For the FRIENDS comp and for the Choose Your Wand challenge.
It's been a long time since. Since that incident.
Barty really thought Reg would be over this by now, but apparently not.
"You're going to get caught. And you're going to get killed," Barty hisses, looking around nervously. He wishes the Black heir had some sense left in him. "The Lord isn't going to beat you and then let you go again."
"Nonsense," Reg sniffs, knocking primly on the door. "I won't get caught again," he finishes. A woman peeks out and a steady, long wand points at them.
"What did we discuss when we were in our seventh year that would be treasonous?"
"Hocruxes," comes the whispered answer, and Barty jerks in disgusted shock. What the-
The door slams shut and then is yanked open, revealing Marline McKinnon, the elusive former Death Eater they've been searching for, for months. Barty's eyes pop and his mouth drops open. She shoots him a disgusted look. "What'd you bring this one for?" she demands of Reg, who shrugs.
"He'll keep quiet if he ever wants to see me again," Reg says, shooting Barty a hateful look, as if Barty would rat him out in the first place. He throws his hands up defensively, wishing that Reg would know better than to believe that Barty's loyalty to the Dark Lord transcended that of his loyalty to Reg.
Marline's lip curls but she steps aside. Barty wraps his robes around himself as he walks over the threshold after Reg, looking down. The door slams shut.
The house is cold, drafty, and clearly unlived it. Smart, that she would set up this meeting where she would never been seen again, Barty muses quietly. Though, one thing he doesn't understand is why she left the Death Eaters in the first place- rumor has it that she had once been the Lord's lover.
He doubts that she would take it well if he asked. He wishes she would though, cause that would make life a little more interesting.
"Well?" she asks, folding her hands over her chest and looking at Reg, eyebrows raised. "Tell me what was so important."
Reg hands her a slip of paper and doesn't say anything, his eyes flicking around nervously. He shifts on his feet. Barty wants to wrap the smaller man up and tuck him away, but Reg is a spitfire, and probably wouldn't take well to that. He wishes he would, though. It's as much to comfort Barty himself as it is to comfort Reg.
Marline unfolds the parchment and reads the words, eyes moving over the ink swiftly. Her eyes widen. "Thank you," she breathes, looking up. "You've saved hundreds of lives today, Regulus."
"It's the least I can do."
She looks around and tucks the paper into her robes. "You'd best get going before someone goes looking for you," she ushers them out the door. "Next time," she adds as they walk out. Reg looks over his shoulder. "Where the raven flies and the sparrow dies," and Reg nods his understanding as the door slams shut. Barty shakes his head in confusion and takes Reg's elbow, guiding him quickly, away from that house.
"Release me!" Reg snarls quietly, ripping his arm away.
"What the fuck was that? You're-" Reg slams his hand over his mouth and narrows his eyes, wand at Barty's throat. Barty wishes he'd knock that off.
"Rat me out and I'll ensure your eternal misery," Reg says, and only when Barty nods does Reg unhand him. He turns away and starts walking.
"You didn't answer my question," Barty calls, jogging to catch up.
Reg grinds his teeth and looks around, pulling his hood over his head. "You know what that was," is all he says.
Barty snarls. "Yes, I know," he repeats mockingly. "What I don't know is why!"
Reg stops walking and whirls around, his robes catching on his legs as the younger stands on his toes to point at Barty. "I would rather die for a just cause than live for an unjust one," he says. "I am tired of being bullied."
"Bullied?" Barty scoffs, shaking his head and shoving Reg's finger back. Reg hisses in pain. "You've never been bullied."
"I am not inclined to inform you of the private matters of my life, but believe me, I would not be alive if I hadn't put up with being bullied. Bullied into this- this life."
Reg closes his eyes and his eyelashes brush his cheeks. Barty wishes that Reg would let him kiss him now but this far into an argument, it would never happen. "Never you mind," he says. "But I am tired. I want to try to cleanse my conscious before I die."
"Die?" Now Barty's alarmed. He's never given thought to either of them dying, and the idea causes his stomach to churn unpleasantly. "So you want to get caught?" he demands.
"No, you idiot," Reg says harshly, looking around again. "Now, let's not loiter. Too suspicious."
"Then what?"
"What?" Reg repeats, tugging keys out of his pocket. He glances around and grits his teeth, hands shaking. He tries to use a key to get into one of the Black safe houses that Barty hadn't realized they reached. He drops the keys with a cry of frustration.
"Here," Barty says, picking up the keys and sliding the correct one into the lock smoothly. "You need to calm down," he says, lightly guiding Reg inside, his hand on the small of Reg's back.
Reg snorts in derision and toes off his shoes as Barty shuts the door behind himself. "Oh, yeah, sure," Reg says bitterly. In the cold October night, Reg doesn't take his robes off and instead just wears it to the bedroom down the hall. Barty takes his own shoes off and tugs at the coat clips, folding his robe over his arms when they come free. Then he follows.
"I won't betray your secret, you know that," Barty says as soon as Reg settles on the bed. Reg just sighs and Barty drops his robes to the floor. "I just. I don't understand when we became so different," he sighs, burrowing into Reg's open arms.
"You're warm," Reg says, and that's all he says, and Barty wants to push but then Reg starts shivering as a gust of wind blows through the cracks next to the windowsill.
"I don't want to fight," Barty says quietly, holding tighter to the only person he has left.
"Then don't. Just let me go when I need to go," Reg says, and Barty wants to pretend that he doesn't understand. He wants to pretend that the war didn't exist and he wants to pretend that they weren't a couple of eighteen year olds desperate to make a difference in the world, to make it better- a change that apparently, they didn't agree on. Barty wishes for a lot of things. But the stars are concealed and any kind of god out there wouldn't cater to him anyway.
But mostly, he wishes they could both make it out of this alive. But he knows that wish won't come true, just like the rest.