to show it. “Well, I ought to go wash up. Don’t destroy anything I might care about.”

Twenty minutes later, he came out of the bath to find Sirius’s bedroom door open and he and James looking over the place like it was an exhibit in a museum.

He stepped into Sirius’s brilliantly crimson room. The pictures on the walls were peeling up at the corners and the Quidditch players in the posters had begun to slow down, but it had changed very little over the years, aside from a growing layer of dust from Kreacher’s intentional neglect. The picture James and Sirius were looking at was one of Remus being tackled by a large black dog. Why did that dog look familiar?

“Is that Remus’s dog?” he asked.

James raised an eyebrow. “I mean, I suppose you could say so. In a manner of speaking.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Sirius said. “Padfoot isn’t his dog!”

“I swear I saw a dog at your flat, Sirius. I asked Remus if you had a pet and he said you didn’t, though. Is it his? Is it some…joint custody situation that you can’t sort out?”

James started laughing so hard he was nearly doubled over. “Ow,” he gasped. “This hurts my face.” But he kept laughing.

“Oh, shut up!” Sirius said.

Regulus looked between them, bewildered. “You two are so odd.”

“Does he—does he really not know? He stayed with you and Remus for two months and never noticed?!” James asked.

Regulus studied his older brother, who also looked like he was about to burst out laughing. “Are…you and Remus dating? I mean, you sometimes were a bit secretive, but—”

James’s laughter reached new levels. “Dating! Oh, bloody hell!” He wiped a tear away. “That’s great. Remus and Sirius, dating. Oh, that’d be the biggest disaster. Don’t worry, Regulus. Remus is dating your cousin.”

“Remus is dating our cousin?!” Regulus could not believe that. “They’re—they’re all married. And old!”

James continued laughing.

“He’s dating Tonks,” Sirius said.

“Tonks is a baby!”

“She’s eighteen. She’ll finish Hogwarts this year.”

Regulus shook his head. The last time he’d seen Tonks, she’d been a baby-faced kid of fifteen. Or sixteen. Something. Not that he was that much older, but still.

“They’re great together, honestly,” Sirius said. “That’s where he is right now. It’s a Hogsmeade weekend, or else we would have made him come, too.”

“Then what’s this thing I didn’t notice? What does them dating have to do with a dog? Is it her dog?”

“You’re the one who brought up dating!” Sirius pointed out. “I suppose I might as well show you.”

“Should I go, too?” James asked.

Sirius gave a wicked grin. “Please do. You might even take out more of the plaster.”

Regulus felt that the conversation was going quite the opposite of the direction that would answer anything about the dog. 

“You first,” James said.

Sirius winked at Regulus, and then turned into a dog. He nosed James, who turned into a massive deer.

Well. That…explained things.

“Bloody hell,” Regulus said. “It wasn’t just Pettigrew. You lot did it, as well. What’s Remus, then? An owl?”

James turned back. “Damn, didn’t take out the ceiling. Remus can tell you himself. That’s his to tell.”

“You two do realize that becoming an unregistered animagi is illegal, right?”

“Says the former Death Eater!”

Regulus rolled his eyes. “Who would prefer no one he cares about ends up in Azkaban for something so stupid.”

Sirius jumped on him and started to lick his face. Regulus flailed and pushed him back. “That’s disgusting! Sirius! Ergh! Don’t you dare do that!”

Sirius turned back to a man and grinned. “We’re registering ourselves, so you don’t have to worry. Your big brother knows how to keep himself out of Azkaban.”

“Or he’s surrounded by people who know how to keep him out,” James said.

Silverware clinked against plates, jokes and laughter were traded back and forth across the table, and the baby shrieked happily. The air smelled of cranberry and gravy and caramel and the dark windows reflected the golden glow of two dozen floating lights.

It was a scene Regulus had never thought he’d see filling the formal dining room of Grimmauld Place.

There were Christmas trees with fairy lights in the corners and an incredible spread of food all across the table, including more than a few things straight from a muggle supermarket.

“Symbolic,” Sirius had said.

Regulus hadn’t intended to invite anyone to the house, and especially not to host Christmas Eve dinner, but the Potters’ house was still a wreck, the Lupins were still more than a little awkward around Regulus, and Sirius’s flat was tiny. So they ended up at Grimmauld Place.

Regulus could tell that Kreacher was secretly thrilled to be able to go all out and host a party after so long, but still a little resentful at being forced to accept people that his beloved mistress had hated. Luckily that hadn’t stopped him from making the house beautiful for Christmas. In fact, it looked far better than it ever had during Regulus’s childhood.

With a sudden pop, the soup course vanished and a steaming sliced ham appeared amidst the cluster of side dishes.

“Meat!” James yelled, lunging for the serving fork.

Lily elbowed him, but laughed.

Once he’d served his own helping of ham, Regulus carefully took the fork with the hand of his prosthetic, holding the meat still while he cut. It was immensely satisfying to be able to do these ordinary things without magic once more.

“Gravy?” Maggie asked.

He nodded and she poured. Beneath the table, her knee pressed against his.

Regulus couldn’t quite believe this was his life. Maybe it wasn’t real and everything since he’d gone into the cave was a last firing of his neurons as he died. His life couldn’t have worked out this well, could it?

“Oi, Regulus, stop hogging the rolls.”

Rolling his eyes, Regulus sent them to the end of the table with a flick of his wand. He hadn’t even been eating them! They had simply been on the table near him.

No, Regulus was not imagining this. If he had been, it wouldn’t have included James Potter, though the man was admittedly becoming a bit more tolerable by the day.

“Boxing Day,” Maggie said suddenly.

“Hm?”

“Boxing Day! You British wizards know about Boxing Day, don’t you?”

“Er, yes? What about it?” Regulus asked.

“Let’s do something, you and I. Since we can’t see each other tomorrow.”

Christmas morning would be small. Maggie would be with her family. The Potters were crashing with Sirius tonight to spend Christmas morning with him, since the Lupins had very strongly hinted that they wanted Christmas to be just family. Regulus would be here.

“Not sure I’ll survive the whole day without you,” he joked.

She snorted. “I’m sure Sirius can keep you entertained.”

His smile suddenly felt a little forced. “It’ll just be me and Kreacher, I think. I suppose I might wrangle in my mother’s portrait if I’m feeling particularly nostalgic.”

“What are you talking about, Regulus?” Lily asked, leaning around Maggie to look at him. “Won’t you be coming to Sirius’s tomorrow?”

Regulus gave what he hoped was a casual shrug. “No. I’ve got plenty to do here, though.”

Sirius looked over from his conversation with James. “What? Why aren’t you coming?”

Regulus blinked at him. “Well, I—it’s just—I didn’t think…” He hadn’t been invited. He’d heard them making their Christmas plans, but Regulus hadn’t been a part of them. He’d assumed they wanted a day spent with just each other after having him intruding into their lives for so long. He’d bought them presents, of course (scarves—all scarves, even for Harry, because he had no idea what you were supposed to buy people for Christmas), but he’d planned to just send them over by floo or owl.

“I’m not letting you spend Christmas holed up in here alone. Come over when you wake up, alright?” Sirius threw a roll at him. “Don’t make me come drag you out of bed, either.”

Regulus nodded and turned back to his food, hastily shoving an overlarge bite in his mouth.

Maggie snaked her arm around his back, and said quietly, “Now with that sorted, Boxing Day. We should get ice cream,” she said.

“Ice cream? In winter?”

“There’s that famous place in Diagon Alley. I’ve never been.”

“You’ve never been to Diagon Alley? Yes, you have.”

She gave him a look. “Of course I have. I mean the ice cream place.”

Regulus glanced over at her, meeting her smiling eyes. “Right. I’ve never been either actually. But—”

He hadn’t been to Diagon Alley at all in years. During the war, plenty of Death Eaters walked through the wizarding world smirking and proud, daring anyone to cross them, but Regulus had never been that person. He’d always hated the way he was looked at for being a Black and later for being a Death Eater, so he’d avoided places like Diagon Alley when he could. But now…now there was no reason not to.

He was free. Free. Free from the bite of his mother’s nails in his shoulder, the burn of the Dark Mark on his arm, the hate of his own people, the threat of a life wasted in Azkaban, the fear of an early death.

He was free. He had a future and someone to share it with.

He might get inundated with people who thought he was a hero, but they would get over that eventually.

It was time to stop hiding, and why not have ice cream in winter?

He leaned over and kissed her, not caring a whit about propriety. “Let’s get ice cream.”